Lost in Mind

Tweet

I am such a bad bad blogger. Or whatever you wanna call me. I don't know, don't feel like blogging at all. I'm in a vague mood. Not sure what I want at the moment. Some things also happened beyond my expectation both in positive and negative ways. I could hardly sleep well at night. Insomnia wins. I'm thinking too much, but nothing of them is really worth it. Not for you, but for me. Many excitements and also boring phase in between. I was thinking and imagining things too much, but I couldn't really thinking nicely and in proper way to make a good decision for almost everything. I'm sucks in making decisions. I sometimes need advices from my closest people in my life, while sometimes, I ignored their suggestions. Now I'm thinking what's the point of asking an advice while I don't even listen to them?-I mean, I listened to them, but I didn't do exactly as what they've said, even if I know it's a good advice!-

I'm in a distress, I guess. I don't know when I'll be back to my old-self again. Back to the real me. I guess, I'm just too tired with all of these. I almost giving up, but every time I want to quit, something or somehow someone came over and changed my mind-thanked for that-but vice versa. Sometimes, when I think I should give it one more try then something blocking my way and those someone-yeah, those. I've many "someone" in life-gone with the wind, so no one supporting me.

I need this to calm my mood :p But I don't want the calories! :p

I know God has plan for me, I think I shouldn't think too much, and get some rest, take care of myself and my health, try to sleep earlier, having some fun, do things that I like, enjoyed life while I still can fully enjoyed it, and do not regret things that happened, gratitude, pray more and we'll see if I'm getting any better in couple days ahead. I know I will, if I could do those things. :)

I'm out~

You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your lover's arms can only come later when you're sure they won't laugh if you trip. ---Jonathan Carroll, "Outside the Dog Museum".

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. ---Eric Fromm.

Applications Review :)

Tweet

Oh boy! Have I ever told you that I've got Adobe Photoshop Plugin to reduce grainy/noise called TopazDeNoise? Well now, After I upgraded my Adobe Lightroom 2 to Adobe Lightroom 3.3, well, I will probably leave my Photoshop Plugin behind or I'll rarely use it. This new Lightroom is bloody awesome. Not only it can reduces grainy/noise but also maintains the details when the photos is zoomed.

Well, reducing grainy is a take and give process. To get the result of clear photo with less grainy, you'll somehow lose the quality/details of the photo. But it's not a big deal, as you can't really notice the different in quality unless you compare it side by side or zoom the photos. Sometimes, after you reduce noise on photo, your photo will looked a bit blur, but I prefer a bit blurred pics rather than grainy pics. It's personal taste, you know. Well, here in Lightroom, you can always adjust it, see how much you want to remove the grainy and the cool thing is, you can always adjust how much you want to keep the details. That is how it works. So, you'll get a good-free-from-grainy-pics with a good details too!

Here are the example. You have to click the photo to view it in a larger version, or else you can't really tell the differences. :)

Original photo. Taken with iPhone 4 in low light, no flash.

With LR 3.

With Perfectly Clear Photoshop Plug-in.

With TopazDeNoise Photoshop Plug-in.

Here for comparison side by side. Click to enlarge.

Well, Perfectly Clear is automatically sharpen the image and brighten it. It's a smart apps, if you busy, in a rush or too lazy to edit the brightness and contrast of your photo, I suggest you to use this. It will makes your life easier in a single click. Well, you can adjust it to your personal taste of course, but why bother to do that when the apps can do it for you, right? But to me, it doesn't really "clear" the noise on photo, considering the name is Perfectly Clear.

For Topaz DeNoise, you can also adjust it manually, how much you want to remove the grainy but, it always blurred your photo badly, I can say-well, after compare it to LR, but I still don't mind-especially when you want to reduce the noise on a pics that full of words, you can see and compare it here. That's why I sharpened it again, that how I usually edited my photos. Removed the grainy first, using Topaz DeNoise then sharpened the image or if it's too dark, I applied perfectly clear first to get a brighten photos and remove some of the grainy, then re-applied Topaz DeNoise to make sure no more grainy left then sharpened the image. Pheww... need some extra steps to make my photo looks nice and good for my eyes to see and yours too, hopefully :) Imagine, if you are DSLR user and you used these great apps on your every photo. I believe all of your photos would be even nicer to see than seeing it with our own eyes! :D

