孤独な天使

Dreamhost

2010-04-28T23:21:00.001+08:00

Ok so I finally got a hosting provider, and I have a coupon! $50 off for new signups. Just plug in ANGEL50 when you register.

Time to go populate my site .....

Useful link for iPhone dev

2009-11-01T01:46:00.001+08:00

http://networkpx.blogspot.com/2009/09/compiling-iphoneos-31-apps-with-xcode.html

Sharing Printers on Windows 7 (0x000006d9)

2009-09-08T15:38:00.002+08:00

If you are trying to share a printer in Windows 7 and get the error 0x000006d9, check your system services. If your Windows Firewall service is off, turn it on and try again.

Worked for me when I tried to share a printer. I guess W7 was trying to add a rule to allow the printer to be accessible but as the service was off, it couldn't modify it and hence couldn't share it out.

How to compile freaking php on my mac.

2009-08-04T01:06:00.002+08:00

./configure \
--prefix=/usr/local \
--with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs \
--with-ldap=/usr \
--with-kerberos=/usr \
--enable-cli \
--with-zlib-dir=/usr \
--enable-exif \
--enable-ftp \
--enable-mbstring \
--enable-mbregex \
--enable-sockets \
--with-iodbc=/usr \
--with-curl=/usr \
--with-config-file-path=/etc \
--sysconfdir=/private/etc \
--with-mysql-sock=/var/mysql \
--with-mysqli=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config \
--with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql \
--with-openssl=shared,/usr \
--with-xmlrpc \
--with-xsl=/usr \
--with-pear \
--with-libxml-dir=/usr \
--with-iconv=shared,/usr \
--with-pdo-mysql=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config \
--with-gd \
--with-jpeg-dir \
--with-png-dir=/sw \
--with-freetype-dir=/usr/local \
--with-mcrypt=/sw

http://www.malisphoto.com/tips/php-on-os-x.html
http://diymacserver.com/forum/topic/leopard-iconv-and-php5

Changing ideas

2009-03-19T20:16:00.003+08:00

Yes, it's been a while since I last penned here. There are several reasons ... too lazy, the tools are not available when I want to do it, it's all on FB already ...

But well, I guess I better put something here too :P So my loyal readers can read.

Things have pretty much changed since the ideas of last time. I remember last time, it was pretty much absolutes. The future partner must be a virgin! He must be this! That! Etc.

But reading SG Brides changed my mindset. It doesn't really matter whether he did It or not, it's still the same person regardless. I remember I was quite shocked actually, that many people are getting it on without getting married. (Yes I guess I'm a prude >_>)

Looking back too, while in Converscient, I was pretty satisfied (to use the term loosely). A job, doesn't pay much, but it was okay, not many big complaints, go back everyday play wow. That's fine really. Some time sooner or later I'll earn enough to afford a car.

Well that was the idea then. Things changed after going to muvee. I think it was due to a number of reasons - older (and hence more mature? lol), meet different people (the people I mixed with in Converscient were chiefly my peers in age).

The different people I met taught me different things, and somehow awoken the hunger. The wtf am I still doing here? Why am I not getting HIS pay? Why do I have to save money to afford this? Why can't I expand my income so that I can afford this?

I met SG and YJ the other day. I guess you can put us in the 'losers' category. (Yes, I'm not burning with self righteousness by saying I'm not in the grp). Amongst us we have people who have never dated, people who only had 1 partner and refused to try again, people who aren't excelling in their careers, people who are sitting on their bums waiting for stuff to happen, people who just accept everything that comes their way, people who don't fight.

It's kind of sobering, thinking about this. The only time is now. Do you want to live an average life? Look back upon it at your deathbed and realise that you didn't do anything at all. That you were a person of no consequence? That in a blink of an eye (on a cosmic scale), you were nothing. Friends say a few things about you at your funeral, and that's it. Life goes on. Nothing happened.

This is probably putting it a little too harshly. Unless you're a true hermit, most of us touch people everyday.

Well, at least I'm glad I realised this, and also realise the need to climb out of this cesspit. I don't know what to do about the people I know who are still like this. Do they know? Do they know and just ignore this? Do they know, and do nothing about it? Do they defeat themselves by telling themselves that they don't amount to anything?

Are they really comfortable with the idea that they are alone? Do they not think of whether they should find someone? Or just sit and wait? Jiang Ziya diao yu?

For some people, things happen easily for them. For others, they have to fight for it if they want to have it. Just because you don't have it now doesn't mean you're not destined to have it.

I came across this little gem when I was reading my (now) favourite site: www.cracked.com

One of the most common reasons we procrastinate is fear that the end result won't live up to the "perfect" idea in our heads. Think about the writer friend of yours who has never actually written anything, because they're "waiting for the right idea" for a book to come along.

This is why people wind up living in their parents' basement--waiting for the perfect job, the perfect girl, the perfect friendship--before committing to anything.

And here's what one of my friends had to say about it:

You don't figure out the right way to do something without making mistakes. And nobody's perfect.

It's almost better knowing how something sucks and making due rather than for waiting forever for it to be perfect.

Why are some people I know so afraid of failure? I'm afraid of it too, I know. I'm working to remove that. It's okay to fail. It's better to have tried, and failed, than not to have tried at all. Rather than sit staring at the closed door wondering what's on the other side, or fearing about what's on the other side, just wtf open it! Open it and deal with what comes out from the other side. It could be good, it could be bad. Whatever it is, it will make you stronger. You will learn from the experience (Well of course you can choose not too...)

Alongside with the realisation (that I hang out with losers), is that I have to make other kinds of friends. Friends who have the same kind of mindset. I only know four so far. Need to find more.

This doesn't mean I'm not a loser, nor am I saying I'll ignore nor think any less of the 'loser' friends that I have, but, birds of a feather flock together. Friends influence your way of thinking, what you do, and can give good advice.

Sigh. I dunno. I wanted to send all this and then some to my friends, but... well really. Is there a point to it? If you hold yourself so small, should I bother to hold yourself for your true worth? If you can't even see the beauty in yourself, should I even bother to tell you how beautiful you are? Should I bother to drag a boulder up a mountain? A boulder that doesn't even want to go up in the first place?

Doesn't seem like it's logical hor. But it's quite sad to see people wasting their time like this...

Not like I'm not wasting my time ;) I do do that sometimes... :P

I found this blog while stumbling, http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2007/03/21/why-some-people-almost-always-are-successful/ it seems pretty good. Nice posts. Check it out.

Thoughts...

2008-11-19T01:47:00.002+08:00

Talked to R today about LP.. about the stuff that I've been through.

His feedback. For weeks he's been seeing me go around this cycle looking for an answer to a non existent problem.

I've been feeling pretty shoehorned for this entire course. Why do I have to behave like this? Why .. why blah blah. For some people, I guess it works for them. They feel the breakthrough, they feel like they have done something different, and it's great for them. But people are different. What is important to them isn't necessarily important to another person.

In a way this course has been pretty beneficial. I did learn stuff, and to me, found my greatest breakthrough which will take me through life. But to other ppl, no it's not a breakthrough, etc etc. .. Duh? We have different ways of judging..

I've been judged by a person who said less than 50 words to me. Based on that quick analysis, he can say I don't make creative input at work. But R, being boss and all, said no. Well ya I guess so, that was what I answered then. And that person said even louder. You don't.

So well I gave up. I realised then if I continue fighting, I will be labelled as defensive. But yet if I just let it slide, I'm not being true to myself.

So was kinda blah.

And that happened again by that coursemate who said I don't have my breakthrough yet. Babe, we have different kinds of breakthroughs.

I know, there are various ways to look at this. To do something different, to try out different stuff. Ya .. I agree. But I'm just not wired that way. I like saying "I don't have that plugin installed" etc. It's just a quirk of mine. Then they say, don't think! Use your heart!

But ... well .. er the heart is silent leh. If you wanna listen to the heart... That's not the way I'm wired.

Then the same coursemate was saying that people want the same things. (Well in a very basic way I guess). And the fact that I want my car to be neon light, door lights .. etc etc, is cause somehow not open at all etc etc. That people are the same .. blah..

I dunno. I just like my car to have lights... flashy shitz.... No particular reason.

I dunno

Now feeling rather negative about the whole thing.

It has its merits.

But... I guess it's not for me.

Blatantly obvious .. To some

2008-11-01T19:11:00.002+08:00

Regarding LP...
These few days I've been feeling resentful about the time needed, and my logical mind kept finding excuses to quit.

But last night, in bed, I was thinking when I solve problems like computer probs, fixing bugs ..
I never dwell on the "why did this happen!?!"
I just think of "It's .. ok .. It happened already. What can I do to fix it?"

Can't I just let the heart (or mind .. depending on subject matter) decide..

OK I want to do X and put the power and energy of my logical mind behind THINKING how to make it work rather than whining about it.

Gah

2008-10-06T14:36:00.002+08:00

Been feeling rather depressed these few days. Frankly if really pressed for an answer, I wouldn't have one.. it's just .. blarhgz.

I realise that one of my difficulties is to trust people. Well, I can do things solo and all's fine, but rely on someone to do stuff... That can get quite difficult. And almost everything that happens always shows that's a correct assumption.

Maybe I'm a control freak :P

Anyways I've been talking to DA, asking him if he sees a possibility where he can shift too, and be well .. warmer, more trusting, closer to people and stuff like that.

He is cautious about it ... Not like totally unwilling to try, but kinda approaching this with a 1000 foot long stick. Frankly, I cannot imagine DA being like this. (Similarly I cannot imagine myself like this -.-). But well DA has his LA which he is completely 100%+++ devoted to.

But I guess I should try and sit down with him and see if we can work something out..kinda like .. get out there... be er .. I don't know =.= I don't even really know what's supposed to happen.

It's kinda silly actually, since well.. that's DA, and this is me. That's .. that.

Shifting

2008-09-26T19:26:00.002+08:00

No, this is not shifting house or what. It's a term in Asiaworks about shifting yourself. It's pretty interesting so far. These few days I've been feeling cautiously optimistic and actually cheerful these days. Usually everyday it's kinda of a blah mood, but it's been ^_^~

Not too bad I guess.

Also going to volunteer for the first time in my life >_> Omg. I actually signed up for 2 things at this current time in writing. Signed up for Cheshire Home and NLB. Tomorrow will be packed, gotta go for team meeting in the morning and then 10 - 12 is the NLB orientation and 4pm need to go to the Home. Add to that I need to get some work done! Zomg!

Looks like Sunday will have to work quite alot liao. Actually the NLB thing is abit extra, but it's quite cool, I've always liked libraries ^_^; Would most likely have to scale something back, depending lo.

Need to work on my project plan later.. Time is going to be tight, and I can't overcommit..

But .. bottom line .. I feel cheerful! ~ woo.

rawr!

2008-09-12T19:18:00.003+08:00

Wah so long nv blog here, the new UI is slightly different! Pretty interesting.

I have been so busy these days, going on courses and such. Been doing this course by asiaworks.. Up to now I still can't really categorise it, except that it's for self awareness and living your life fully. Lol. It IS pretty good imo, although I have a friend in the States who took it and didn't feel so good about it. I guess it's individual experience and stuff bah. So far my mates are pretty cool, would love to keep in contact with them always.

Well, it's time to start rolling up the sleeves to speed pick up Ruby on Rails, it's going to be an interesting 3+ mths ahead. MUSTTTTTT be able to do well in this!! Will have to be super hardworking liao.

Was reading about the election news yesterday. Omg. Dudes, if I had to vote, I wouldn't vote for the girl next door. I'd vote for the smart dude, who can THINK and actually do shit rather than someone who's exactly like me. WTF would I vote for myself to lead a country? (Well in this case, I can do a pretty good job!). But seriously, what's with the, "Oh she's just like me! Therefore I shall vote for her!" or "Experience doesn't matter! It's your ethics that do!" ...

Stop dragging religion into politics man. Just because he's/she's a devout Christian/Buddhist/Muslim/whatever, doesn't make him/her a good politician/decision maker etc.

Looking back..

2008-08-13T22:14:00.003+08:00

So today marks the next chapter of my life... Today is the day where my ties with muvee are severed. Poofed.

It's kinda sad actually, I felt quite sorry ... kinda regretful ... etc.

Looking back at my work experience... I guess the years in muvee were the most fruitful.

In Converscient, I learnt to be a peon, learnt that SI was shit, and I didn't really want to do it, learnt what kind of projects I should avoid, learnt server setups ... etc.

In muvee, I learnt how to not be a peon, how to think about things. Not just listen blindly, but to think for myself. I must say I leave muvee a changed person.

But I still don't know what I really want. Maybe the workshop next week will tell me ...

Digital art

2008-08-08T20:22:00.002+08:00

Went to the digital art exhibition last sat. It was pretty bad imo... Most of the time I was thinking wtf? What's the point of this shitz? Either I didn't understand it, or it just didn't .. well make sense to me.

These few pics are fun though. We saw this the moment we stepped into the museum lolz. Again I was thinking wtf.. the description totally is very lame.. Like David .. examined under the female eye.. blah blah yawnz IMO it's just .. stupid looking .. -_-;

owww...

