szelee 诗理 。失礼

Displayed for celebration, disposed with humiliation

How much more will go down the drain? How far more can we go? How much more can we take? How long more to be awakened?

He wonders, he wonders how, he wonders how he wonders…

Happy National Day.

Although slightly long overdue, the brand new Flickr slideshow feature is still very much welcomed. Embedding Flickr set to external sites has just become slightly more user-friendly, and the full screen feature is very much expected but appreciated.

The possible earliest source of way to embed Flickr slideshow could be traced to Paul Stamatiou who investigated the API and showed how it could be done. Based on this idea, many sites like this and this offer auto generation of the HTML codes when the user inputs the name of the user and set. But the size of the slideshow was fixed at 500 pixels by 500 pixels.  When there are too many photos, thumbnails at the bottom carousel were scaled down too much to be useful for previewing when it goes beyond 2 rows. The new slideshow addresses many of these issues.

Currently, the new slideshow customization page can be accessed through these steps:

1. Go to any Flickr set
2. Click SlideShow on top right
3. Click Share on top right for a popup (of course, one can simply Grab the HTML at this step)
4. Click Customize this HTML

The faster way would be to postfix “show/?embed=1″ to the set’s hyperlink, e.g. http://www.flickr.com/photos/teoszelee/sets/72157605322795697/show/?embed=1.

There is nothing much really to customize in the page, except for the size of the slideshow (four preset sizes are provided). But a little digging into the HTML code generated can reveal some extra customizations. For example, setting name=”allowFullScreen” to false disable full screen mode, although the button is still visible (but this only works for IE, hmm…).

Some of the major differences are:

1. The old version autoplays the slideshow once the page is loaded. The new one begins in paused mode with an overlay of text - “<owner’s name>’s <set name> Slideshow on Flickr”. A play button is situated below the text to trigger the start of the slideshow.
2. The duration between slide changes can be set with a slider between 1 to 10 seconds in the old version. The new one reduces this to Slow, Medium and Fast radio button in Options popup.
3. Clicking on picture during the slideshow in the older version shrinks the picture and reveals the information and title.
   For the new version, there is no information shown for small and medium slideshow. Clicking on the image advances the slideshow to the next one.
   But for the large and supersize ones, clicking on any picture will show overlaying text information without image shrinking. Information can also toggled from the Info On/Off button at the top center of the image(only for large and supersize).
   Previous and next image button is also placed differently depending on the size chosen.
4. The carousel containing the thumbnails at the bottom panel of the embedded flash is now consistent with the default slideshow page in Flickr as well as the Organizr. It’s certainly more useful. Even the bigger thumbnail on mouse over is more slick with fade-in fade-out animation.

All in all, it is a big improvement.  But some suggestions won’t hurt:

1. Allow user to specify the default text on page load, or perhaps simply just show the name of the set.
2. The size for slideshow is currently set to 4:3 aspect ratio in the 4 preset sizes. For most DSLR users who shoot in 3:2 (landscape orientation), it creates unnecessary black bars on top and bottom. (No doubt, users can input the width and height of their desired aspect ratio to overcome this with some simple calculation).
3. One-click button from Flickr set to grab and customize the embedding HTML in blog.
4. Allow the slideshow to appear in Google Reader like the Flickr video.

Of all the inspiring TED talks he has been listening these few weeks while doing next to nothing in the office, this is his favourite. Any attempt to explain why it is so fascinating would not do any justice to the talk itself.

First actual wedding assignment after Kenneth’s solemnization. He felt flattered and extremely honoured to document their most important day, together with Guo Loong. The truth is, he was probably as nervous and excited as the couple, if not more.

More images here.

During the primary school days, some of the students’ better drawing assignments would be pasted to decorate the wall at the back of classrooms. Those paintings were also normally stamped with “A+” or little stars as if to further confirm their status and verify their importance.  On few occasions, he was also among those who were proud to have their masterpieces displayed for weeks. It was flattering and ego-boosting, to say the least.

Earlier this year, he submitted some pictures taken in Hort Park for a photography competition organized by the park itself.

Last month, he received a phone call from the organizer to ask for permission to display his pictures in the gallery for visitors. He gladly accepted. Sadly, he was also informed that none of his submissions were shortlisted for the winning candidates. Anyway, he was still delighted to find more than one of his submissions being exhibited when he visited Hort Park last weekend.

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Situated on the West bank of the Saigon River, Cholon is a Chinatown district in Ho Chi Minh City.  On the last day in Vietnam, they decided to make a trip there.

To be honest, they didn’t do much homework before reaching Cholon. The taxi dropped them at Binh Tay Market as requested, both the central market and a landmark of Cholon. They wrongly assumed that Binh Tay Market would be similar to the Ben Thanh Market (hey, they shared the same initials), with lots of cheap food and pretty goods to bargain for and a street full of hawkers to eat till they drop.

Instead it was more like a market for the locals to get their daily stuff like these.

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Using his beloved Holga, he consumed a roll of Fujichrome Provia 400X in Hoi An. It was also a rather pathetic excuse to let his shoulders relax for a short while.  Out of the whole set, these are his favourites.

Love the color.

He already tried hard to get the horizon right, still…

While waiting for the ladies to shop, the world drifted, slowly but surely.

Bird’s nest extraction, Vietnam style.

The stars in Hoi An are not found in the sky, and they are mostly red.

That’s it. Yet another year older, but none the wiser.