Apple I-Pad

Apple fans are getting crazy by Apple's latest product - i-Pad - A 9.6 inch big I-phone.

I'm debating if to get one because I've got an i-Phone, a Macbook Pro, an i-Touch, and 3 i-pods. The price is really appealing:
16G Wifi - $499
64G Wifi+3G - $829
I-pad itself is stunningly sleek, thin and elegant. I was most amazed at its battery life - 10 hours running and 1 month standby. OMG! Hard to believe. 
Some lucky folks from Engadget got to try this new toy before it was released. here are some of their reviews. They may help you decide whether to get one or not.

1. It’s not light. It feels pretty weighty in your hand.

2. The screen is stunning, and it’s 1024×768. Feels just like a huge iPhone in your hands.

3. The speed of the CPU is something to be marveled at. It is blazingly fast from what we can tell. Webpages loaded up super fast, and scrolling was without a hiccup. Moving into and out of apps was a breeze. Everything flew.

4. There’s no multitasking at all. It’s a real disappointment. All this power and very little you can do with it at once. No multitasking means no streaming Pandora when you’re working in Pages… you can figure it out. It’s a real setback for this device.

5. The ebook implementation is about as close as you can get to reading without a stack of bound paper in your hand. The visual stuff really helps flesh out the experience. It may be just for show, but it counts here.

6. No camera. None, nada. Zip. No video conferencing here folks. Hell, it doesn’t have an SMS app!

7. It’s running iPhone OS 3.2.

8. The keyboard is good, not great. Not quite as responsive as it looked in the demos.

9. No Flash confirmed. 

Besides, click on the video below, and have a closer look at the new i-Pad.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/apple-ipad-first-hands-on/


I might wait till it comes out with a built-in camera. What's your decision, folks!

Valentine's ideas

Valentine's Day is coming up. Are you thinking of warming the hearts of your loved ones with your handmade crafts? I love crafting. I love the smile of my hubby receiving special gifts I designed just for him! 


1. Photo collage: Most if not all couples have millions of photo. Thinking of creative ways to put pictures together. Try this amazing software Shape Collage, which works on Mac and windows computers both.

Here is a heart shaped collage composed of pictures. You can also get more creative and customize your own shape, or words. Just like these two below:

Cover the world with your world pictures!!

Like it? Get started!!

2. Candy boat

Every person has a little sweet teeth deep inside. Valentine is all about candies. So go creative with your candies.

Here are some Candy boat designs. 

What do you think to make it happen? Some colorful paper and wooden stick. How long does it take? 10-20 mins top. Here are step-by-step paper boat making instructions! Have fun. Go sailing your love boats!

http://www.mathematische-basteleien.de/paper_ship.htm

3. Vacation keepsakes composed of letters, tickets, maps, souvenirs...

I know my heart would melt, if I receive a gift like this!

4. Make a Valentine's Tree

Can you sew? If so, SEW! :)

Oh, isn't it beautiful!! Great to anniversary too. Make one each year. Sew a love not from your both inside. Imagine how the tree will look like in 50 years time. and what great family heritage to give to your children!

5. Heart-shaped book mark.

For your loved ones who love to read. 

It's really easy and pretty, isn't it? 

6. Heart shape tea bag tags

For your loved ones who love drink tea... Just like me...

Replace some tea tags with hand made hearts with your personal notes. How sweet is that!

7. Felt Fortune cookies

Tell your loved ones how fortunate you are with a fortune cookie. It's easy to make too. 

Happy Valentine's Day, Everyone! Happy Crafting!

Aha, check out Living Stone Rock Pillows

Perfect decoration for a playroom, poolside, balcony. The pillows are super functional as well. They fit in the playroom of our Winthrop cabin super well.

I can imagine myself rest in the middles of these rock babes. 

