Ever since I went to China for work, I have had the habit of buying daily items online; Chow mein, groceries, toilet papers, sex toys, etc.

Today while having a conversation in my Whatsapp group on Shopee, I got curious on how much I have spent on the platform. So I pulled the data off Shopee and tabulated it in Microsoft Excel.

IT turns out, since late 2019, I have spent close to RM38,000 on the platform!

I am not remotely surprised given that I am buying literally everything on the platform. From hobbies to gadgets to groceries.

E‑commerce is nothing something new to me. Back in the days way before Lazada and Shopee, there was Amazon, Taobao, and certainly 11street. I won’t say the amount that I have spent on the platform to be extraordinary given that my locality, shopping online is much more economical for me.

But it is sad to see how the general Malaysians not being able to embrace the e‑commerce as a whole. Looking at Shopee’s review it is sad that the amount of trust that we have on the platform. I mean, when I click on ‘Product Review’ I would want to read on, well the review of the product! Whether the item arrive sooner or later than expected, that is secondary, in my opinion. but look that these review!

Seriously meh? It does say Product Review in the header, not Seller Review, or Have You Received your product review. It’s PRODUCT REVIEW, so you write about the product. If you have not tried the product, then you don’t review!!11one

In comparison, on Amazon you do get the actual product review.

Often times, we read about people purchasing items from Shopee and did not receive the said item, or the item was DOA (dead on arrival). If you have purchased an expensive item, would not not be so much of a common sense to 1, not accept an item if there was already physical damage on the packaging? Or 2, record a videp of unboxing when there were obvious damage on the packaging, or 3, record a video of the unboxing when the weight is out of the ordinary?

I have bought mobile phones, laptops, hard disk drives and never once did I receive an item that was DOA, or an empty box. I even bought live fish, live plants and they are all thriving upon arrival. Perhaps out of the many times I bought something, 0.01% of the time I got a leaky bottle.

If you know PosLaju is not reliable in your area, then you don’t use PosLaju. J&T Express delivers to my area every day including Sundays and public holidays, so I use them. They do sometimes skip a day due to weather, but hey at least most of the times they are sending. If PosLaju only delivers to your area once a week, then you don’t order perishables with that service!

Most of the courier service has my contact number, and in the event when they have a parcel and they are not making the trip over due to only 1 or 2 items, they call me or send me a Whatsapp message. It does not that that much of an effort to be nice to your parcel delivery guy, be nice to them, and they will be nice to you.

Sometimes I see videos of courier services throwing items up their truck and such. Think about this, you paid RM1, RM2 for shipping, what are you expecting from your delivery servicemen? Red carpet?

Malaysians have finally developed a level of political maturity that led us taking our destiny into our own hands (or finger).

Having to put up with endless news of crimes, done by the people high up in the past Government of Malaysia, involving billions of Ringgit, it is the time for the people to overturn the ruling government.

The ruling government then, Barisan National or BN has been the ruling party throughout 61 years of Malaysia’s history.

It is no surprise that many older Malaysians do not like Tun Dr. Mahathir, the high prices of vehicles, tolls, low salaries, high-income inequality, constraints of Chinese Education, lack of development in the East Coast and East Malaysia, inefficient public transportation, lopsided tolled highway agreements and lopsided independent power plant agreements.

Now he is back with a vengeance, forming an alliance with the opposition party, and now winning the 14th General Election. It wasn’t an easy win, but I am sure Tun Dr. Mahathir had all the knowledge and moves from his Prime Minister days of 22 years!

Barisan National’s arrogance is what caused them to lose the GE14. Najib had all the work done to cheat, from gerrymandering, bribery, deceit, intimidation, blackmailing and all other tactics to scare his opponents. However, Najib forgot one thing, his opponent is Tun Dr. Mahathir, his mentor, the person who had probably thought him most of the things he knew.

Since 2009, Najib has tarnished every name that Tun Dr. Mohamad had built for us Malaysians. From banning of Sarawak Report to selling our national car Proton, and of course 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Press were feed with propaganda and laws are created overnight to protect him and his members.

