Photos first, enlightenment later.

Photos of Angkor Wat

This is the moat that surrounds the Angkor Wat temple at 5am.

This is Angkor Wat at dawn. The Cambodian skies are absolutely gorgeous. On hindsight, it’s probably not the sky that’s beautiful, but that it isn’t littered with skyscrapers like Singapore.

This is one of the towers of Angkor Wat. I took this shot from the inside of the building to give it a bit more perspective.

Another shot of Angkor Wat from the inside.

One of the hundreds (or was it thousands?) of depictions of Apsara at Angkor Wat. An apsara is a nymph. The Hindus believed that having pictures of apsaras will bring about good luck and ward off evil spirits.

A monk happened to be posing for a group of photographers as I was leaving Angkor Wat. What luck!

Photo of Ta Phrom

By the time we arrived at Ta Phrom temple, where Tomb Raider was filmed, I was so exhausted under the sweltering heat, I couldn’t be bothered to take photos. This was the only half-decent shot I took.

Photos of Bayon Temple

The amazing view that surrounds the entrance to Bayon Temple.

The entrance to Bayon temple.

Bayon Temple. This is probably the most magnificent temple of the three I visited at the Angkor Wat complex. I didn’t manage to visit the inside of this temple — not because it was under construction or anything…

…I was simply paralyzed by uneasiness as I approached the temple steps. Partially, it was fear. Due to an accident some years ago, I am afraid of heights. You could say that I’m trying too hard to rationalize my fear, but another part of the uneasiness came from a voice within. Something was telling me that I wasn’t ready to walk in yet. It was telling me that I spent all my time acquiring new skills to advance my career, strategizing the most efficient way to lead life that I had begun to neglect my spiritual and physical well-being. It was telling me that I had to learn to balance mind, body and soul before I could gain the right to step in.

So I’m taking life a little slower and trying not to suppress my soul so much. Hopefully, I’ll achieve that balance within this lifetime.

My Favorite Photo Taken in Cambodia

To end my entry, here’s my favorite photo from the entire trip. No post-processing was done.

This is taken at the Silver Pagoda complex at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh. I loved how the silver stupa blends with the silver sky. I felt a strong connection with the structure. I couldn’t really identify the feeling but it sure helped capture this shot.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the photos as much as I’ve enjoyed taking them! You can find more photos on my Flickr photostream.

So last week, I visited the Infocomm Accessibility Centre at 24seven‘s invitation. The centre is designed to help disabled people to train in infocomm technology, so they have a shot at employment.

The visit was an eye-opening experience for me as a web designer, because it puts web accessibility into perspective. Web accessibility is the practice of designing a web page that is accessible by the assistive technology used by disabled people.

For more photos, visit Selwyn’s Flickr set.

Here are some examples of assistive technologies. The yellow keyboard is designed to have a high contrast so that people who are partly visually-impaired can see better. And the trackball mouse and joysticks are designed for those who suffer from movement-impairing disabilities such as stroke or muscular dystrophy.

In my last 15 years online, I’ve met many bloggers — some who are disabled. I never really thought about how difficult it is for some of them to go online because it didn’t occur to me that they were using anything else but a normal computer or a mobile device. So to be able to touch and play with these devices really put things into perspective for me — especially as a designer.

Often, in a midst of designing a site or even just writing a blog entry, we forget or simply ignore the details such as putting a simple alternate tag on an image. As able people, we tend to forget that there are many others who never get to visually experience the wonders of our design or photos. All it takes for us, as bloggers or designers, is to spend an extra 10 seconds to write a descriptive alt tag so they could have a chance to imagine what we’re sharing.

And then there’s the debate between making a site more accessible vs cutting some corners for aesthetics reasons (such as using Flash or nonstandard code). I’d like to be fair here. I think it depends on your site’s target audience. If you’re designing a government, banking or utility portal, I think it’s important absolutely necessary to have an accessible site because these organizations are serving essential services to general public; they should strive to treat all their stakeholders equally. But if you own a small-time blog like I do, I think you can relax a little. You don’t have to painstakingly conform every single line of code to the standard, but it’s good aim at least for the bare minimum, such as minimizing the unnecessary use of tables.