Unfortunately, these handsome rocks come with handsome prices. Smaller ones start from $135, and bigger ones are around $750. Ouch!! I'm thinking to talking to some customized couch companies to see if they can make some for me for less, Much Less :)

Easy Photo Merge with Photoshop

A vacation for two - GREAT! but what about no one taking pictures for you - not so great. Hubby and I had a fabulous weekend in Winthrop. We built a gorgeous snowman and we wanted to document it. But couldn't find anyone taking photos for us. With Photoshop, you ca do it yourself AFTERWARDS. We took pictures for each other, and I followed the steps above and made this flawless picture of two. You can do it too!

Directions:

1. Under File,  click on Automate, choose Photomerge

2. Upload the pictures you desire to merge
3. Drag your pictures and MERGE

Done!

Barbecue Baby Rib - Oven Style

The person who invented oven is a total genius. Cooking is never so easy and clean with an oven. We made barbecue pork this week. It takes only 1 hour and 30 minutes, and tastes totally yummy! Try it yourself. 

Directions: 
1. Pick some handsome baby pork ribs, clean and dry them.
2. Sprinkle both sides with a thin layer of the mix of salt, blackpepper and brown sugar (yes!! it's awesome!) (Portion at 2:1:1). Keep them in the fridge for 4 hours.
3. Preheat the oven to 400F. Wrap the ribs with aluminum foil. Put on the oven rack, meaty side down and bake for 1 hour and 20 mins. Put a tray under the ribs to avoid meat juice contaminate the oven. 
4. Open the aluminum foil, flip the meaty side up and spread the meaty side with some barbecue sauce. Broil for 10 meats! 
Done! Juicy, easy, yummy pork ribs~ Have a great dinner!

Fun of Snow

We just had Martin Luther King weekend here in the US. It was too short to go somewhere far, yet was too long to just stay in Seattle watching the rain :) Luckily, we have a cabin 4 hours away from Seattle in Winthrop. It's in the valley of Cascade mountain range, hot and dry in Summer, sunny and snowy in winter. That was where we decided to go! Pack and go! 4 hours later, we escaped the rainy Seattle and were welcomed by a whole sky of beautiful stars and 10 inches of pure white snow. 
We relaxed and refreshed; we cuddled by the fireplace and laughed at each other's jokes; we played board games and read book... it was a fabulous weekend! The most fun thing we did was - building Chunkie~
Meet Chunkie everyone ~ the one on the right!!!! :) 

What a beautiful snowman he is! See the hard work behind Chunkie~~Tee hee hee. But I would do it again without any hesitation. 

If you are looking for snow fun, give me a shout. Welcome to our cabin in Winthrop. 

Picture in Practice

My friend Bonnie took a great picture in Vancouver. And I modified it using the stamp frame. Take a look. Like it? I really do. 

Penny Frames at Aaron Brothers Frame Shop

Its own ad speaks louder than my words. What a great deal! Buy any frame or canvas, but a second one (ANYONE) for a PENNY! Go nuts at AaronBrothers frame shop. Location: #1513 3rd Ave., btw Pine and Pike, Seattle. The sale is going on till Jan.24th, 2010.

Frame your picture into a STAMP

AH-HA! Look at the modified photo of stamp. Me and my husbie at El Paso, TX~

Customization is never so easy.  I'm in JOY! Check out Big Huge Labs and surprise your loved ones with your creation.

Happy New Year, everyone! It's a big late, uh? BUT we have the Chinese New Year coming soon! :)

Ways to Help Haiti People

A deadly earthquake stuck Haiti - one of the world's least developed countries yesterday afternoon.  How can we help the people there. Here are a few ways. Please read the article below. Join me and help bring some hope to this tormented country.


Ways to give to Haiti Earthquake relief


Summary of some quick and easy ways:
1. Follow the instruction of Red Cross Twitter Feed. Text "HAITI" to "90999" to donate $10 through your mobile phone. 
2. Through Yele Haiti Organization. It's an earthquake relief effort set up by Haiti-born singer Wyclef Jean. 
Text "YELE" to "501501" to donate $5 through your mobile phone.  


People in Haiti NEED YOUR HELP! Please open your heart, take out your wallet or simply send a msg through your mobile phone. Your contribution will make a difference!