Anyway, if you don't really have "good" eye to see the differences, it's okay, just forget it or else, you can always try these apps and decide which is the best and suits you the most. Maybe, you love the interfaces of one apps more than another or whatever. It's not a final, that LR 3 is the best, you can always apply with all of those apps in your photo and who knows, you'll get nicer result, right? :) For me, LR 3 is producing the clearest photo with better details, and less blurred results in the end, compare to others. Umm... I also want to make a correction for my words above. I will still using my old plugins, since my laptop is running slow if you open several applications all at once, and mostly, I edited my photos on photoshop, well, maybe I'll be too lazy to open LR first then edited more on PS, but, yeah I don't know. When I'm in  a mood, I might be want to use all of them. We'll see. :p

Oh, yeah, if you don't have PS because you find out that the apps takes a lot of spaces in your computer or laptop, well, you should think twice for not having LR, because it's quite light, especially for a smart apps. :)

I tried different pics to get different result.

Zoomed 1:2

There you go... I hope with this little review from me could brighten your day and your photo of course! :D

A good snapshot stops a moment from running away. ---Eudora Welty

Vague

Tweet

Finally, I've done creating my new social media icons on my blog, what do you think? I guess it suits my blog and I just love wooden base on my icons. Unfortunately, Deviantart icon stays the same. Yesterday I was creating these icons in a rush, so I couldn't finished it in time, so, I'll guess, I'll be using the old icon of Deviantart for quite some time. I don't know. I could finished creating it in 5 minutes, but I don't feel like doing it, so yeah :p

Anyway, these few days, I guess my mood for blogging is gone with the wind. I don't feel like blogging at all, but I want to update something here. I simply don't know what to do. Well, at the moment I'm downloading Adobe Lightroom 3, gonna upgrade my Adobe Lightroom 2 soon. So, internet might be slow, I gotta go. I guess I'll see you guys again with the review of Adobe Lightroom 3 and more edited photos to comeeee :D

P.S. I don't know why I choose to go with this title, I just like the word at the moment, so yeah, stop wondering, it doesn't mean anything :p

Between saying and doing many a pair of shoes is worn out. ---Italian Proverb

High Tea

Tweet

One of Mum's Tea-set Collections. The plate was somehow missing or misplace, so I replaced it with other set.

Heyyy sugarpies! How's life? I'm busy at the moment, busy with my photo editing :p You know, since I found the filter that I've talked about on my previous post, I can't stop snapping more and more and of course, editing the pics! I've joined Flickr like ages ago, but I never upload anything there. I created the account just to fave people's photos that I love. Now, I started to upload my edited photos there. Click here to view :)

Well, I'll see you guys again pretty soon, as for now, I need to tweak my layouts and add link to my Flickr account and of course, Pottermore, to create an easy access for me and for you guys, if you wish to add me as your friend on Pottermore, adiós a mi amigo :)

P.S. Oh Geez!! It's raining mannnnnn!! Hate hate hate. Enough. I'm out.

The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. ---Samuel Johnson

Bokeh!

Tweet

You know how much I want to own a DSLR, right? Now, I'm gonna think twice or four times to buy it. Why? Well, first, it's big and heavy and I'm pretty sure that I don't want to bring it with me every time I go to some places, especially malls. Instead of that, I'm thinking to have Lumix GF1, which is pretty cool. It has all the goodness in DSLR and it's small, much lighter and easy to bring it to anywhere. When I checked the price, I was like, dude!! It has the same price as DSLR! Oh la la! Why all good stuffs are expensive? @.@

Well, I can afford it, if I start to do saving, but I know, I want to upgrade my iPhone 4 once iPhone 5 is out. Now I am so confuse! Geez! I believe I won't get it in the near future, so, we'll see later. As for now, I'm pretty happy with my iPhone 4's camera, I took all of my pics with it. The camera is good and I love it, but phone camera has a limitation, but you can always do something to reduce its limitation with bunch of great photo apps on iPhone. I have some recommended apps, but I love my pics to be sharp, crisp, less grainy/noise and I love my pics to be blurred on the background or has bokeh in it, it's just lovely if it has the shallow depth of field, which you can get it by focusing in one thing/angle then blurred the rest or the background and sometimes these great apps are not enough, we need other photo apps to make all photos that taken with iPhone has the same result or at least to get the closest result to the one that taken with DSLR-result, note that, not the quality!-But hey, see this and this, be prepare, you'll be amazed. They said, it was taken with iPhone 3GS!

