coriander in pho

not a food blog

2020: Halfway

August 15, 2020 1:54 pm

As we are skeptically looking at the end of August and the rest of 2020, I wanted to see how far we have gone — or didn’t go at all because travel restrictions and all that.

Early 2020, when we were such sweet summer children — not realizing the horror descended upon us.

Then… Everything stopped.

There have been so many pain and tears and anxieties. However, it didn’t deter so many humor and encouraging words.

“Stay at home. Don’t be afraid of getting weight, because you can always getting slim again. If you died, you can’t go back alive again.”

And somehow, friendships and connections are reformed through video calls and chats.

We appreciate more folks, the frontliners — pandemic or not, they are always out there, taking care of our needs. No, I’m not accepting your apology because you have done more than needed and we know you are putting yourselves out there to ensure we are okay. I’m sorry, and thank you.

Please don’t be sorry! It’s okay! Thank you for your hard work!

We appreciate small things now — as simple as a haircut.

Slowly but surely, we starting to build and regain our lives back. It haven’t happened yet on some places, but all of us are working on it.

Stay safe and stay healthy, folks. We can do this.

Obligatory KL sunset pic
Image and website: Handling HEIC file format

August 14, 2020 1:09 pm

This post will sound pretty technical-ish, but I just realized something about it and I wanted to write it here and hopefully it can give some insights or info with you folks.

Soooo… Huh, I forgot exactly when, mid-2019, early-2019? I guess? Yeah, so during that time, we got some questions from folks on why they unable to upload images from their computer to their WordPress.com website.

Image upload issue can varied from file size, server issue, Internet connection, and file format. On my previous blog post about doing Support, I mentioned about “replication” — Support team usually asking for details from users to see if they themselves can replicate the issue and narrow down the possibilities. Now, at that time, I was able to upload sample images so I mentioned that I couldn’t replicate the issue. So I asked for more details.

Then the details started to pour in. “Images from my iPhone…”, “it’s greyed out when I tried to upload it…” — and soon we found the common thread: Apple OS.

HEIC/HEIF (High Efficiency File Format) was introduced by Apple in 2017 alongside with iOS 11. The format said to be able to store high-quality image with half the storage space. I feel this is pretty expected, knowing how Apple has been selling their iPhone photo quality — and I’m sure they want some efficiency on the file size to ensure no backlash coming from the users.

Problem is, there is no browser supports HEIF/HEIC format natively as of now — and this including WordPress.com website. The file format is not yet compatible, and the only way to open it is to convert it to JPEG, JPG, PNG, or others.

So! A bit of tip. If you want to upload/use your photos from your iPhone to your WordPress.com website, do not open the Media Library modal (Media Library > Add New) directly on Photos (if you have your Photos app synced between your Mac and your iPhone.) It will give the greyed file icon and you wouldn’t be able to upload it. What you need to do is, drag-and-drop the photos from the Photos app on your Mac (given the photos are synced between two devices — your Mac and your iPhone) to your Mac desktop or folder. You would see that the image files converted automatically to JPEG. From there, you can upload your images to your website.

Another alternative is: Use WordPress app. I seriously don’t know how to explain this, but it just works.

(I wish I could grab a developer from Mobile division and let them share their workflows and the details here because good gosh, it’s really awesome.)

For some reason, WordPress for iOS works with HEIC file format and you can add the images directly from your phone (or maybe most — or even, all — apps are able to? ?) This is definitely helpful and if you are comfortable in using app for blogging, I definitely recommend this approach (me myself is still pretty 50-50. I like the app, and I like the sit-down-in-front-of-your-laptop-and-type.)

I hope this helps. This is applicable to many (if not, all) website services out there. If you find some image files can’t be uploaded/greyed out, check the file format and see what it is. You can convert the images using any image processing softwares/apps or using online converter. You can also check Apple’s Support guide related with HEIC/HEIF file format.
Plants update!

August 7, 2020 12:30 pm

A couple of weeks ago, we had painting job on our building exterior — and the workers asked us to protect the plants on the balcony so it won’t get paint splatters on it as they worked.

Since most of the plants are the resilient ones, they were put under the balcony table and protected by plastic.

While the bigger ones — bayleaf plant and lime plant — had to go inside the house. As for the chili plant, uh, it… passed away (I don’t have the heart to mention a death, okay.)

It has been pretty warm and humid recently in Malaysia — tropical rain (monsoon?) arrived every afternoon, and as Malaysia as can be, the aftermath of the storm usually a 80-90% humidity. As you open the window or the balcony door, a stifling heat and humidity covered your cheek as you tried to find a glimpse of cool breeze (no, there isn’t any) along with Kuala Lumpur’s usual traffic sounds.

And it seems the lime plant has been enjoying it very much.

