All that matters

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how

2012-01-12T13:09:00.000+08:00

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Cambodia (3) - Bayon Temple巴戎寺， Angkor Thom 大吴哥城

2011-11-30T11:03:00.001+08:00

Photos taken in June 2011

Can't print to Microsoft Office Document Image Writer in Tiff format

2011-11-29T20:41:00.001+08:00

After I installed some MS Office updates, I can't find the option to print to Microsoft Office Document Image Writer in Tiff format. I search and found a suggestion to remove and reinstall the "Microsoft Office Document Imaging" under Office Tools. The steps as below:

1. Close all running applications. If you have any Office application running, the driver will not be installed properly.
2. Go to the "Control Panel" and "Add or Remove Programs".
3. Click on"Microsoft Office 2003" and then click on "Change".
4. Check "Add or Remove Features" and click "Next".
5. On the bottom of the page check "Choose advanced customization of applications." and click "Next".
6. Under Microsoft Office click on the + sign in front of "Office Tools"
7. Locate "Microsoft Office Document Imaging", click the icon and select "Not Available".
8. Click on "Update". This will uninstall the MODI driver.
9. Repeat steps 1 to 6 to go back to the same location you were before.
10. Locate the object "Microsoft Office Document Imaging", click the icon and select "Run from My Computer".
11. Click on "Update".

However, I can't find the option to do the above steps in Microsoft Office 2010, hence I perform the above steps from Microsoft Office 2003, since I have both versions installed on my computer.

Apparently the above suggestion only works if you are on MS Office 2003 or 2007.

On further search I found that the Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI) is removed in Microsoft Office 2010.

The resolution from Microsoft is as below:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982760

Cambodia (2) - Angkor Wat (小吳哥窟)

2011-11-26T11:32:00.001+08:00

Photos taken in June 2011

To travel is to live

2011-11-22T10:40:00.001+08:00

Photo taken in May 2010, while travelling on board the China Qinghai-Tibet train.

"To move, to breath, to fly, to float,
To gain all while you give,
To roam the roads of lands remote: To travel is to live. "

Hans Christian Andersen
April 2, 1805 - August 4, 1875

Cambodia (1) - Ta Prohm Temple (塔不伦寺）

2011-11-02T10:10:00.001+08:00

Photos taken at Ta Prohm Temple, Cambodia in June 2011

Entrance to the temple

Root of the trees had grown into the building.

这就是从容

2011-10-31T10:29:00.002+08:00

在事情与事情之间，找到自己的空间，这就是从容。--蒋勳

Life is like riding a bicycle

2011-09-10T10:07:00.000+08:00

Life is like riding a bicycle, in order to keep your balance, you must keep moving.
— Albert Einstein

Photo: Taken at Namtso Lake, Tibet, 2010

Retirement . . . working at living

2011-07-18T09:09:00.000+08:00

Retirement . . . is when you stop living at work and begin working at living.

— Unknown happy retired person

Photo: Taken while travelling on the road in Tibet, 2010

慢慢活，才快活。

2011-07-05T18:17:00.001+08:00

汉语里，忙，这个字很有意思，左面是心，右面是亡。太忙了，心就死了。

Photo: Taken at Angkor Wat, Cambodia, June 2011.

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

2011-06-14T22:00:00.001+08:00

Angkor Wat, Cambodia Slideshow: Gan’s trip from Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia to Siem Reap, Cambodia was created by TripAdvisor. See another Siem Reap slideshow. Take your travel photos and make a slideshow for free.

In age we understand

2011-03-22T23:41:00.001+08:00

“In youth we learn, in age we understand”

– Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

What lies within us

2011-02-24T23:42:00.002+08:00

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (American Poet, 1803-1882)

Photo: Taken at Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, May 2010.

Happiness from within

2011-02-04T12:18:00.003+08:00

A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.— Soren Kierkegaard

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard 齊克果 (1813-1855) , Danish social and political thinker.

Photo: Mongolia, 2007

Friends are like the walls

2011-01-26T19:55:00.003+08:00

Friends are like the walls of a house. Sometimes they hold you up, sometimes you lean on them. But sometimes, it's enough to know they're just standing by.