Activists are jailed, cartoonists rounded up by the police, even the members of the press and media are scrutinizing with what they put to print. Several news outlets were closed down because they had criticized Najib’s administration.

We were brought up in a way that racism sets us apart. It was very clear in the Barisan National propaganda. The concept of ketuanan Melayu is one such example.

Perhaps the general Malaysians had had enough. Perhaps it is now that they truly know their people’s power. Perhaps Najib’s administration and his dirty tactics are too much for general Malaysians like you and me to bear, or perhaps it is the new media now, that equipt us with a weapon that we now had, to overturn what we called a kleptocratic government. Perhaps, we just could not take Najib’s and his alliances’ bullshit anymore.

I truly hope, by the change of the ruling party, wll change some of these.

Many Malaysians flock to the neighboring country, and some far away because they had lost hope not with their country, but the people running them. Now, it is time for these Malaysians to come back to Malaysia.

Today would be a history and significant day for many Malaysians. Not because suddenly our nation will become perfect, not because suddenly all our problems, crimes, educations, economic would disappear. It is historic because we have shown a significant step towards a mature democracy.

Changes will take time, and as with Tun Dr. Mahathir’s saying

Changes takes time, even talking to you takes time.

There are no words to express the feelings that I believe most Malaysians would be feeling. The feeling of an accomplishment, the feeling of joy and perhaps some tears that go with it. It is so intense that, I myself lift up my fists up high in the air and cheered.

Social media was abuzz with congratulatory messages that, finally we Malaysian had won the battle, the battle to overrule the ruling party, the battle to overturn a kleptocratic government. It was so intense that social media posts that are not remotely related to the General Election got buried deep under.

I was driving from Kuala Lipis back to Kuala Lumpur, on the 9th of May, 2018, the day that the whole nation came out to cast their votes. It was chaotic, pack and almost festive; there are cars decorated with party flags, banners were flying. Everyone was cheering for Pakatan Harapan, the opposition party, led by Tun Dr. Mohamad.

News of how incompetent the Election Commision starts to surface, from the late arrival of postal votes to the mismanagement of ballot boxes. Some were even in the queue for more than 6 hours, just for that 1 vote that could have change their future.

At about 11 PM, news of Presiding Officers refusal to sign the Borang 14 started to surface. Police vehicles are blocked or being inspected by the members of the public, and riot police deployed for crowd control. The numbers of seats won by Pakatan Harapan stopped.

At 4:50 am, 10th of May, the official results were announced. Pakatan Harapan wins 113 seats, and Barisan National wins 79. The victory is remarkable seeing how the Election Commision attempts to frustrate both the voters and the opposition campaigns.

The announcement was made, it was a two-day public holiday for the public. We are all waiting for Tun Dr. Mahathir to be sworn in by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. The ceremony was delayed till 9:30 pm.

For a good reason.

It was later reviewed that the two days public holiday were given so that the stock market is closed, no banks were operational, for one good reason; no money could be laundered off the country.

Then, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong was not in the country, to prevent the then Prime Minister, Najib Razak from calling a state emergency, a move that Tun Dr. Mahathir afraid that he might do, thus requiring His Majesty’s consent. The urgency of Tun Dr. Mahathir to form a government can be heard during his press conference addressing the media.

For 22 years this man has been the Prime Minister, it is no wonder he had won the election. His plans and execution are so many steps ahead of Najib Razak. It is no wonder that in one of his speech, he indicates that he would only want to be in office for 2 years, to bring Malaysia back to his glory.

For that, I truly respect this man, for all the faults he has done, he deserves to be forgiven. Afterall, we are man, and man makes mistakes.

Let’s make Malaysia great again. Let’s put Malaysia on the map again.

I have been a Flickr Pro user since 2005, and I can probably tell you the ins and outs of Flickr, and how to manipulate it.

While I love the new interface, I also hate it. The code is just rubbish, the site loads sluggishly and a whooping amount of RAM.

