Remember those days where you have to call overseas and you ended up with a bombastic phone bill? Then you realized that by getting an IDD card, you can save tons of money. That's when iTalk IDD card start helping all of us who need to make international calls. iTalk recently launched a web portal called iTalkWhoa at italkwhoa.com. What it does is you can use any iTalk cards that you purchase at those shops with the iTalk sign in the website after you create your account. Now you will have a one stop portal for ALL your accounts and I mean ALL, from email accounts to facebook, twitter, RSS readers and you can even make calls within this very portal! You can also reload your card here.  After you have created an account, you need to activate your account and you will be immediately credited with RM 5 free of charge! Then you login, and you can begin adding in your emails like so. It’s just this easy!  Other than that, you can also specify a PushMail rule. Let’s say everytime I get an email regarding orders from my Shop I want iTalkWhoa to send me an sms to notify me. I can do it here.  I can also use the RSS Feeds to subscribe to my favourite blogs and everytime they have a new post, I will receive the post as an email right here at iTalkWhoa.  Under Contacts, I can also add my Chat accounts from gtalk to msn and I will have my very own chat messenger in iTalkWhoa. All my contacts will be visible as well. Cool huh?  Then I can login to my Twitter account by clicking on Credentials. Now I can tweet from my iTalkwhoa page!  Then I tried the SMS feature, now I can blast sms-es real quick just by typing on my Mac using my iTalk account. I can sms to any number in the world. :D  The coolest feature I feel, is the international phone dialer. I can dial right from my Mac and the billing will be deducted from my iTalk card. That’s alot of features!! The developers of iTalkWhoa! made great effort to ensure that this new web-app is as user friendly as possible, I only had to check the manual once for the Twitter login setup. A feature that I would really like to have is video calls in this application cuz what this app resembles is somewhat like a computer set up with all the social networks, emails, phones, chats and calendar for you already. So those people who are non iPhone/Blackberry will get to enjoy all these features with iTalkWhoa! all in one application. I am gonna try this for some time and see if it’s good! Stay tuned! |
Mar 31, 2010
Italk is going online!
Mar 18, 2010
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Jan 18, 2010
Win Maybelline Magnum Mascara
Na. go win by commenting!
Click please. don't don't click :p
Faster send in ur entries for the Baby Doll Competition!!
Jan 15, 2010
Competitions and such
Just received the first submission for the Baby Doll Competition. You guys can now vote. For those who havent submitted their entries, what are you waiting for? The earlier you guys submit, the more time you have to vote for yourself and other entries.
Will be updating with a review and another competition. check back at the .info site k...
For those still subscribed to the news feed of this blogspot, go over to the new site and resubscribe to the new feed there.
I am getting weary of double posting here and there liao... Help me out n relink n such k.. thanks..
Just one note : I will not be taking this blogspot down cuz it has good google ranks and good links that can get me links to my .info.. but there will come a day when i dulan and just shut this blogspot down.
Jan 12, 2010
Dell Design Studio : Make it Yours!
:D:D:D:D
Happies** Do you know why I love design so much? It is because of the fact that when I can foresee my end result being so awesomesauce and that causes my heart to go into an adrenaline rush until I finish my work. I haven't felt like this for a long time!
Thank god for Dell, they have this new line of laptops called Design Studio Laptop (sounds so me!!) which is delightfully affordable and compact! I am looking at the 16" one, the monster out of the Design Studio family. It comes with Windows 7 and 3gb RAM. 3gb and its DDR3 too. Hmm, for those who don't understand computer jargons, RAM is like a short-term memory storage of a human. The bigger it is, the more it can store, the faster your computer can multitask. Then, there is the hard disk space which is like a space for keeping objects and files. The Design Studio comes with 320 gb hard disk space, that's equivalent to roughly 450 copies of 700mb movies.
The little things that made this laptop so amazing is the 3 usb-ports, backlit keyboard, Blu-ray DVD drive and a hdmi outlet. Wee~~ hdmi display!!! Bye bye DVI cable, hello HDMI! Eventhough the monitor is a bit too small for me, having it in hdmi makes a big difference. The original comes in 15.6" but the bigger the better so 16" for me. It's really, really difficult to work with anything smaller than that when I have browsers, coders, design apps, entertainment and chat on all at once.
