Last month, I clicked an ad that took me to see videos of this amazing smart pen – LiveScribe.
I’m back to writing now, I have a notebook I take with me everyday and I write on it all the time. Seeing LiveScribe and what it can do made me really want to have one. I posted it on my Facebook wall and eventually forgot about it.
Until a few days ago.
I saw an actual LiveScribe pen at the National Bookstore in Trinoma. The pen is expensive, so are the notebooks. But I’m still tempted to get one.
Why?
This smart pen writes on real paper but it also captures those notes so you can transfer them over to your computer, or even share them online. It also captures audio (upto 800 hours for the 4G pen), that you can play back from the pen itself, or transfer to your PC.
People who love to doodle and actually doodle well would love this pen. I bet digiscrappers would find something to incorporate this into their craft as well. It’s like a tablet, in a way.
Did you check out the video? What do you think? It’s definitely not for everyone, and not cheap. But I really want it.!
I have an idea what the special screening will be of, but I’m not quite sure what it’s going to be. Gulo ba?
But looking at the badge from the Nuffnang blog, I guess you’d pretty much guess what it is.
Nuffnang is truly amazing – they started business in other countries, and came to the Philippines to provide Pinoy bloggers the same world-class services they offer to other bloggers in this region. But they also studied the Pinoy blogger to find out what we want, and how we work.
If luck would have it and I score tickets to this special screening, this would be my first Nuffie event.
This screening is co-sponsored by Hapee – the Philippines’ own world-class brand of toothpaste. What makes Hapee class A for me, isn’t just the fact that it’s the first Filipino toothpaste recommended and approved by the Philippine Dental Association. That is a REAL WIN, definitely. The fact that Lamoiyan Corporation (makers of Hapee) dared to go against more established and internationally known toothpaste brands is a big deal. This company inspired more Filipinos to dream big.
What makes Hapee world class is that despite the company’s success, they have kept their prices affordable. This stems from a vision of providing quality products that are cost-efficient, so the everyday man need not spend more than what is necessary.
They also have an outstanding program to employ the deaf-mute. Managers are required to learn sign language to bridge the communication gap between the hearing impaired staff and those who can hear without a problem. If more companies had this vision of uplifting the lives our people, and consumers actually supported them, the world would be a better place.
I would love to say that I put in a bid in any one of the lots in UNICEF’s Auction for Action, but I have not. The current bids are all beyond me at this point. So if I can’t help UNICEF by winning a bid, I’ll do so by spreading the word.
There are only 3 days left before the auction closes. All the items were donated by the artists, so all proceeds from the sales of these pieces will fund UNICEF projects. All of it. The curator is Urbanista Daphne Oseña-Paez so you can be assured that all the pieces in this auction were chosen in very good taste.
It would have been wonderful to score a modern cocktail table while knowing that the very amount you spent for it is going to a good cause. Here’s one from the lot:
It’s a coffee table, with the view from above, minus the round glass top. Photo linked to the auction page.
But if I had the money, I would have really loved to bid on this chair:
It really looks quite comfortable. And cool.
Here’s another favorite from the lot, Tweet lamps!
Aren’t they cute? They are up for bid separately but look gorgeous as a group.
But if I were to pick one piece that really spoke of UNICEF’s work, or a piece that would speak to the young kids that UNICEF help, it would be the work of Michael Cacnio:
Children in difficult circumstances dream of a home. A small simple house up in the trees would do, as long as it is safe and they have family. The child flying a kite is a representation of a happy child. So yes, this piece speaks to me of the work of UNICEF. Whoever wins the bid, should donate the piece back for display in the UNICEF offices.
As for me, I will sit back and keep looking at all the pretty things up for auction. And I will also continue to pray for its success. After all, more money raised from this effort, means more Filipino children finding hope in these bleak times.
As for my dreams of owning beautiful art pieces, and artsy furniture. Oh well, that can wait. If I were to buy any piece of furniture at this point, it probably should be like this 1001 console table, more function than style.
Go on and head over to EBAY.PH and bid on the lots for UNICEF Auction for Action!
I hope that the weather forecasts are accurate this time around. They say Chedeng will no longer hit landfall in the Philippines, and it’s on its way to Japan. Not that I am glad that the land of the rising sun will once again be hit by a disaster, but I am glad it’s not coming our way.
Still, we’re on edge, not knowing whether the rain will come down again in the middle of the night. If so, we’ll have to secure the car and park it where the floods won’t follow. That’ll have to be my role, if it happens.
We are thankful though, that even when the flood rises to the street we are still relatively safe. Thankful that we don’t get violent tornadoes as that which hit Joplin, MO recently. I can’t imagine living in the shadow of disasters that powerful. Imagine having a beautiful home and having to worry about guarding that on top of keeping yourself and your family safe. Imagine owning artsy contemporary floor lamps and having to insure even that against acts of God or disasters. Crazy.
I know it sounds like I’m trivializing things. People who are really devastated don’t have time to think about things like that, at least not in the moment. As they say, there are more important things. When Ondoy hit us, and in the aftermath, we were very aware of keeping each other safe. More than anything that was important. But we also had to be aware of our things. Save what we could. And in the aftermath, when choosing replacements, we had to think about how those will survive another Ondoy.
Anyway… better stop invoking the name of the typhoon that brought the great flood lest its spirit comes back in another form. It’s time I hit the sack. By the time this post get published, all bedside table lamps in the house would have been switched off. Goodnight Manila, Goodnight World.
It took the entire afternoon to scan 65 photos. Time well spent. That afternoon’s equipment:
Dad’s laptop. The boyfriend was playing Black Ops on the PC.
My flat bed scanner. We’ve had this for awhile and it works perfectly. You just plug it into a USB port, install the driver, and you’re good to go. It doesn’t have its own power supply, just USB powered.
It’s pretty quick too. I remember having to scan pages upon pages of a book on the boyfriend’s old flatbed and it was an excruciating experience. This was years ago and scanners were expensive and really slow. I could almost imaging how tough the job of archivists are. Haha.
The OEM CD that came in the box had already been broken so I had download a driver for the scanner. It’s available in the Canon website so no worries. After installing the driver, the scanner worked seamlessly with MS Paint. I think it would have worked with any photo editing software too but I didn’t try. It would have been nice to have the scanning software to work with. That one let you scan multiple photos at the same time and it would recognize and save each photo individually – no cropping needed! Another nice thing about it is that even if your photos were crooked or not lined up straight, it was okay.
I had the music playing while working on this. But I was also alternately chatting with my parents about the photos. We were supposed to go out for a drive that afternoon, but ended up just staying in. Again, time well spent anyway.
That afternoon’s equipment:
