This is the McDonald that I visit almost every other day when I commute with Y! Shuttle to work. It is quite unique and I use Picasa Focal B&W in post processing

And this is perhaps not as kool as the Stanford McDonald that I pictured before with a Piano playing music in business hours, this McDonald has its own charm with antique style furniture, beautiful lighting and high ceiling. And best of all, I can use internet and ypn from AT&T WiFi to start working while waiting for the Yahoo Shuttle commuting to work. The other place that I visit in the morning with WiFi service is Mission Coffee.

And all Yahoo Commute Shuttles provides WiFi to the communters. I am online throughout my wait for the shuttle as well as boarding on the shuttle.

Related Posts:

• Picasa
• Picasa Focal B&W Demo
• Picasa Focacl B&W
• Picasa Filtered B&W
• Picasa Histogram
• Hand holding with F30

I love taking pictures and I like this shot of Ben overlooking the entrance to Children Discovery Museum. He is looking into his bright future.

I almost want to find a Bible verse or a short writing as in a poem and poetry for the picture. But I am pressured on time and my lack of daily devotion really punches me in not finding that very verse that I have in mind.

Related Posts:

• Picasa
• Picasa Focacl B&W
• Picasa Focal B&W Demo
• Picasa Filtered B&W
• Picasa Histogram

My family is very fortunate to live nearby the Ardenwood Historic Farm and it is a place we frequently visit for weekend activity with my kids. And it is the place where I shot the Stubborn Peacock in previous posts.

Both Ben & Wes have a fun time in the daily program from visiting the Chicken Coup for egg collection to feeding various animals. And they sure enjoy playing with the old water pump and sitting in the hay stack.

I enjoy doing simple post procssing in Picasa. I especially like Picas Focal B&W and the simple feature in turning a colored picture into black & white. For B&W photo, I use the 'tuning' section in Picasa to turn up on shadow to give thealternation a more contrasty look. Though Picasa may not be as powerful as other paid software, it sure gives me enough features to use on an everyday basis with my photo blog. The 'Effect' section in Picasa lets me produce a different picture every single time.

I am somewhat bored in a wedding banquet and I keep shooting pictures with the candle, flower and wine bottle on the table. I find Picasa Focal B&W very helpful in changing similar pictures to a different tone and mood. It is very nice to get such a wonderful feature on a free tool. Suprisingly good.

After the Picasa review, the Effects in focal b&w has become my favorite of use in Picasa. I hope I am not over-using the feature. But when I get bored, I shoot roughly the similar subjects and the Focal B&W comes in handy in creating a different picture based on the same subject. I am novice and this feature adds another dimension to my amateur shooting skills.

Upon turning a picture to Focal B&W, the program in Picasa allows you to change the subject of coloring and provides you the size to alter the circular dimension of the coloring subject of your choice. After the application of Focal B&W effect, I usually go back and adjust the 'highlight', 'fill light' and 'shadow' in 'Tuning' section.

Going to the mall is not my favorite activities but with two kids, visiting mall is the easiest thing to do for a tired Mom and Dad. It is my very first time that I take along my point and shoot and go wild in shooting a bunch of pictures in a mall. My casio ex-z750 sometimes has problems in low light pictures at home. In the series, I shot all pictures without flash and turn up the ev compensation to +0.3 and post process in Picasa afterwards.

And with the first time experience in taking over 30+ pictures, going to a mall will become a different kind of experience for me from now on. My passion has been taking pictures in things that I run into, capturing a wonderful glimse of a moment, an object that gets my attention, or anything that looks interesting and artistic. I am very surprised with the 2 hours photographing experience in the mall. While looking for objects to picture on, I realize that the mall is surrounded by photographic works done by professionals -- it is learning tool to observe what professionals have done in the mall. It is simply a display of quality works and arts for commercials.

I am quite happy with the experience. My casio ex-z750 doesn't disappoint by much. And I get great help from Picasa in post processing on some under or over exposed pictures, and Picasa provides special effects for black & white as well as soft focus, and focal black & white.

I have a write up on Picasa in my Tech Corner blog page, it is a wonderful editing tool that everyone can grasp without a long learning curve.