Anyway, for me, that app is the one and only, you guys must be familiar with it, yeah, it is Adobe Photoshop. I've been using this app like more than 6 years already and it's getting better and better and I love it even more! Still remember my last post about the Photoshop plugin? You can read it here, if you want :) Yeah, that Photoshop Plugin is love and today, I found another one.It's called BOKEH 2, product from Alien Skin Software. I don't wanna talk much about it, you just go to the site and everything that you need to know is there. I can only give you one word for this filter, it is another LOVE! :D

Now that I already got these two babies installed beautifully on my Photoshop CS5, all I wanna do is capturing more and more and then editing. This also makes me think twice to get a DSLR. I know, it's not simple, you have to take pics from your iPhone, then transfer it to you lappie/com, then have to edit it on Photoshop, whilst you can get slightly the same result with iPhone apps, edit it in a minute or two then you can upload it anywhere. But to me, it is never the same. I like the hard way-I personally don't think so- :D And I want and make sure the pics that I share to you, especially here in my blog is nice and beautiful. After all, even I already can blogging right from my palm on iPhone, with the new blogger app for iOS, I like blogging from my lappie a lot, more than from my mobile devices, so, like it or not, I have to transfer the pics out of my phone first, so, it wouldn't be pain, to take extra steps to make my picture a lot nicer :)

Here are my experiments using the filter, what do you think? :D

Click to enlarge.

These for comparison side by side with the original pics :)

So, what do you think? These are pretty much exactly how I love my pics turned out when I snapped with my camera, nice isn't it? :D Anyway, it's almost 1 am now, I gotta go, see you tomorrow!

Nighty-night.

The world just does not fit conveniently into the format of a 35mm camera.  ~W. Eugene Smith

Official Blogger App for iOS - Quick Post

Tweet

Hello guys! Finally, on 8th september 2011, blogger release its official blogger app for iOS. Finally after all of this time! I've been waiting this like forever :)

I've just installed it and now I give it a try. All I can say, I love it. Love the simple interface and the most important thing, there's an option for uploading pics! This is love! Phew! I really really love September! So many good things come at once! Thank you for the sweet and beautiful September, Jesus :)

now, let's see if my h3 hastag is working or not :)

P.S. I found that it's kinda disappointing on the labels section.. There are no listing of our previous labels that we usually used, I hope they'll fix it soon :)

More on Pottermore

Tweet

I hope you don't get sick with my updates about Pottermore again and again and again :p Anyway, I am so excited and feel so lucky to be able to explore Pottermore site as a beta user. Even there are few bugs and errors, I still very grateful to have a chance to enjoy it. I might be saying this like hundred times that the site is awesome, brilliant, great etc etc, it's simply because I really really mean it. Seriously. I'm out of words to describe how's great the site is. Currently, we can only access the book one, which is Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone. I finished read the story, and additional stories and information that J.K.Rowling added in well, let's say, 6 to 7 hours. Even you have finished read the book, the story, there are still many things to do there, like practicing spells, making potions etc etc. Two days ago, I explored the site with my dearie's laptop, I guess, his adobe flash or something on his laptop is need to be updated. Because after what I've experienced today with my lappie, it was way more awesome than before, as I keep all stuffs and applications on my lapptop updated to the newer version, or, maybe they made some tweaks within these two days, which is GUH-REAT!! :D

The site is addictive. I warned you. But if you a trully potter fan, you'll love the site to the bones. It's so hard to find some time to resting your eyes after seeing the screen for hours! Seriously, its like magnet. You can't leave it, there are too much good stuffs in there waiting for you to explore. Psssttt... let me tell you this, it's almost 9 pm, right now, and I've just finished my breakie, lunch and dinner at the same time an hour ago. I simply forgetting everything, eat, bath, even pee! :p I also find it's so hard to leave the site even for a minute! I don't know, if I am be able to blog about this awesomeness or not, if my internet is not dead. Hell yeah, my internet is dead from 6 p.m until couple minutes ago. Currently I'm stay online with internet tethering from my iPhone, which is good and bad at the same time :p Good because at least I can stop for a while and blog about it and do something else, bad because I need my heroin ASAP! :p

Not much I can say after this. I can't find any words or better way to describe it, so, I took some screenshot while I was exploring the site this morning, I'll share them to you. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words, right? So, enjoy! :D

Open your bank account at Gringgots and then you'll be ready to explore Diagon Alley! :D

You'll get your first 500 Galleons here, seems much, but it won't be enough if you don't spend it wisely, because there are lots of things to buy and really catch our attention :D

Here's my first stop in Diagon Alley, Flourish and Blotts :)

Unfortunately, Knockturn Alley can't be access at the moment.