2008-08-08T20:04:00.002+08:00

Result of langaing with a bicycle =.=; I've always known at the back of my head that that place was rather dangerous, cos it was a T junction and ppl travelling on the _ side can't see the ppl approaching from |.. I've always told myself to look before heading out of the |, but I usually don't...

So well today it happened.. I walked out... and langa a bicycle =.= At first I was thinking not too bad, he didn't knock into my body, didn't crash anywhere... was ok. Then later in the bus I felt some pain at the toe, looked down and it was zomfg blood!!! =.= Pain ....

Underneath of the nail is purplesh liao.. Going to replace the name.. I think the bic didn't run over it, but more like maybe the nail hit it and was pushed to 1 side (as you can see it's a bit \ to 1 side...)

Urgh.

2008-08-07T01:21:00.000+08:00

Personality Disorder Test Results

Paranoid	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	42%
Schizoid	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	86%
Schizotypal	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	82%
Antisocial	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Borderline	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	78%
Histrionic	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Narcissistic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	34%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	58%
Dependent	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	46%
Obsessive-Compulsive	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	38%

Take Free Personality Disorder Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

How to make money... lots of it

2008-07-26T20:58:00.002+08:00

So I went to a talk today about $$ planning. After the talk (which was pretty entertaining ... I was worried that I might /thud /snore /drool), I was mulling over it...

So basically, here are some of the ways to make $$
1 - Business
2 - Investment
... Got some other lah but I can't remember..

Out of investments there's
1 - Property
2 - Stocks & Shares
3 - Wine
4 - Zurich ..
5 - Other weird shit....

So I was thinking ... how best for us peons to earn the most $$? To me, it's either business or property... Stocks & shares depends on your capital (and/or how much you leverage it), and it depends on your trades..

The speaker succeeded (initially) on property. It pretty much seems like the way to go, but needs knowledge and timing .. and balls I guess. Take a huge loan to buy a flat... especially if you're not buying for your own. And if you're buying purely for investment, you'll need to buy private unless you're >35.

Business need risk taking ... But nowadays it's not hard to open a business? Just require bigger balls. Lol.

Time to do due diligence....

Dumb shitz

2008-07-24T19:52:00.002+08:00

So .. after a long agonising period, I finally threw letter. Woo. You cannot imagine the relief... and the release I felt. BU said "you cannot imagine the sense of loss I felt".. Well, I'd like to say to him, you cannot imagine the relief and release I felt.

Lolz

Anyway the moment I stepped home just now, my mom was saying .. I dunno what you're so busy doing outside, but if you're not interested in him, don't give him chance. (+ other sundry comments about guys and marriage and such)

My knee jerk reaction was what the fuck are you talking about?

Duh. Does she only see things like this? -_-

wtf.

Who knows? God knows? Nobody knows!

2008-06-27T23:30:00.003+08:00

We were supposed to go to staging this week.

Didn't happen.

We are supposed to go live next week.

There has been 0 testing.

Are we going live?

Who knows? God knows? Nobody knows!

Life with an MBP

2008-06-27T23:20:00.003+08:00

As some of you may (or may not!) know, I bought an MBP last week :D What's an MBP? It's a Macbook pro of course! And being the poor peon that I am, I went for the 24 mth interest free installment, and being the poor peon that I am, I bought the cheapest 15"er, souped up to 4gb ram :P

Her name? Imperator! At first it was a tentative name, but I guess it grows on you. Somehow Imperator seems to be masculine, but my fleet is always feminine.

So far I've alreadby bought a 110$ bag for her, but I haven't taken her out yet. Been mainly computing on the bed with her.. Thinking of buying a Belkin cooling pad, bring down her temperature. She usually runs at 71 on load.. Kinda hot huh. So far haven't done much programming on her.. Don't really have the right ergonomic environment for a laptop at the moment ..

But she's fantastic!! :D

The power of options

2008-06-20T19:51:00.002+08:00

No.. I'm not talking about the trading derivative. Rather, I'm talking about options as a whole.

What are options? TFD defines options as thus (irrelevant ones removed):
op·tion (pshn)n.

The act of choosing; choice. See Synonyms at choice.
The power or freedom to choose.
Something chosen or available as a choice.

So .. how many of us have options, in terms of working, lifestyle? What kind of options do we need? Well I'm going to focus more on working options, since that's what I'm primarily concerned about these days.

Your boss is mean to you. His demands are unreasonable. You feel so angry and want to piak him/throw letter/etc. But can you? Do you have the capability to? How will your car/house/education loan get paid? Can you get a job elsewhere?

Nay, that will never happen to me, I hear you say. My boss is very nice.. sure he's abit mean sometimes but mostly he's nice.

Ah, but then again... some things are unforeseeable. What if he suddenly gets replaced? What if the company poofs? (It does happen! Well the example I've seen isn't really a company, but there was this kopi tiam which I walked past everyday at the old company. And one morning, when I walked past it, it was closed, with OCBC notices on it. Apparently the owner had been defaulting on payments and such. So imagine if you're one of the stall owners.. You wake up, prepare your stuff and go to your stall, only to find it closed. Who'd knew?) If shit happens, do you have the ability to escape relatively unscathed?

Having options gives you leverage. If you're underpaid, you can either walk, or show your boss the options (ie job offers) you have and negotiate for higher pay. Else? Sit around at lunch/dinner with friends and colleagues and bitch about it? I realised that I have no more patience for such crap. Don't bitch about stuff, not unless you're ready to make a change.

You need to anticipate and prepare for change. It might not be your doing, but it would most definitely affect you.

-----
Mindsets, this slightly digresses from the topic, but mindsets must also be changed. A lot of us (well I used to be like that too) always just think .. well okay, I'm just a peon, I do what the boss asks me to do. I obey his every order. He want me to go East, I go East..

That's the makings of a good peon. But do you want to just be a peon? You will just be a fixture in the office, the obedient one whom the boss can depend on. That's nice, but is this it?

I was talking to my ex line manager the other day, and he was saying, if you want to distinguish yourself, you need to show initiative. Similarly, the books I've read say roughly the same thing too. Don't go to your boss with a problem. Rather, go to him to notify him of the issue, and suggest solutions. In this situation, you can influence his decision to pick the solution that you want.

Mindsets about salary and money issues have to change too. Alot of people just go, well I'll save $X every month, and when I finally have enough, I'll be able to buy Y item. Why? Why try to save? What about turn it around (as wont in Phoenix Wright games)? Instead of saving the money, what about telling yourself that you want to EARN the money to afford Y item? (Admittedly it's hard.. I'm still trying to learn this). Why scrimp on your salary? What about think of ways to INCREASE your salary so that you can afford Y item (faster)?

And lastly... negotiate. Try to learn that (I'm learning too! ><) Nothing is truly cut and dried. Humans are not 0 and 1. You can always negotiate (and to do it better, you need leverage!)

Whoever reads this, please ponder over it. Don't just be a peon with no leverage. Improve yourself, anticipate and prepare for change!

Two things

2008-06-18T20:37:00.005+08:00

Happened today.. (3 if you count this blogging event!)

1 - I received my first cold call. Woot.
It was for an SI position.. and she didn't bat an eyelid when I quoted my price. However.. sadly I had to decline the offer.. Why? Well cos I don't really want to do SI anymore. I have the (mistaken!?) belief that I can do more, better, than write custom apps for users... Well unless I'm designing the user experience... then that's another thing.

2 - I have found .. I believe.. my light.
Yes! I think I've found my career direction!
Sadly.. I'm still at novice level for that.. . hopefully I can find the opportunities and work towards it... ^^v

What I learnt today

2008-05-26T20:43:00.002+08:00

Is .. that sending emails to my boss.. is the same as not sending emails to him at all. I've been made aware that I'd have to go up and poke him, but... seriously. Do I have to fucking handhold someone to do something/request for input?

Well I guess the usual "If your boss is late.. it means he's been working late the whole night. If you're late, you're lazy" thing works here. He may be super busy... but .. busy until cannot even ever reply? Does he even read the emails I send? /facepalm.

Whatever. I just send the email. That's my duty.

Over the years.. My MO has changed to be somewhat of a "If I tell you something which I think should be corrected, and you don't ever do it, the most I do is tell you a few times. Then .. whatever. It's your onus."

That's not to say I'm right. Before people say I too arrogant =p

For eg. I've been helping my friend work on his website cos his FL is bloody irresponsible. My method has always been teaching the person how to do something, rather than doing it for him. I can do this once or twice for you, but don't think you can rely on me (unless you're paying me!). If you don't want to learn.. then that's your business. (Not to say that he isn't!!)

So, I (will try) never nag. At most I'll mention it a few times. Like, have you done this and that? Didn't you say you were doing it? If you still don't do it. Then too bad. I won't bother anymore. It's your life. Your choice. Your onus.

When I wait for you, don't expect me to wait forever. You say okok after this game .. but then play another .. and another. Screw that. I'm going home.

Hmz, if I sound angry, well that's cos I am.. I'm always angry :@ There's this strong latent anger and impatience which throbs inside.

Basically I keep feeling that there's no more time. And well actually there isn't! It's always marching onward and onward, and I still feel like a fucking entry level dude =.= urghz

There are people who prefer to do the same job day in day out... Get pay, increment, bonus and they are happy. They aren't wrong. But somehow I don't see myself doing that. I don't want to be Faceless Peon #2451511341. I was reading on CNA about the Mas Selamat case. A few peeps got fired cos of that.

So a bad thing happens, and they become the fall guys. Naturally no one wished for it to happen, but shit happened, and they were axed. What happens to them? Do they have enough money to pay for the housing loan? Their kid's education? Their car? Would it be easy for them to get another job? Would any security firm hire them (well since they are dealing with security, I'm assuming security firms)?

I don't want to be in the mercy of that..

Well sure, you can say .. hrm My job dun have any Mas Selamat lah, surely won't axe one. But .. you never know what happens. What if your company gets bought out? Or too low profits (or losses), and like Sun, to make the shareholders happy, just axe a bunch of employees? Shareholders are always happy when companies X ppl, but are the ppl happy? What are their plans?

So yeah .. time's running out.

Too many people just prefer to live everyday as it is. Go to work .. get paid... go home .. eat.. sleep .. whatever. Next day.. same shit. It's not wrong. Just.. BLAH. I don't want to live like that. I believe I can do more than that..

Hopefully.

Yes we can.

New Shoes!

2008-05-17T18:40:00.003+08:00

My Capitaland card is actually (finally) useful! Old shoes were opening their alligator mouths and I had to buy new shoes. Thank goodness I didn't buy them last week when I saw them cos the sale just came this week. And lo DBS actually mailed me that my Capitaland card can get 15% discount, even for discounted items..

In the end, I bought 2 pairs of shoes, and sadly .. none of them were discounted items.. The discounted stuff are too cheesy...

But at least.. new shoes!

And did you know .. Bata is actually an international company .. lol I always thought it was just an SG company .. =x

Failed wannabe yuppie?

2008-05-14T21:32:00.002+08:00

So today, I learnt that members is pronounced as memberls. Highly irregular, since I don't remember seeing an L anywhere in M E M B E R. I don't care what you want to sound like, american, british or singaporean.. But there's NO L IN MEMBERS.

That is all.

Stop the presses!

2008-05-09T20:15:00.002+08:00

Omg! She's actually home when I reached home. Amazing. However I'm willing to bet everything, including my future munni, that she'll be out and will be probably back (probably? lol) by 3 or 4am

So I've been asked this question by a smartass. Eluding to the lateness in which dinner was made available.

The question was thus: Ask yourself, what time did I eat yesterday?

So the answer: Well at least I've never eaten FIRST then bought dinner back at my own leisure pace for you. Whereas you can happily be eating first with your friend (yes friends sure are important) while your sister is waiting at home starving for food.

Ask yourself another question too: Is it too overwhelmingly hard to drop an sms or something if you suddenly decide to stay overnight at some random place?

Get married already.

$200

2008-04-29T20:54:00.004+08:00

So today, I spent 200$... on a keyboard and mouse.
The most expensive KB and mouse I've ever bought. The previous mouse I had was like 70ish $, my MS Laser mouse.

Finally bought into the Razer hype and bought them. So far not too bad, the keyboard feels pretty good, nice click sound... The rubber feels weird for typing though, as though my nails will slowly wear them down, cut into the rubber and such. The mouse feels slightly too big for my hand at the moment.. can't really reach the scroll wheel comfortably.. Guess will get used to it in time.

Well now I have 2 Razer stickers... not sure where to stick them to.. Resurrection's casing..? On the Keyboard itself? Hmm... Iono!

Here's a pic of the mouse and keyboard, and part of Resurrection's casing. All blue! + Black casing and monitor! Kinda matches huh.. But actually I wanted the mouse with the red lights.. but they didn't carry it .. =(

Drat, the keyboard's supposed to have blue lights on its keys too, but somehow it isn't captured in the picture.. Oh well just imagine it has blue light!

