Hin's Photo Corner

I am constantly in struggles in not picking up any of my film cameras. However, they do speak in a silent voice for a photographer for a picture, a stroll in my neighborhood, a story to be told, a poem in the making, a song to be sung and a journey to be discovered. I am in the crossroads in falling in love with digital and films at the same time. And I wish I have the all the time as a full time professional who can fund my hobbies without guilt. Time and Money are the constraints in the hobby.

It is not my Dell, not my Macbook but my Pentax is calling me for actions. But it is expensive to fund my photography hobby as an enthusiast. All the gear, accessories and film processing put a dampen effect on the hobby. I keep asking for practical means others have thought about in funding their hobbies. And I have added three Affiliates marketing banner in my blog page on the sidebar. Please help support this site through your future potential purchases of photography gear and accessories from affiliate banner links with BPPhoto, Adorama and Amazon.









Film is always beautiful and intriguing to me along with my digital gear. I got my first roll of Fuji Superia 200 developed and I am surprised with how good color film can help capture the scene in my weekend hiking trip with my Ricoh xr-p and Cosina 55mm f/1.2.









I thought about giving up on my film gear to cut down on cost. And that includes my Pentax 645N and my 35mm film gear. That will help in cost but likely to suck huge time in my hobby. If you check on my past gear and knowing what I have been through in various control exercises as in three months LBA moratorium in the past, they don't particularly work well for me. I always love trying out something different, be it on film or digital. And I surely love to blog about them in this blog to share my experience with others. I know that gear hunting is not photography and having another lens or another camera won't do a thing in improving my skills in photography. But I see the lame excuse of freedom, excitement and enthusiasm with a strange tool that invites me to explore with pictures and journey to be untold. I do extend my dilemma with my readers and I ask for your help to consider your future potential purchases of photography gear and accessories with affiliate links that you see on this blog. Your help and continued support is very much appreciated.


Related:

• Ricoh xr-p
  
• Cosina 55mm f/1.2
• Pentax 645N
  
• FotoExpress in San Jose
• Hin's Past Gear -- LBA/CBA shameful
  
• Hin's Camera Gear
  

I don't have as much traffic as RH blog. I write mainly to share my photography experiences and RH of course reports all problems and issues with his added opinions, measurebation, and spins on various reported issues and problems. He is the ultimate measubator and I am totally not. I respect him as a friend, but I don't agree with him on his untiring work in stepping down on Pentax.

I checked today based on a Mozilla Firefox plugin called Quick Search Status. I have surpassed RH blog by a margin today. It is too early to celebrate until I can confirm my Alexa ranking further. But here are what the plug-in reported to me in my Firefox browsing of my blog and that of RH home page.

Hin's Tech Corner: http://www.techtheman.com

• Google page rank: 0/10 (I have 0 rank, yet to be resolved with Google)
• Alexa rank: 452,745
• mozRank: 4.0

RiceHigh blog: http://ricehigh.blogspot.com

• Google page rank: 3/10
• Alexa rank: 593,690
• mozRank: 3.67

Just a tiny bit of success that I overjoy at the moment. I want to share my enthusiasm with Pentaxian. I can' beat RH in terms of his popularity but at least I can chip in to praise Pentax for what it is good at and the Pentax credits that are long due from its consumers and bloggers who value them fairly. And in my blog, I have included all other Pentaxian blogs that can share a fair view on photography along with Pentax gear, you can see all the Pentaxian blogs update and the list will only get longer as I am going to make more Pentaxians friends to share our concerted efforts in appreciating Pentax gear on a fair basis.

RH has become a friend of mine and I do respect him as a good blogger and a kind friend to me in the blogging community. I was wrong about a month ago trying to wage a war with RHTrashyGreen campaign with trashy and insulting wording wanting to defend Pentax and its community to his onslaught of efforts seemingly stepping down on Pentax gear with issues and with much success in his popularity.

His work in his blog does hold Pentax accountable to all the reported issues and known problems and we should consider that as a plus to certain degree to the Pentax community. We don't need to react with doubts and hate but rather let Pentax reacts to his reports to come out with another k-7 that is better than k-7, another k-x that can be more bold than the current k-x, and perhaps a 645D that an average Joe in us can save up for. Well for the latter, maybe in retirement bidding on impulse on a 645D parts-only-and-as-is and hopping our next generation as in my two boys have gotten a degree close enough to fix it up for HinTheMan in retirement.