Then there is the CEO Marissa Mayer who bans telecommuting in Yahoo! just because she can build her own nursery in her office.

Well, I don’t work for Yahoo! but her press statement given during the announcement of Flickr’s redesign really hit that button.

…there’s no such thing as Flickr Pro, because today, with cameras as pervasive as they are, there is no such thing really as professional photographers, when there’s everything is professional photographers. Certainly there is varying levels of skills, but we didn’t want to have a Flickr Pro anymore, we wanted everyone to have professional quality photos, space, and sharing.

I am totally disgusted with your statement. The years of hard work, commitment, and dedication I put into, are now considered as passé because everyone owns a camera? What were you drinking before making that statement?

In the ‘dog eat dog’ world of photography, especially in Malaysia where everyone undercuts everyone at any given opportunity.

Sign,
Formally Professional Photographer.

(Update: Marrisa Mayer took it to Twitter to explain her remarks, however, I feel that she should address it as a statement than a @mention)

To help you understand Adobe’s confusing pricing systems, the good folks at Digital Camera Info has put together an infographic that compares the cost of boxed sets and the cost of a ‘Creative Cloud’ subscription.

After the jump.

Click Image for larger view.

While some think that the subscription-based model used by Adobe is more expensive, it is actually not. Compared to boxed version, the subscription model is cheaper if you calculate it on a yearly basis. Typically, the more Adobe’s application that you use, the cheaper the Cloud becomes; Creatives typically use more than a single application. A Master Collection will cost in excessive of US$2000 where Creative Cloud will only cost you less than US$600 a year. For more info on cloud database options go online. 

I like to do these before sending the images to Photoshop for manipulation.

Like the previous Lightroom Presets, you toggle Adjustment Brush by tapping the K key.

In my Portraiture Enhancement Adjustment Brush bundle, I provided you with Brighten Eyes, Eyes Sharpen and Red Lips Adjustment Brush.

Brighten Eyes are simply the adjustment brush to brighten the white part of the eyes. The sclera appears slightly yellow in adult, and this can often be corrected by the Adjustment Brush. You can also use the same Adjustment Brush for teeth-whitening.

Depending on the color of the eyes and the direction your strobe, the Iris Enhance Adjustment Brush is good in bringing out the colors of the iris. Iris Enhance is included with Adobe Lightroom 4.

The Red Lips Adjustment brush are best used in adults. You can even use the same brush to give a lipstick gloss effect. Just change the colors!

To install,

1) Navigate to your Lightroom presets folder. The easiest way to do this is to go to Lightroom’s preferences by clicking the Lightroom menu and choosing Preferences (PC: Edit > Preferences). Then choose the Presets tab and click the “Show Lightroom Presets Folder” button to open the Lightroom Folder.

2) Now go into the Lightroom Folder. Then go into the Local Adjustment Presets folder.

3) UNZIP the file you downloaded from the bottom of this post.

4) Copy and paste the “.lrtemplate” files into the Local Adjustment Presets folder.

5) Restart Lightroom

To use, simply select Adjustment Brush while you are in Develop module, or simply tap the K key on the keyboard. Select one of the effects from the Effects dropdown. Simply paint it over for the effect. I also like to toggle Auto Mask for the edge detection. You can also view the mask overlay by tapping the O key.

Let’s talk about typical Chinese weddings.

Due to some Chinese believe that certain ceremony needs to be held at a certain time, Chinese wedding ceremony can start as early as 4 am in the morning, to prepare, to dress up and all these needs to be or are expected to be documented.

In Chinese weddings, the groom often travels to the bride’s to pick up the bride. Then traveling back to the groom’s.

Photographers usually arrive as early as 5 am in the morning to catch the preparation of the bride and groom. Let’s make it 6 am for convenience sake. The whole ceremony would probably end at 1 pm when lunch is served back at the groom’s side. That’s 7 hours of shutter clicking photography work.

Because wedding events happen as spontaneous as it could be, the photographer must be on alert at all times.