Buh

2008-04-25T21:56:00.002+08:00

So .. I started yet another blog. But this time it's supposed to chronicle my endeavours in extra money making. http://lfmoney.blogspot.com hopefully it'll chronicle more green stuff than red stuff =p

Also set up adsense on these blogs... maybe can hopefully make some money? But they don't seem to be appearing. zzz. But not likely, given the extremely low traffic of these blogs.. hehe

I was checking the stats of palindrone, and sadly it's empty! Zomg. But I haven't finished my story yet.. need to pick it up again and finish it, it's meant to be a short story anyways, about 3 - 4 parts. Will have to read it up again and start composing, since Snooks doesn't seem to be able to save emails once they are sent out.

How I (finally) got my stupid PHP to work

2008-04-14T17:21:00.004+08:00

/configure --with-apxs2 --with-pear --with-gd --enable-pdo --with-pdo_sqlite --with-zlib --with-mysqli --with-mcrypt=/opt/local/var/macports/software/libmcrypt/2.5.8_0/opt/local --with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql --with-pdo-mysql=/usr/local/mysql --with-curl --enable-calendar --enable-gd-native-ttf --with-ttf=/usr/X11R6 --with-freetype-dir=/usr/X11R6 --with-jpeg-dir --with-xpm-dir --enable-soap

-_-

Hope these are all the extensions needed

Installing RRDTools on OSX

2008-04-10T11:21:00.001+08:00

Phew.. Finally got the darn thing to install...
I better put this in here for posterity.

sudo cp /usr/X11R6/include/ft2build.h /usr/X11R6/include/freetype2/
PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/opt/gtk/lib/pkgconfig"
CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/X11R6/include/libpng -I/usr/X11R6/include/freetype2 -I/usr/local/lib -I/opt/gtk/include/libart-2.0 -I/opt/gtk/include -I/usr/local -I/usr/X11R6"

LDFLAGS="-L/usr/X11R6/lib -L/usr/local/lib"
CFLAGS=-O2
export CPPFLAGS LDFLAGS CFLAGS PKG_CONFIG_PATH

Your paths may vary

Blah

2008-04-02T19:58:00.001+08:00

Yes! Finally back to blogging. Been too busy to do that (and expand on my story). Phew.
Hmmm where shall I start? Thailand mayhaps! Went to Bangkok during the Good Friday weekend. Was the first time there. So fun! Both G and I are slackers so no omg it's 7am we need to wake up now, kind of crap :p
We'd only sortie out at nearly 12pm :p
Did lots of shopping there. Totally no sightseeing. 1st trip where I spent almost all my money, even changed an extra 50$ over there.
So much variety there! Hardly any repeats at all. The sunflower seeds are fantastic too. Will need to ask people to buy for me if they go, heh.
Then it's back to Singapore and back to work again... Had a release due 1st April and there was lots undone. The front guys were overtaxed, the service guys were clueless. Sigh. My colleague and I volunteered to help out at QA, since there was only 1 person doing it. Zzz the staging server was so slow. Many things which were working didn't work, and many things which weren't working still didn't work. But finally, after burning the entire weekend plus Monday (getting home at like 2 to 3ish am) it's finally out! Seems fine so far...
But still feeling rather blah at the way things are done (and not done). I can't even get a database schema... Sigh
Ba must continue ebony's adventures soon! Dang!

OT: Leopard's icons for networked Windows PCs

2008-03-31T11:32:00.002+08:00

Looks familiar? =p

Back from Thailand! From Happy Fun Time!

2008-03-29T10:57:00.002+08:00

Yo!

Finally got time to blog (in the midst of testing)

Back from Thailand liao, was pretty fun ^^. One of the few trips where I spent all my $ .. even after changing 50SGD more in BKK. -_-;;; In the end, I ended up with 170 baht hehe

The amazing thing was the variety! Tonnes and tonnes of stuff! I've been to the Chinatown of KL, the pasar malams of Vietnam, HCM, and well SG, and you'd go through 50 shops and see 5 unique items. In BKK, you HARDLY ever saw any repeated items... most of them were different! Not every item was nice though but .. @@ The variety!

We also had a massage every day =p, well except for Friday, but other than that, Every Day! Woo

!

... Bah guess I'll continue later, just suddenly remembered I have to do up a presentation .. urgh =x

To know when to quit

2008-03-12T01:33:00.001+08:00

Yes I need to do that. Lost all I made and more just because of that. I knew it wasn't good to go in but I still did. Note to self. Don't. Unless I've got a good feel of where it's going

There and back again

2008-03-04T19:16:00.002+08:00

I realised, yesterday, that dentists are very good at conversations, one sided ones. Where else can you find a profession where you (actually) have a captive audience? And the best thing is your audience can never talk back at you, so you can say anything you want =p

It was fairly traumatising actually, getting my poor teeth mishandled like that (She was good, but my teeth! ><). The top one, understandable, but the bottom one .. :S Halfway through the entire procedure, I had visions of myself getting up and saying NO! No more!! Leave the teeth alone!!! ><. The rational side of me helpfully pointing out that it was impossible, she had already sawn through like half the tooth. Haiz, why did I remove that poor tooth.. it was fine! It was huge! It was merely impacted >
So now I'm 2 teeth short, with 1 week MC... Well at least I can use this 1 week to learn something I should have learnt some time ago...

Unexpectedly, I just spent 2 hrs plus spying on blogs. I haven't done such a thing for a really long time, but the mood suddenly hit me, and I remembered what Hogy said about CH, so I decided to take a peek at his blog. Hmmz seems like a lot of things have been happening in the old place. Well, the problems were already latent, I remember mentioning a few of them last time, but as usual nothing happened. Their 'pattern'... very obvious heh.

It was reading these blogs that put me in a more introspective mood, so far my blog posts have mainly been about work, nothing much on what's inside. But that's just me, everything inside.. is, well... inside.

I met up with Hogy on my birthday, had a very nice dinner at this Brittany place. Yum~. We talked about a bunch of things, and he was saying I am too rational. Hmm can there ever be too much rationalism?

Actually it's kinda scary, the level of rationalising I do (which is too much). Somehow relationships are mainly viewed in + and - terms and their final value is calculated from some secret formula... Hmmz this didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to, but it's probably the self protection mechanisms =p

I think, what I'm trying to say (obliquely) is the level of openness. Of course, I don't try to leverage on people, I try to be open. If I'm recommending something, I lay it all down, play it straight. Never going to play it otherwise, just not my style. But on the more emotional level, it's pretty much restricted zones everywhere. Highly irregular.

I'm not sure if I'll ever reach a high level of openness with anyone, it's just not programmed into my circuits ><; Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

Thinking about the old place, I guess I'm glad to have left. To think I almost would have stayed. At that time it wasn't really about the $ (Well NOW it would be heh), it was more of principle, more of the work that I did. It was (and is) sad that the Product that we spent so long developing, and pretty feature complete, would probably never see the light of day, just because Someone wants it to be omfg! Splashed on macworld the moment it's released. The Tool we've all been waiting for! To release the oppressed masses! Everything AND the kitchen sink!

Have they done focus groups for that?

Haha

Well that aside, it IS a pretty useful tool for certain jobs.

Moving on with focus groups... It's been a rather .. interesting week last week, many changes. Some kind of abrupt. But hedging safely I guess. Kinda traumatising to be yanked from a team and stuffed into another, although they were quick to reassure us that yes! We still want you guys! You're not entirely useless to us!

I guess I'm kind of blase about the whole thing. Basically, I know my direction, although I'm not sure if I can get there.. But HEY! If Daxx can do it... I can too! >< maybe? But of course I need to hedge my bets too. Daxx's route isn't the easiest either. But at least it gives the power of Choice. As I told Hogy on Saturday, Choice is what I want. Choice is what's in short commodity nowadays.

Sometimes I feel like giving up ... it's too hard to learn.. not seeing any returns, keep losing .. But thinking about Daxx and Choice ... and Freedom of course... Gotta trudge on .........

Where is the exit?

Zzz

2008-02-29T19:35:00.000+08:00

The Voice of Optimism is chirping again. Being greatly optimistic about stuff. Want to stare it down. What are you so happy about?
Been too busy this week to continue my story, if anyone's still waiting for the 3rd instalment. Part 3 should be out soon! In 2 weeks!
Every day, I go over The Plan and Motivation. It's been consuming my mornings and evenings, well any time when I have spare time. Hopefully it will work for me... Time to start registering for a real

Birthday present!

2008-02-22T19:46:00.001+08:00

Hehe this might seem presumptuous but I thought it would be good :p Remember hogy's list last time we were in school. Well, worry not... I'll prob be getting it all myself anyways :p
1 book 4 of stephen king's dark tower. I think I still need book 6 too... Blain the train wants his riddles!
2 psp
3 ds
4 wii
Ha ha all sound pretty expensive hor.
5 >22" monitor! Now got good reason to buy liao. Soon!
6 more war hammer books!

Of exploding windows

2008-02-21T02:41:00.000+08:00

So yesterday... Upon reaching home, I did the usual stuff... Locked the door, took off shoes, etc, and flipped on Resurrection. After I came out from my shower and went to her, what greeted me, was the wallpaper. That was all. No icons, no task bar, nothing. Ok... I thought, giving it the 3 finger salute. It's happened before, I'll just run explorer manually from task manager. Clicked run, and typed down explorer. Bing. Error. Can't find the resource. Blink. Huh. Typed down the whole path. Still the same... Typed in c: same error. Wth! Restarted... Also the same ... Was feeling traumatised now. Booted to last good config. No luck there. Finally managed to safe boot. Turned off all the services, no dice. Created new user, same... In fact, it actually got worse. I couldn't click on certain tabs in task manager. Doing that would cause task manager to disappear. Very traumatised, I returned to safe mode and poked arnd. No weird processes... Registry looks fine... No spy ware... Virus scan is clean... I had a gut feeling it was my firewall, as it was the most recent thing that I changed, but I've booted with the new version before, and I'd booted with both anti virus and firewall off... Well, I finally came across an article mentioning the same thing happening to Vista with the same anti virus (avast) and firewall (comodo). Nothing on desktop, can't run anything on task manager. So I uninstalled the firewall, and it worked! Yay! ... Now give me my 2+ hours and undo my trauma -_-

Databases and sessions

2008-02-18T19:41:00.000+08:00

Haiz after some testing, having 1 session per user might not be such a great idea after all. It's fantastic in the sense that dirty checking is done automatically and such, but if there's any problems with the graph, you're pretty much screwed. Not sure how easy it would be to ensure that there are no errors in the graph. Technically speaking, there shouldn't be any errors at all, otherwise the app won't work. Also, is there a way to test first? Hmmm. Sigh. Going to work on 1 with mini sessions and detached objects and see how it is. But I'm not sure how the detached objects will function in a multi user environment. The Hibernate folk also say don use detached objects... Haiz... Hmmm...

Is it so hard...?

2008-02-15T20:43:00.001+08:00

To find a free mobile offline rss reader? Well, I can hear you say, there's tonnes of them arnd! Yes I know, I'm using Nokia's widsets and it's pretty good. But what I want is a reader which will download everything and cache them for true offline reading. I want to simply launch the program, do my stuff, it downloads automatically, so when I'm on the train or something, I can just go through the articles. Just tried out news gator, which promises to be an offline rss reader. Well, I can launch it offline, I can read stuff offline, only problem is I'd need to have clicked on the items when I had a connection first, otherwise it's empty. Grrr! Don't tell me I have to really write one myself? Urgh

Of bugs and gory

2008-02-14T19:49:00.001+08:00

Spent the day checking, checking, and hunting bugs. The Application does work, but if you were to liken it to a house, then it'd be ... Look there! An ant! Look there! A few cockroaches! It's always times like this where this sense of hopelessness comes in... So many bugs.. Tucked everywhere... Fix one, find another two... How do those professional systems get released? But then again, all systems have bugs. :P
Had a revelation on Tues while with Ad. The lectures teaches us, in software engineering, that many projects are delivered late, due to wrongful interpretations of specs. After some experience, I'd be more inclined to say (at least for gov projects) that the bulk of the delays are at client side. Ppl squeezing vendors, but sitting on their asses when they are supposed to input. But that's government for you... Haiz

The day before V day

2008-02-13T21:34:00.001+08:00

Finally... After 2+ weeks of struggling and banging head on keyboards, The Application, with database support is starting to become meaningful. Monday and yesterday were the days of great battle. Finally sat down and wrestled with The Beast, The Connection Leak. Now she's running trim and slim.
But of course, there's still tonnes of work to be done... After so long, she's still far from ship shape. Still too many queries being run, a bunch of spurious save queries begging to be removed, bugs to be fixed, missing functionalities to be patched, and proper methods to be called at the proper times... The latter goes hand in hand with the first. But so many calls to trace through @_@ good thing she works even with these issues.
Well, at least patched a few bugs today... Will have to verify it tomorrow, but it feels right, logically. Just need to streamline the solution. Then at the end of it all... Still need to neaten things up and see if stuff needs refactoring. @_@ zzz
But I digress, this should be a V day post, lest the readers complain ü but hmmm nothing much to mention about it, just feel blase about the whole thing. I'm afterall, practical :p
Need to get started on entry 2 of my story soon... Was meaning to do it after this post, but apparently this took long enough for me to reach my stop. Heh

Palindrone and on .. and on ..

