Dropbox Version History Saves My Day

For the past few days, I have been working on a Powerpoint presentation on my Windows desktop. Little by little, I added the slides and by late afternoon, I had an almost complete product. At some point in time, I saved it and went out to buy dinner for the family.

3 hours later, I decided to continue working on the finishing touches to the presentation. When I opened the file, I had a rude shock. There was only 10 slides out of the original 60.

Oh no. I must have hit some random "Select-Slides-Delete" keystrokes and saved the entire file without checking.

There was no other way to recover the previous version of the file in my desktop since I have already saved and closed the file earlier.

The thought of re-doing the lost 50 slides was a big setback. But I picked myself up and attempted to start creating the lost slides from memory again.

10 minutes into the re-construction, I recalled Dropbox have this versioning feature that keeps the old versions of over-written files. And it so happened that this file I was working on was stored in the Dropbox sync folder.

So I scavenged the version history of that ill-fated file on the Dropbox website, and really found the old version containing the complete deck!!

I WANT THAT FILE BACK! THE ONE WITH THE LARGEST FILE SIZE!

Thank goodness for Dropbox. I am able to recover my hard work.

Are you subscribed to Dropbox yet? Sign up with this link to get 2GB of online storage!

Thank you, Dropbox. You saved my week.

A good start, or a bad start to the New Year?

P.S. I found out that Mac OS X Lion users would have no such problems because OS X Lion has built-in document versioning. So if I were to work my project on a Mac, I could simply recover old versions locally.

Photo Blog: Gadgets Overdrive During my Hong Kong 2011 Vacation

While I take a break and enjoy my vacation in Hong Kong in Nov 2011, my gadgets went on overdrive.

This is the first time I brought my 4-year-old daughter abroad, so I need to make sure she is well-occupied. I brought all her favourite gadgets - the spare iPhone 3GS and the iPad, plus a comfortable pair of Sony MDR-Z1000 headphones.

Who doesn't love a pair of comfy cushiony headphones?

I also brought the Logitech Wireless Keyboard for Tablet so that I can work using the iPad more efficiently. I love the hard slip-in case that converts into a stand to hold the heavy iPad.

For my own private listening, I used the Logitech UE600vi, an absolute ear-opener. It's so light and comfortable that I could wear this whole day. The treble frequency is not high and so it's very suitable for outdoor use. In comparison, the Sony MDR-EX1000 has very clear treble sound but when used outdoors, the treble overpowers the bass.

I love Hong Kong because it is a very well-connected environment, be it transport or telecommunications. Just 12 months ago, a 7-day unlimited data VAS from CSL costed HK$178. On this trip, it costs only HK$78! Thanks to the 1O1O shop staff at the airport departure hall, I got it set up on my Samsung Galaxy S2 in a brief, while my Singapore SIM card is moved to my iPhone 3GS. Besides data, this card offers free IDD call to many countries including Singapore - pay only HK$0.28 per minute!

This was the Prepaid SIM card I bought. Link

The reason for using the Galaxy S2 for the Hong Kong prepaid SIM card is obvious: Android phones enable Wi-Fi hotspot. With that, I can tether all my mobile devices to the Galaxy S2 and enjoy data connectivity at no extra cost. I made sure all our other mobile devices' data roaming is turned off, and the Wi-Fi is connected to the Galaxy S2.

Besides the benefits of Wi-Fi tethering, the Samsung Galaxy S2 can also do USB OTG (on-the-go), which means I can plug an external storage device to the Galaxy S2 and it can read the storage device. Thus I am able to transfer photos from my cameras via a card reader to the phone and upload to Facebook. The photos are edited using the NX200 built-in editing tools and then resized.

And with so many gadgets, it is practically not possible to survive on a a couple power sockets in the hotel room. For that, I brought my own extension sockets to charge up all my devices. I even bought a portable battery pack just for this trip in case the phone battery runs out before the day ended.

Now that I've taken care of the gadgets, let me share some photos I took during the vacation and the process of capturing them.

Day 1: Going to the airport.

I took this shot on the moving taxi. After a dozen shots, this one captures the airport control tower without blur while the surrounding is. Tip: there is no way to guarantee a good shot on a moving vehicle. Just keep shooting and hold your camera steady.

Above, I used the Panorama mode on the Samsung NX200 to capture this seemingly fish-eye shot of the aircraft. You can see that Panorama modes are not limited to long stretches of images. This 4:3-looking aspect ration is achieved by panning using the portrait mode instead of the landscape mode.

Shooting without looking at the viewfinder takes some practice, but it's the only way to capture images at places where photography is not permitted. With a fast camera like the NX200, it doesn't take more than a second to get this shot and stealthily slip the camera back to my case.


Day 2: Checking the weather.

Still drizzling. Our original plan was to visit HK Disneyland on Days 2 and 3. But Day 2 weather is quite bad, so we had to hope for a better weather on Day 3. To get this shot, I had to anticipate her as she slowly heads towards the curtain.