Maple Salmon Recipe

Northwest America is abundant in its salmon production. This orange fish is dominant at fish stands of any of the supermarket here. I call salmon - the orange chicken - nutritious and delicious. It's a lot easier to cook than chicken, which makes it one of our favorite dishes here. 
My darling husband is a salmon fan. So I'm determined to explore the best salmon recipes! :)  Here is one. I  made it last night. It was very tasty. 

Directions: 
1. Preheat the oven to 400 F while cleaning and preparing the fish.
2. Rinse the salmon fillet (about 1 and half pounds), and dry it with kitchen towel.  leave the skin on.
3. Spread the surface of salmon with a thin layer of salt. 
4. Mince 5 garlic cloves
5. Three pieces of lemon peel, and slice them into thin stripes
6.  Use a bowl, and mix 
     1/4 cup of maple syrup
     2 table spoon of olive oil
     minced garlic
     lemon peel
     Mix all the material and spread it on top of salmon. Spread it even and keep it thick.
7. Spread the baking sheet with some oil.
8. Put salmon fillet in the oven and bake it for 10-12 minutes, when noticing the surface of salmon meat turn light.
9. Broil it for another 2 minutes


Done!! Serving of 2. Enjoy a yummy healthy dinner. 

WeeMee Avatar

What is WeeMee? I'm trying to stay on top of these type of novel things. A great way to stay young, I guess :)


First off, check out who has WeeMee already:

Let's see if you got them all:
Taylor Swift, Avril Lavigne, Justin Timberland, My darling hubby (celebrity in my heart), Paris Hilton, Alicia Keys, and Hilary Clinton~~ XOXO. 
Visit WeeWorld and get a WeeMee Avatar for fee. 
Here is mine. Hippy hoppy snow girl. LOL.

Print Screen on Mac

I always wondered how to do so, but couldn't find a single key on the key board like Windows computers. Thanks to an article I found on Google, which has made impossible possible, and inconvenient super-convenient. Here are the steps on how to do it. 
Print the entire screen:

1. Hold down Apple key ⌘ + Shift + 3 and release all
2. then use your mouse or touchpad to simply click on the screen
3. Switch to Desktop. Here you go. You will see a picture file in at your desktop. That’s the screen capture picture. Done!!
Capture a portion of your screen:

1. Hold down Apple key ⌘ + Shift + 4 and release all key
2. Now, You will see the mouse cursor will change to +
3. You can start to drag your mouse to select the portion you wish to capture.
4. Once finish, you will see a picture file in at your desktop. That’s the screen capture picture!
Isn't it amazingly easy to capture screen with Mac? Bye-bye windows paint, bye-bye copy paste clipboard... :)

Memo Boards

我们卧室有一面立柱墙，30“ 左右的宽度，我一直在想用什么东西来装饰一下它。想寻求一种特别的装饰感觉，又要比较适合卧室的亲密氛围。
花了两天，看了无数的相框组合、挂毯、墙饰，最终Memo Boards抓住了我的眼球。什么是memo boards，你们可能要问。Memo boards 就象是告示板，可以展示照片，给彼此留言等等。 Pulp Products的新式Memo Boards, 既保持了原有的功能性，Board本身还有很好的装饰性。
我特别喜欢这款canvas style的相框。

 

What do you think, my friends? How adorable the boards are? Can't wait to hang them in our bedroom!!

如果你是个有法国情怀的爱好者，不妨看看下面这款吧。

 

Aren't they gorgeous? 

如果你是个男生，不喜欢这些花花的女生式样，你也能在这么找到适合你的选择。how about 下面这两款简洁，sleek的Memo boards 呢？

 

Hard to say "No", right?

Enjoy them!