Anyway, I hope this entry will inspire other web designers and bloggers to give more thought about web accessibility. Web accessibility isn’t about being a code nazi or being inflexible; it’s about respect. Respect for your readers, respect for humanity, and respect for equal access by all.

To check whether your site is accessible, go to cynthiasays.com.

So readers, what do you think of web accessibility? Is it important for you? If you’re a designer by trade, how do you persuade your clients on the importance of web accessibility?

PS: If you’re Singapore and you’d like to support the cause, join the mass tweet meet on 26 June. And if you know disabled people, please nominate them for a course at the Infocomm Disability Centre. These courses give those who otherwise may not have the opportunity, a chance to finally become a fully-contributing member to society.

Featured on Web Design Galleries

Big thanks to all the CSS galleries and web design blogs for featuring my latest theme, Nami. And another thank you to those of who gave me feedback, when I first rolled out this theme. Web design has been a long-time hobby of mine, so it’s always nice to receive recognition. I got to know many people as a result too! (I know I haven’t replied to some of you, sorry about that! Will get to it soon!) So thank you to CSS Mania, Spyre Studios, Web Creme and the many others!

Switched to a Smartphone

As I was saying in the Nexus One entry, I’ve been reluctant to switch to a smartphone since I didn’t want to become too connected. But my dumbphone recently lost the ability to send texts, and I was able to borrow the Sony Ericssion Xperia X10, so I switched. Thanks to the Xperia, I now sync my phone contacts with Google Contacts, which pretty much guarantees I’ll be loyal to Android phones for the next few years.

Since the phone isn’t mine, it doesn’t seem right to do a review. Hahaha! But let’s just say, despite its specs and price tag, it’s still got some way to go before I could classify it with the likes of superphones like the iPhone, Nexus One, HTC Desire, Motorola Milestone or the Samsung Galaxy S.

Touched an iPad!

Thanks to my colleagues and Justin, I got to spend some time with the Apple iPad. I wasn’t too impressed initially. It’s a phenomenal e-reader but there’s no way a tablet is befitting for a content creator like me. I have to admit my initial thoughts was slightly clouded by my disappointment with Steve Jobs and his letter to Adobe. (I switched to a Mac because Photoshop works better on it. So for Apple to declare its disapproval of Adobe’s alleged “closed system” felt like they were backstabbing a partner to me.)

But after I realized I could type a proper email on it without making mistakes, I was pretty impressed. As touch tech improves, tablets will slowly, but surely replace laptops in the future. With that said, I won’t be buying an iPad so soon. It can’t really replace a laptop or even a netbook for me just yet. I need multitasking support, and I don’t want to be held ransom by the App Store. Guess I’ll just wait until I see OS X or Win 7 running smoothly on one.

Sayonara, Social Media

On the work front, I’ve officially relinquished my social media responsibilities to someone even more passionate and capable. (That doesn’t mean I’ll stop blogging or tweeting though!) Social media was a good entry-point to the corporate world, since it was something familiar. I now do traditional comms for financial-related matters. It’s not an easy transition since the learning curve is fairly steep, the responsibilities are greater and perfection is just a minimum requirement. Nevertheless, I’m enjoying myself so far. I like being constantly challenged. Keeps me on my toes, keeps me learning. And it’s definitely the right place to be to learn more about the tech and telco business, both of which I’m pretty passionate about.

Thanks to the change, I can finally answer the question I’ve been struggling with for the longest time: “where do you see yourself in 5 years?” I’d like to move from a support unit like communications into the business. But more on this another time.

Upcoming Blog Posts

I attended a few interesting blogger events earlier this week, so do expect those entries to be up soon. There’ll be one on Nokia Connection 2010 and another on the Infocomm Accessibility Centre. I’ll probably disappear again after that because my boyfriend is coming back to Singapore this weekend! This time for good!

