Dropbox for iOS – New and Improved

The new update to the iOS version of Dropbox could not have come at a better time. While it was possible to upload full resolution pictures to Dropbox, re-downloading them to another device was less than ideal as the image quality was anything but stellar. The reason I use Dropbox was due to the fact that it liberated my workflow from cables. Everything worked just fine, at least until you wanted to download an image to an iOS device.

The new update changed all that (yay!) and I am able to download high quality images across all my devices. That certainly saves me the trouble of linking up with my laptop via Photo Transfer App, which by itself is also a brilliant app.

AirAsia App

It goes without saying that if you are not paying serious to the mobile market, you are asking to be left in the dust trail, especially with the volatile nature of the mobile market landscape.

AirAsia recently released a more polished version if their app and I must say that it is absolutely gorgeous. Compared to its stinky predecessor, the new app, which was released first for iOS, sports a predominantly white theme, which is better on the eyes. Unfortunately I do not currently have any screenshots of the older version of this app for comparison, but I believe many of you have used it before.

The iOS version works very well on my phone but there have been some word on the ground about this app performing sluggishly on Android devices. If you have experienced issues with this app, do share your experience with us by writing in the comments section below.

Flower Macros

I was fooling around in my garden with my Tamron 90mm SP macro lens (one bloody sharp lens it is!) when I noticed some pretty flowers that caught my attention.

I can tell you that the biggest challenge in macro photography is keeping the camera still, and all these were taken without a tripod! It goes without saying that these shots were a few good ones taken from a pile of many many bad ones.

Four Days in Sabah

It’s been exactly a month since my trip to Sabah with James and Liew, and I believe that this post is long overdue. Since I do not wish to write everything in chronological order, I will just post some pictures below and tell you a little story behind each of them. For the time being, consider this post a work in progress.

The picture you see above is that of Mount. Kinabalu, the tallest mountain in Southeast Asia. This photo was taken at a small market near Bundu Tuhan. The view of the mountain from that point is magnificent.

As we continued with our journey towards Kundasang town, we passed by the Kinabalu National Park, which is where you really should be going if you intend to climb the mountain. We went straight to the Desa Dairy Farm, which is reputedly the largest dairy farm on the island of Borneo.

Here is a photo of the farm with the majestic Mount Kinabalu standing proudly in the background. Sorry, I didn’t snap that many pictures of the cows.

It was a very windy day at the dairy farm. Wait. I think it’s always windy there. Even the pine trees had this strange curve to the trunk, I suspect is caused by the continuous force exerted by the winds throughout the growth of the tree. The winds were chilly but it had a nice scent to it.

On the second day, we spent most of our time exploring Kota Kinabalu (abbreviated as ‘KK’), Sabah’s capital city.

The Old Burger Stall

Here’s a little something taken with Instagram. Shown below is an old burger stall just behind my office. Gosh, I really love these Instagram filters. A seemingly mundane shot transformed into a work of art.

Morning Mushrooms

Every once in a while, a mushroom or two (maybe more) would sprout up somewhere in my backyard, and my mum would yell at me to whip out my camera for a few snaps at these tiny organic parasols. Just this morning, I noticed these two pretty mushrooms near the veggie patch. For one thing, they look suspiciously suggestive. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

In Search for a Cable

I really like my new Sony power bank. But if there is one thing that really annoys me is that it did not come bundled with a charging cable and plug head for use with my iPhone. But then I think I am just being difficult. I went down to the store and got myself one of these third party sync/charging cables on the cheap and found one that worked pretty well. The build quality isn’t quite up to the standard of the one bundled with the phone but it was by no means bad either. The brand? It’s ‘Ztoss’, which I think I have seen somewhere before.

I hope it won’t cause any issues with my power bank. At least I don’t have to lug around my iPad charging cable. Maybe I can even leave the new cable permanently attached to my workstation’s USB port.

Juicing to Perfection

Smartphones nowadays have become incredible juice-sucking devices. Manufacturers are squeezing more and more features into phones to the point where conventional lithium ion battery technology is struggling to keep up.

I managed to get hold of one of these ‘power banks’ which are really just big batteries that hold a lot of charge and can be set to charge mobile phones and other devices. I got myself a Sony-branded one. Here is how it looks like:

Now it’s time for me to get a shorter charging cable.

English as it is Broken

English as it is broken. But I think that whoever wrote this had indeed taken that whole ‘broken’ thing to the next level.

I don’t expect to see any ‘motorbites’ parked there anytime soon.

Instagram Madness

The iPhone proved to be a very capable photographic tool, and when Instagram came along, it redefined the smartphone as not only a tool for recording visual information, but one for sharing them as well. Here are some pictures taken with Instagram.