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[Updated]

The first MIB Photoshoot was held in Batu Caves last Saturday. It was a fun-filled event attended by 5 members and 2 readers of Mindsblog [short of 5 more members who have confirmed their participation via Facebook]. We spent 6 hours going around taking photos, besides sharing tips on photography.

Here are some shots taken by those who came:

Poobalan’s photoshoot write-up and photos

Rames’s photoshoot write-up and photos

Amutha’s photoshoot write-up and photos

Selian’s photoshoot write-up and photos

[To be updated with links]

Thank you so much to everyone who came, and we promise this is not going to be the last photoshoot. More to come in the future!

What?

Canon Photo Marathon 2008

Where?

Boulevard, Berjaya Times Square [7.00am - 7.00pm]

When?

1 November 2008.

Who?

The marathon is open for photography enthusiasts  who will participate on an individual basis for a day of an exciting race around KL’s Golden Triangle.  This year, the marathon will be styled after a treasure hunt with different stations around KL town where themes will be handed out to test participant’s creativity and photography skills.

Participants can join in under any of the two categories for Compact
Camera users or Professional Camera users. Those joining the marathon
are not required to use
Canon cameras, however a small fee of RM 15.00 will be charged for non-Canon
camera users.

How?

Each participant will be flagged off from the base at Berjaya Times Square and given
two pit-stop locations where they can collect their themes. Participants will
need to head back to the base for downloading at the workstations provided and
submission of one (1) best shot for each theme. Participants will be given
approximately 2 hours to capture their best shots for each theme. 

Storage formats accepted at the workstations are CF/SD/MMC/XD/SM/MS. Participants using other formats must supply their own adaptors or drives. The entries at the end of the marathon will be reviewed by a panel of judges who will choose the best pictures each of the 3 themes given out as well as overall Grand Prize, Second and Third prizes.

Judging will be based on creativity in theme interpretation, use of colors, light/
shadows, composition of photograph, and relevance to the theme given in the
marathon.

Prizes:

The overall Grand Prize Winner for both categories will receive a trip for one (1) to South New Zealand and the newly launched EOS 1000D camera with Efs 18-55mm lens.

The rest of the prizes are listed here.

Registration:

Participants can either register online beforehand at the marathon website www.photomarathonasia.com or even register on the day of the marathon at the registration booth. Participants are required to bring their Identification Cards or passports for registration purposes, and children below 12 years of age are required to bring a parental consent letter to register.

For more information, please visit: www.photomarathonasia.com

Disclaimer: Based on an article from a recent Reader’s Digest issue, but certainly not copy-pasted.

In this connected world, how safe is your privacy? Never mind about the perverts and psychos roaming around trying to stalk you. You have an even bigger issue to deal with online. Take a look at you Facebook, Friendster or MySpace profile. Now, put yourself in the shoes of a prospective employer and ask yourself: “Would you hire a person whose profile picture shows him puking in a toilet bowl with a comment saying ‘I got sooooo drunk that day’?”

Employers now have gotten very tech savvy, even more than we give them credit for. All a person needs to do is Google your name, and there pops out your profile page with details on your likes, dislikes, pictures and many more. The question is, are you willing to forsake a future employment offer just to have a cool profile page that chicks/hunks dig (or Digg)? Your online profile says a lot about you even before you take your first step into the interviewer’s room. It’s like a background check done in 30 seconds flat. We don’t need private investigators now, do we?

Employers wanna get to know about their prospective employees’ character early on. And social bookmarking sites provide them with ll the information they need in a flash. So, it is good practice to “clean up” your profiles so that they do not let out too much about your misgivings. Your profile is automatically your own public relations tool.

It’s okay to have pictures of you having fun with your friends. Having a picture of you and your friends having a good drink is fine, cause it shows that you can socialize. Having a picture of you being drunk wearing only your boxers shows lack of judgement. It is how you potray yourself to others. And it depends on what line of work you are aiming to get into. Having a website wth your name, filled with fancy graphics and animations and written in your own brand of satirical comedy bodes well for a creativity based job, but it doesn’t seem much of a bright idea for applicants in the hospitality industry where a person’s polite and clean persona carries much weight. It all depends on where you want to end up.

Keeping your profiles private help a lot. But some people prefer to reach out to a wider group of individuals, thus preferring a public profile. In any ways, you must be able to discern what is proper, and what is not. If you have blogs of controversial nature, it is up to you to have your own disclaimer. Think of it as a pre-nuptual agreement between you and your reader(s).

On a personal note, when I was hired for my current job, my interviewer has access to my blog. His verdict? I obviously knew how to program in PHP, and my offbeat ramblings showed creativity skills for problem solving. Though I’d still recommend everyone to style their online presence in their social bookmarking sites to a more “people friendly” manner.

For a better insight, refer to the June 2008 issue of Reader’s Digest (Malaysian Edition), on the article How To Click & Clean by Andy Simmons.

Nowadays blog is became some sort hobby for people. Since there are few free blogging platforms, people create blog as they wish. Blogging is a very good past time as you can express your views and sharing information. What we need to know and need to do to be a complete blogger?

1. Copy–paste trend

I’m very sure there are a lot o copy-paste bloggers out there. It is not to do that, since it is one way of sharing information. But when you blog, writing your own write-up is the key point of having blogs. Currently, a lot of sosio-politics bloggers just growing like mushrooms, but most of them ended up in putting news from the newspapers. There are some bloggers will write some short comments or their own view below the post. It will be good if they come up with discussion post, so the readers can share their own views. Poobalan.com is one of best sosio-politic blog that I know. See yourself how he blogs even there a lot of copy –paste effects. All bloggers must avoid this copy –paste trend but you can use it when you experience “writer block”.

2. Learn how to customize your blog

Customizing your blog is one essential way for being famous blogger. Having the same theme and way of writing will make your loyal readers boring even your blog have very good write up. Rames.blogspot.com is best example I have. You can peep at his blog and see his works there. He has a lot of loyal readers. To customize your blog, you need to know some photoshop stuffs, simple php knowledge, a bit of CSS and you need some creativeness. You can google them as it is everywhere in the internet. Give your blog some life, don’t use some lame design and make your readers boring with your design.

3. Do some research on what you blogging

Producing quality post needs some research. Deep and serious research will end up with some good result. Just have a look at Hongkiat.com, I’m sure he does a good research each time he blogs. This is also one way to gain your loyal readers. Readers always look for good post which they will benefit. When your post is beneficial to them, they will come again to your blog.

I only made there “tips” but I’m sure other bloggers can add up few more at the comment section part. So, it is your turn to leave your opinion that will beneficial to all bloggers