Okay, back to sleep. My fever is unfortunately still not subsiding. Blah.

The awesome part is that they’re not my usual style. For those who’ve not met me in person, my dress sense is very Calvin Klein. Solid. Black. Timeless.

And, boring.

Then I stumbled upon this pair and I knew I had to get it! It’s loud enough to complement my boring, black wardrobe.

New Shoes = Happiness!

What’s your sense of style? Do you ever get bored of your wardrobe? How often?

• want work life balance and a good pay
• can’t handle criticism – even constructive ones
• are flaky and disloyal to the company
• want to be CEO tomorrow
• have an overblown sense of entitlement

As a Gen Y, I have to admit that while some of these comments are quite accurate (especially the bit on entitlement), others somewhat suffer from over generalization. Sure, I welcome a better pay and a fast career advancement — sooner than later too. But I don’t expect it to be handed to me just for showing up on time. Promotions are always based on relative judgments. Compared to my older colleagues, I have one glaring disadvantage; I lack experience. So my way up is to take every opportunity to learn, volunteer for more challenging work, gain that experience as much and as quickly as possible…in hopes that I can do what older people can — but learned in a much shorter time and done in a much better fashion. And if that means I have to sleep in the office, so be it. I’m not naive enough to expect the big bucks, while I go home at 5pm everyday.

For every workaholic like me, I know someone who’s perfectly satisfied with his pay — as long as he gets to go home at 6 on the dot. In every generation, there will always people who live to work and people who work to live. So these career bloggers and columnists could really do us a service by not lumping our demands together because there are differences in opinion and even generational gaps amongst Gen Ys.

With that said, I’ve noticed a worrying trend amongst my peers. Many just don’t stay long enough in their jobs. And I don’t think this incessant job hopping is a good idea. It’s no secret that the corporate world demands some level of expertise. This job hopping is a sure fire way not to achieve that.

Personally, I’ve been fortunate enough to land on a job in a company with people I’m happy to work with and work for. I’m approaching 2 years and I still learn something new daily. It doesn’t have to be a big lesson like managing a multi-million dollar project. Most of the time, what I learn are small, seemingly insignificant things like saying the right things at the right time to give your team the moral support to do their jobs better. It is these small things that often turn a failing project on the road to success.

And sure, there are times when shit happens. If it doesn’t happen, I’m pretty sure it’ll find you soon enough. Shit isn’t a bad thing; it’s an opportunity to challenge you, to take you to the next level. It’s coming up with innovative ways to overcome this shit that’s going to gain you the experience you desperately need.

So I guess what I’m saying is that if you’re a Gen Y and you’re thinking about quitting, I’d like you to re-evaluate your reasons — especially if your reasons are along the lines of “I can’t take this shit anymore.”

Do share your views in the comments!

• If you’re Gen Y, what do you think? Do you agree with these career sites? Are there any common traits you’ve noticed about us?
• If you’re a manager of Gen Ys, what do you think of us? Do share because it’s a good opportunity to learn how we’re being perceived.
• And please, no personal attacks, no naming people. Thanks!

In the midst of my dilemma, Glenn from Ogilvy invited me to a blogger event to check out Canon’s latest line-up of cameras. Despite my hectic work schedule, I knew I just had to go. I mean, this event could potentially solve the dilemma of a lifetime!

So on Thursday, I found myself at the newly-opened Universal Studios Singapore. Canon introduced us to the zoom monster PowerShot SX210 IS, the sleek touchscreen-ed IXUS 210 and the pocket-sized IXUS 130. We were each given 5 hours with one of these to shoot around the theme park. The cameras were randomly given out. As a PowerShot fan, I was vying to test out the PowerShot SX210 IS. Thanks to Clauds, who offered to switched cameras with me, my wish was granted.

Before I start, here’s a few disclaimers:

• This is a very long entry. If you don’t like text, scroll down for pretty pictures and HD videos!
• To showcase photo quality, no photos or videos were edited.
• Click on the thumbnail for the full photo to appear in a lightbox.
• For more photos, visit my Picasa gallery.
• 3 bloggers with the most creative photos will each win one of the latest line-up of Canon cameras.