2008-02-11T23:10:00.000+08:00

Created a new blog .. palindrone.blogspot.com.. for stories only!

Things I've learnt today

2008-02-11T19:59:00.001+08:00

So today, I finally found out why The Application was hanging randomly. Oh it has been doing it a few times, but somehow either I get distracted by another pressing crisis or it just goes away. But today, it decided to rear its ugly head, and what best time to do so but at 6pm?
Sessions shouldn't be the problem, I thought. After all I AM closing the query session. The account with fewer contacts was fine too. After some debugging, I found the location of the hang, an innocent query statement which had been called a number of times with no problems at all. My initial gut feel was that it was a null pointer somewhere, but after staring at the innocent function, I decided, on a whim, close to 715, to increase the connection pool. Being the lavish sort, I bumped it up to 2000, from a meagre 10. Ran the test case again, and it didn't hang. Yay go home!
Of course... Still need to look into it. The solution is simple. Not enough Vespine gas. Well that belies a bigger problem. You're saying, 1 user with 20 over contacts can't survive using a connection pool of 10? I don't know how Hibernate manages its connections, but I think 10 should have been enough. Also, The Application is issuing a distressing amount of queries, repeated ones too. It shouldn't be doing that. Well I guess that's the penalty of designing without a database and tacking it on later... Whoever said grafting was easy?

Headache again...

2008-02-07T21:31:00.001+08:00

As titled.....

Dinner!

2008-02-05T21:56:00.000+08:00

Went over to Liang Court to have dinner. Look at that big plate of sashimi! No I didn't eat any of it, I don't eat raw stuff! The rest of the food was good though... Too bad didn't take pictures of the rest :p was totally ala carte for once. But deeply regret not ordering a bowl of rice at least, they serve good rice!

Urgh...

2008-02-05T21:24:00.000+08:00

So... After a long time of head banging, I've managed to graft version 1 of the db. Tacked it on like the skin of a created Chaos Space Marine... Will need some optimizations but basic usage is there. So I decided to get some stress testing done, well at least if even if not a lot of stress, some reads and writes would be good. So I asked ck for his class, since he wrote a stress test package then.
Added it into the project and gave it a whirl... Single client was fine... But the stress test was horrible, exceptions here and there. And the horrible strange error of encryption, which was causing errors if too many clients connected at once.
Managed to fix that bug... Apparently a single Cipher object did not like being called in different objects.
After fixing it, I started to take a look at the mysterious exceptions which were coming from the stress test. To his credit, I probably patched some stuff which were lying dormant. After patching everything I could think of though, the damn thing was still giving off exceptions, and worst of all, it was at random spots. The worst bugs are them random ones, and I was partially traumatised. Why does this come up at this run, but it doesn't on another? Finding it strange, I looked at his logic. To my surprise... It was random... Apparently once the client had signed in, it could run any of a set of methods. It was pretty dumbfounding. Well, being random is fine.... But not when some methods have prerequisites. How can it be correct for a client to send a message to another when it hasn't even downloaded the contact list yet? The aim for this class, if I'm not mistaken, is to form an idea on how much load the server can handle. To do that, you need clients as close to real ones as possible... Gah! <_<

Headache...

2008-02-05T19:14:00.001+08:00

Having a headache again... Urgh...

Misty Mountains

2008-02-04T19:22:00.005+08:00

Ok... No more jioing disinterested ppl into doing things or watching movies. If you're not interested, just say no. I'll either catch it myself or via other means.

Edit: zz this was supposed to be the first post.. not the last .. damn emails!

Did I mention that I have a splitting headache ><

Anger Management

2008-02-04T19:22:00.003+08:00

It's shocking to myself too, the depth of reaction. For a long moment my thoughts were clouded and I had a headache. Not sure what's going on too, it's probably yet another geyser of repressed stuff reaching its maximum pressure.
Someone remarked a few days ago that I always sound so cheerful. Ha ha, it's kinda funny. The exterior is completely out of sync with the interior. The typed words sound as bright as day, but deep in it's cold and dark.
The sense of loss is here again... Everything I've loved, everything I've lost... Hmmm so many things lost. So many which can't be regained.
Been feeling restless too... Feel like how Eldaris would feel, being trapped in a cage, how he would stretch his wings against the boundaries, chafting at his bounds. The sense of restlessness and entrapment. Feels odd.

Eye Poker

2008-02-04T19:22:00.001+08:00

... Have you ever had the thought, whenever you held a particularly sharp pen or a screwdriver, of poking someone in the eye with it? <_< Thoughts like that always come to me when I'm holding something like that. Today's one was pretty vivid: I was looking over at the screwdriver I had on my table and it occurred to me... What would happen if I took it, walked up to somebody, said Hey, and then poked him in the eye with it... Would I miss? Would he be able to block it? Would it go into the brain? My mental picture showed me a ruined eye, with bits of stuff ... Flowing out. Then after that... What would happen? Shall I go back and sit calmly at my seat? Or just walk out. Keep walking till someone catches me. <_< kinda weird huh... Never thought of it go such a graphical sense before too...

So... Do I look like I care?

2008-01-25T22:00:00.001+08:00

It's been something I've known for some time... Just, like many other things, not acted upon. The time feels close though. Almost everything has been boiled down to a professional level of detachment (I hope). Of course things will thought through and evaluated first. Remuneration will definitely play a big factor. Time's short, make as much $ as possible, no? $ first, satisfaction later. :P

About cks and cks

2008-01-24T20:12:00.001+08:00

Seems like ck is a pretty popular blog subject. Hypothetical question. Suppose if someone, your colleague, asks you if you'd like to order drinks. You say yes, and name your drink. Upon returning to your seat you find said drink there. What's the first thing you do?
Most would probably say, ask who paid and settle. What did he do? He just sat down and started drinking. Yes I guess I should have asked him to pay. But I was feeling too incensed to do so. That action also reminded me to the fact that it has happened before -_- well I better remember it this time. Not going to help him buy drinks anymore.
Today was another ck suprise too. I was standing at the doors, waiting for ppl to finish their businesses so we could go for lunch. Ck was there too. I just stood there, fiddling with a new Snööks application, when he came up to me, and started flicking snööks' dangling hand phone strap. He flicked and flicked until it landed on the screen. Throughout this I was looking at him, with a totally not amused expression on my face. He chuckled, and on seeing that I did not share his mirth, wandered away. -_- so annoying.
In other news, I had to hard reset snööks. Installed the font package for oggplay, and contrary to the read me, snööks took an extremely adverse reaction and refused to boot. Had to totally reset him. Grrr
Been trying to find a good rss reader too, but cant really find any. Using widsets now, but it sadly doesn't download everything for offline viewing. Zzz. Mobispine's not bad, but you need a working connection for it to start. Zzz is it so hard? Blah

Back!

2008-01-11T09:36:00.001+08:00

I'm back! Didn't have the time to post. Heh. Nowadays posting all done on snööks, hardly ever use the website anymore.
Anyways, twas a good trip! Went to vegas and sadly didn't make $... Next time sure will win! The hotels at vegas were super over the top type. I stayed over at Luxor, an egyptian themed hotel. Met a couple of friends there... Was fun :p
Then afterwards it was days on days of slacking in Tucson ... Haiz so good. Air super dry though. Even now... Legs and arm still peeling. Urgh. Cold too. I preferred the cold in England, at least the humidity was higher.
Oh and I'm not going to take United anymore man... So crappy one. My plane from LA to HK was delayed for 2ish hours cos of some technical fault... That time when I went to States in March also like that, though it was the Sg to Japan leg. Anyways thanks to that delay, I landed at Sg at 330 am, 3.5 hours later than appointed time. Service was so bad too. The hk sg one was better but the la hk one was so bad. Food was horrible too. Air plane food bad enough liao, but they had to over heat the rice, so it was crunchy... Not in a good way. The butter was completely melted too, one watery mess at the corner of the tray. Zzz. Yep no more United. Well maybe only for short distance flights. Thinking of maybe trying sia next time... But so ex. Haiz. If only can convert my United miles to sia... Zzz

Flying away!

2007-12-14T06:04:00.000+08:00

Waiting to board at the moment. Finally after so long :p good break too... Been working too much :p need to blog more too... Lotsa stuff... Will do it asap!

Sent by pfingoACTIVE .

The Wedding

2007-12-12T20:38:00.001+08:00

So... I'm invited to my old classmate's wedding. I'm like thinking...
Ok... I have to go but sadly I won't know anyone at all. And well,
here I am sitting at a table with no one that I know or seen in may
years.
Ba it's started... More later!

Rhythm Emotion

2007-11-13T21:05:00.001+08:00

Maybe the seed was planted by yj's question, or maybe it was just a
coincidence. Was hurrying off to meet someone for dinner when the
answer suddenly struck me (of course it's rather odd to have an answer
without a question)...
But the answer is... You know you love someone if you think about
meeting him, and that thought is enough to bring a smile to your face
and erase any dark clouds. =)

Oops he did it again

2007-11-09T19:42:00.001+08:00

Grrr. Today's another ck aggravation day. Never mind the last one...
Which was him kicking my chair to get my attention... Dude. There are
more ways than one to get attention.
As fate would have it, both of us have to plan dept outing.
So he says let's do it now... I'd have preferred monday but ok... Then
he suggested ice skating. Sounded like a good idea, so i pulled up
google and found the relevant info. The moment that happened he said,
ok! I came up with an idea, and went back to his place.
I was thinking... Er... Hello? Besides that we have to plan date, and
dinner plans. You think one place can liao huh. No need to find out
other info etc liao right? Come up with 2 places... You come up with 1
think can just pat backside and go liao? Wtf
Really annoyed. Stupid ck. He's not escaping from this. Very
convenient let me 'lead' then can liao right? Grrr!

Resident Evil 3: Extinction

2007-10-16T22:55:00.000+08:00

Caught that with Ad just now, we knew it stank real bad, so we caught it at hime, which was cheaper (1.50$ cheaper!)

There was only 1 word in my mind when I watched it. Why.

Why is this happening?
Why are they doing this?
Why do they have to do this this way?
Why am I watching this show?

Well I suppose I can answer the last question ... Since I watched 1 and 2, might as well finish it off with 3...

*Warning: Spoilers abound*

The movie starts off (well missed the first 5 mins) with the blurb about the world being taken over by the T virus and evil zombie things. And Alice is riding around alone (cos it's safer!) in some desert place (the whole world has conveniently been converted to desert land due to the (amazing) virus.

So she pulls up in front of this building where there's this radio message (She has this receiver thing that .. well receives radio messages) about Omg help us! We need help! etc

So she goes in, with her revolver and walks around and finds this fat chick with her back facing her. She approaches, with her gun covering fat chick.

Me: Why? Why not just stand where you are and ask her to ID herself? Why walk to melee range?

Fat chick: *turns to look at Alice* Won't you save my baby! *holds thing swathed in cloth*

Alice: *takes thing* *finds it's a doll*

Evil dudes appear pointing guns at her.

Me: Wth? Why?

Well Alice kills 1 dude and somehow gets knocked out (don't ask me .. she just .. was) and finds herself in this basement place with the evil dudes looking up at her from a big hole).

So bad dudes release zombie dogs (from RE:1) and they run around chasing her.

Me: Why? Why bother? If you just want to rob her, should have killed her already. Why keep dangerous dog things in your basement? They were in cages! How do you put them back afterwards? Why?? .. And why do all zombie dogs have to look like Doberman dogs? Are all zombie dogs Doberman? Or do they turn into Doberman on becoming zombie dogs? God forbid a zombie chihuahua.

Naturally she escapes and causes the ceiling to fall down so she can jump up and escape while the zombie dogs follow and pwn the bad dudes.

So she rides off and reaches some petrol station, kills off the resident zombie, and somehow discovers this book talking about going to Alaska. Interestingly the author decided to hang himself.

At the same time there's this convoy of dudes who are riding around (cos you know it's dangerous to stay in one place, cos you know zombies will somehow smell them from a mile (and many miles) away and come find them, cos you know they'll keep coming... maybe the ones in China will swim over and find them too!)

So they stop over at this motel to resupply, and send 2 dudes to go in and check out the place. Of course, they split up in the motel, you take left, I take right.

Me: Why 2 dudes? Why not more? Why not a buddy system? Why go alone?

Naturally 1 dude (naturally the black dude who's not the hero) gets jumped by zombies and gets kinda bitten on the chest. He almost got creamed if not for the hero (Carlo! I know his name!) and saves him.

So anyway place sanitised, they kinda drive their convoy (2 jeep things, 1 oil truck, 1 school bus + maybe 1 more) and bed down, somehow they manage to have an offroader around and the dude plants camera things on the ground to establish a perimeter.

The next morning, random chick (she's gotta be important cos she sleeps in the same jeep as the heroine (Clair!)) wakes up from a sound and finds that they are surrounded by zombie crows.

They try to jet it but of course the school bus gets stuck and crashes into a pole, so they have to evacuate it (actually it didn't look that badly injured..). Tonnes of zombie crows wheel about.

Alice however is around the vicinity, having heard their radio messages. (Don't forget she has telekinesis powers, watch the show!) And uses her powers(!) to burn all the crows (more details, watch the show!).