Let’s say for example we are paid 700 for the work, for 7 hours of shutter pressing work, just to keep things simple.

After the session, we go through images to select the best out of thousands of shots. Not only that, we also edit them. Editing here is not the removing of blemishes, or removing of objects but more to alteration of colors and exposure of the image. These usually need manual work, and more often there is no proper automated system to do this. I usually take 5–6 hours selecting and performing these edits. Let’s make it 5 hours for simplicity sake

So we have 7 hours of photography time, 5 hours of editing time, 1 hour to factor in the traveling time and meeting with the client. We spent 13 hours with this client. That’s 53 bucks an hour. But wait, we hired a photographer for the other location. We will pay him 300 for his work. So that 36 bucks an hour rate for ourselves.

Let’s say your business is good, people come to you every day to photograph their wedding, but I like to keep things simple, we photograph one wedding a week (Weddings in Malaysia usually is on a weekend). So now we have 1600 a month.

But who would only photograph weddings for a living right? Let’s make it more realistic, we use back our hourly rate of 53 bucks, and we will do a 40 hours work week.

That is RM2120 a month. Looks like it’s a good income after all.

But wait.

I got to put off some for my EPF. If you are employed your employer will contribute 13% to your EPF account, but I do not have an employer and I am very bad at keeping my savings. So to make it simple, I contribute 20% to my EPF savings.

I am left with RM1696

I got to travel to meetings with clients, travel to location too. So I bought a MyVi. Let’s say at RM30,000 and I am paying for 5 years. The interest rate for loan repayment for cars for 5 years with various banks is between 2.71% to 3%. So

RM1696-RM568=RM1128

My MyVi needs petrol to move. MyVi fuel capacity is 40 liter, and I pump once a week. At the current rate of RM1.97 per litter for RON95, I spend RM78 a week, which translate to RM312 a month. So

RM1128-RM300=RM828

I can’t afford to eat Chinese food, so I eat at the mamak. RM3 for a plate of Magee goreng kosong and a glass of water. Or I can switch with roti canai, just for variety. roti telur is out of the budget, for now.

RM828-(RM3 a meal x 3 times a day x 30 days)=RM558

I need to pay for car insurance and road tax.
RM1273+RM70/12=RM109.5 a month

RM558-RM109=RM449

Statistics show that each household average electricity is about 251 kWh a month. So 251 kWh as per average household of 4 is 62.75 kWh per person.
Current rate with Tenaga Berhad is 21.8 sen per kWh for the first 200 kWh. That is RM13.67 per month. Probably means no air conditioning and just a table fan. We can probably switch on our computers once a while and charge our phones, but our pieces of equipment need to be charged too, so we will do that at Starbucks.

RM449-RM13.67=RM435.33

I am not sure how much to pay for water. The Star says an average person uses 226 liters of water a day. I think I am just going to shower and do my shitting in the mamak or petrol station. I will probably also wash my clothes at the petrol station to save water.

Standard showerhead sprays water at 2.5 US gal per minute. Which is about 90 liter per 10-minute shower. Minimum charges for water tariff in Selangor is RM6.

RM435.33-RM6=RM429.33

I would also need the Internet to send emails, reply to emails, upload photos to Facebook, etc. The lowest package offered by Telekom Malaysia 1mbps @ RM 110. I could opt for UniFi VIP5 for RM149 but that 39 bucks would make a lot of difference by end of the month.

RM429.33-RM110=RM329.33

Average single room rental in Cheras is between RM500-RM350, and I am already not making enough.

Don’t forget I have yet paid for toll, medical insurance, equipment insurance, liability insurance, doctor because I eat Magee mee every day, hygiene because I only shit at other people’s place. Not forgetting hard drive space, DVDs, backup drives, computers. I have also yet to pay for my camera, lenses, flashes, filter, bags, tripods, vest, gloves.