The Features

Here’s a first look at the features shared amongst the PowerShot SX 210 IS, Digital IXUS 210 and Digital IXUS 130.

Color Swap: Painting the town pink!

Color swap switches one color for another. Here’s how it works: point the camera on a color from your viewfinder, select it, then select a color you’d like to swap the first with. It’s like a real life eyedropper tool. (You photoshopaholics know what I’m talking about!) For these shots, I swapped brown for bright pink to paint Universal Studios pink! I had a blast shooting in this mode. I had to chase down this little girl with a pink bag (who was quite far away) to get the shade of pink I wanted. I was glad I had the zoom monster or I’d have to physically chase her for it.

Color Accent: Gold highlights

Color accent highlights a particular color, while the rest of the photo is in monochrome. I’m not very good with this effect but I liked how my golden Shrek castle turned out.

Miniature Effect: Toy world

This is my favorite photo effect! The whole world looks like a giant toy wonderland! There are more at my Picasa but here are my favorites:

Fish Eye: Distortion extraordinaire

HD Video Samples

The new line-up of cameras also shoots high definition videos. Select 720p to watch in HD.

HD video of Universal Studios Singapore

Here’s a 360 degree view of USS.

HD video of one of the rides

I was trying to keep this shot steady but it started raining heavily all of a sudden so I had to run for cover.

HD video with PowerShot SX210 IS’ 14x zoom

Zooming in on the fountain. It gets shaky in the middle; I was zoomed in so close that every slight movement had a big impact on the camera.

HD video with Color Swap

Painting Universal Studios Pink – The Movie! Yes, I’m 24 years old and I still ride carousels.

HD video with Color Accent

You’re gonna have to tilt your head to watch this. I shot this in portrait mode thinking it would auto-rotate like photos. Oops!

Sample Photos

Here’s a few more shots in various shooting modes. Read the description in the full photos for more details.

My Thoughts on the Canon PowerShot SX 210 IS

This is a great camera for those who need zoom power and want to have the flexibility to switch between a very smart auto mode and full manual controls. I can’t give this a proper review since I only spent 5 hours with it but here are my general first impressions.

What I Like

• Fast shooting speed and amazing image stabilization: I shot while walking and no photo ever came out blur — even in poor lighting!
• Long battery life: I’m not sure of the industry benchmark but compared to my PowerShot A590 IS (which runs on lithium ion rechargeable AA batteries) the PowerShot SX 210 IS is so much better! I took 180+ photos and 8 movies. I barely turned off my camera over the 5 hours and the battery was still going strong.
• One button movie mode: It was a breeze to shoot movies thanks to the dedicated movie button!

What I Didn’t

• Stiff mode dial: The mode dial is a little stiffer than I’m used too. I guess it’s more dSLR like?
• No indication for arrow buttons: This is minor, but unlike my A590 IS, the SX 210 IS didn’t come with pictures to describe each arrow keys’ function. So I had to struggle to find the manual focus, the delete key and the toggle between aperture and shutter speed. I guess this is only frustrating when you only have 5 hours with a camera that’s full of functions. I don’t suppose it’ll be a problem if you own one though.

So, I thought this event would help solve my dilemma between upgrading to an advanced point and shoot or an entry level dSLR. Unfortunately, it’s just made my life more difficult since I’ve grown quite fond of the PowerShot SX 210 IS. Sigh, what a geeky predicament to be in!

Dilemma aside, I had a splendid time thanks to Canon and Ogilvy!

Blogger Chicks Day Out

Once a month, Brenda, Dayna, Cherlynn, Teddy try to meet up to unite in our hatred for IE6 celebrate our love for blogging. For our March meet-up, Teddy unfortunately fell sick, leaving us ladies with no choice but to have a scrumptious lunch at Relax Bistro, followed by an afternoon of shopping (where I got an awesome Hugo Boss top for S$87!!) and comfort food for dinner.