So apparently she knows Carlo (remember RE:1? Don't think anyone does). Anyways she brings this information about Alaska(!) to them and Clair tables a vote.

Alaska? Or go around as usual?

Amazingly (2 dimensionally, I might add), everyone votes for Alaska. Important note: Carlos mentions that they started with 50, and now have ~30 people.

Me: Amazing! Everyone's of 1 mind! There's NO one who's thinking, hey! I know this place, it's safe here! Rather than go to Alaska which is far (they are near LV) and it's cold and you don't know for sure if it's really untouched.
Directors of RE please watch something like ... Dawn of the dead.

Anyways somewhere in the show we're presented with the main bad guys (cos you know, zombies are not the only bad things around), and of course it's Umbrella Corp, which has a N American base in a desert place (conveniently close!). On the surface it's this compound with 1 sorry flimsy fence, and there's tonnes of zombies milling about, slapping the fence halfheartedly. Come on fellows! Show more spirit! It's not even electrified!

2 Umbrella peons wearing the Intel space suit thing come up, carrying a dead clone of Alice, they throw the body into a ditch, where there are more Alice clones(!) And they are ALL wearing the same dress (the red one from RE1).

Ad: Buy in bulk! Cheep!

Me: omfg. Why aren't they rotting? Can you imagine the psychological strain the staff will have? Surrounded by zombies, protected by a thin (not even military grade) fence. Even living underground, where the tunnels are narrow and claustrophobic. They must have good shrinks.

So anyway they decide to drop by LV to refuel so they can make the trip to Alaska.

In the meantime, evil scientist from Umbrella finds out where Alice is.

They want Alice because apparently her blood is the antidote to the T virus (and hence the clones).

So he details a squad to trap them in LV.

The convoy reaches this .. place....... there's a container blocking them. And apparently it's blocking the way to a gas station.

Ad: Where? How?

Me: Just drive past! Or find another way!

Ad: There are NO roads!

Me: What exactly is this container blocking again..?

Container was in this .. totally random position.

Alice stands at the door thing of the container and listens to it .. then she yells back! And jumps back, conveniently the door thing falls open. It just falls down, Fumph! like that, no hinges, no lock .. nadda.. Did it get pasted on using tape or what.

And zombies(!!) pour out. But it's not normal zombies! It's well formed mutated (Freddy like) zombies wearing (same!) blueish overalls.

(Sidenote: Evil Doctor (Isaacs) managed to develop this .. serum thing that makes zombies .. domesticated for like 5mins and permanently aggressive).

Nene: How did they pack like 100 zombies inside!?

So anyway pew pew! People die, zombies get smashed, more nameless people die. Isaacs tries to shut Alice down but she fries(!) (remotely!) the satellite chip trying to shut her down.

So she somehow knows where the tent is and goes up to it and kills all the guards there (! where's the bullet proof vests.. you mean those armour stuff are ornamental?)

Almost kills Isaac but he gets away, not before getting bitten by a zombie.

She doesn't shoot down the helicopter, saying that it'll be good if they can hijack it to Alaska, rather than driving.

So somehow they manage to track the helicopter back to the base. I suppose.. with the clear skies and wide field of vision ... And find the base, you know, the one with the flimsy gate surrounded by (more!) zombies milling around, pawing halfheartedly at the fence.

Carlos decides to sacrifice himself, as he got bitten during the fight. The plan was to drive the oil tanker towards the base, blow up stuff, so they can follow behind and grab the helo.

Me: .. Does ANYONE see the tonnes of things that can go wrong with this plan? 1, zombies overrun them before it happens, 2, fence is tougher than it is (hey it better be adamantite, with all the zombies pressing against it), 3, is the helo fueled!? They just landed the thing! How are you sure it has enough fuel for Alaska?! As established earlier, the convoy had 30ish people left, well .. are you telling me that the LV ambush killed like 20?? Cos that helo definitely CANNOT carry > 10 people ... Actually 10 is kinda stretching it. I'd say like 6 .. maybe .. 8.. Also who can fly a helo! (Well it turns out that Claire conveniently can fly a helo. How? Why? She's military? Even so .. not every military dude knows how to fly a helo..)

Well apparently everyone likes living dangerously so they enact the plan.

Carlos drives his oil tanker into the zombies and somehow it gets thrown to the side.

Me: How? Why? It's heavy... the ground's flat... it's in motion, the zombies aren't at one side pushing ... Well it COULD have ran over too many zombies and fell on its side..... but ... urgh. So he lights his dynamite (!! How did they have dynamite!?) and blows a hole.

Claire, Alice and nameless people floor it (in 1(!!) jeep) and go through the explosion and race to the helo. They all get in, save for Alice of course, who has unfinished business with Isaacs.

Me: So everyone save for like .. 1jeep worth of people survived LV.

In the meantime, underground, Isaacs has pumped himself full of antidote things and somehow mutates into a thing somewhat like Nemesis (a crappier version). So he pwns everyone in the complex. Well of course we don't see it.. just see blood and dead bodies .. and of course, the flickering lights.

So the helo takes off (I don't know how helos work, but apparently someone left the key in the ignition, so to speak) and Alice goes into the wooden house in the centre of the compound.

Meanwhile, the zombies are politely standing around outside the gate, apparently not noticing the big hole.

She goes into the house and reaches the table, which conveniently opens up and this elevator comes up. How nice.

So she goes down and sees the flickering lights, goes through some lab thing and meets the computer, which is represented by a holographic girl, ala RE1.

Computer tells Alice that her blood is the antidote, and the doctor has been mutated. She cannot contain him so Alice must go pwn him.

So Alice goes to this area where the computer says he is.

Me: What..? Did the computer draw some blood from her? What if Alice dies? Then no more antidote?

So anyway she walks around, sees dead people, nicely skewered (Isaacs has been pretty free I guess) and sees a clone of herself in this bubble thing.

Ad: Why do all the clones have their hands crossed over their

Me: flat

Ad: chests? Is that a natural position? *crosses arms*

Me: *crosses arms*

So anywhere Isaacs comes and she chucks her machete at him, and he flees (what a wuss). Bubble thing is broken and clone slides out, arms over chest.

Clone: *gasps* *lies still*

Alice: *covers clone in jacket*

Isaacs in the meantime has run into a corridor and we see him throwing the machete to the ground, and the wound healing itself. Healing factor!

Alice comes by and chases after him..

They fight, she swipes at him and he grabs her arm and tosses her away

Me: Why..? Tossing would just give her mobility... since you have her.. just break the arm or something

Ad: Maybe he wants her whole

Me: For what? better to squish?

He uses his 1 tentacled arm and grabs her, she cuts them off with machete, she uses her Force(!) powers and flings him away, he crashes through some (thin) walls, he comes back and roars and things + her fly through some (thin walls), helpfully, into the computer's room.

Remember RE1? There was this room where the guards were sliced by the lasers which were moving in patterns.

He slaps her around a bit more and she lies on the ground.

Isaac: I used to think you were the future, but I was wrong.. I am the future!! RAWR! *advance*

Alice: *starts laughing*

Isaac: *pause and looks quizzically*

Me: So ..... I learnt today... If facing certain death before evil villain, always remember to laugh. This will confuse the bad guy so you can have those spare seconds to 1, kill yourself, 2, bring up some secret weapon, 3, wait for help.

Alice: You're just another asshole.

Me: Witty comeback! You go girl!

Alice: We're dying here together!

Lasers appear in their criss cut patter and slices through Isaac. They stop a hair from Alice, and we cut back to the clone, who apparently has learnt to breath in air and has stopped the lasers.

Me: How?! How do you know that? Anyways the computer could have done it... You know, it'd be funny if Isaacs repaired that injury and became many Isaacs...

So we cut to Japan where you see business suited Japanese zombies on the streets (of course, everyone in Japan wears a suit!) and down below where the execs are having a meeting.

Lost contact with N America base... blah blah ....

Alice: *zaps in holographically* I'm coming for you! And I'm bringing my friends! *end transmission*

*cut to Alice standing beside Alice 2*

*camera pans to what they are looking at*

Many many many bubbles with Alice inside. All with arms helpfully crossed over (flat) chests.

End movie.

=_=

Omfg it's so bad on so many counts I don't know what to say. Well save for a Why!?

Why are they doing this?! Why did they do this? How come no one offered a counterproposal? Why's everything so fine and dandy?

What was the pointless first scene for? To show us those zombie dogs? Why? Where did all the OTHER people in the convoy go?! How can that helo make it to Alaska from ~~ LV? They didn't pack food! How?! Why!? What!? Why do all the zombies look so uniform now? The ones which are modified even have uniforms (blue overalls).

Umbrella Corp! We take care of you! Even if you're a zombie!

Also, it's cool and stuff, but it doesn't make economic sense to build deep underground facilities.. 1 maybe, but all your bases...? What's the psychological state of the peons in Umbrella? Can you continue with your work knowing what's going around in the world? What about your family? Parents? Kids? Relatives?

What's all those Alice clones for? Is making them survive fighting against zombies prove that they have the 'correct' blood? Also all the main characters have immaculately drawn eyebrows, nicely washed hair, neat clothes. It certainly is heartening to see people having the time to groom themselves even at the edge of apocalypse.

Sigh.

What makes a good zombie flick? To me there are two kinds. One is the ulta action packed fast and furious type, zombies flying everywhere, people dying every second, and there's the more cerebral one, where zombies are slow, seemingly easy to escape from.

1st is the action .. action's good!

2nd is the plot, about how humans react to danger, in hopeless situations. You see all kinds. In the original Dawn of the Dead, the 2 security guards are 'lords' of the shopping mall. They knew they were in charge and controlled stuff. When the people were deciding to go, there were people who argued not to.. why leave the safe haven and venture outside where it was unknown? And this dude trying to hide his pregnant zombie wife cos he loved them.. The human spirit!

Sadly, for RE:3, both points weren't there. Hardly any action, well not enough at least, and not entertaining at the very least. Plot? lolz.

I've always wondered about a zombie ecostructure, been of the mind that it cannot be stable. How and when do zombies multiply?

1, they eat their prey. 2, their prey become zombies too.

How and when will a human become a zombie? When it's bitten, but not eaten? When will a zombie stop eating a human? After eating the choice bits?

Don't seem to see any zombies with bits missing from them...

In Dawn of the Dead, the zombies stopped eating once the victim rose.

...

What was memorable about RE:1 was the zombies... They looked MORE like zombies rather than these.. these look like extras in latex makeup. No broken necks.. broken arms.. armless zombies.. etc.

I still remember the scraping sound this zombie made in RE:1. It had a broken neck, and was walking on a broken ankle, and was dragging a hatchet. THAT'S a zombie.

And of course RE:1 had a clearer aim, the troops were to shut down that computer. In RE:3.. what's the aim? I know.. it's to survive... hide from zombies.. live.. but ........ it just wasn't really there.

Read Z War.

Cat thing!

2007-10-16T11:38:00.000+08:00

It's a cat thing!

[11:32 ] did u peer at myroom closely?
[11:32 ]
[11:33 ] notice wats on the carpet?
[11:33 ] <暗闇の天使> i saw zombies
[11:33 ] <暗闇の天使> a cat thing
[11:33 ] 2 zombies non?
[11:33 ] <暗闇の天使> uhuh ..
[11:33 ] there's SOMETHING at the edge of the carpet
[11:33 ] hehehehhe
[11:33 ] <暗闇の天使> a cat thing?
[11:33 ] nope
[11:33 ] <暗闇の天使> car?
[11:34 ] .. and?
[11:34 ] <暗闇の天使> a mummy..?
[11:34 ] =_=
[11:34 ] j00 cant see wats next to car!?
[11:35 ] <暗闇の天使> cat thing/
[11:35 ] HAMSTER.
[11:35 ] <暗闇の天使> i said it was a cat thing! many times!
[11:35 ] its not a cat la!
[11:35 ] bah!
[11:35 ] <暗闇の天使> it's a cat thing!
[11:36 ] ...
[11:36 ] <暗闇の天使> it's small! it's a cat thing
[11:37 ] hamster la!
[11:37 ] <暗闇の天使> well .. i didn't say it was a cat..
it's a cat thing!

Urgh

2007-10-15T21:28:00.000+08:00

It's been a while... That time went cable skiing remember? ..Well somehow I injured my arms.. the nerves I think, and it's been hurting... still ><><

Urgh

Also.. urgh about the other thing... it's still going! .. >< Dun really know what to do about it.. Must remember to eat more froots... always forget... will try and remember to buy a watermelon everyday (a cup!)

She's gone out! But as usual never bring phone. How the heck do I know when she'll be back!? Got phone still no bring... GRRR!

Long awaited

2007-10-05T20:29:00.000+08:00

Maybe only by me :-P, been meaning to post for a long time but was too lazy to do it. So figured I should do it when I'm out of reach of a computer. So do it on Snooks... Somehow his t9 got reset ... Weird. Anyways...

