Go …. daddy ….

blocked in China … sighs!

What a hassle to find the ‘right’ web hosting company!

To the comment spammers

May you have your retribution!

iPod-volution

The history of my iPods.

It started out in 2004, when I decided, after much contemplation to get an iPod. I got the 40 GB one at that time. It was the best model at that time, the 4th Generation. I was preparing to go overseas and wanted all my songs with me. It worked like a charm and lasted me throughout 2005 until 2006 when I had to have it’s battery replaced. Got a different iPod back in return and ear phone jack seems to have problem every so often. It still works, but occasionally is faulty. I live with it.

Got my MacBook from NUS and got my 1st iPod nano black at $16.25 and it was a charm too, for short trips as it only had 1 GB of songs. A week later, they released the 2nd Generation of iPod nano.

Darn! It was the same price.

Today, I got the 2nd Generation iPod nano for free. Well, it’s my mum who won some lucky draw at the country club, but I told her I will exchange mine with hers. haha. I wanted more storage. this had 2 GB compared to my 1 GB only.

Probably have to spend some time loading the 1GB nano with my mum favourite songs then let her use it. If not it would just be left there and gone to waste as she is clueless about what an MP3 was, asking me “How do you put a CD in, it’s so small?” … hmm … it’s a long way more before I can actually explain that CDs are almost a relic these days.

So, here are the iPods:

The detestable WORD and the fermenting pandan cake

I absolutely detest, abhor and hate using Ms Word. The numbering for list always turns out wrong. Styles don’t always work as planned (or seemed). Crashes very often while working with certain style sheets.

Waste so much of my time fixing the formatting for my report! WTF!

Was hungry and went to find food. Ate 1 piece of the pandan cake i bought since Tuesday. I think I should have placed it in the fridge. I realized that the cake was mushy and had a wrid smell when I was just into my 2nd piece. SighS! Yucks!

I’m tired! Very tired! My arms are aching from werid position in fron tof a laptop. My back hurts. My head hurts. I need a long sleep … when, ah?!

scrybe

I am promoting this product even before the product is officially launched!

I saw the video clip demo and it’s amazing. If everything works out as it should, then this app could be a really killer app for GTD (Getting thing’s done). I wonder if it provides sync with all the other PIMs.

Anyhow, go to this link.

Go to the link: scrybe
Just too bad, I can’t create programs that work and look so great. I’m only a Computing graduate, nothing fanciful, therefore, I can’t do such cool and wonderful Apps.

Hmm …

Rather Annoying Monday

RAM!
That was the main cause of the problem. After running hardware diagnostics, both Apple’s as well as external intensive RAM tester (memtest) certified all hardware OK, I still had a problem with Tiger OS. I could not install the OS again after certain applications failed to run properly.

I tried to change back the original RAM and Tiger installed properly. Then I switched back the new RAM and Tiger refused to install (even though it appeared OK on the Tiger installation with the original RAM). Even had hardware test give it a clean bill of health.

I then tried different combinations of my RAM. 1 old RAM + 1 new RAM and this time Tiger still failed. So definitely 1 RAM was faulty. Tried the other combination and it installed. Took me hours to narrow into the faulty RAM and I’m glad the problem is solved.

Went to sim Lim to exchange the RAM and the sales person stood there and smirked while I explained to him my very lengthy story. He said: “You could have just installed twice to check, right?” I replied: “I didn’t know it was the RAM that was faulty at the beginning, so I had to actually check all possiblities and combination, what.”

Well, 6 hours later after I began installing Tiger, the OS is doing it’s final software update and it’s rather long cause of the extensive updates that is requried from installing from the CD.

One more problem which is my External HDD – it cannot be read, formatted or deleted. Hmm … might actually have a IO error or some fatal error with the HDD after all the abuse that I put it through trying to get data off it. Sighs! I’ll figure out what to do laters.

Now, after all the setup is done, I really need to get back to working on my HYP. My Prof said to me this afternoon: “Edwin, I think I need an update from you.”

