Maybe It's Time Now

Hi, 

It's been a while since I wrote here, and you may probably notice I am working on something else. Although we just completed the yearly renewal of our Cocoa Design Life domain~ a blog we have been writing since 2009, we consider it may be the best moment to end our journey this year, when Oiseau's author site is finally set up.

Originally I thought it would be a big deal if I closed this blog, which preserved all the memories in these 15+ years. The transformation from Coffee Break (by Protowork) to Cocoa Design Life by antleeli, ricketeer and Oiseau Distrait. 

All the hard work we put into this blog, to modify HTML by two non-I.T. guys, ( now remaining one since 2014); the recording of our ups & downs, the fun & interests we found in our daily life, and those special moments we went through together in Hong Kong, our beloved homeland...that can in fact, vanish within seconds in the online world. Fifteen years is a spark in our cosmos. 

I used to say it seemed there was no one reading because I rarely received a response, but in fact, there are 392K views recorded. Is it still too little compared with others?...it's far more than enough for us.

Whenever I re-read our posts, there was always a trace of metamorphosis, the step-by-step changes from a designer & blogger to a writer & an author at the end. The pseudonym of Oiseau Distrait on my pseudo antleeli...sorry! but it's fun which marked my important chapter as well since 2020.

It was a struggle whether I should keep Cocoa Design Life and I wish I could if I had more time. After considering all the pros & cons, I decided to close it by the end of December 2024. A mini-blog (bilingual) will be incorporated into oiseaudistrait.com but all the published blog posts here will not be transferred. 

Last but not least, I must say Thank you to all of you, who once stayed with us, no matter for how long, from how far...I hope you did enjoy your coffee break with us. 

Now, you are invited to join me, Oiseau Distrait to explore our new chapter together, see you! 

May God's blessing be with you & your family as always!

Au revoir!

Oiseau Distrait (Antleeli)

P.S.~ 

This is the last blog post of Cocoa Design Life Blog which will remain accessible until 31 Dec 2024.

You can contact me at oiseaudistrait@gmail.com

Medium Friend Link of ~August 2024

 Hi, hi!

I do wonder whether there will be anyone...Hellooooo...anyone reading this post because we are all sticking to our TV, I guess :D, it's the weeks of the Olympics!!! That's fine, me too; how can we not be excited & be proud of our Hong Kong athletes, right?

Two gold & one bronze medals already, I'm sure there will be more upcoming, with my fingers crossed. But no matter how, I still would like to prepare this list for you, in case you want to have something to read between the gaps of the competitions.

Here we have the selected articles for you in August, you can read them for free via these friend links, exclusively for readers here and those who subscribe to my Author website

You don't need to have a paid account on Medium, but you're always welcome to join, then I can buy myself a cup of coffee while you're reading, clap, leave a comment, or subscribe via email on Medium; feel free as you wish.

Enjoy :D

Poetry:-

👉 Why Cats Have To Be Faithful

Essay:-

👉 Where Are My Angels

Photo Stories:-

👉 It's Summer Let's Go To The Beach (Part 1)

👉A Message From My Gold-band Snake Plant

Medium Friend Link ~ July 2024

 Hi, hi!

Wow! What a super not Summer this year, how about staying somewhere under the shade, or in a well conditioned corner, grab a lemonade or your favorite iced coffee for a break?

Here we have the selected articles for you in July, you can read them for free via these friend links, exclusively for readers here and those who subscribe to my Author website

You don't need to have an account on Medium, but you're always welcome to join, then I can buy myself a cup of coffee while you're reading, clap, leave a comment, or subscribe via email on Medium; feel free as you wish.

Enjoy :D

Poetry:-

👉 Hope To Be A Magic Bean

👉 Catch The Flee Flare

Essay:-

👉 Sorry, It's Me

👉 The Isolation

Mysterious case of missing book cover image on Amazon KDP...finally solved!

 Hi, Hi!

After spending a whole month, all books of the Petit Paris Series were finally ready on Amazon; using extra time on this platform was expected, which has already listed all the timelines required for each processing stage, you just need to add a bit of extra, or another extra time for the things done.

I was facing the problem of missing book cover images in the store after the books were alive a month ago, so I contacted the staff and sorted out some of the possible causes that might implied. One of the obvious possibilities was the RGB color profile that had to be used instead of sRGB. 

But strange enough, the first and the only cover of Book One had no problem at all in its sRGB profile. I tried to convert all the others to upload again but hopeless.

I used .tiff file instead of .jpeg to reserve the details, which should be acceptable within 50M and what I had submitted was around 20M. If the first cover had no problem, then why should the other had?

It seemed there was no clue to solve this issue, the only possible way was to add the cover images in the A+ content but truly speaking, it's not a good idea in long term. So, I decided to leave my desk & went out for a walk. 

This is always a good advice to those who are stuck in problems, and most likely can be solved after a reboot...of our mind!

When I returned home, I reviewed all the files again and finally discovered something, there were two choices of tiff-8 & tiff-16, I selected 16bit, the same reason to reserve details while it didn't exceed the file size limit. But, 'Why not have a try?' I told myself, so I changed four covers into tiff-8 instead...

Volià! Problem solved within an hour. So why is there are conflict in file sizes? and why didn't Book One in sRGB, tiff-16 face any problems? 

I'm afraid there will never be an answer from me or Amazon, but no matter how, I can finally settle my headache and move on. Happy publishing!