Olivanders! Oh yeah, are you thinking what am I thinking? Yess! Magic wand! What's more exciting than this one? :DDD

Tradaaaaaaaaaa.... Here's my wand. Vine and Phoenix Feather Core, 11¾ inches, Quite Flexible :)

Okay, I guess this is enough... or you want more spoilers? :p Well later then, okay? As the internet is back now, I'm going to dig in more and more to Pottermore.

Till we meet again :)

Love endured, but trust had been broken between her parents, and Minerva, a clever and observant child, saw this with sadness.... Minerva never forgot how much her mother cried, when the letter of admittance into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry arrived on Minerva’s eleventh birthday; she knew that Isobel was sobbing, not only out of pride, but also out of envy.

P.S. That's my favorite lines from Professor Minerva McGonagall's Childhood story, new from J.K.Rowling.

Po.. Po.. Po... Pottermore!

Tweet

I'm currently exploring Potternore. The site is surely heavy and getting heavier day by day, as I can see a new interfaces there, new stuffs and animations etc etc. It takes a while to refresh and open some links though, maybe it's because of my connection too, whatever it is, while that, I can type two or three sentences here. I'm so good at multitasking, in some case... Tee Hee :p

Well, I came home today, from our pedicure session, movie time and dinner around 9 p.m. What a great day I can say. Now I am too sleepy already, this is rare, especially when I'm so excited about something. Perhaps, I'm too tired. Well, I guess, the world also wants me to take some rest, because suddenly the site is down. I'm about to upload new pics that I've promised, but eyes wont cooperate so, see you tomorrow! Adios.

If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered. ---Edgar Allan Poe

New Domain - Quick Post

Tweet

Hello there! I've just bought my new domain this morning and I just love it. My new blog address is www.claustrawberry.com :D Make sure you type it right, but the old link will be still working nicely, but I guess all of you will also love my new address, it's simply shorter and simpler and memorable, do you think so? :p

As you can see in the title, this is a quick post, I'm in a hurry at the moment, we're going out to catch up movie this evening and before that, we're planning to go for pedicure so, I gotta go now. Hopefully we'll have enough time to do it. Anyway, I just can't stop myself for not updating things here. I'll see you guys again tonight, perhaps?

Thanks for visiting anyway and I'll see you guys again very soon.

XX

Choices are the hinges of destiny. ---Attributed to both Edwin Markham and Pythagoras

Joyeux Anniversaire

Tweet

Hola! this post is dedicated to my beloved mum and youngest brother. Both of them celebrate their birthday today. What a day. Dad sent me their picture while had a delicious dinner made by mum couple minutes ago, they looks so happy. I feel the joy and really wish I could be there to celebrate their special day. Anyway, I've told you on last post that September is surely a great and lovely month, right? I've just got an email from Pottermore said that I can access the site now. Early access as a beta user is LOVE! The site is EPIC, unfortunately iPhone's internet is in turtle mode, so yeah, I have to be patient.

The site is currently in Beta, the access is limited. We can't really access to all of features yet, and I experienced some bugs and errors, but all I can say for now, the site is cool. Can't wait till they release the full version of the site. I just can't wait to experience the magical site of Pottermore fully with its awesome features.

Hopefully, by Monday I'll be hearing another good news, finger crossed. Well, as I planned before, I made a No-Bake Chocolate Tart this morning. It's yum! I took some pics while I was making the tart, will post more review about it and the pics tomorrow, as for now, the internet is too slow for me to upload loads of pics here anddddddd.... I'm going to explore to Pottermore again so, see ya aligator!

Be an angel to someone else whenever you can, as a way of thanking God for the help your angel has given you. ---Quoted in The Angels' Little Instruction Book by Eileen Elias Freeman, 1994

Marauder's Map

Tweet

I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.
                         —Words to reveal the map.