RH comments to me in my blog is exceptionally kind as we do share common interest in appreciating some of the Pentax gear in the past such as his Pentax F* 300mm f/4.5, Pentax K100D, and probably many of his precious babies -- the Pentax prime lenses. He is a unique person with a character we may not understand. It is quite difficult to be kind to him and his work but I will do my part to be open and treat him with honor and respect whenever I can. As I learned from his comments, this world can do better with less hatred but with friendship, warmth, and kindness.

And before I end this blog post, I have a YouTube video showing how ugly that a fight can go and I vouch not to fight as in this Hong Kong movie, both superstars in Hong Kong were no longer with us. Instead, I will invite RH to enjoy the movie with me and we can engage our similar and yet very different approach and objectives in blogging with Pentax products.


I invite my readers to be open minded and kind to RiceHigh as he has done that to me and others who are open minded.


Related:

• Quirk Search Status -- FireFox Add-on download
• Approaching 400K Pageviews with Despair -- Hin's Tech Corner
  
• RiceHigh Blog reaching 1 million Page View -- RiceHigh blog
  
• Yoda Meets Pentax -- Swear No More and Bash No More
• Pentax K-x tagged blog posts
• Pentax K-7 tagged blog posts
• Pentax 645N
• Pentax K100D
  
• Hin's Camera Gear
  

It is unusual for me to talk about something not related to lenses, cameras and what I have learned in photography. If you are the regular visitors who look for another blog post of camera equipment, you have to bear with me for some minor changes. I am not an environmentalist but as a photographer, I visit Wild Life Refuge and Park with regular tours for visitors like me to get closer to our natural environment. I am extremely thankful to volunteers who spend their valuable time in educating the current and next generation on the importance of conservation of our environment. Be it in conservation of our natural resources and learning to save our environment with use of renewable energy and fuel's alternatives, and urgenct with global climate changes, I am supportive of measures that preserve our natural environment as well as our natural resources.

I am as naive as I can be as I am somewhat confused as to who to listen to and trust for advice, what is true behind the scientific data numbers and what are really at stakes in our environment. What are the simple things that we all as citizens of the earth can do today that we won't regret in the future? What are the odds that if we don't react responsibly today and that our future generation can still enjoy the parks the same way that we enjoy them today with great pictures and videos? I am taking an unusual initiative and step to study and learn as much as I can on environment and include my findings as part of my blogging articles. I want to be informed and make conscious choices in voting on particular environmental issues in California and educate myself and my family to go green in living and pick up our duties in conserving energy usage and find affordable means of transportation and renewable energy. I don't own a Hybrid car such as the Toyota Prius as I find them not as economical as I thought they would be. Is there other alternative that are both safe and cost effective to consider?

Every time that I see a mallard pair, I become the duck-aholic photographer. I shot all these green shots last weekend with Tamron 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 Di LD Macro and I can't imagine someday that our environment become hostile to many animals that we can hardly find them in their natural habitats or the trees are no longer as green as they should be




I am studying home simple remedies that are energy efficient and start to find places that I can recycle batteries properly. Some of the studies that I plan to look up

• Solar power panel, is it cost effective? I talked to Sun Solar Power in a presentation in San Mateo, it is not if I plan to live in the residence in less than 5 year time frame, it has to be at least 7 years.
• About energy efficient light bulbs, which are the best. I am dumb founded to find many of my energy light bulbs to fail shorter than the claimed hours, darn it.
• How come an average Japanese person is using 1/2 of energy as compared to average person in US. I am learning about this in http://californiareport.org/ and http://www.kqed.org/news/climatewatch/ with this wonderful article Keeping up with the Sakakis in Japan
• There is so much that we can learn from the Japanese who stay focused in reduction on energy consumption. However, with the onslaught of electronic devices, what are the guidelines to watch for consumer electronics? Do our industry set guidelines for electronic devices.
  
• How truthful is the inconvenient truth documentary that I watched in awe and got aspired from our previous vice president with Al Gore. Youtube clip in next paragraph.
  

I always like to shoot green tree leaves in back-lit scene and the brilliant light shining through the leaves vividly gives me comfort and inspiration for a green initiative that has come alive in my blog. Please join me in paying close attention to our natural environment and make it our daily efforts to think, plan and preserve our environments that we have no regrets in leaving our footprints for the future generations to come.