中文寫作平台的迷思

最近時常在 Medium 平台上寫作，主要是用英文，因為大部份的讀者也是外國人，而且我亦曾經多次提及過打中文是我弱項，如果打字太慢，確實會窒礙思路。例如這區區幾十字已經用了我接近十多分鐘才完成，是否有點兒那過呢？

還未說在冷氣房內，一邊打字，一邊用老花眼查字典，額角上一邊冒汗•••不是說笑的啊！所以還是決定用Apple pen 在 iPad 上繼續這篇文章，否則寫到晚餐時段也沒有完成的可能。

其實近日每天在Medium 寫作期間，都想到它的中文版，曾經嘗試在當中尋找華文作者，希望可以聯繫並互相支持，一起繼續在平台上寫作，但可惜找到的數量很少，又或者早已在2020年左右停止出稿，覺得很可惜。

於是又嘗試在其他平台找找看，例如Substack中文版，找到一部份但也不見得活躍，究竟中文人有什麼渠道可以在出版文章故事之餘得到一點點微薄的稿費呢？他們又跑到那裡去投稿呢？

無論是寫作或網上投稿，當然可以以個人博客或網誌作為渠道，但是如果能夠一起在同一平台上發表，也就能凝聚一班志同道合的寫作人，在創作路上就能得到一些支持（雖然也不排除純以消售為目的的所謂作者或讀者，這是無可避免的）。

可能你會說現今的世代，可以用其他方式傳遞創作或訊息，也有可觀的收入，沒有必要依靠純文字平台；說的也是，只不過每種渠道有其獨特之處是未必可以互相替代的，單是文字與影音，會讓讀者在觀感和思考接收上有很大的分別，這也是為何它們須要同時存在。

不過也許有一個事實是無可否認的，就在我身邊的朋友而言，他們也寧可在IG, YouTube, FB 等多以影音元素為主的平台作為逍遣或消息來源，要看一篇長達四分鐘或以上的純文字，對他們來說，吸引力不大，除非內容有相當的可觀性吧？！

只是我相信一個屬於華人寫作，尤其是香港人的寫作平台是存在的，即使現在仍處於尋索的階段，盼望終於會找上，到時再為大家分享。

Medium Friend Links ~ June 2024

Hi, hi!

Have a break and want something to read? Here we have the selected articles for you, you can read them for free via these friend links, exclusively for readers here and those who subscribe to my Author website

You don't need to have an account on Medium, but you're always welcome to join, then I can buy myself a cup of coffee while you're reading, clap, leave a comment, or subscribe via email on Medium; feel free as you wish.

Enjoy :D

Poetry:-

👉Free You Now...Smile

👉You Know Why...I Prefer To Walk

Essay:-

👉Destruction

👉ISBN Paradox

Oiseau Distrait Author Website Launched !!

 Hi, Hi!

Can you discover anything difference here...to...your...right...Voilà!

Oiseau Distrait Author Website was launched on 3 May 2024, Chirps! Chirps! Hurray! 

This is one of my favourite photos, so I use this as my website header, I hope you'll like it, too.

In my new birdhouse, you'll know more about me through a detailed profile on my Home page. 

Follow by a BirdTalk page for my blog posts to chat with you about anything that interests me, including some of my update status. Most of all is...I'll select more of my Medium articles with friend links from time to time for you to enjoy, so stay tuned.

A summary of all published books can be found on the Books page, including their bookstore link. (Remember, local readers can only purchase from Google Books because Apple Books is not available in the Hong Kong region.)

A new short fiction in Chinese 遇見彩虹 was just released on the same day, so why not go to have a look, see if it will ignite your imagination?

There is an Archive page at the end, a hidden story of my before & after, in case you find any trace of who I am...I'll be grateful to you if you can keep this secret for me :P 

Because it'll be more fun to join me in a new world of literature.

So, that's it for tonight...Oh! one more thing, you're always welcome to subscribe to my newsletter via my website, don't worry, it's obviously will take some time to prepare as I am a forgetful bird. 

Au Revoir & See you there!
 
 

Medium Friend Links of April

Hi, Hi,

Did you try to read my Medium article from the Friend Link in the previous post? Is it working? I hope so.

How about a few more for April.

Poetry:-

👉Tiny Flower Of The Wild

👉Hello, Anybody Here?

Prose:-

👉Jack Under The Moon ~ Nothing scary but romantic

👉Beautiful Calligraphy ~ Of the Islamic World

These are selected free Friend Links for readers of the Cocoa Design Life Blog you can view them freely in Medium directed vs the links; if you like it, simply clap or leave a comment as you wish, or subscribe via email, Happy April reading :D

Oiseau 

Friend Link for my post in Medium...Testing, testing

👉I'm Robin, Your Messenger

Hi, hi,

It's been a long time away because I'm on another writing platform Medium, I've spent some time over there writing and enjoying the community, it's been almost 8 months, time flies!

But I didn't forget my friends here that you may not be a member of that platform, even if you can still find me via my profile page Oiseau Distrait, I'm trying to figure out to see if my posts can be freely read by you guys here via a Friend Link.

Usually, I will write around 5 posts per week on various topics, but there is no automatic system for me to link them here except manually, so let's try whether this one is working? If yes, I'll see if there are any possible solutions to update the list here per week or two.

You may ask what happens to my earnings if a free link is used, well, yes! I earn nothing via a non-member read, but the post can be read by you, so, it's fine. You can also share this link freely if it works, and maybe someday, if you want to join the community as a member, you're always welcome. If not, claps & comments do help...or even just read 30 sec, my pleasure.

To reduce my workload so I can concentrate on my writing, I won't prepare the picture here, but there is always one in the Medium post. And one more thing regarding the language written is still majoring in English. 

Okay! Here is the first one, let me know if it works and whether you want to read more in the future.

Bye & see you! 

Have a happy Friday.

Oiseau