This morning, I woke up at 7 a.m something. Pheww... it's kinda early, to think that I have nothing to do for the whole day, I could just sleep till noon. But , I am not that lazy even though I'm not kind of a "morning person". I should went downstairs to sink, wash my face and brush my teeth. Well, today is an exception. I grabbed my iPhone-as I always do before I get up from my comfy bed-then I jumped out to my four-level drawer and opened the bottom one. Grabbed out my Harry Potter Film Wizardry books that I bought on November 2010. I think it's not necessary to tell more details about the book with it's amazing and cool free stuffs inside, but if you wish to read that post, just click here :)

Well then I started to took some photos with my iPhone and find every cute stuffs that I have that would match with the book. You know Instagram, right? Yeah, Instagram is an iPhone app that enables the user to snap a photo (or take an existing photo from the phone’s gallery), enhance it with different cool effects/filters, share it on the various social networks, as well as on Instagram itself, which has quickly turned into a social network of its own. It's a simple photo-taking, adding filters to make them look retro and photo-sharing app that became so popular lately. I, myself had this app installed on my iPhone for quite a long time already, since the first time I used iPhone, but I barely use it. I took pictures then shared everything on my blog, Facebook and simply directly upload it to twitter. As now, I'm not so into Facebook thingy anymore, so yeah, I need new place to upload my photo, so, Instagram will do.

I used to upload pics to Instagram every single day and sometimes I could uploaded more than 10 pics in a day. Unfortunately, within these few weeks, I rarely upload new pics there, because, I couldn't find any nice objects around me and I wasn't go out as often as I always did so and I just too lazy rummaging through my drawers, closet and my trunks to find anything interesting and cute stuffs to be photographed. I also was busy watching MasterChef Australia and other cooking shows and playing games. LOL. That's enough said :p

Anyway, this morning, I captured couple things and I amazed. I know that I'm a moody person and mostly, everything that I do, depends on my mood, but still I amazed how good I am in doing something-it could be anything-when I'm in the mood. You know, if I feel like doing it, I have to do it right away and it will make a HUGE differences rather than I do it later when the mood and the good feeling is not really stay in me anymore or simply when it's gone.

So, here's what I've captured this morning. Perhaps when you see it, you'll disappointed because it may does not look as nice as I see it from my point of view, but hey! I'm not a professional photographer and I don't own a good camera, so I hope you can understand me.

This one is my favorite shot!! :D it's original, no edit, except I resized it.

I edited this one, just blurred the background.

So, which one do you prefer? :)

Well that's it.. if you wish to see more pics, just go to my Instagram :)

Ciao.

"Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business.
Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git.
Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a Professor.
Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slime-ball."
—The Map's response to Severus Snape's attempt to reveal the Map's secrets.

September!

Tweet

Well, hello there! It has been a while since my very last post. I've just upgraded to the new blogger and I found that the new interface is quite nice. It's simple and clean, I simply like it, so I guess I'll stick to this one. Anyway, I've just finished watching MasterChef Australia Season 3 and I can't believe it's all over. It's kinda late, I know, but yeah, it's Indonesia. It's pretty hard to watch this series, since I can't watch it from its official website due to the IP issue, for Australia's IP only. I've installed a program called "Real Hide IP" just to watch it, unfortunately, it's not working, so yeah...

I used to watch it from YouTube. There are kind people out there who uploaded these series, unfortunately, while I'm on Ep. 80, I can't watch it anymore. They suspended his/her account, so I can't watch it anymore. I was so frustrating because it was so close to the final, but the next video is nowhere to be found. Gahh!! If you follow my twitter, you must've seen those full of anger lines there. Thankfully, a very nice friend of mine on twitter recommend me to watch it on Dailymotion. Oh My God! I am so thankful for that. If it's not because of him, I wouldn't be able to watch the rest. Thank you so much! :)

Anyway, I promise I'll be back here as soon as possible, I have to go now, continue watching  Junior Masterchef. I've watched it half way, then the same case happened. YouTube took the video down. I forgot I was on which Ep. so I'll try on Ep. 10 and let it buffering till 100% for a while, so I can enjoy all the videos continuously.

P.S. Pssttt.... Last week, I baked Cheesecake, it's so darn delicious. More story to come! So, I'll see you guys again pretty soon.

We welcome passion, for the mind is briefly let off duty. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960