Photos courtesy of Brenda and Dayna

For lunch at Relax Bistro, I had mushroom soup and my usual oh-so-yummy grilled chicken glazed with honey apricot mustard jam with a side of pumpkin puree.

Cousin’s Wedding at Thistle Hotel, Johor

Over the Good Friday weekend, I attended my cousin’s wedding in Johor Bahru, a small-ish town in Malaysia. It’s been over a decade since I last visited Johor and nothing seems to have change.

Anyway, here are some shots of my hotel room, some make-up I bought at a super discount and 2 of the 9 courses served at the wedding. The glutinous rice was apparently really good but I didn’t try it since grains are a no-no on my diet. Oh and there’s a rare photo of me looking very, very stereotypically Asian with monoeyelids. (I only get single eyelids when I’m heavily sleep deprived.)

Dinner at Serenity Spanish Bar & Restaurant

My friend celebrated her birthday at the Valencian restaurant last night. The food was pretty good but the wait for the main courses was way too long for someone who had a long day at work. And since it’s the type of cuisine that required everyone to share, this was one of the rare occasions where I had to deviate from my no-grain, no-processed-food diet.

For a name like Serenity, I was expecting the ambiance to be, well, more serene. As we walked in, we were greeted by loud Spanish music reminiscent of Enrique Iglesias’ and Ricky Martin’s numbers. But then the live band started playing, and the ambiance was finally there. They played an assortment of bossa nova and slow rock like Bryan Adams and Jason Mraz.

Appetizers

We were first served with sauteed garlic mushrooms with bread — which I didn’t take a shot of because I was famished — followed by bacon-wrapped asparagus and marinated pork skewers.

The bacon was a little too salty for my tastes but the marinated pork was pretty good.

Main Courses

30 excruciating minutes later, the first of our main courses finally arrived.

This is squid ink fideuà with a generous portion of squids, shrimp, capsicum and scallop. Fideuà is a paella with vermicelli. Since it was my first time trying fideuà, I was expecting to be wowed by some exotic tastes but it tastes just like rice vermicelli, which is a staple in Chinese cuisine. How anticlimactic!

After another 15 minutes and a reminder from the slightly miffed birthday girl, we were served Valencian paella. Now I’m no paella expert, so perhaps I’m too easily pleased, but this was good stuff! It had just the right texture — not too sticky like Japanese mochi but not too dry like Chinese fried rice.

Dark Chocolate Cake from Awfully Chocolate

Since the birthday girl has been itching to check out Awfully Chocolate, we got her a dark chocolate cake from there. It’s so good! It’s not very sweet and not too disgustingly rich and had just the right amount of chocolate!

This ends my rare food-centric photo entry! On a side note, I think I’m starting to take better food shots. Perhaps it’s time to get a new camera!

What I Like

Auto-correct – One of the few gripes I have with the iPhone is its egotistic auto-correct feature. Without adding words, I can’t swear or type in foreign languages without being corrected. Not the Nexus One though! I could write whatever I want without having to battle the phone for dominion over my linguistic choices. It has even recognized my address book’s and Google Contacts friends’ names.

Performance – It’s the fastest Android-powered phone I’ve tried so far. No lag whatsoever! Not sure how it performs in comparison with the iPhone 3G S. But I’m guessing it should be at least comparable.

Auto-syncing with Google accounts – I was a bit shocked when I first played with the phone. After logging in with my Google account, I found all my contacts, photos and even web search history on the phone. It was quite scary at first, but I have to say it’s now quite handy since I’m now only one touch away from everything.

Camera – For a phone, it has quite a good camera. It has 5MP with flash. Here are two shots. One of yummy waffles and a low-light shot of a souvenir Kirin got me when she visited Singapore. I did not edit the pictures except to watermark and re-size them.

What can be improved

Scrolling – It takes a little bit more effort to scroll on the Nexus One than on the iPhone but it’s better than all other touchscreen phones I’ve tried so far.

Touch buttons – I think this is a matter of personal preference. If you’ve read my gadget reviews before, you’d know that I don’t like touch buttons. They are no match for real buttons. Touch buttons fail miserably at usability – even with tactile feedback.