Well, the last post had me rather sad ne? Well at the very nadir, when even EOV (Eternally Optimistic Voice) failed... Twas a truly sad time. Usually eov manages to work... I managed to summon my dearest DA, and ...well it works out easier in the head than in words... But the sad feelings and such just poofed. Dunno what to say about it... One moment, was in the train feeling really bad, next moment it was gone... Even tried experimenting with some known sad thoughts but either they got clamped down or... Just nothing... No feeling. Was really odd. But guess I owe DA one for that...

Much appreciated. Would be in a really bad spot without his help.

Shortly after that, eov kicked in -_-

Sigh skipping yoga today... Shoulder joints pain. The dude said my joints are loose... What does that mean? Urgh doesn't sound good... Hopefully will feel better soon. Will try swimming tomorrow if still bad then guess no go cable skiing... Sigh.

Been looking at new Snooks too... So far nokia 61i seems good... Would prefer se's p1i but it doesn't have wireless g... The upcoming black berry curve seems good too, but oddly there's no 3g... Doh. Iphone at the moment is out too... No mp3 for ringtone, can't mod ... What's the point of buying such a powerful device but can't do anything with it?

Some commentor was still saying... Apple is like an over protective mother while we consumers are naughty children (paraphrased from memory) ... Duh... An over protective mother? Dude you have issues. If you don't have $ you think Apple will care a whit for you? Sigh all these fanboys.

Well reaching home liao. Hope this post gets to where it's supposed to go :-P

@Home: Had some problems posting this, guess maybe text too long and somehow overloaded something, just couldn't reacquire the network.. Was in dismay (no way am I going to type this whole chunk out again! It doesn't look long .. but it's still substantial!), but thankfully the email portion in Snooks' firmware could handle long text, so saved it, rebooted and loaded up Opera again and managed to save it into drafts before using Resurrection to edit.

Opera's a kick ass browser, only problem is it seems to be identifying as a non mobile browser, so it loads up the whole page .. but then they load up fast! Super streamlined! :D

失くしたものすべて　愛したものすべてこの手に抱きしめて　現在は何処を彷徨い行くの

2007-09-20T20:55:00.000+08:00

Looking at everything that I've lost
And almost everything that I've loved
I'll hold them all tightly in my arms
Wondering where I am, so please tell me where to go

This stanza has always struck deep. Why, I do not know. But these days it seems to be pretty close.

Where do I wander off to now, holding in my arms all I've lost and loved?

Sometimes, don't you, well I don't know about you, but I do, wish .. Why can't I be a tad more popular? A tad more sophisticated? Have fifty billion friends in my Facebook? If person A can be so popular, why can't I be?

But of course, you know, deep down, that you're not that kind of person. Not the kind to maintain tonnes of friends, to say hi to everyone ... etc.

There is a Fortress of Solitude (not Superman's!), constructed long ago, during the Dark Times™, it has been years. Cracks are showing.

Too tired sometimes to think of walking alone. But we all do. Those who say they have friends, god etc are merely deluding themselves. At the end of it all, we are alone.

掌上明珠，去了哪儿?

It has gone, first, curled up in a corner, sad, as what Lu Ru Ping said (in the TV series), let me hide in a corner to lick my wounds, like an animal (well something like that). But now it has died.

Poor little sad thing, it'll never come to pass.

The Fort is failing, and there precious Angel who'd come has stayed away.

Can't keep like this for long.

XP.. BAH!

2007-09-18T19:43:00.000+08:00

More of my angst filled posts..

Just when I clicked publish post, Resurrection BSOD-ed. WTH? Seriously.. What's WRONG with @*&%@$). My office Mac has been running forever (needing periodic reboots of course) but no kernel panics at all (except for once or twice but that was when I was writing my own nubby driver).

Stupid windows...

WTB more stable OS.

LOTRO and how not to do software

2007-09-18T19:32:00.001+08:00

Well needless to say I'm hardly the definitive source for application design and stuff like that, but after using tonnes of applications, I think I'm qualified to say something.

.Net sucks. Simple.
The code looks quite interesting but somehow the framework does crazy things to your system.

Case in point, LOTRO. When it was released as a trial, I thought, hey! Finally the LOTRO trial! Now I can try it out and see if I should bother plonking down the cash for it or stick to WoW and wait for WAR.

Upon installing...

Hmm... it needs .Net..? Well sure I guess.

*installed* .. etc .. rebooted

*presented with login screen*

WTH? I thought I had Resurrection configured to log in automatically...? .. No matter... *updated the registry to allow auto login, rebooted. Ah that's fine..

Well, it's NOT fine now, auto login has kinda become a random flag which is CLEARED by some mysterious process or whatnot =_=

And it's all thanks to LOTRO (well, granted it's probably the .Net framework, but it was the main cause as to why .Net got to my system in the first place).

Speaking of LOTRO... It just smacks of unfinished. I can see UNFINISHED! UNFINISHED! screaming around. Granted, I didn't spend a lot of time at it, for the simple fact that it wasn't engaging at all.

1. Characters - ugly, the facial expressions are a hoot though
2. Camera - weird sluggish feel
3. Movement - buggy..? I set up auto run to target (or click to move, whatever it's called), basically my character was supposed to run to the target I clicked on and start swiping it. However, it didn't do that.. I'd click on my target, watch my toon run to it... and overshoot... I had to click again to get him back to whack the target. And it wasn't as if my target moved a fair bit during the time it needed for my character to get there. What gives?
4. Movement - weird jumping animation, for some strange reason, the animation sequence looks really weird, clipped when your character is jumping. The arm flailing just kinda .. skips to the next frame, like a badly drawn cartoon, and when you jump in a jump (ie press jump while in the air), the animation gets slightly weird.

Bah

That's it for LOTRO then.

Tried out WAR during GC-Asia, looks, feels good. High hopes for it!

Of broken dreams...

2007-09-11T20:57:00.000+08:00

So there I was, wandering around bugs during lunch, when I went by the kiddie section, which was selling little girl dresses... You know, those princess like ones with the frills.

And I couldn't help but think, how many little girls wore those dresses, looking all innocent and wholesome, with hopes pinned upon by proud parents, and how many of these dreams were broken.

Kinda morose huh.

Then I wandered past the toy section and peeked in.

A Pokeball on sale. Supposedly you're supposed to (somehow) open the plastic ball and a little stuffed pokemon will appear. The pokemon had a rabbit like face, and looked kinda sad.

Next up were Power Ranger SPD toys. This time their intelligence levels had gone even lower; their uniforms had huge numbers on their chests, in case they forgot their designations I guess.

Why do they make such totally insipid toys?

I remember reading a long time ago, that some kids, mostly from western stories, have this little chest at the foot of their beds, a hope chest of such.

I made one too, put in all the stuff I didn't want to remember and tossed it into the sea, never wanting to see them again. From time to time though, it rises, like a rotten corpse, bloated from the sea, floating, never truly wanting to be put down.

Oh well, such is life I guess.

MSN

2007-09-07T19:34:00.000+08:00

Well after a harrowing 2 weeks+ of counting packets and parsing bytes .. finally managed to fix my stupid 04 packet error. Now display pictures and emotes can be downloaded perfectly! woot.

MSN's a pretty well designed protocol imo, each client maintains 2+ connections. 1 main one is to the notification server which will send msgs when ppl invite you to sessions, change nicks, add you, etc. While the other one is for chatting. So if you ever tested and wondered why your initial message to someone is always slower, well that's cos both clients are negotiating with a session server for a session!

Heh.

Wanted to blog about other stuff one .. but mysteriously all is forgotten as I sit here.. So I shall just blog the last thought I had before opening this tab...

I have a friend .. well someone who's on my MSN list but I don't talk to at all... she prob doesn't even know who I am now. Anyways, she has a nick "Everytime I look up at the sky at night, I wonder if it's the same stars we're seeing"

Just feel like msging her and say, well, if you're looking at the same position at the same time every night, you're seeing the same stars. However, as the year passes by, the stars will slowly shift, so the same stars you see in Jan - June will be different from July - Dec. Somewhat like how you see Orion in the beginning of the year and Scorpio in the end of the year.

But I guess it doesn't sound as 'romantic' as the message huh.

Come to think of it, her nick reminds me of those rubbish you see in cheap bags/T-shirts which say something like "Time is memory" or some crap like that.. Sounds deep but actually doesn't make sense.

Maybe she took it from there =p

Blogs and blogs

2007-08-20T21:03:00.000+08:00

It's back to the "Season" again! Currently setting up a website for my guild ^^ KRP!

Wordpress looks pretty good.. thinking of moving this blog over to Wordpress.. But it means I (somehow) need to port the data over and such .. But the wordpress themes look so yummy.. /tempted.

Chinese software... pui!

2007-08-20T20:16:00.000+08:00

So, I've been looking at QQ these few days, for the uninitiated, QQ is a China made IM which apparently is taking China by storm.

Looking at the application... you can really see the differences in design methodology by the East and West. Western design ie Apple, go for the minimalistic approach. Things are described in as few words as possible. More emphasis is on presentation rather than features.

Eastern design is completely opposite. It's features features and more features. Just a visit into QQ's website, or any other Chinese websites and you'll know. It's text upon text upon text upon text. Just a look at it and you'll go @_@, unless you're China Chinese I guess.

The application itself borders on spyware. Upon installation, I suddenly had many 'extra' programs like news, firewall, doctor something or other .. Weird things were popping on my system tray. Alerts I didn't need.

Clicking on the system tray icon yields a pseudo Windows start menu (they designed as thus) with even more menu entries than your Windows start menu.. Clicking on those yield MORE menus..

Urgh.

You can't even do offline messaging (it seems). Every other feature seems to be a paid service. I tried to use one of my own pictures as an avatar and it told me, Sorry! You must be a QQ user (ie paying, non leech) to have your own avatars. wth? In the meantime I'm stuck with funky heads as my avatar.

And the QQ number thing is SOOOO ICQ era. Guess China Chinese can remember numbers better than us... They are pretty smart too, letting you buy special QQ numbers, like birthdays and such. Enterprising.

Convoluted and ugly. The only saving grace is possibly the penguin mascot.

Oops I did it again..

2007-08-01T22:00:00.000+08:00

..

Yes in a span of 2 days, I've snapped .. 2 .. erm .. straps. I just reach over .. lean over, bend over... and hear this sickening piak sound, and -_-... bah.

So many things to think about these days

The Product™
The Product's™ Table
$$
and some other stuff
/zzz

Well checked my std account, had more $ than I thought there was, which is good.. although it's still too little =\

Need to save/earn more!!

And so..

2007-07-24T23:03:00.000+08:00

So today, I (finally) audit (so to speak), the server logs. The Boss™ charged me to pull out pictures from The Product™ so after doing it, I was just looking through the server logs.

And discovered an oddity.

The timestamps were wrong. -_-;

I was going zomfg?! And did a quick check. As expected, it was logging everything under CST. /sigh.

So I call over CK, erm oei, you know your program logging the date and time wrongly or not?

Then he said he just follow server time. Which is a fair assumption, after all, if a program can't depend on OS time, then how? But hah! He didn't check! Even though I set the server time to SGT already, for some reason Java does not inherit it (not all the time) and will run at CST, which was the server's original configuration.

So, since astartes, the logs have been going under CST time .. urgh. Grr, did you not try and see? Urgh.

So well, if who's going to fix it in the end? .. most likely me. Cos I can apparently write scripts /eye roll

.....

Also I found out that his migration was incomplete -_- Logged images weren't completely copied over from the old directories to the new ones.

Looks like I'll have to do that too -_-

/sigh

What is a programmer?

2007-07-13T20:04:00.000+08:00

programmer, n:
       A red eyed, mumbling mammal capable of conversing with
inanimate monsters.

....

2007-07-12T20:24:00.000+08:00

Grr..

Told bvo about it before, about this dude, we'll call him CK, who has been rather .. irritating. -_- There was once, where I was doing work, and up he rolls, and asks me some question.

I go.. .. erm .. Well, definitely there's a way to solve this problem, but I'm not sure how .. er .. *click on FF* *google abit* errm...

He sits there for abit, and then rolls back to his place without saying anything. Leaving me to go wtf?

He also has this bad habit of coming up to my place and just stand there and stare at my screen. Leaving me to go .. erm .. yes? Wth are you doing staring at my screen? I don't stare at yours, don't stare at mine. Got pretty thing there izzit? Usually I just endeavour to ignore him.

So today, I'm reading stuff and thinking about stuff, and he suddenly IMs me. Where is XYZ (where XYZ is an object (programming stuff lah))? I'm :@ immediately. I mean... the source code is THERE. The API is THERE. Not that obvious, but it's THERE. And you have CTRL+F or even better, import the whole thing into an IDE and it'll probably hot link the definition to the declaration. Or just install grep, windows version and look for it yourself. WTH are you doing asking me a question wherein you can easily find the answer yourself!?

I hate answering questions like that.

But .. well I just answer it, and I get silence back. Not even a word of thanks.

Are CKs all like that? So annoying. Want very much to just /ignore the person, but not possible lah.

GRRR.

Edit: Yes.. I know, information sharing and stuff. But this is not even a hard question. You're a programmer. I'm sure you have tools, or at least know how to LOOK. It's not difficult. Even windows search can search for words in text files. So stupid. Grr. Next time maybe I should just reply with www.google.com, or best, "Dunno".