That's Disneyland Hotel, and at the foggy distant background, the mainland Hong Kong, not the CBD, by the way. That's way too few skyscrapers if you noticed.

Bossini got the license to produce a range of Toy Story merchandise to tie-in with the opening of the Toy Story theme park in Disneyland. Unfortunately, the park only started from 18 Nov, about 10 days short from our trip. Nonetheless, Mayenne got to pose with this statue inside the 4-storey store at Sai Yeung Choi Street, among others. Notice the similar poses?

Day 3: It's Disneyland!

Weather was perfect! Cloudy cooling day with no precipitation! The moment we entered the park, we saw the queue for a photo shoot with Mickey and Minnie. We quickly got on the queue and captured this beautiful memory.

The must-watch show, Festival of The Lion King. Shooting in the dark is no problem for the Samsung NX200. Tip: set the camera to Manual exposure mode, maximum aperture, and then fine-tune the shutter speed, using the viewfinder as a guide.

I didn't take any still images of the Street Parade, because I felt that a video capture offers a better visual memory for my daughter (she still watches the video regularly at home till today). Here's one just to show the colour vibrancy of the Samsung NX200.

There were 2 things which I felt regretful as night time approached, yet the regrets were all negated by one non-event. One: the Samsung NX200 battery could not last the entire day. For that, I was fortunate to have a secondary camera, the Fujifilm Finepix F550EXR to capture video footages, while trying to conserve the NX200 battery for the fireworks. Second, I did not bring a tripod for the fireworks shoot. So I had to look for a flat elevated surface and attached my pocket flexi-pod. The only elevated surface I could find: the trash bin.

And this was the position.

But all these problems came to naught, when the PA announced that the fireworks show was cancelled!!

As the crowd dispersed, I attempted to capture a better shot of the Castle.

I wasn't able to capture any more shot, because at this point, the NX200 battery went completely flat.

Day 4: The Return

Before we checked out of the Disney Hollywood Hotel, we explored the garden, which is surprisingly well landscaped. If you are staying there, please make an effort to visit the garden.

At the airport, she insisted on handling her new luggage we bought for her. Doesn't she look like a seasoned traveller?

Credits:
I'd like to thank the following companies for lending me some of the gadgets to use for my vacation:

• Samsung for the NX200 and lenses
• Logitech for the UE600vi earphones and Wireless Keyboard for Tablet

There is also the Sony Camcorder HDR-PJ10 which was not featured in this vacation blog because, despite their kind intentions to lend me, I decided not to bring for the trip because I had too many gadgets to handle. This camcorder has a built-in projector which can project up to 60-inch size, and records with an internal 16GB memory plus optional card slot for expandability. The original intention was to use the camcorder to record videos, and at the end of the day, I could project the footages in the hotel room. I tried it in my own bedroom and the brightness is rather good. In fact, it spurred me to look around for portable battery projectors so that I could watch movies in my bedroom without all the wires and heat and fan noise from the common projectors.

If you have any questions about the post, drop me a comment. You may follow me on my Facebook photography page at Chester Tan Photography.

MemoryCardZoo.com - Micro SD Cards

Memory Card Zoo is an online shop offering wide range of memory cards, bags, batteries, headphones, and accessories. Based in Guernsey, they carry 100% genuine UK stock. Worldwide shipping is also competitive - it costs only £4-7.50 to ship to Singapore.

This week, I received a micro SD card from them. It claims to be indestructible: water proof, shock proof, and magnet proof.

Some people might choose to abuse the card to test its limits, but I think that kind of treatment is not practical in real life. So I choose to put the micro SD card through reasonable life tests, as follows:
- Washing machine test (water proof)
- Drop test (shock proof)
- Speaker proximity test (magnet proof)

Washing Machine Test
The most common accident on getting the card wet is when you forget to take the memory card out of your attire pocket. So for water proof test, I placed the memory card into my jeans pocket and put the jeans into the washine machine for a wash.

Result: Pass. In fact, I also dumped the card into a cup of water. The card still works after drying.

Drop Test
This is another common accident which could damage the card. For my test, I simply drop the micro SD card on the hard surface - many times over and over again. Here's a "dramatisation video" (shot at 160 fps).

Result: Pass. The card suffered no visible damages, since it is so small. You can't say the same if you were to drop a CompactFlash card. At the very least, the corners would be dented, no?

Speaker Proximity Test
To test for magnet proof, I decided to place the micro SD card near to my home speakers and played some music loudly so that the speaker magnets can attempt to cause an affect on the card. I cannot think of any other home devices with higher magnetism than speakers, so if you do, please let me know and I will gladly do this test again.

Result: Pass. I even did a low-level format to see if there are any damaged sectors.

I believe most of the micro SD cards sold today should be able to sustain such abuse due to its solid state nature, so such claims on being indestructible are merely marketing tactics. The real test should be whether the memory components can stand thousand of times of read-write states.


This article is supported by MemoryCardZoo.com. Check out their website for their wide range of memory card solutions.