I Heart Apple Genuis Bar

我是的不折不扣的Apple 粉丝。从2004年起到现在，有过1个i-pod, 1个i-video, 1个 nano, 1个 touch, 一个iphone, 还有一个macbook. 我最这个品牌的忠诚度让我自己也觉得吃惊呢。
我的macbook pro在用了3年后，还象当年拿到手那样神速，也象当年一样线条优雅，干净整洁，只是存储空间日渐变小，最近快接近0了。
我满以为自己不是个电脑白痴，便自做聪明，大刀阔斧的删去了不少applications. 正当我为自己释放了10G空间而沾沾自喜时，不幸的事情发生了。当我重新启动电脑后，电脑灰屏，怎么也不继续启动下去。心里甭提多泄气了。无奈之间，预约了Apple Genius Bar的技术支持，Time to bring my Macbook to doctors. 预约到了第二天下午4：45分。4店半不到，我就到了University Village 的Apple Store。里面人头传动，一副不受经济危机影响的模样。Genius Bar 有大约10个engineers, 每个人都很忙，丝毫没有片刻休息的机会。5点钟，终于轮到我啦，我端着一脸无辜的微笑，走向我的Genius Engineer - Shane. Shane看起来25岁左右，白人，微胖，胳膊上布满了Blade Tattoo，头发一根根竖在脑袋上，头部中间的头发被染成了明亮的粉红色。一眼看过去，Shane 看起来更象是个Rock Star. 事实证明，Shane really ROCKS! 他不但修补好了我的操作系统，释放了40G的空间，还免费为我更换了罢工已久的电池。That's totally AWESOME! Thank you Shane! and thank you Apple Genius Bar!

远嫁西雅图

2009年末，在一个晴朗的初冬的早晨，带者家人的祝福、朋友的祝愿和同事的问候，我和老公启程，从上海飞往西雅图， 从太平洋的此岸飞往彼岸。我们对这15个小时的航程并不陌生，我总是能够在飞机起飞前就睡着，在飞机提供餐饮的时候醒来，吃完后再沉沉的睡下。可是这次的我，却迟迟不能入睡。满脑子都是对上海舒适生活的留恋和对西雅图未知生活的向往。挣扎在期待、兴奋、忐忑的心情中，飞机终于在我就快睡着前降落在SFO旧金山机场。入关检查的officer 既帅又nice，狠很的欢迎我来到美国，暖得我心里，很有种回家的感觉 ：） 一兴奋，血糖上升，冲进了机场的Ghirardelli巧克力店，买了一大把 Dark chocolate caramel, 大块朵仪起来。 吃完后，肠胃里就充满了悔意。我这才刚来美国，咋么就管不住自己的嘴呢。这就象洪水的闸门一旦打开，洪水就会汹涌而入呢。Well, anyways. 既吃之则安之吧。很快，我们转机从SFO飞向我们最终的目的地 Emerald City - Seattle.

Seattle位于美国华盛顿州，在美国的西北尖尖上，同加拿大比邻，Quote Sarah Palin, “我可以从我们家窗口看到温哥华” ：） 受大西洋暖流的影响，虽然西雅图的纬度比我们国家的漠河还高，可是却温暖得太多了。这里温度很少低于0度。伴随温暖气候而来的，是大西洋潮湿的气流。Rumor has it that "Seattle rains 360 days a year". I was really convinced that it was true the first couple days when I got here. 刚过来的那两天，雨成天哗啦啦的下呢，心里闷想怪不得西雅图称自己为“Emerald City”, 下这么雨，树不绿才怪呢。

大家认识西雅图，可能很多都是从 Tom Hanks 和 Meg Ryan的电影 "Sleepless in Seattle"来的，其实西雅图还有很多著名的东西，比如大名鼎鼎的微软总部、星巴克总部、Amazon 总部、波音飞机基地、Expedia总部等。

美国西海岸是开拓者的乐园，这边的人都很随意，大家都很和善、穿着也很休闲。如果说纽约是位西装革履的绅士、伦敦是个仪态优雅的老妪、巴黎是个珠光宝气的贵妇、上海是个腰缠万贯的新贵，西雅图只能说象是个穿着T-shirt, 牛仔裤的篮球小子。Here I come, 我的篮球小子，我的Emerald City，我的New Home!