The Penguin

2007-07-12T11:05:00.001+08:00

The Penguin

by Rob Flynn
and
Jeramey Crawford

Once upon a term'nal dreary, while I hack'ed, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten code--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a beeping,
As of some one gently feeping, feeping using damn talk mode.
"'Tis some hacker," I muttered, "beeping using damn talk mode--
Only this. I hate talk mode."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak semester,
And college life wrought its terror as the school year became a bore.
Eagerly I wished for privledges;--higher access I sought to borrow
For my term'nal, unceasing sorrow--sorrow for a file called core--
For the rare and radiant files of .c the coders call the core--
Access Denied. Chown me more.

"Open Source," did all mutter, when, with very little flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Penguin of the saintly days of yore.
Quite a bit obese was he; having eaten lots of fish had he,
But, by deign of Finnish programmer, he sat in the middle of my floor--
Looking upon my dusty term'nal in the middle of my floor--
Came, and sat, and nothing more.

Then the tubby bird beguiling my sad code into shining,
By the free and open decorum of the message that it bore,
"Though thy term'nal be dusty and slow," he said, "Linux be not craven!"
And thus I installed a new OS far from the proprietary shore--
The kernel code open but documentation lacking on this shore.
Quoth the Penguin, "pipe grep more!"

Much I marvelled this rotund fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help believing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird in the middle of his floor--
Bird or beast sitting in the middle of his cluttered floor,
With such instructions as "pipe grep more."

But the Penguin, sitting lonely in that cluttered floor, spoke only
Those words, as if its soul in that instruction he did outpour.
Nothing more did he need utter; understood did I among that clutter--
Understood his command as I could scarcely do a few moments before--
I typed as furious as was willed me, understanding just a minute before.
Again the bird said "pipe grep more!"

"Amazing!" said I, "Penguin we will conquor the world if you will!
By the Network that interconnects us--by that Finn we both adore--
We'll take this very world by storm!" For now grasped I what he'd meant,
The thing I do while searching /usr/doc/* for that wond'rous lore--
Those compendiums of plaintext documentation and descriptive lore.
Quoth the Penguin, "pipe grep more!"

And the Penguin, never waddling, still is sitting, still is sitting
In the middle of my room and still very cluttered floor;
And his eyes have all the seeming of the free beer I am drinking
And the term'nal-light o'er him glowing throws his shadows on the floor;
And this OS from out the shadows that is pow'ring my term'nal on the floor
Shall be dominating--"Pipe grep more!"

It's been a while..

2007-07-10T22:01:00.000+08:00

...since I last posted. Yeah I know been feeling lazy =p

Anyways uploaded my Vietnam pictures into my Flickr (finally). Tagged them and such, and jUploadr crashed -_- So did it again and it's uploading now. Huzzah!

Too lazy to talk about the trip, except it was fun! Fun! and FUN! And I'd go again.

And also, instead of being 'typical' tourists and buying all the touristy stuff (like bargain items (for SGians)), we bought lots of .. toiletries.. hehe.

Anyway feeling poet-y today, so here's 2

Popped into my head in the toilet (cough cough)
Is this poetry?
May it be two verses or three,
As long as it will rhyme,
And stand the test of time.

And another one for R's picture:
Sought by many, found by few,
He waits in his lair, feathered wings coated in morning dew,
Spawned from the blood of creature most hideous,
He stands, tall and strong, regal form so beauteous,
Pegasus, who arose from Medusa's blood,
Shall aid Kratos and turn Zeus' tears into a flood.

For his cloud pic

Somehow the haiku mood is gone, and the general ABAB poems that I usually write. Never really wrote the AABB type before.. Heh.

Must learn to write better poems and haikus. So far most of my haikus suck =p

Vietnam!

2007-06-23T05:11:00.000+08:00

Leafing house in 40mins! lalalal~!

Quotes

2007-06-22T14:40:00.000+08:00

"They muddy the water, to make it seem deep."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Love is something you do, not something you feel."
- Gordon Atkinson

"The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat."
--Confucius

(too cheem)

"The only thing high-definition television will do is provide sharper pictures of the garbage."
- George Carlin

(too true)

"Science is everything we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else."
- Donald Knuth

"Education is not the filling of a pail, it's the lighting of a fire."
- Yeats

"Being a graduate student is like becoming all of the Seven Dwarves. In the beginning you're Dopey and Bashful. In the middle, you are usually sick (Sneezy), tired (Sleepy), and irritable (Grumpy). But at the end, they call you Doc, and then you're Happy."
- Ronald T. Azuma

"That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers."
- Larry Niven

"Who needs horror movies when we have Microsoft?"
-Christine Comaford (PC Week, 9/27/95)

Toma!

2007-06-21T18:18:00.000+08:00

My precious Toma .. in shwup while playing "We all go down together"
Quite a nice song.. doesn't quite make sense (to me) but it's still nice =p

No umbrellas this time though! Just トーマ ... sigh .. *goo*

Installing Love

2007-06-21T16:54:00.000+08:00

Found this on a forum =p

INSTALLING LOVE

Tech Support: Yes, .. how can I help you?

Customer: Well, after much consideration, I've decided to install

Love. Can you guide me though the process?

Tech Support: Yes. I can help you. Are you ready to proceed?

Customer: Well, I'm not very technical, but I think I'm ready.

What do I do first?

Tech Support: The first step is to open your Heart. Have you

located your Heart?

Customer: Yes, but there are several other programs running now.

Is it okay to install Love while they are running?

Tech Support: What programs are running ?

Customer: Let's see, I have Past Hurt, Low Self-Esteem, Grudge

and Resentment running right now.

Tech Support: No problem, Love will gradually erase Past Hurt

from your current operating system. It may remain

in your permanent memory but it will no longer

disrupt other programs. Love will eventually

override Low Self-Esteem with a module of its own!

called High Self- Esteem. However, you have to

completely turn off Grudge and Resentment. Those

programs prevent Love from being properly

installed. Can you turn those off ?

Customer: I don't know how to turn them off. Can you tell me

how?

Tech Support: With pleasure. Go to your start menu and invoke

Forgiveness. Do this as many times as

necessary until Grudge and Resentment have

been completely erased.

Customer: Okay, done! Love has started installing itself. Is that

normal?

Tech Support: Yes, but remember that you have only the

base program. You need to begin connecting to

other Hearts in order to get the upgrades.

Customer: Oops! I have an error message already. It says, "Error

� Program not run on external components " What

should I do?

Tech Support: Don't worry. It means that the Love program is set

up to run on Internal Hearts, but has not yet been

run on your Heart. In non-technical terms, it simply

means you have to Love yourself before you can

Love others.

Customer: So, what should I do?

Tech Support: Pull down Self-Acceptance; then click on the

following files: Forgive-Self; Realize Your Worth;

and Acknowledge your Limitations.

Customer: Okay, done.

Tech Support: Now, copy them to the "My Heart" directory. The

system will overwrite any conflicting files and begin

patching faulty programming. Also, you need

to delete Verbose Self-Criticism from all

directories and empty your Recycle Bin to make

sure it is completely gone ! and never comes back.

Customer: Got it Hey! My heart is filling up with new files. Smile is

playing on my monitor and Peace and Contentment are

copying themselves all over My Heart. Is this normal?

Tech Support: Sometimes. For others it takes

awhile,but eventually everything gets it at the

proper time. So Love is installed and running. One

more thing before we hang up. Love is Freeware. Be

sure to give it and its various modules to everyone you

meet. They will in turn share it with others and return

some cool modules back to you.

Customer: Thank you, God.

Jung's Personality Test. .. rather, yet another personality test

2007-06-20T18:47:00.000+08:00

ISTJ - "Trustee". Decisiveness in practical affairs. Guardian of time- honored institutions. Dependable. 11.6% of total population.

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)

shwup - photo sharing

2007-06-20T17:49:00.000+08:00

It's raining!

Try it here!

Map of Online Communities

2007-06-19T16:11:00.000+08:00

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/online_communities.png

Sucky Singnet

2007-06-18T20:02:00.000+08:00

So last month dear ISP Singnet sent a snail mail to me. Congratulations! In an effort to serve you, our distinguished customer better, we're going to bump up your 1.5mpbs connection to 3mpbs! For free! You don't need to pay a penny more! (Rephrase mine)

Contrary to nubs, who would rejoice and say yes! Omg! Singnet is the greatest! I was instantly aware of problems ahead, thanks to a similar move made by Starhub last year when I was on cable.

So the end of the month came and I got bumped up to 3mbps.

Any difference?

No.

Well there is... surfing became really slow. Just last week I would take 1 minute to render a wiki page on Firefox. Some pages are completely unloadable, giving the connection reset, or (in IE's case, a blank white page). Other websites have suffered a similar fate, having numerous connection reset messages, which I have to press refresh a few times to get it to connect to properly.

Oh you say, why not just use the proxy? It's faster and it loads the pages!

But it's dumb. I cannot type "google" into Firefox with the proxy set up. It would just give me a "Page not found .. not in proxy blah page".

Filed a complaint to Singnet. Wiki is like, well the basic basic access... If I can't even go to Wiki ....

Well lets say I'm perfectly aware of when my contract with them expires.

Of boys and men

2007-06-18T19:52:00.000+08:00

So today, I learnt that a long time friend of mine transferred servers. Well this fact was not entirely unexpected, and logically it's a good move for him (for me too). However, the way it was done, and the way it ended... Would be lying if I said I didn't feel meh about it.

It started out as a disagreement, with me ending up ignoring him for a bit. It was a bad run, and I felt bad as my abilities were called to question. As a healer, it always feels bad when someone dies, whether through my own negligence or his own nubbishness. But anyways, so he sends a message about "this is my last msg to you" etc etc. And well, even though I apologised and threw the ball into his court, he didn't respond. Well so there, can't expect me to keep messaging him and stuff right? I have my own ego and pride too.

Actually, come to think of it, he reminds me of.. .well, me. Well past me. In the past I would do that too, once the gates were slammed down, that offending person would be thrown out of the Court (so to speak). Contacts, phone book .. etc would be erased and thrown out.

Good thing I've evolved since then, time and experience make good temperance. Lost a dear friend due to that, and that will always eat at me <_<. One of the people I cared about .. she tossed the ball into my court and I didn't return it... Well, fact was I didn't know how to do it, was too prideful then. Sigh.

So yeah, he reminds me of past me. At least I've evolved.

Granado Espada ... or the name no one can pronounce

2007-06-12T21:55:00.000+08:00

So .. I picked up this game the other day ............ sigh come to think of it, lemme blog it to t9b...
Work never ends..

Stats stats and more stats

2007-06-12T21:48:00.000+08:00

Have been hit by the stats fever recently. On hindsight, damnit I should have put it in way earlier, that way I can get even more information on The Product™. But I guess, better late than never, right? Just TODAY. Yes today, dumbass, it finally hit on me to set up a conversion goal for Google Analytics.

Hopefully I'll have some results in soon. Google Analytics if fun actually, looking at all the data amassed. I've added one to my blog too, sadly the visit rate is so low, heh, less than 10 so far! Tsk. Looks like I must blog about more interesting things huh, to get readership up =p

One stat that GA doesn't seem to have is the time of a visitor's visit. I have numbers, I have time.. but mysteriously, for the life of me, I couldn't find an entry for time of visit... Sigh, had to cross reference with Apache's logs.. seems like the most time people visit The Product™ (assuming SG time I hope..) is 20-01 .. guess I'll try, if I can, to run The Product™ around these times and hopefully catch a few people...

The Flash

2007-06-07T23:35:00.001+08:00

The Flash
Originally uploaded by Kurayami no Tenshi

Good ol' chicken wing helm!

Servers and more servers

2007-06-02T01:22:00.000+08:00

So today, BU shipped off an email instructing me to set up the new Server for The Product™. Egad, setting up yet another server.. So after lunch, I switch into server admin mode and start opening up my ssh connections to Astartes, the new server (I named her! ^^)

Whenever I go into "install" mode, I go into super multi threaded mode. Like when I finish installing XP on Resurrection and start installing drivers and software. Internally I immediately start to pipeline the entire process.

Graphics card? Check. Ok while installing that I'll install Winzip. While installing that I'll install WinRAR too.

Ok graphics card is done, install sound card. Install Java in the meantime too .. etc etc

Same goes for Linux servers. Redhat is my least liked distro, but it is my most used one -_-; After installing three servers with the same information, (well did 2 others in my old job but blah) I've come to the conclusion that all Linuxes are different beasts -_-

The first thing I do on Astartes is to check out the Apache (httpd) version. Hmm 2.0.54, *checks Gimli (the current server)* Ok. same version, Gimli's one is a tar.gz install though .. *thinks* .. well RPMs are fine I guess.. I'll just keep the 2.0.54 RPM.

*typeity type*
MySQL 4!? Wth.. *google* Ah, MySQL 5 rpm.
*typeity type* wget ....
Ok while that's downloading..
I need Tomcat ...
Oh I need stuff from Gimli too ... *typeity type*
*typeity type*
.. Damn php 4!? .. /sigh.. *googles for php*

Ok, need to configure httpd... Ok where the hell is httpd.conf. Nothing a locate can't accomplish.
Whoa.. wth. So many things inside this configuration file. Okay.. I'll just follow my little ol' documentation here.