I want to celebrate the milestone but I really can't. I am lost with this blog and I am about to give up on improving the blog, there is essentially no feedback from any users visiting this blog. I have asked my Pentax buddies to give me clues and critiques to improve the blog. I have removed the voting widget in soliciting ideas after getting a meager 2 votes in a month. Thanks in particular to the two buddies who have actually voted. It is like crying out loud repeatedly for help and I am talking to thin air with no reply, not even an echo in a remote distance that shows somebody actually cares. It is sad and sickening to the bones why I can't get help from friends. Tonight, I do feel like a pathetic pig with no idea where I am heading in order to raise readership for the blog.

What is wrong with my blog page that no body leaves any comment. There is close to zero user engagement. Maybe my blog page has a bug in the commenting section as Robin has mentioned a couple of times. Please try it again as I have removed word verification in the comment set up.

My face will be purple if I reveal my subscriber count. Thanks to those readers who actually subscribe to my blog. In appreciation, I am coming up with give away to subscribers in the months ahead. I can't figure what to offer but here are working gear that I have thought about

• A working Pentax Super Program with user manual
• A nice and cute Super Lantar 28mm f/2.8 in M42 mount
• A working copy of Vivitar 283 Thyristor flash
• A Sunpak 433 Thyristor flash
• A new copy of Spectra Light Flash Diffuser
• A REI ultrapod II mini-tripod
• A micro-tools wet cleaning toolkit
  

among the gear that I have. If you have not subscribed, please see the top right links for subscription or that in the bottom banner. For your convenience, here are the links:


To learn more about RSS subscription, I recommend my readers to visit http://problogger.net article on What is RSS? Problogger was found by Darren Rowse whom I get inspired in blogging.

If you are a RSS or Email subscribers, I thank you sincerely for your subscription and please comment on this blog post with your email so that I can include you for my 1st giveaway. Please don't leave me in the dark with no comments and feedback. I will update this blog post for the official date for the giveaway. Also, please do comment if you have any suggestions for the blog. I need critiques for improvements with suggestions and topics of interest. I want to learn photography and reinvent our love of photo along with my readers and subscribers, your comments and suggestions are very much appreciated.

Domain Forwarding
I have an headache with all the migration to a custom domain. Things seems to work for both the old and new domain for my blog post

• old: http://techtheman.blogspot.com
• new: http://www.techtheman.com

but redirection to new domain has not been working yet. When I type in the old address, I expect a 301 redirect to the new domain. I bought the custom domain from Blogspot.com and with some reading in this helpful article from Google, it looks like the domain forwarding will be taken care of. It would have been a more pleasant experience had I read all the instructions before the purchase. And I hope in another day or two, the forwarding will happen naturally.

• How to use Custom Domain in Blogspot

w3c html validation
Another biggest headache is to deal with all the xhtml markup errors from Blogspot. The W3C xhtml validator will give hundreds of errors and it takes insane effort to get it down.

p.s: Image from my flickr contact: meladegypsie


Update:

• It takes 72 hours for the domain forwarding to take place. And now every thing works as expected as my old address now redirects to my custom domain.
  

Related:

• Hin's Photo Bog
• Hin's Website
• iweb for small website
  

I have just upgraded Tech Corner to new format. I hope to gather input from readers. Instead of a green color theme, I choose something that I like in read, black and white.


I did try to resurrect the old green format but nothing clicks. In the process, I try to make my own green banner but it doesn't fit the new format well. It is still very much work in progress. I hope you all like the new format and provide me feedback in the comment. Much thanks to my readers!

Update: I have also upgraded the blog to its custom domain. There will be hours of transition where links may be broken. The new blog will live in custom domain with http://www.techtheman.com.

Photograph ABC is on letter 'H' this week and I have not come up with any interesting H pictures and I find it the appropriate time to have an 'About' post for myself and this blog page in TechTheMan.

Hin is my first name in Chinese. As someone who loves to take photos of others, I have a difficult time to like myself being photographed. Not that I don't trust others, I just feel awkward to ask others for a favor.

Why This Blog
I intend to use this blog to document my journey from p&s to dSLR and things that I have learned along the path in digital photography, blogging, advertising, the web, imaging tools, software and products related to photo editing, publishing and visual arts.

Camera Gear

• Hin's Camera Gear
  

Digital Passions
My digital passions started around Halloween time of 2006 with my Casio when I was visiting mall with my family. That was about the same time that I started this Tech Corner blog. Later I became more interested in digital photography that I upgraded with 2nd p&s in Fuji F30 and I have subsequently upgraded with Pentax K100D and my lens assembly are on the inexpensive side.

