How to set up your Canon Selphy CP900 wireless printing

Introduction
First, it's a bummer that Selphy Photo Print can only work with USB connection.

Second, Selphy CP900 is Wifi capable (good news), but I have no clue as how to set up a Wifi connection to print photos over Wifi to Selphy.

I tried to search for resources in Canon official sites, but to no avail. What is not cool is that the help page has no user input to grade and give comment about these help pages (thus prevent Canon from ever improving their help content). For that, I commend Microsoft for being better in that sense.

I switched to Google search for contribution by others about Selphy Wifi setup. I tried and fumbled with no luck until I tried the following steps.

Content

1. It seemed that Selphy only allowed installation of either USB connection OR Wifi connection. Canon doesn't allow installation of both USB and Wifi connections!
2. When I uninstalled my previous USB connected Selphy and reinstalled the Selphy Photo Print and its driver, it only allowed choosing either Wifi or USB. Reluctantly I chose Wifi and forsake USB connection.
3. One problem though, if I lose my internet connection (or communication with my router due to radio interference), will I be able to print or would I have to wait until I gain access to internet (or router) again?

Other matter

1. I wanted to find out if there is any other software besides Selphy Photo Print and I came upon Easy PhotoPrint Ex. It is like Selphy Photo Print but with more options. However, I can only use it to print on my other Canon printers BUT not Selphy.
2. The link for download of Easy Photo Print Ex is available here.
3. Selphy Wifi Ad hoc function seems to be useless with PCs and notebook running on earlier than Windows 8. I guess the ad hoc function is good for wifi cameras, camera phones and tablets?
4. Privacy. If you are as curious as me, you would have dismantled the ink cartridge after it is over. To my surprise, there is no ink but a roll of coloured films (e.g. blue, yellow, red, and white sections) inside the cartridge. Close examination of these coloured films over a light source revealed "printed photographs" still visible on the "ink" film (which is regarded as waste)! Well, I tried to salvage it to make art.
5. Laminated version. It would be great if next version of Selphy will incorporate lamination (matted) to the printed photograph. There is a requirement for matted passport photos and I couldn't use Selphy for printing. Wow, matted printing papers are expensive!

 All in all, I like Selphy and it will be very useful during travel (if the weight is not an issue and I can't wait to print photos of myself on vacation and mailing them to close relative and friends like postcards.

My favourite picnic food

Going to picnic or "berkelah" (in Malay) is a fun thing to do with family. In addition to the scenes and the activities, we get to enjoy home-made tasty food. Here is a list of my favourite food, fruits and drinks.

• Fried chicken or nuggets. For the ease of preparation, fried chicken and nuggets can be prepared by getting the ready to fry type at grocery shops. For home-made type in which you want to tweak the spices (like KFC), you can follow an example from "Triple Dipped Fried chicken" by AllRecipes.
• Char bee hoon (or fried rice vermicelli). There is a recipe for this dish, "Char bee hoon" by TheBondingTool. Sometimes, having a Maggie mee goreng (or fried Maggir noodle) is desired. A recipe for that can be found in "Maggi mee goreng (15 min, 5 ingredients)" by JewelPie.
• Egg and ham sandwich. It is considered tasty and yet easy to prepare. The easiest would be to mash boiled eggs and mix it with butter, mayoinnaise (with a little seasoning), and cucumber slices. There is a recipe for "delicious egg salad for sandwiches" by AllRecipes.
• Meat balls. I love fish balls and other meat balls. The way to prepare them is to deep fry them.

Different types of meat balls, e.g. shrimp, beef, pork, fish, mushroom-with-meat, and many other variety of preparation are available. Pics taken from www.best-food.com.tw. 

• Finger food, e.g. fried tofu, siew mai, char siew (either packed or home-cooked by RasaMalaysia), popiah (popiah recipe by RasaMalaysia), and other spicy fried food.
• Fruits. If weight is not a problem, then watermelon is the best fruit to bring along!
• Junk food and chips.
• Drinks such as isotonic drinks (e.g. 100plus or H-Two-O), plain water, lemonade (less sweetened to match the hot weather here), and ice block/chunks with ice picks.
  

Normally I wouldn't want to bring along anything that is too sweet such as cakes, puddings, etc. because of the hot weather and ants. The hot weather induces a stronger taste for spicy food rather than sweet (my own opinion). Also, normally I will have to compete with ants to the food (unless the picnic is on the beach).

Activities that we normally do while having a picnic would be to fish, fly a kite, catching grasshoppers or butterflies, look at water-strider, feed the birds bread, catch small fries with net, blow bubbles so that our kids can chase after them, take pics, dig for clams or small crabs (when on a beach), collect seashells, play with sand, build sand castle, etc.

If we do get to stay overnight on a beach, having a BBQ would be wonderful. In Singapore, it is easy to prepare the food (by ordering from suppliers, e.g. search "BBQ food Singapore delivery" in Google). In addition to the food supplied, adding a sweet corn and potatoes will be super.

Looking forward to our next picnic.

Rice cooker on the go for family

For most people, traveling while on a holiday comes together with eating out. This is true if you are traveling to other countries with different culture, ambience, and importantly food.

Anyway, thanks to globalization, there is no food that is not available in Malaysia and Singapore. We have Middle Eastern, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Pinoy (or Phillipines), Indonesian, Western, French, and many more. For those people, like me, who would prefer that once in a while to have a home-cooked meal that is heavy on the spices and hot chillies during travel (especially for a duration of more than 5 days) there must be a way to accomplish this...

When I was in Spain few months back, and after having taken so many Tapas and Paella (which were really great and tasty but still....), I was so desperate to look for Asian/Indian restaurants that I was willing to walk long distances to taste home. Unfortunately the food there was still foreign to me. That was when I realized that the only way to take home cooked meal with me (if there was a craving), was to get a mini rice cooker. One that can fit into a luggage and sufficient to cook for at least two people.

The advantages of rice cooker is plenty:

1. It can boil water. This is important for travelers with babies and who need to prepare milk (from formula milk powder).
2. Instant noodle. Any craving for noodles, rice cooker to the rescue.
3. Hot pot (or steam boat). You can find any fresh ingredients to your liking (in the market) and dump them into the prepared broth (after adding the prepacked spices or broth base). It will be super!
4. Steamer. If you have craving for anything that need steaming, the rice cooker to the rescue!
5. BBQ/frying. I have not tried it on a "basic" cooker (those portable ones with minimal function) before, but with a little bit of cooking oil and ingredient, I guess you can start stir fry them in the pot and it should work.
6. Bake. My wife had tried baking a bread with the rice cooker. It won't be as fluffy as baking them in the oven, but it is still tasty. However, I don't think bread is hard to get item in the world. Bread can be found all over the world!

There are several references describing what you can do with a rice cooker. I will list some of them here.

• 21 Surprising Things You Can Make In A Rice Cooker
• Frying foods in a rice cooker (eHow)
• Rice cooker recipes (Zojirushi)

Other tips

• How to opt for Digi super long life plan. This is a prepaid plan and you can increase the validity duration by opting for Digi super long life plan (to 365 days) at a cost of RM 30.
• Type of cameras that is most useful during travel.
• List of important things to take while traveling oversea.