Accelerometer – There’s a bit of a lag when I turn the phone sideways for the larger keyboard. I feel like I have to shake it for the screen to change. Definitely not as smooth as the iPhone.

Design – The Nexus One is not the type of phone where you whip out of your pocket and everyone in the vicinity will go “whoa!”. Here’s a photo of the Nexus One next to the ultra sexy Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. There’s just no comparison in terms of looks.

So tempted to buy it but….I. must. resist!

I am this close to clicking “buy” at google.com/phone. It’s one of the very few phones that I very happy with. And the iPhone HD (or whatever it’s gonna be called) and HTC Desire are coming out, so I shouldn’t be hasty.

More importantly, I’ve actually been resisting a smartphone for the longest time because:

1. I don’t want to be that accessible.
2. I would really like to experience life outside of rectangular screens.
3. And I don’t want to be that rude person who whips out her smartphone to check some unimportant email / tweet, while leaving her dinner companions feeling dejected.

We’ll see how long my resistance can last before I cave in. Vive la Résistance!

Untranslatable Finnish Word: Sisu

During one of my Top Gear marathons, I stumbled upon an interview with Finnish racing driver Mika Häkkinen. He talks about an interesting Finnish trait: sisu. It roughly translates to courage to persevere in English. However, unlike courage, it doesn’t have the activeness or the aggressiveness attached to its meaning.

Imagine failing your math exam but you don’t throw a hissy fit, curse your teacher or blame your dog. Instead, you gracefully accept your failure and work harder for your next test. That courage to accept your failure and that silent yet strong determination to overcome your weakness is what the Finnish call sisu.

Ethnographers claim that sisu arose from Finland’s history. Georgraphically, they are sandwiched by bigger, stronger neighbors that served as constant political, military, cultural and even linguistical threats to the Finnish. (Finland is the only Scandinavian country with a language that does not have Germanic roots). I can’t think of a better way than sisu to cope with these adversities.

But enough about sisu from me. I’m not Finnish, I’ve never been to Finland and I have more fingers than I have Finnish friends. So here’s the clip from Top Gear where Häkkinen talks about sisu. (It’s a 10 minute clip. I recommend watching the entire clip since it’s hilarious to watch Captain Slow learn to rally race. But if you don’t love Top Gear like I do, just jump right into the sisu bit at 4:35.)

If you’d like to know more about sisu, read The Finnish Line by the Washington Post.

English has untranslatable words too!

On a side note, we have words in English that are untranslatable to other languages too. One favorite example is the word nice. It has so many meanings. It could be a synonym to good, it could also mean politeness as in “a nice gesture”; it could even be some sort of intensifier as in “a nice and warm cup of tea”!

Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s profound cultural significance in its untranslatability. Perhaps, we anglophones try so hard to avoid offending others that we came up with a word to describe boring people in a good way.

Just kidding.

For those who are interested, here are some technical improvements:

• New font: The font used for Nami‘s logo is “Vegur Light”.
• 960 grid: Before Nami, I’ve always designed according to a self-made Photoshop grid, which was more flexible. But I wanted to give standardized grid a chance. And I’m glad I did since saved me so much time.
• Gravatar: My commenters have been faceless for so long. So um, hello faces!
• jQuery overload: I’ve never liked putting unnecessary scripts on my blog. However, I just couldn’t envision this theme without an animated menu, so I caved in.
• Threaded comments: I’ve finally updated to the WordPress default comment function. Styling it was quite a pain though.

Like all my theme releases, Nami is currently in beta mode. [edit] It’s been tested on all major browsers and is validated. This theme doesn’t support IE6.[/edit] I’ll also be re-writing the about page some time soon. It’s almost 3am. I’ve been coding for 6 hours. Time to get some shuteye.

Your feedback is appreciated.

Please do let me know if you find any bugs! But spare me IE 6 errors. Me and IE 6 don’t get along.

IE is being mean to me

Just thought it’s an appropriate time to share this video.