Tag: blogging

Fanless Chromebook

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"Chromebook Keyboard Detail" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.6, 1/125 sec, ISO5000
 “Chromebook Keyboard Detail” Cedar Park, 2016

I’ve been using my Acer Chromebook 11 for over a month now, and I continue to use it every day… I love it! One of the things that is so great about it is that there is no fan needed to cool down the processor. That means it runs silently, and since no vents are needed for airflow, I don’t have to worry about blocking them like I do with my Windows laptop. That means I can use it while lying down on the carpet, which happens to be my preferred position to write my evening blog posts.

But not having to worry about venting also means I can put it in sleep mode and throw it into my bag immediately. I just close the Chromebook and put it in the bag. With my work Windows laptop, I wait until it fully sleeps and the fan shuts off before I feel comfortable putting it into my bag. (I have a fear of it not going to sleep, then overheating in the bag, and exploding 😮)

The fanless design is one of several nice features that makes the Chromebook a great solution for my needs.

Coffee shop writing

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Leander, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/60 sec, ISO500
 Leander, 2016

こんばんは！ Hello!

Today’s photo is one that I took this evening at the coffee shop. I dropped Koa off at baseball practice and then went to the nearby Starbucks to write my A-Z blog post. I enjoy hanging out at a coffee shop, reading or in this case blogging and it’s fun to people-watch even though this particular Starbucks is relatively quiet.

So, I’ve been thinking about what to do with our old laptops. We have three of them that we don’t use any longer. They’re very old, and aren’t 100% healthy. Two of them have hard drive errors, which makes them unreliable and the third is over 10 years old so it is just super slow! It runs Windows 7 just fine, but modern browsers run like molasses on it! But I don’t know the best way to dispose or recycle them. Of course I want to make sure all the data is completely wiped too… I guess I need to do some research!

Well, it’s almost time for bed. I think I’ll listen to the end of the Dodger game (yay, Maeda!) and then read a bit. おやすみなさい！

– B Barron Fujimoto

Don’t Stress on Your Blog

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USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/950 sec, ISO400
 USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.

こんばんは！Good evening! How are you doing? Did you have a nice Monday? Yes, I know the start of the week can be tough… it was a busy one for me too. Today’s photo is of the sky from our backyard. The trees are reaching for the clouds! Even they are trying their best. It was a beautiful day. ⛅

Today’s Daily Prompt is an interesting one:

Key Takeaway – Give your newer sisters and brothers-in-WordPress one piece of advice based on your experiences blogging.

So, I’ve been blogging for quite a while now, and my intention has always been just to write about whatever comes to mind, and not have a monetary objective. It’s all about having an outlet, although I didn’t realize that when I first began. But it is something that keeps my brain active. And I think the secret to why I have been able to keep blogging for so long is that I don’t have expectations of gaining recognition or monetary gain. I don’t stress out about those things. So unless you are looking to try to make money with your blog, just have fun, don’t worry about how many views you get, and keep at it! Also, it’s okay to take time off. It would be easy to burn out on blogging if you pressure yourself to write every day. Don’t commit to a post per day. If you fall behind, it’s easy to get discouraged and give up blogging altogether. So make sure to tell yourself that it’s fine to take a break. Also, if you have ideas but they aren’t fully thought-out yet, just create drafts for each idea. I have about 20 drafts like that… and some may never be posted. That’s fine, though. If I decide to work on one of those drafts, it will happen naturally. I don’t force it. That wouldn’t be fun, and I think blogging should be fun! 😄

One last thing: Spellcheck!

Okay, now I feel pretty good about my blog. What a nice pep talk huh? 💪

I hope you have a nice rest of the day! おやすみなさい！

-バロン Barron Fujimoto

This post was prompted by The Daily Post from WordPress.

Blue shutter release

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"Blue Shutter Release" USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.5, 1/125 sec, ISO1000
 “Blue Shutter Release” USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.

こんばんは！How are you doing? I’m well, although I have developed a cold sore on my lip. It’s been several years since I’ve had one, so it was a surprise this morning!

Today’s photo is of a nice shiny blue “Blue Metal Soft Release” that I purchased for my X100T. I have a convex black soft shutter release, but I thought this blue one might look nice on my black camera and since it was only about $5 I figured I would give it a try. The quality and the color of the button is nice, but it is a little too small for the X100T… and also I think the black button I have on it now looks better. So I put the blue button on my wife’s X-T10, and I think it looks great! It also matches the size of the X-T10’s release mechanism almost perfectly! Happily, my wife also likes it and so I have put a little Loctite on it to secure the button onto the threads.

By the way, in an earlier post, I explained that I was going to start using a “Personal Documentary” category to designate my posts with the daily photos. But it turns out that I am also posting daily (or nightly) and including the photo, so I am not sure the separate category is needed. Therefore, I have removed the “Personal Documentary” category. I have been including my daily posts in the “Slice of Life” category in case you are keeping score.

Lastly, I wanted to mention that this has been a tough week in which both David Bowie and Alan Rickman have died. I’ve been a Bowie fan since high school (I remember listening to Changesonebowie in my room with a bunch of friends one night), and I saw him in 1983 during his Serious Moonlight tour. What an amazing show. And I’ve admired Alan Rickman’s acting, specifically his portrayal of Severus Snape. He really stole the show in the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2, didn’t he?