For RM 3,999 the price is too cheap for all the goodies that come with it. If you had a Dell machine repaired before, you will have already learned that you are just a phone call away for the technician to come to your doorstep and fix your machine for you. I am quite impressed with their service actually (beats waiting 100 years at LowYat for the people to fix. -_-).
The best part though, is the fact that I can win this!!! And the best-er part is the competition is a Design competition!!!
Needless to say, I am extremely excited about this contest because there are 2 prizes!
Dell Design Studio : Make It Yours!
*competition ends 5th February 2010.
Best Entry : Dell Studio 15" Laptop with your own laptop skin design worth RM 3,500 + Warranty + onSite support + RM5000 in cash.
The winner for this category will be decided by a panel of judges.
Most Popular Entry : RM2,500 cash voucher for a leading department store.
The contestant with the most votes wins this.
However, you can't win both. In the event of you winning both categories, the Most Popular Entry prize will be awarded to the person who got the second highest number of votes.
Anyway, the size of the artwork has to be 6180px x 4535px at 360 ppi. That is freaking huge, I did a 10 feet by 6 feet banner and the file size was smaller than this. I took ages to finish my design. Anyway, ppi means pixels per inch. The more pixels per inch, the sharper the printing.
Join now!
For my entry, I wanted to do something that has my photo in it but I don't think I wanna mislead people. If I do win the laptop, it has a photo of my beautiful and glamorous visage but when they see the person behind the screen they will be shocked. My 'beautiful and glamorous' visage cheat one. :D So I decided to do something outrageous and preposterous using 3D.
Hah! Bet no one used 3D for their design! I happily sketched my idea down in photoshop and start up Maya.
/*Warning, Massive 3D jargons ahead, you can skip it but that's like half the post and my sanity...You can click on the links below which offer explanation on a certain jargon.*/
[1] There you go, the mesh of the cube and the fonts.
[2] I realized I've forgotten how to use RealFlow for liquid simulation!! What kinda kopi first class honors degree in "Film & Animation" do I have? fml.
So fine, I did the liquid with Maya. The threshold is still not perfect, the water looks abit too 'sandy' and pehchah-belah.
[special] Occlusion pass - rendered in 6 hours
The liquid wouldn't render in occlusion. This deserve a special tag cuz it took freaking 6 hours to render every pixel of 6180x4535px resolution. 3D is one subject where the computer does the work and there is nothing you can do to rush it when you want good quality.
[special] Fake Occlusion pass of the water - rendered in 9 hours
I started to break everything down into passes in order to render everything. The occlusion for the water cheat one, I make using lambert and spotlights one. I am proud of it though, it looks like occlusion!! :D
[3] After that, I couldn't figure out why my brown line's nurbs curves were jagged after rendering (supposed to add isoparms). This is a render of all the objects in the scene before I start lighting them up. //Enough, I want to skip this!
[4] Diffuse Pass
After rendering a total of 11 passes in 36 hours, I opened up Photoshop to composite. This is the first pass with 2 spotlights without any specular highlights. The fonts are brighter cuz they are surface shaders.
[5] HDR Pass
I threw another pass which was rendered using a HDR as the lights for the scene. The HDR was yellow casted and made my cube a bit reddish.
[6] I changed the color of the cube back to blue and I decided that the background was too dark, so I lightened it up. I was pleasantly surprised that the background was tinted blue, just how I wanted it to be. Oh well, that's one less step for me. After that, I threw in a vintage patterned background overlay.
[7] The cube was too 3d-ish and not realistic enough for me so I re-composited it using the cube's occlusion as the base.
[8] Then I overlay the previous cube's diffuse pass over it. The result looks better already. //Enough, I want to skip this!
[9] Reflection pass
I love love love rendering reflection passes, they are easy to render and gives a pop to the final composite. Don't ask me what is a pop, I don't comprehend how my brain works either. Now the black lines and the sides of the font have a nice reflection to it.
[10] Reflection Pass
Still at reflection cuz I love it so much, this time I put in the reflection for the water. The water looks better now, eh? I also realized that putting occlusion on the water makes it look really bad and based on research, I realized that water's shadow areas are actually highlights instead of shadows. So I inverted the occlusion for the water and used it as a rim light pass instead.