[Not sure who said this, if anyone knows, please leave me with a comment. I would like to mention where the quote comes from.]

Photo: Taken in Tibet, May 2010.

The secret of getting things done

2011-01-11T09:23:00.006+08:00

The secret of getting things done is to act!

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

Italian Poet

Photo: Taken one morning in Beijing, while visiting in 2002. The man is practicing calligraphy using water, and this also serves as his morning exercise.

Change the world, change yourself

2011-01-07T10:23:00.002+08:00

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910)

Photo Story 3 for Windows

2010-12-12T18:53:00.005+08:00

When making videos from digital photos, I always find that the file size is too big. Hence I have been searching and testing with some tools, looking for a way to make the video file smaller in size.

Last week I found a free progam from Microsoft, i.e Photo Story. The result video file has a very good image quality and a much smaller in size, compare with what I get from using Windows Movie Maker or Picasa 3. The Photo Story is a simpler tool, comapre with the other two, but it does serve my purpose most of the time.

Two things I found not very flexible about the Photo Story 3 are:

1) I have to do it photo by photo if I want to change the display duration for each photo display in the video.

2) If I want to make use of my own selected song, there is no option to make the song fits the whole video length. I have to manually calculate to make sure the number of photos with my desired display duration and the music/song fits well.

To resolve the first problem, I found a tool to help. It is the Tweak P S - Photo Stoy Tweak Tool.

For the second problem, I have not found a quick fix as yet.

If you are interested in the above tools, they are available at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/default.mspx

http://www.windowsphotostory.com/TweakPS/

Maxwell Hill (Bukit Larut) - Nov 2010

2010-12-04T10:20:00.003+08:00

Maxwell Hill (it's called Bukit Larut now) as I preferred to call it, is a hill resort situated in Taiping, in the state of Perak, Malaysia. It is at 1250 metre above sea level.

I was there with some old friends for a 3 days 2 night stay. It rained in the afternoon and hence it gets quite misty. This is a good place to get away from the city for a quiet and close to nature break. The last time I was there was many many years ago. Without TV, shops, and commercial facilities, I enjoy the stay much much better than I had with other travelling trips of which the places are usually too commercialized.

There were talks about cable car project to be built in this hill. I hope it won't happened so as to preserve it's natural and tranquility ambience.

Tibet - May 2010

2010-10-14T16:50:00.004+08:00

Madness of investors

2010-09-30T11:27:00.003+08:00

Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, 'I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.' If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases.

Quoted from:

Berkshire Hathaway 2005 Chairman's Letter

Warren E. Buffett

Chairman of the Board

Disk defragmentation tool

2010-09-27T09:56:00.003+08:00

Last weekend I was preparing to defragment my computer's harddisk. I first tried the tool that comes with Windows Vista, and found that it does not show the animated progress status anymore. That means I can't see how much the harddisk is fragmented and what is the analysis anymore and I don't feel comfortable with that.

I then searched for a 3rd party tool that would serve my need and found the Auslogics Disk Defrag. Downloaded and installed it. Tried it and it works fine! And I actually find that it works quite fast.

So if you are looking for a defragmentation tool, you may want to take a look at this one at:

http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/

It is one of the free tool provided by Auslogics. They also have other utility programs such as for finding duplicate files on your system, clean up the registry, and for recovery. Some are available for free and some needs to be purchase.

A relax and peaceful Sunday afternoon

2010-09-12T20:16:00.004+08:00

A cup of Chinese tea, and a piece of crispy sesame seed/red bean paste pastry. Made my afternoon! Somehow I just enjoy this nothing to do, and a very peaceful afternoon, and the pastry is much much better than I have expected.

nazar boncuk - amulet against evil eye

2010-06-29T13:52:00.003+08:00

This is a souvenir given by a friend who recently visited Turkey. This is a amulet against evil eye which is easily found all over Turkey, it seems. It could be used as a bracelet, erring, necklace etc, etc. Turkish people would hanged it in places such as in their house, officce or their cars. It should be blue and look like an eye. Different sizes can be found and the shape is usually round. The name of this in Turkish is nazar boncuk.

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?

2010-04-06T14:25:00.002+08:00

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four--- calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg…

Abraham Lincoln