I should have washed my kids' favorite fisher-price toy in their bath time. Before I returned my Pentax FA 50 f/1.4, I took a series of photo for this toy hanging in my shower door. My kids are still enjoying it like the first day they had it. And I continue to experiment with Picasa highlight to give the toy images a blown out background such as this third picture post processed in Picasa by raising highlight to completely wash out the back-lit background.

Links:

• BlogCatalog discussion
• Last week on 'E'
• Picasa Highlight
  
  

Photograph ABC on 8/29/2007:

• Fisher Price Toy | Four Letters 'F' | Foliage |
  15 from Mrs Nesbitts | Football | Flag |
  Flying Dogs | Friendship | Ferris Wheel |
  Fortress | Football | Falcon |
  Fish Market | Finger Spelling | Fish Pose |
  Fireplace | Family | Four Wheel Drive |
  Fence | Fristers | Fierce Firefighter |
  Fiat & Fried Egg | Fables |
  
  

Picture taken with Pentax FA 50 f/1.4

Hand-Held 1/2 sec, f/5.0, iso 400, 0 Ev
Post procesed with Picasa Focal B&W

Not that I am a big fan of Jack In The Box, I took this shot for a personal reason going back in time to my past and the beginning career as a software engineer. My first job while in college was in a small software company, Horstmann Software Design Corp., which at one time was located in downtown of San Jose next to a Jack In The Box.

It was the good old time that I worked as a student of Dr. Cay Horstmann along with my best friends and classmates in College in Dr. Hortsmann's privately owned software company selling ChiWriter, a scientific word processor, and I am proud to be one of the few core engineers. I am a person of the past and this picture surely reminds me of the good old time working in the upper floor of a 2 story Victorian house next to a Jack In The Box and I missed all the laughters and late night works along with my best friends and buddies with Bing, Nhi, Jenny, Raymond, and many good old friends including my first boss and my best college professor with Dr. Cay Horstmann. I miss all of my buddies in college time as well as the smell from Jack In The Box. It was in that Victorian house office that I got my first full time job after college and my US Permanent Residence. I thought of friends and co-workers that I have not had a chance to get acquainted over the years after Horstmann Software -- Calvin, Felix, Anny, Beneta, Christina and her brother and sister, April, May, Hong, Lei Hong, Michael, Tony, Peter, Margaret, Lucinda, Tracy, Max (Jochen Weiss), Hugh, Keith, Josie, Cynthia, Kwan, and perhaps few other names that I have missed unintentionally.

Surely I can smell the cheese burger in that late night picture of Jack In The Box. And it reminds me of my hours leaving work for school and home. This post is dedicated to all of my buddies and best friends in Horstmann Software.

Links:

• BlogCatalog discussion
• Last week on Inhaler -- Ben's Nebulizer
  
• Photograph ABC Wednesday Blogroll
  
  

Picture taken with Photosniper Tair-3 PhS 300mm f/4.5
converted to b&w and cold tone in Picasa

Photo taken with Pentax K20D and
Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 1:2.3 DC Macro

Our family visited the Don Edward San Francisco Bay Wildlife Refuge and we had met the wonderful volunteer tour guide June. We ran into a tree with all leaves dried up and June mentioned that the tree turned its leaves all dried in a matter of few weeks due to the hot weather and she let us see the new cycle of life in the new buds forming around the small branch ends. It was an outstanding nature walk tour that both my boys, wife and I enjoy in the weekend.

Photo taken with Pentax DA 50-200

I manage to find an original picture not post processed by Picasa. Now that I get used to organizing and do simple retouching with Picasa, I sometime don't even remember which pictures are original photo straight out from my camera. This is my first post participating photohunt with this weekly theme set for 'original'.

PhotoHunt

I have this photo sitting for about 2 months in my Fuji F30. Once I put some retouching in Picasa. The light blue sky comes out very pretty and unique. I wish to go back to that park next spring near Highway 84 and Ardenwood in Fremont.