I also do not go to the movies, eat KFC or watch Ironman 3. I also do not have money to educate myself, to attend courses, to join WPPA. There will be no technical talk sessions, no teh tarik, no hanging out, unless Uncle Lim wants to buy me every time. Certainly, I cannot afford a boyfriend or girlfriend.

So, do you think the RM700 you paid your photographer is enough?

When you are applying ratings, flags or color labels to your batch of images, you can actually tap on the Caps Lock key to enable auto advance in Lightroom.

When enabled, Auto Advance feature in Lightroom will automatically advance to the next photo in line.

• 0–5 for star ratings
• 6–9 for color labels (Red, Yellow, Green and Blue)
• P for Pick Flag
• X for Rejected Flag
• U for Unflagged

In Photoshop

In Photoshop, the Caps Lock key change your Brush tool(B) from your selected brush tip to a precise cursor. This is useful when you want to see the precise center of your brush tip.

The screenshot above was taken from my Mac when I had previously disabled Caps Lock. I was wondering why is my Caps Lock on my keyboard not functioning. It turns out that I have disabled it from my System Preferences once upon a time.

Experts from video production company says that you can use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to enhance the sky with the saturation slider, but your saturation settings will intensify the colors globally, and depending on the subject of the photograph, that might not be the best solution. With saturation, it is fairly easy to mrs with skin tones, and that is something that you would not want to mess with.

A good alternative is to use the blue luminance slider. It should pull some blues out of your image and as a result a more bolder and darker sky.

Before and after of the Luminance Blue slider effect.

As with anything in Lightroom, you can make a preset out of it. My preset include 3 level of settings which you can use. As always, you can use the navigator to preview before you apply the said preset.

To install,

1) Navigate to your Lightroom presets folder. The easiest way to do this is to go to Lightroom’s preferences by clicking the Lightroom menu and choosing Preferences (PC: Edit > Preferences). Then choose the Presets tab and click the “Show Lightroom Presets Folder” button to open the Lightroom Folder.

2) Now go into the Lightroom Folder. Then go into the Develop Preset folder.

3) UNZIP the file you downloaded from the bottom of this post.

4) Copy and paste the “.lrtemplate” files into the Local Adjustment Presets folder.

5) Restart Lightroom

Final image

I thought how nice it is if I could use a preset in Lightroom for that.

The Lightroom Preset is simple. Simply hover over a preset in the Develop module and you get a preview in the Navigator panel. Enjoy.

To install,

1) Navigate to your Lightroom presets folder. The easiest way to do this is to go to Lightroom’s preferences by clicking the Lightroom menu and choosing Preferences (PC: Edit > Preferences). Then choose the Presets tab and click the “Show Lightroom Presets Folder” button to open the Lightroom Folder.

2) Now go into the Lightroom Folder. Then go into the Develop Preset folder.

3) UNZIP the file you downloaded from the bottom of this post.

4) Copy and paste the “.lrtemplate” files into the Local Adjustment Presets folder.

5) Restart Lightroom

I also shoot a lot of white and/or black backgrounds of recent, and I have developed these Adjustment Brush(k) presets to use with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

White Background Blowout effect, before and after

Black Background Darken effect, before and after. By the way, if you can’t see the difference of blacks, you might need to recalibrate your monitor.

To install,

1) Navigate to your Lightroom presets folder. The easiest way to do this is to go to Lightroom’s preferences by clicking the Lightroom menu and choosing Preferences (PC: Edit > Preferences). Then choose the Presets tab and click the “Show Lightroom Presets Folder” button to open the Lightroom Folder.

2) Now go into the Lightroom Folder. Then go into the Local Adjustment Presets folder.

3) UNZIP the file you downloaded from the bottom of this post.

4) Copy and paste the “.lrtemplate” files into the Local Adjustment Presets folder.

5) Restart Lightroom

To use, simply select Adjustment Brush while you are in Develop module, or simply tap the K key on the keyboard. Select ‘Background Darken-MF’ from the Effects dropdown. Simply paint it over the background for the effect. I also like to toggle Auto Mask for the edge detection. You can also view the mask overlay by tapping the O key.