I said: “Ok.” (But, not much to update as I am stuck at no where!)

WORK!

!!!

Cannot stand the problems with the computer, always got small things that stop working properly!

RSD

Alamak, i realise that my macbook also does random shut downs every once in a while. Probably over the week there had been a handful (around 5 times) it did a random shut down. Initially I was just wondering what’s wrong, then I realize that this could be the problem that everyone was talking about.

hmm …

A few options:

1. See if got software update to solve the problem
2. See if need to send back to service
3. This might seem silly to some people, but … Pray about it!

What I am more concerned about is that I have ported quite a lot of data over to the new laptop already, so I hope that I won’t be losing all of it.

Battles of a Techie!

There are so many battles to overcome as a techie, especialy so when you got a new computer and you want everything just the way you want it to be.

So, I got this MacBook and I want everything as convient as before or even better.

I got the RAM upgraded to 2GB and the difference is quite big. Now, Entourage and all the old Power PC software zips through very quickly. Though I still can’t for any reason figure out why firefox quits unexpectedly quite often. Hmm …

I also got a sleeve to fit the MacBook as well as the DVI to adapter. Hmm … seems like getting a Mac is really a huge investment. My old Fujitsu only every needed RAM and more recently a HDD boost.

I called Pacific Internet to enquire about the problem with my wireless connection and figured that it might be a Mac problem. So, I calld Apple Support which brings me all the way across the globe to USA, i think, for the service personnel to talk to me. I spoke to the service personnel and she couldn’t help me. She was very friendly, though. so, got transferred to a technical guy. That guy was dumbfounded as well. In theory, everything should have worked. All the TCP/IP settings were right, but I just wasn’t able to ping anything (i.e. get online). Finally we tried to check the router and found out that the router uses some special software that speeds up the transmission to 22mbps, which most probably the Mac could not work on. After restricting that to the normal 802.11b 11mbps, the MacBook when online. Phew! I was elated! (BUT, what disturbed me was that my brother’s iMac was able to connect to my router perfectly about a week ago and now my MacBook isn’t able to without this slight modification to the router.

Oh well, at least I am online.

Next configure Entourage to sync perfectly with Address Book and iCal on the Mac, so that I can have synchronized data. Done!

Then install mySQL onto the Mac and get it running. Took like a while. I installed everything but could not figure out how to get the mysql server running. Apparently, I needed to restart the computer and viola! It worked. Yet to import all the database data from my PC. That’s facing a little trouble now. Sighs!

Think I am spending too much time on all this … need to refocus on my HYP which is taking a slight dip at the moment. Sighs! Tmr will really understand my papers!

Had my first 2 Lab TA session this morning. It was simple, but I talked alot. Not too much questions, because the Lab was simpe, next weeks will be more difficult, so I do hope that they prepare their labs before they come one. There is also something to note, that the earliest session at 10 am ave students with more questions and more problems. then the subsequent labs saw students who completed their lab faster and quicker. It’s like they knew how to do it already. Or maybe we explained it better after the 1st run? =)

A presentation tmr for the RAS Group on Shortest Path algo. I proclaim it goes well. (“,)

Trying to keep with the ‘tradition’:

I thank God for all the things that I have accomplished today.
I thank God for the things that I am able to get and may it continue to serve me well.

That’s my MacBook!

I got a Mac!

I think I waited an awfully long time to get a Mac and I finally made the decision to get one this time round. No PowerBook 12″ G4 as I had longed for, but now I get a MacBook 13″ Black. (+ 1GB Black iPod Nano for $16.25 … it’s a bundle deal and I think I would have been mad if I did not get it.)

The MacBook is awfully easy to use. It’s just a matter of getting used to the interface.

Couple of issues to handle was that I had to figure out how to transfer all my existing mail over to the new Macintosh. It was from a Windows Ms Outlook to a Mac Entourage. Took a while, but it has been successfully imported. Phew! Contacts, I shall leave for another day.

Still got important documents to port over as well as photos, music, etc.

But, I am good to go on this Mac.