[11] Global Illumination Pass
Final touch ups left, I added a glow to the cube opening and some bokeh sparkles around that area. Then I overlay the GI pass which added some reflections of the fonts' colours onto the cube and water.
So, this is the final laptop skin. Am I tired? Yes. Am I hungry? Yes. Is my head swinging? Yes. But oh-so-definitely worth it. :D I'm one step closer to winning the laptop after 12 hours, what bout you?
If you like my design, you can download it as your wallpaper (also available in the Free section). There are lots of empty space on the right so you can arrange all your folders, icons and shortcuts there without it hurting your eyes:
Downloads here
Please donate some votes to my design and my lack of nutrition+sleep+sanity persona while doing this!
Remember to join the contest! Leave a comment here if you do so I can vote for you!
Jan 11, 2010
Jan 6, 2010
Version2 Launch, Baby Doll Collection Freebie, Capricorn Horoscope Look etc ec
It's here!
Align your bookmarks!
From now on, there will only be latest updates here all links will be redirected to the .info.
Comments are disabled here. See you at the other side!
Free : Baby Doll Collection in Free
6 January 2010
Join
Jan 2, 2010
Blushberry Version 2
Blushberry is relaunching on January 6th!!
I have decided to keep this blog. Only updates will be available here. The full content of the text will be available at the new domain. Comments will be disabled.
There will be makeup tutorials once more! A new competition will also be scheduled for the launch! I will not share much bout all the new features, yall have to see for yourself when the time comes!
See ya soons.. can't wait to blog actively once more!
Dec 28, 2009
An Evening Out with Ciki
I recently wrapped a wordpress design job for cumidanciki.com. You can view the Ciki and I decided to go out for a dinner to celebrate since her husband, Josen was out of town. I was late for an hour due to the horrendous traffic in Bukit Bintang. And what's worse is that I had stomachache while driving and my gear shift choked a few times. There were many drivers around me and I bet they were thinking I went nuts or something.
Ciki went to drink at Japanese bar nearby first while waiting for me. After I arrived, she announced that we will be going to a new restaurant just at the back of Changkat Bukit Bintang. I was like, "So, this is how food blogger operates.... lol.
We reached Albion to be greeted by the most unusual greeting.
"I am sorry mam but we are not open today. This is our first day. We do have a limited menu but there are no prices yet. Please feel free to pay any amount that you think the food is worth."
We began chatting and chatting up to the point where we conveniently forgot bout the time or the priceless food. Ciki gave me a cute souvenir from London. Sob T_T I never had anything from London before, so touched. Life is wonderful. I brought my Nikon SLR to do some shooting and try to get into the character of a food blogger.
Its not easy, I tell you. First, you have to scout for new restaurants that other food bloggers have not reviewed. Note down the address and name of the restaurant. Once the food arrive, you must not eat. You must first, take photographs of the food. It goes against human nature. You know you did a good job when you upload the photos, you feel hungry just by looking at the food.
What wonderful dishes, delicately arranged. The tough part is eating the food. It is like writing on a brand new leather bound notebook that costs a few hundred bucks. Its a waste to eat it, its just too good.
When we were ready to leave, we signaled to pay. Ciki wanted to pay with card but to our amazement, they do not yet have their credit card payment system installed. The dinner is free. 0_0 We just have to take a photo with the nice owner after that. They started charging the Tuesday after that.
Since the dinner was free, we were feeling unusually rich and pampered. We dropped by the Japanese bar again for drinks. Plum wine!! It is awesome (impossible to get drunk by it though). We also had this new experimental drink called the Pink Geisha. That tastes marvellous.
I shall put in the name of the restaurant(I know, I fail as a food blogger.) when I get it from Ciki.
This was the souvenir that Ciki gave me, it is dearly wrapped in a pouch to protect the necklace. It also has an 'A' initial. I wonder what does it stands for, maybe its my grade for my performance as a blog designer. :)
This is the necklace inside, a quaint vintage necklace. (No, its not a locket.. everyone that saw this tried to open it) I am so happy and proud of this! Thank you Ciki!! Muaxx.
Anyway, this post will go into my version 2. Tutorials will be coming back up by the launch of my version 2. I had just finished filling up my portfolio, next is the blog and shop section. After the launch of my v2, this blog will still be here. There will be news updates that link to the v2 but there will not be any text content for the upcoming posts here.
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