Related Posts:

• Picasa 'I am feeling lucky'
• Fremont Photos
  

Picture is taken with Fuji F30 and pp in Picasa

I want to follow up on the AdSense $100 Movement with a new train trying to get participation from others in blogging on notable blogs of their friends so that a link train can be included for backlinks in the promotion of new blogs that are working hard to make it to the $100 mark or the subsequent $100 marks. Here are my blogs of notice that I have reviewed:

• Apathetic Lemming of the North
  I especially like this blog for its good writing and diverse topics covered by my good friend Norski whom I have met in BlogCatalog. It covers many diverse topics that bloggers like myself can read up on to gain insightful knowledge into the unique world of blogging.
  
  
• Moolanomy
  This is a finance blog that I truly admire with my BlogCatalog friend Pinyo. I admire at the content as well as the layout of this blog. Navigation is at ease and the blog posts are concise and provide insightful discussions on personal finance topics. Always a great read for me when I visit this blog
  
  
• EBestAgent
  I have been wanting to find the third blog for this AdSense $100 movement. EBestAgent is one of the most interesting blogs that I have visited. It always has a post that I can share a laugh and there is a lot of interesting bits that I can gather in visiting the site. You won't be disappointed in visiting http://www.ebestagent.com.
  

• 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.

Now Hin wonders what blogs of notice worthy of recommendation to others from his following 5 friends:

• AdSenseTracker
• KDarrell
• RossHetherington
  
• Aizaz World
• To Be Announced
  

Instructions : ***Start Copy***

Proposition: Have a blog post to blog about other blogs that you recommend. You can choose one or more blogs in your post.

Tag Mode: Tag 5 of your blogger friends and include them in the train when they submit for this AdSense $100 Movement Train

Link Train: Add your anchor and post link for the AdSense $100 Movement posts below.

Blogroll for paticipants: (to be updated for new comers)

• Hin's Photo Blog
  
• Hin's Tech Blog
• Next participant
  

Instructions : ***End Copy**

And please inform the owner of your train when you have a post so that update can be done timely to include everyone on the train.

My video camcorder Canon ZR 50 finally gets a new bag as a close out item in Circuit City. I paid $6.50 out the door, I still couldn't believe it. It is a perfect fit and I used my camcorder over the weekend in Children Discovery Museum with my boys.

Related Posts:

• Hin's Camera Bag -- with diapers, similac baby bottle insulator.
• Joby Gorillapod
• Picasa 'I am feeling lucky'

The picture was taken in Treasure Island with my Fuji f30 with a Joby Gorillapod. And I like the black & white version that I get from Picasa.

We had very simple celebration with sweet Ben. He is the joy in my life. He is more than thrilling with the small birthday cake and the simple Pappa Murphy bake-at-home pizza. A lot of laugh is shared with his older brother in both the pizza and the cake. And he offers his signature kiss with his Mom.



All pictures are taken with Pentax K100D and Pentax FA 50 f/1.4 without use of flash. White Balance is using Tungsten preset WB. And all shots are post processed in Picasa to bring out the color with 'I am feeling lucky/Auto Color/Auto Contrast.'

Picture was taken with Pentax FA 50 f/1.4
and 'pp' in Picasa with Highlight & Focal B&W

Picture taken with Fuji F30
Post Processed with Picasa Sepia

Picture taken with Fuji F30 in San Francisco Airport and I use Picasa focal b&w, cropping, sharpening and lighting tunning

Why this Blog
Unlike my Hin's Tech Corner where I document my journey form p&s to dSLR and things that I have learned along the path in digital photography, this blog is my personal journal. All writings, photographs, and videos are my digital capture of special memories. This blog is a display of my love in photography and my family and you will certainly see my two lovely children and occasionally my beautiful wife in the blog. I love my family and part of the reason in starting this blog is to capture the special memories that I have with them in our daily lives. There are the negative moments in my daily struggles but hopefully my positive postings will overshadow those negative moments and make them unnoticed.

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 Advertisement
I started this photo 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 instead. Unlike my Tech Corner blog, I limit all advertisement to text base and have them as least intrusive as I can arrange them in this personal journal.

Subscription & Search
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's sidebar titled "blog search" section, 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.