Why Advertising
I started this blog with intention to join the Yahoo Publishing Network (YPN) as I have been working for Yahoo as a software engineer in Data Warehouse and Yahoo Search that are related to advertisement. TechTheMan and HinTheMan are essentially my means to reinvent my interests into my work area. Believe it or not, I actually got rejected from YPN and I have turned around and use Google AdSense. After 9 months of casual blogging with 3 month dormant with no blog entries, I reached the $100 mark on July 31, 2007. And I had a man 2 man chat with my older boy who challenged me with a seemingly impossible next goal to reach -- what about $2000, was that much bigger than $100? I have since diversified my advertisement revenue streams with AdBrite, AuctionAds, Commission Junction and ContentLink from Kontera. And the next right thing for me to do is to resubmit my YPN application.

Subscription
You are very welcome to subscribe to my blog page through the Subscribe section on sidebar.

• Subscribe in a reader
  


• Subscribe by Email
  

In blog page banner where you see a text box and a 'Go' button, you can enter a keyword such as Picasa, Pentax, Fuji or Casio to search contents within the blog. A google web search is also available in sidebar after the Subscribe section.

How you can help
Blogging is both fun and time consuming. As of the writing of this blog, there is little at all in terms of financial rewards through advertisement as a publisher. Having an audience whom I can share my learning and my pictures give me the most satisfaction. This blog is a journal of my learning path with digital photography. You can help me greatly by leaving comments in blog post for sharing, encouragement and corrections when necessary. Your comments and feedbacks are highly appreciated. It is priceless in the knowledge gained through studies, research, writing and sharing with you all in this blog.

And please comment and show your support in Digg, Stumble, and Technorati Fav:

• 
  

• 
  
  
• 

If you don't like Ads
You can subscribe through my feedburner RSS feeds in Subcribe section in sidebar. My other "Hin's Photo Blog" has less ads and all ads are limited to text links and you can see more of a photo blog with personal sharing from me.

I am fortunate to receive this Awesome Guy Blogger award from Mrs Nesbitts in her recent entry in her blog. Thank you to Mrs Nesbitts for her efforts in pulling all photographers in the Photograph ABC Wednesday events. One can visit all entries for the events in B, C and D and it is going to be more challenging in the upcoming Wednesday for E.

———————– xXx———————–

I will need to pass my awesome guy blogger award to five other bloggers

Moolanomy tagged me in his “My One Money Advice” (MOMA) Meme. He was inspired by Blog Action Day and he has tagged four other friends for the post. I believe they all do have interesting and insightful posts for 'My One Money Advice.'

I think Pinyo may have tagged the wrong person for the job. If you do everything the opposite of Hin, you will be living in a different universe in parallel with unthinkable amount of money, fame and power. I should be the last person to learn about money advice but rather my many mistakes that I continue to make.

My one advice is not to compare yourself to others and think about Money all the time. While achieving your financial goals, take time to spend with those you love and treasure.


Now that I offer my strangely looking green picture and non-traditional money advice, I want to tag my 5 friends for this "My One Money Advice" -- momoftwicebabies, abhanagar19, myroslimh, Efren A. and Allen

What everyone is saying?

• Pinyo said, “save 10% of your income and make it automatic“
• Paidtwice said, “ignorance does not help you…knowledge is power, and with power you can institute change“
• Being Frugal said, “practice contentment…realize that money and things aren’t going to make you happy“
• Plonkee said, “know yourself“
• Hin said, "Don't think about money all the time"
• Roslimh said, “…not all about money when you want to be successful…..and there are 6 keys….”

I saw this Millionaire For A Day! post from a my BlogCatalog blogger friend Maurica and I try to come up with ideas to join the discussion with meme promotion of blogs.

If I were given a million, I would probably do these:

• Stop blogging for money or use the money earned from blogging to finance some notable causes for humanity efforts such as world vision
  
  
• Visit family in Macau, Hong Kong and New Zealand. Perhaps go visit some new places with my family that I have been always wanting to explore -- Japan and Europe
  
  
• Equip myself for next visions that the Almighty may have revealed to me in better clarity. I am kind of lost at the current moment of my life. I love photography, people and writing. I am constantly asking Him to tell me what He likes me to do. I am still pretty much lost on what I am here on earth for.
  
