a challenge for myself

As I was organizing my closet last month, I was overwhelmed by the amount of clothes that I have never worn.  How great is our society that we can afford goods that we have no need for?  I decided to make a little change in my life to limit my luxuries. I don't mean what the average American consider to be luxuries, such as LV or Marc Jacobs, but what is essentially non-essential.  Do I really need to own those snakeskin flats or those vinyl pants that was the biggest deal for that one month?  The idea is to not be wasteful of money, and also not to be wasteful of the earth's resources.  Happiness lasts longer when money is spent on experiences and not material goods. The need to acquire material goods generate too much waste as we discard last year's fashion for this year's must haves.  We produce too much garbage as it is and we're running out of space to put it all! This is my challenge for the time being, and hopefully it's a habit that I will keep from now on.  My other challenge is to write more... but I don't know how likely I am to stick with that one.

how to take a screen shot on 2 different devices.

After almost half a year of suffering the loading... loading... loading... screen on my Evo Shift 4G, I finally found a solution - change the launcher!  For whatever reason, HTC released an update that is memory intensive and thus turns all the evo shift phones into a slow piece of junk.  I download the GO launcher (easy peasy), and voila, no more waiting for minutes for home screen to load.  It is more like the iPhone in that you can add and delete apps from on the home screen (no more going to settings -> more settings -> application -> delete).  Now it deletes apps in one press and one tap.  It is a 1000x improvement to HTC sense.  It has a fresh clean feel to it.  The time and weather widget is small and tells you everything you need to know.  There are so many themes to choose from and I chose a kitty cat playing on grass theme.  It's so adorable I wanted to take a screenshot immediately and send to my sister to check out.  So I did a search on how to do that on google and I found this set of instructions.  SIGH.



On the Evo Shift 4G:


(taken from knowyourcell.com)

Naturally you have seen the awesome HTC EVO 4G Shift screenshots we have taken for our user guides and you are wondering, "How did they do that?"

The HTC EVO 4G Shift runs on Android and as of now, no applications are available that allow for on-device screenshots. This guide will provide you with the software you need and show you how to get stunning screen captures from your device.

Two separate pieces of software are required and must be installed on your PC:

1. The Android software development kit (SDK)
2. The Java SE software development kit (SDK)

Once your downloads are complete a few steps are required to get things ready.

On your computer:

1. Extract the Google Android SDK to a folder on your desktop
2. Install the the Java SE SDK

On the HTC EVO 4G Shift:

1. Press the Home icon, press Menu and then tap Settings
2. Tap on Applications
3. Tap on Development
4. Check the box for USB debugging

Then:

1. Plug your HTC EVO 4G Shift into your computer via USB and Windows will attempt to install all of the appropriate drivers; one of the drivers will not be found and thus you must proceed to Device Manager in your Control Panel and find the HTC EVO 4G Shift (there will be a yellow icon next to it)
2. Right-click on the HTC EVO 4G Shift entry and select properties; instruct Windows to update/install the driver for this device and when asked, simply browse to the usb_driver folder inside of the Android software development kit folder that you extracted to your desktop earlier -- the device is recognized and the driver is installed
3. Browse to the Android SDK folder that you extracted to your desktop and run the SDK Setup.exe to start the program
4. Once the application has launched you will be presented with a window as shown in figure 2 above
5. Click on the Refresh button so that the application can update its list of operating system SDKs available from Google
6. Check off the section next to the URL that is shown in the application; you are now presented with a list of Android SDKs and Google APIs you wish to install
7. It is recommended that you select select all available packages for maximum compatibility
8. Once the files have been downloaded simply close the application
9. Browse to the Tools folder inside the Android SDK folder you extracted to your desktop
10. Double click on DDMS.BAT to execute the Dalvik Debug Monitor
11. The application will launch with a DOS command window and eventually a Windows based application -- your phone will be listed on the left hand side, and you should click on it to make sure it is selected
12. Click on the Device menu and select Screen Capture or use the CTRL-S key combo
13. The capture now appears on your screen, but there is one final undocumented step
14. We recommend that you click on the Copy button and paste the screenshot into your image editor of choice (Microsoft Paint, Adobe Photoshop, etc) -- the reason for this is that there is a known bug that does not carry over the colors of the actual screenshot inside the capture utility

On the Apple iPhone:

    1. Press Power + Home buttons together.

    2. DONE.

For the past 8 years, I've taken 20k pictures.  That makes 6.8 pictures a day!

Sunny day umbrella!

Last week I saw a girl carrying a sunny day umbrella in Tribeca.  She wasn't even Asian!  I wonder why other people won't do the same.  It's just smart, esp when the sun is so strong.  (When will I get over my fears of being judged and use a sunny day umbrella?)

Paris!

http://ohhappyday.com/2011/06/goes-to-paris


Oh Happy Day has a giveaway for a trip to Paris!!

cuuuuuuuuute

Marc by Marc Jacobs clutch (see more vintage handbags)

Stella & Dot • An invitation to style

Stella & Dot • An invitation to style

very versatile. I should reproduce. Sorry, stella & dot. I have no monies to buy from you, but I love your items!

Aerogarden!!!!

How was an aerogarden user supposed to know that the flowers need to be pollinated to produce fruit?  I figure aerogarden is for lazy, non-outdoorsy people and so the plants will pollinate themselves magically.  so sad.  I lost so many potential peppers already but luckily, it's still flowering.  I had to spread the pollen by finger from flower to flower just now.  How very weird.