On that note, I will end this post. I hope you have a great Friday!

おやすみなさい！

-バロン

Daily Photos

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Hi! I hope you had a nice start to the new year! We had a very relaxing one, just eating osechi (Japanese new years food) and watching movies.

Lately I have been reading about photography projects, and the one that caught my attention is something like a “personal documentary”. I guess it is sort of like a recording of my own daily life… just normal things that we take for granted, but if we give them attention, they can become important things. Or another way to look at it is that in 50 years, these things might be of interest. I don’t know if this is true, but I really enjoy viewing these types of photos.

So, I think 2016 will be the start of mine. I am not sure if I will take a photo every day, but I’ll try. I’ve done 365 photo projects in the past so I am confident I can keep it going! I’ve started a new category in the blog named “Personal Documentary” if you’d like to sort by these photos.

This first photo is about as everyday as I can get… it’s the pen holder on my desk at home. I’ve actually had this beer can for over 20 years. I think I cut the top off of it when I was at university and have used it to hold pens ever since.

"On the Desk" USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.5, 1/90 sec, ISO6400
 “On the Desk” USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.

This project seems like a New Year’s Resolution, doesn’t it? Well, I rarely make resolutions, so I don’t think I can call it that but it is something I’d like to make a habit.

I hope you all have a wonderful year and give it your all!

-B

The blog must go on.

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Hi all! I’ve been blogging for quite a long time now (over 16 years!) but lately I wanted to start writing 📝 just a little bit every day. So, for the past week and a half you may have noticed a daily post from me. I’m trying to make it part of my daily routine, which has been difficult in the past but I am making a larger effort this time. I have a laptop set up next to the bed, so before I climb under the covers, I’ll sit at the laptop, with my cat Miki 🐱 joining me, and tap out a few words to share what has happened in my day, or a photo or two. It’s really easy and I have no excuse not to.

I’ve enjoyed blogging (even if mine is nothing special) because I find it therapeutic, and making it a daily thing gets me to think about what my priorities are, and if I am giving them enough attention. I won’t write anything profound (I don’t have the talent to put thoughts like that into words) but my mind gets an extra jolt ⚡ of activity… and that is a good thing!

To tell the truth, I have long been inspired by Tao Tsuchiya’s daily blog! She’s one of my favorite actresses and (with the help of Google Translate) I enjoy reading her blog daily. It’s inspiring to see her dedication to journaling for so long!

Over the years, I’ve seen a few of my favorite blogs get retired, and I understand the reasons why the blogger decided to stop or take a break, but for myself, I don’t think I can ever stop doing this in one form or another. I think it’s a lot of fun, and has been a completely positive experience for me ever since I started. I think the most challenging thing for me in blogging is coming up with a title for each post! 😖

Well, it’s actually Sunday morning that I am writing this, but I woke early before anyone else and felt a bit inspired. I’m sure the coffee ☕ helped too.

It looks like today will be warmer weather-wise. ⛅ Hope you have a good one!

またね！

-B

Medium

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I’ve been enjoying visiting Medium and reading people’s short stories. And by short, I mean 2-10 minute reads. There’s actually an indicator for each story of how long it will take to read. How cool is that? Most of the stories are wonderful and thought-provoking, and certainly worth more than the price of admission (free!). I still don’t quite understand the organization of things (who can make a collection, can a story be in more than one collection, etc.), and it is a little difficult to find a certain story through searching. For instance, I was in the middle or reading a story about trail-running when I had to turn off the tablet. Later, I wanted to continue reading that story, but couldn’t find it. The search function didn’t find it either. I guess I need to be more liberal with my bookmarking. But there are so many interesting things to read, I find that my bookmarks list is getting long! (That’s a good thing)

On the downside, I did come across a story was less pure storytelling and more commercial-leaning. It’s a “story” about a nice new backpack and how this brand of backpack is now available in the UK. After a short description of the backpack, with very little practical information (“I’ll be doing a full review in a month or two“), there is a link to the backpack vendor’s store. That’s pretty much it. How did that story get posted? Have I been mistaken about what Medium is about? I decided to check the about page and found, “Medium is a new place on the Internet where people share ideas and stories that are longer than 140 characters and not just for friends. It’s designed for little stories that make your day better and manifestos that change the world.” It was a little strange and disheartening to find something that feels more like an advertisement than a “manifesto that changes the world”. It cheapens Medium. I just hope it’s not the direction Medium is headed, because the trend of personal blogs turning into business blogs saddens me, and I’d hate for Medium to follow that pattern.

This was a little hard for me to write because as some of you may know, I am crazy about bags and backpacks. I just don’t think that ads for them belong at Medium.

To finish up on a positive note, I’d like to recommend a few of the collections I have saved to my list. I hope you enjoy them!

  • The LYD Essays : I’ve followed Ernie Hsiung on the Internet for a few years and was happy to see his stories on Medium. Funny and entertaining.
  • Click the Shutter:  Photography-related stories. Lots of inspiration here.
  • Roaming the Earth: Great for those with wanderlust!