“Happy” would be an understatement. Knowing my track records with plants, to see something actually growing other than leaves and, possibly!, multiplying or having offsprings is exciting. Look, ma! I grow something other than human beings and it won’t yell if their iPad time has up!

The painting job has finished and I have put the plants back to their place. Thus, came the second task: Re-potting.

Some of the plants have been too big or too many so I decided to propagate them and put them on the bigger pots.

I had to change the pot on the right in such short time as I found I didn’t mix the soil properly, causing a bit of puddle when I watered the plant.

I also changing the watering time for the plants. I found many of them becoming really leggy with less leaves. I found that it’s due to lack of water. At first, I was confused since watering them once every 1-2 weeks is the “proper way” to do that. However, I found that it’s the proper way for indoor plants since they are, well, indoor. Since my plants are, uh, outdoor? Technically? So they have ample of external factors such as wind, air, and sunlight. I now watering and misting them pretty often.

I’m keeping an eye on my pothos plants. Their growth has been stunted for the past one year; from what I read on the Internet, it seems the cause is lack of water too. I’ve been increasing the watering frequency too, so lets hope they will grow fast.
Adulting

July 25, 2020 2:20 pm

Drove without swearing: (I can’t drive, so…)

Did not binge-watch: Netflix is losing its appeal on me; not sure why. However, “binge-reading manga/manhwa,” THEN…

Fixed it myself: Not… sure…? Does “battling cockroach and spray it to its demise” count?

Made my bed: LOL LOL LOL.

Matched my socks: AS LONG AS IT DOESN’T SMELL (yet) IT STILL COUNTS OKAY.

Took only one selfie: I rarely take selfie, so…

Didn’t spend all the money: Dang it, Shopee!

Did not have ramen for dinner: I consider myself successful on this because I usually have ramen for lunch.

Didn’t lose my keys: I’m paranoid whenever it’s related to keys.
How to grow my blog or website? Water it daily and enough sunshine? Don’t feed it after midnight?

July 25, 2020 12:23 pm

Things usually pretty quiet on June – August because it’s summer break on most part of the world. I remember last year (2019), chat and e-mails were ghastly quiet, we even got chances to play tic-tac-toes on our Slack channel and some slapbot (a bot that you can send command to, uh, slap your colleague on the channel.)

Due to the pandemic, things look pretty constantly crowded. Folks staying at home and preferring to do things from one location to minimize risk starting to venture into website or blog building.

The latter was pretty “easy” (blogging.) You open a blogging service, including wordpress.com, create a blog, and voila, you have a blog.

The first one — building a website — not so. Even for seasoned veteran on website building, creating a website means you have to think about so many factors within the website. What kind of contents you want to have on the website? If it’s an online shop, what kind of products do you want to sell? What kind of color scheme that you want to use? Brand image? Should I blog too? How about SEO?

And speaking about SEO, even bloggers have the same questions — how do I build my online presence? I’m blogging for my livelihood, how do I expand and monetize that?

And trust me, those questions are asked on daily basis — and no, quite the contrary of folks might think — those questions are not silly questions! Just yesterday, I had a user who wanted to know more about WordPress.com themes and how to improve their website’s theme. They even asked if we can recommend some design books for them to check about WordPress theme — it’s super sweet! We discussed about color palette, color scheme, and accessibility. I learned a lot from their questions, especially on being mindful in regards to website readability and navigation.

If your website is hosted in WordPress.com (or maybe even it’s hosted anywhere? It should be okay, though! The more the merrier,) you are invited to join WordPress.com Growth Summit, our first ever summit for bloggers, creators, and business owners. You can learn and join sessions with WordPress.com product experts (I SEE ZELDMAN ON THE LIST!) and you can even meet our Happiness Engineers (in case you are sick of me ?)

If you want to check more about WordPress.com Growth Summit, feel free to visit the website here: WordPress.com Growth Summit or read the team’s blog post on The First-Ever WordPress.com Growth Summit Is Coming, and You Won’t Want to Miss It

Interested on learning more about WordPress.com but Growth Summit is not your thing?

That’s okay! WordPress.com also have free daily webinar — yes, DAILY. I don’t know how my colleagues able to pull that off. DAILY. WEBINAR. DAILY. I have to drag my lazy bum just to blog once a week — that folks can join. The topic ranges from Quick Start on blogging to WooCommerce (can I have an amen from aspiring business owners?)

If you unable to join the webinar, you can still see the recordings on Automattic’s Youtube channel here.

To know more about the webinar, feel free to check it out on its website here: WordPress.com Webinar

Quick blurbs

I’ve been noticing some blogs that I frequently visit that they have update logs on it. Something like “added page XYZ on (date)”, and so on.

My FOMO has been screaming for me to follow suit, hahah.

May 4, 2026