  
• Spend and restore all of my lost time with my family from working late nights for work projects and the never ending dreams of mine to be wiser, richer, and becoming a better person with a positive attitude and a cheering smile.

Now Hin wants to know what would Steve, WalksFarWoman, Norski, AdTracker, and Pinyo would like to do if they are given $1million

Instructions : ***Start Copy***

Proposition: If you Have $1,000,000.00…………………………
Requirements: continue above sentences
Tag Mode: 5 bloggers
Link: Add your anchor and post link below.


What They Do With Their $1 Million

Come July 31, 2007, it was my defining moment seeing a balance over 2 digits. Yeah!!! I finally made it to $100 and I look forward to the celebration with my older boy whom I have a cute Man 2 Man about AdSense conversation. He sort of challenged me in asking when I would make it to $2000. With some renewed energy and insights learned from mistakes, I am charged to meet that seemingly impossible goal. $2000 it is!!! Thanks to my son for the challenge and the manly chat.

My last $40 was made from mid June to July and that was the time when I joined up MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog for community support as well as social networking. And I am here to start an AdSense $100 Movement in which I am picking friends from network who are yet to make that $100 paycheck from Google AdSense. When it comes to AdSense payment, I almost want to use the F word but it is nowhere near enough in calming the frustration that I have with the program. Unlike everyone who brags about their success, I can brag about the misery and frustration in making that $100 mark that AdSense imposes on publishers to reach for the 1st payment.

In order to help all of my friends in BlogCatalog to make that mark, we can all chip in to help with backlinks, I start picking three friends to blog about their blogs and let's pass on that movement from all people who made the $100 mark to all those slaving for that 1st $100 mark. Here are first my first three picks for AdSense $100 Movement started in this BlogCatalog Discussion by me

• Blog Cabin I really like this movie review site. It is presented nicely and I trust the ratings in this blog. A lot of detailed information along with good and honest writing.
  
  
• Where is that money I normally don't like reading any blogs that has a 'money' title on it. I will be very suspicious of those blogs. But my friend Gerri has done an excellent job doing all the hardwork in providing valuable information for his audience.
  
  
• Daisy the Curly Cat If you are a cat and animal lover, you have got to visit Daisy' blog. It is a nice find for me to see all the wonderful pictures of a curly cat. Extremely cute and refreshing.

And for all those people that I pick, you are not required to link back but I urge you to pass on the links to two of your fellow bloggers who are yet to make that $100 mark and one other blogger who have posted for this AdSense $100 Movement.

Participating Blog List (to be updated for new comers):

I am a big fan of statcounter and you can see statcounter celebration post that I have posted sharing the excitement of statcounter award from BusinessWeek. In the week to come, I will spend time to write up how I use statcounter free traffic reporting to help me understand my audience.

The above is the summary report that I count on daily and it is current up to the minute. It is absolutely amazing to say the least that statcounter can track the traffic for my blogs at real time. It tells me traffic elements that matters to me in a snapshot

• Page Loads -- it refers essentially as pageviews that I understand with the data mining work that I have worked on.
  
  
• Unique Visitors -- unique visitors to my blog or site.
  
  
• Returning Visitors -- visitors who return to my blog

Related Post:

• Statcounter Celebration
  

Congratulation to the statcounter team in getting the reward from BusinessWeek. They absolutely deserve this award more than anyone else. I would blog about statcounter in future posts. I have been using statcounter to keep track of traffic to my two blogs. I use their free service and I am amazed with the quality of service and how detailed and wonderful a job they do in their real time reporting system of traffic to my blogs. Kudos to the work and dedication of the team. Though a small number of readers of my blog, I hope this post helps with the excitement, celebration and recognition that statcounter team truly deserves. I am extremely thrilled to see statcounter getting this reward.

Related Posts:

• statcounter summary
  

My older son had a man to man chat with me two nights ago and we discussed what we would do with the first $100 advertising revenue from Google AdSense, I ponder for a moment and asked him where he would like me to take him out for celebration -- a dinner or something. And he immediately asked me when I would make it to $2000. And I was so embarrassed to tell him that in the current rate of how my blog pages are going, that would only happen in 20 years. And he is so cute in following up with me that he thinks $100 is a lot of money and we should celebrate it wholeheartedly for the $0.01 sum of money accumulated from the $$$ empire behind AdSense.

And my younger son is just as cute. He keeps non-stop saying 'Oooooh Man' with me and he probably picks it up from me every time I login to my AdSense account.