Walk into any camera shop, see hundreds of digital cameras on display.

It’s hard to get excited about new cameras these days. After getting lost in all the technical mumbo jumbo (14.8 Megapixels, F/3.9-5.8 and 6400 ISO, understand?), you realise all the big and small cameras out there pretty much perform one function only, – taking photos.

That’s boring.

But once in a while, some genius comes up with a gadget that blows your mind away.

In comes the Nikon Coolpix S1100pj with one secret weapon…

A mini projector, built right into the body of the camera, allowing you to instantly show off whatever photos or videos you took on any flat surface.

Suddenly that changes many things.

For example, no longer can you take a photo of the girl you like, then stand really really really close to her under the guise of showing her the photo on your camera’s tiny LCD screen.

Don’t pretend. EVERY guys use that technique to get fresh with girls one.

The camera still comes with an LCD screen, but the cool thing is that it ain’t just your grandmother’s normal LCD screen. It’s a touch screen, which means you can flip through photos by swiping your finger through them.

You can even use the included stylus to draw right on top of the photos if you want.

This feature is extremely useful for drawing devil’s horn and moustaches on your friend’s face.

Or writing your phone number, then project it across the room to the girl you like.

For the more serious ones among us, the camera can be hooked up with your PC, so you can use it as a projector for your business presentations.

There’s a remote control included, which is good for controlling presentation slides. The remote control is also great for taking your vainpot camwhore shots without your face taking up two-thirds of the entire frame.

The Nikon Coolpix s1100pj is already on the market now selling for around RM1,000. It is a fun, little compact camera to use.

If I gotta pinpoint a couple of faults, perhaps it’s just that there’s a small but noticeable lag with the LCD touch screen. That, and the battery runs out in less than an hour if you use the projector function a lot, so don’t count on using it to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy or something.

Otherwise, I really enjoy using it to impress friends during parties. I just dunno whether to call it a camera projector or a projector camera. Truthfully, it performs both functions equally well.

Feel free to click to enlarge and inspect the image quality. It’s a picture of the 100-year-old Tua Pek Kong temple I took with the Nikon camera. I’m surprised it’s so good for a RM1,000 camera.

For other less-intended uses for this projector camera, I made this video right here:

Just don’t be too enthusiastic with that last suggestion in the video. 😉

Fun Kuching

22 February 2011

admin

Distinctively Kuching 21 Comments

Some months ago, Janet flew into Kuching to film an episode of Fun Asia for TLC.

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I’m so ashamed I had never even heard of the show before this. After the episode had gone to air, I kept getting phone calls and SMSes and tweets from people who are surprised to see me on the show.

For those of you who missed it, this is me showing my hometown to the pretty Taiwanese travel host.

I think she likes me.

ADV: Do You Have A Good Heart?

17 February 2011

admin

Thoughts & Musings 25 Comments

According to an article I read in AsiaSpa, people are likely to do 3 things to improve their wellness: exercise, eat and visit a spa.

Unfortunately in our country, we really only do one of those three: EAT.

Even then, we tend to eat food that are high in fat and low in fibre instead of the nutritious ones that will bring benefits to our body.

On top of that, we don’t exercise. Only the richer ones among us will visit a spa – even then it’s probably the OH CHI PALA type of spa and not the clean-clean ones.

No wonder newspapers reported that heart diseases has been the number one killer in our country for the past 30 years, causing 1 out of 8 deaths in Malaysia – even more than cancer-related deaths.

Over 3 million Malaysians are at risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and heart diseases. If left untreated, these people are opening themselves up to strokes, heart attacks and organ failures.

But here’s the most startling part. Most people DON’T even know they are at risk of developing heart diseases.

Most people in my age group have this mentality: we think we are invincible. We are young, and so we can do whatever we want and nothing is gonna happen to us.

So we smoke, we drink, we don’t exercise, we don’t eat healthily and we don’t allocate time for exercising. By the time we reach 50 years old and the medical bills start rolling in, we regret we did not take care of ourselves when we were younger.

In fact, when I ask the 20-somethings in my fitness centre what they come here for, "looking good" is a often bigger reason than "staying healthy". That shouldn’t be the reason people exercise!

People in my fitness centre often work out to improve the appearance of their waist, their chest, their butt and their biceps. But I feel it’s even more important to improve the health of the heart.

This involves 3 steps.

The first is to take a Heart Health Test to determine what risk level your heart is at based on your current lifestyle and diet. If you have done a medical check-up lately, it is a straightforward test that can be done online at www.myhealthyheart.com.my

Otherwise, just do the test anyway and you’ll be given a discount voucher for a medical check-up at your nearest BP Healthcare.

That’ll provide a starting point for your roadmap to better heart.

Second, start exercising.

We often hear from doctors that just 30 minutes of moderate cardio activity 5 times a week is enough to prevent up to 75% of chronic diseases, including heart disease. It is such a little investment for a high ROI, and yet it is ironic that many people wouldn’t even want to spare that 30 minutes in the 24 hours they have in a day!

People, you gotta eliminate your excuses and start exercising now!

And lastly, stop smoking and start eating healthy.

Eating healthy doesn’t mean you gotta completely stop eating KFC. It just gotta be done in moderation. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so I make sure I have a bowl of Quaker Oats when I wake up, and some fruits and veg in my diet throughout the day.

All these hype about eliminating carbohydrates for weight loss is getting a bit overboard. The key is to take in good carbohydrates like hot oats, and not too much sugary carbohydrates like alcohol and sweets.