Hmm .. I need jk_mod. Fine .. *google* Blah, no updated binaries. *downloads source*
./configure --with-apxs
It appeals to my inner geek somehow when I see text from ./configure to flying past the screen. True, no one can read what it's saying at that speed, but still it looks cool.

Finally installed and configured everything. All right, JKMounted the appropriate directories. Httpd should forward these requests to tomcat...

*opens the page in FF*
403.

.. Wth??

*peers at config*
Looks right ..
*types in direct url*
Page renders.
.. -_-;

After spending fruitless hours trying to figure why Apache wasn't forwarding the correct directory to Tomcat... I decided, screw it. Lemme just get a tgz version. Downloaded Apache 2.2 tgz and installed, copied the conf file from Gimli.. compiled the plugins .. and it worked like a charm -_-

DOWN WITH RPMS!
-_-

Bah. Well this post seems rather fragmented and techy .. heh. It happens when I install servers <_< nothing more exciting than seeing your scp file list.

Still need to set up cron jobs on monday .. zzzz
Actually I can do that now .. hmm ... guess will do it tomorrow.. If I remember the IP, heh.

Virus!

2007-05-29T20:09:00.000+08:00

So .. last week, my sister's computer fell sick ...

Viruses are insidious nowadays, secretly copying stuff into your most secret folders and disguising themselves as legitimate applications. Through the course of slapping the evil virus out of the system, I learnt several things.

1. Task Manager is stupid. Why show only the executable? Is it so hard to have one more column showing the path of the file? That way you can immediately know whether that svchost.exe is the real McCoy or not.

2. Outpost Firewall is the best.
After clearing out several of the evil spyware, I discovered there was one more ... the most powerful of all. It was autostarting Internet Explorer on startup, in invisible mode, attempting to access two URLs: happy8888.3322.org and happy10000.3322.org, based in Korea (hosted by an IIS server). It was also hijacking, or disguising, or somehow causing IE to be listening on fifty billion ports.
I immediately clamped down access to that site, and Explorer too, which was also being used to visit that site.

3. Autostart Explorer is uber.
It took a long while to find the mysterious process which was autostarting IE. I peeked into the registry, into the start menu .. win.ini .. didn't see it at all. However, fortuitously, I happened to stumble on this application - Autostart Explorer. Though it seemed to be an old app, it listed down EVERY application which autostarted with Windows. Peering at the list let me to discover an odd application which was being auto started.
Deleted it, and voila! Fixed.

Phew.

Sigh still, the most secure measures don't count for crap when users are being dumb.

Developing Websites

2007-05-22T19:55:00.000+08:00

Well, since I'm handling The Product's™ webpage, it's my job to make sure it looks/works fine in most browsers.

Sadly however, it never seems to be the case. Many a time have I cursed the programmers of IE and wished I could take an M16 and stormed Richmond.

A webpage update cycle would be something like this, R designs the website L&F (Look and Feel), slices them up in good ol' Photoshop and ships them over to me. I add in all the logic and jazz that makes the website tick. Many a time, these "jazz" thingies cause things to go screwy.

*peer at website in FF* Hm looks good, font sizes are ok, table cells are fine. *fires up IE in VMware* argh!! *faints*

As GPB can attest, by his work of art - Bear out of Cage (or is he? View in IE and FF to see the difference!), web development is shitty. Browsers all render pages in their own quirky way. Code which works on browser A doesn't work on browser B. Formatting which looks good on A looks like crap on B.

Also, in testing the website, I decided to install Netscape 8.1 (well it's on the VMware, not like it's going to taint my machine). The first impression of Netscape's home page was how shitty it was. To me, it looked totally cluttered and too texty, and surprisingly, the browser wasn't at the forefront of the page (unlike Firefox). Installation took ages (when compared to installing Firefox), and when I fired it up, I was surprised to see a splash screen. Wth? Browsers need a splash screen? To me, the time a browser needs to load should be too short for the need of a splash screen.

So anyways, after staring at the splash screen for a bit, Netscape 8.1 finally chugged open. I haven't used Netscape since the Browser War Era™ and the first impression I had was omg it's so cluttered looking. Well, it could have been the skin I chose, for I chose the "newer" looking one (which wasn't the standard template), but still, it looked so cluttered. Buttons and text everywhere.

Since I was going to test Java on it, I ignored all the ugly stuff and navigated to the website. Initially, I thought since Netscape was based on Mozilla (well, the dialogue boxes looked totally the same too -_-), it should be able to handle Firefox-like XPIs. Sadly, that wasn't true. Stupefied, I even took a gander at Java's website on it, and it too, failed to install the Java plugin for Netscape. The "Search for plugins" feature didn't work either. GG Netscape.

On a rather unrelated, but still somewhat relevant note, I was working on the website the other day, adding cookies and stuff, and was printing out an alert in javascript to find out if my code was working. It's a simple alert, it just goes alert(some state) which hopefully renders to true. When I tested it out in IE7, I had a shock (come to think of it, should I be shocked at anything about IE?).

Zomfg. Wth? Why does it render a simple alert box into such a hideous looking dialogue box? And this is IE7 on Vista, supposedly snazzy and leet with their uber Aero interface.

In contrast, let us look at Exhibit B, an alert from IE6 on XP, well granted this screenshot is taken from my home machine which has skinned XP to look like OSX >:D

Still, if you may observe the dimensions of the box, and the size of the warning icon. It is so much in proportion compared to the one from Vista. Seriously, who designed that crap?

... That's all for this episode. Stay tuned for more adventures in .. Developing Websites™ ... *da da dum*

Haiz

2007-05-16T20:19:00.000+08:00

This has been a pretty busy month, STUN is a continual head banger, now that I've found out why it didn't work reliably (wag54g sucks), things are better now, but it's still pretty far, need to think of a reliable UDP protocol.

Simply put, TCP on UDP. Haha.

Not going to be easy, especially with flow control, acking ... sigh.

Been dabaoing work home too, there's just not enough time to do STUN, so I generally dabao home and do. Been feeling a bit slackish today though, guess will just play GoW. After all, did slides till 1am yesterday. Think need to add more slides, about the packets I send from client to server...

Bvo was saying she was reading the last three entries and she couldn't understand what I was writing, heh is my writing that bad? =p Don't explain enough? Heh guess should try harder.

R was asking today, oei why today like so sad one, yesterday was like sunshine liddat, today is like back to the usual haiz haiz self.. Which is true, been sighing alot. It's just in my nature to sigh I guess, heh. But there's a big stone in my heart and it's probably going to take some time to grind it down.

On the bright side, it's a security flaw in the H2H protocol, have to rework the protocol bit and patch the kernel, then I should be fine ...

Still feel sad, glad to have DA around, dear precious DA, always around when I need someone most. Although sadly these few months I've kinda lost contact with him, he's still around me. Hopefully he'll never leave, don't know what I'll do without my precious DA.

Hacked 3!

2007-05-09T19:29:00.001+08:00

Bah. Anyway.
Heh, the event has left me in a somewhat good mood (why, i don't know,
since i have to make a house call to fix it), guess it's cos i've been
overwrought, stressed, and rather emo these days.
Still... Haha. So funny. Tragic but funny. Hopefully can fix before
10 though. Haha *snicker* so hilarious

Hacked 2!

2007-05-09T19:25:00.001+08:00

Bah. Damn mobile gmail, limited in mail size. Anyways, that bugger had
changed the password of my login account and root.
Urgh.
Why? I hear you ask, isn't linux supposed to be secure? Well, when you
have the password the same as your login name and root password...
Heh... On hindsight i should have changed root. It's been the norm for
root to have the same pass (for user friendliness!) But haha as you
can see, it wasn't a great idea.
On the bright side, it's made me smile (maybe snicker) all the way home

Hacked!

2007-05-09T19:20:00.001+08:00

Twas a routine day (ie banging head on STUN), i was scping (sending)
files to R's linux which i installed for him on sat when suddenly the
comp kept denying me access. Wrong password.
Nani? I peered at my caps lock. Nope. I sent the files to
Resurrection. Worked. Hmmm that could only mean one thing!
In my other terminal window, i quickly typed 'who', the results
confirmed my suspicions. Besides Resurrection's and coy's ip, there
was a mysterious one from aol! And that bugger had changed the
passwords!

It's rawer than sashimi .. but it works!

2007-05-04T00:05:00.000+08:00

After two weeks of getting STUNned, finally managed to let 2 port restricted NATs talk to each other!

For the uninitiated, STUN (Simple Traversal of UDP through NATs), is a protocol to discover information about a client which is trying to connect to a server using UDP. Coding up the STUN server (a very ultra basic one) wasn't extremely difficult, after using the API from jStun, sadly they didn't have server code =p.

The hard part however, was getting the clients to talk to each other. Went through a major refactor early in the stage of development as I was sending really messy datagrams to the server, either a discovery object or strings. Really bad. So I looked at it, and refactored everything to send serialised packets of a special datatype which I defined.

Once that was firmed up, it was time for P2P! .. The concept isn't hard, simply send UDP packets from client A to client B (and vice versa) until the NAT opens up but in practise mine never happened <_< I even ran Wireshark to look but it didn't seem to be responding properly =\

Finally today! Managed to do it, right now server communication and client - client communication are using the same port though, not what I envisioned earlier, but if it works, it works huh.

Still extremely raw and buggy though, as I said, it's raw-er than sashimi .. but it works!

RAWR!

Stunned by STUN

2007-04-26T20:27:00.000+08:00

Sigh, is there no end to Stun?

Finally implemented a (buggy and nubby) STUN server. Had to rework the entire message passing side as I was just using nubby strings to pass messages. Now it's passing data via serialised objects. However, once I was done, I came to the rude realisation that it doesn't work on my Mac. Sigh, on hindsight, maybe should have realised it sooner ._.

Iptables, the firewall used by OSX, is symmetric, and therefore is unable to be STUNned. Therefore, my intranet client connection code cannot work if the initiatee is iptabled. Also found out that my server won't be able to send that client any messages. It's fine on a non iptabled machine, but not for OSX. Gah.

Sigh, now it's back to the drawing board. Not sure how to do it now, was thinking of a strategy where the clients connect to the server via TCP, then connect with each other via UDP.

Naturally, that won't fix the iptable problem, but if in the event the clients aren't able to connect to each other, at least I still have a TCP pipe connected to the server which will enable the server to do message relaying. Mai hiam bei pai?

Sigh having a headache now.. think too much liao. If Skype can do it .. but no .. Skype probably had networking engineers banging their heads against the problem.. there's only me here, and only a month max. Did a short peek at msn using my firewall, it's not true p2p. Cop out! It all goes through the server.

Sigh.

Superhero Dating Quiz!

2007-04-26T00:20:00.000+08:00

DA and I had the same results -_-.. Cookies! Cookies I tellst you!

做人

2007-04-25T19:58:00.000+08:00

做人... a nebulous term.

Today a friend confronted me on some issues, saying I didn't tell him things while he told me things. Allow me to illustrate for the benefit of the gentle reader.

Players: A, B, me
Others: C, D, E

The Script:

A, B and me are friends. A+me is closer though.

So one day B tells me things about C&D, which C told him. Which were not supposed to be luan luan say. The things B said are lost in the haze of memory, but it's not extremely exclusive information. ie can be derived or learnt from C himself.

So over a certain weekend, henceforth known as The Weekend™, something happened to C&D involving E.

C told A what happened, and A told me.

A also mentioned not to say it to others, even B. Pretty bad fallout from The Weekend™, so it's not really something which you really want to go around saying.

So anyways when B and me were talking, B was asking for information but I didn't give (well .. did think of giving, but decided not to betray A's trust, so didn't say).

And today B talked to C and found out what happened during The Weekend™ (or at least, C's version), so B comes to me and harangues me for not telling him, since he rightfully infer that since A knows, I must know.

B's point is since he has told me lots of stuff he wasn't supposed to say (but not extremely private), I should reciprocate, and that I tell everything B tells me to A, so why cannot tell him.

Felt like telling B this. I practise ACL (Access Control List), I don't tell everyone everything, nor anyone everything. A has higher ACL levels and therefore I tell A most of everything, and that B, while a good friend, does not approach the ACL level of A. And furthermore, A say cannot say.

But didn't in the end, don't want to hurt B's feelings (.. men -_-) and don't want B to be :@ with A or even more hurt as A said cannot say..

Blah.

At the very most then never talk to B anymore I guess ... More Silent Hunter time!

A rose by any name would smell just as sweet

2007-04-24T21:20:00.000+08:00

Amazingly, I have to start blogging for my work. -_-; Never thought it'd come to this, so now I have to think of a name. Kinda hard when you try to... Want it to be different from my usual avatars and thought it should be related to the subject material: Games.

So how? Hmm... I've had some ideas, but they are all either taken (in the blogger universe) or sound weird. Ideas ranging from gamechic, gamechiq, t9b, onegreenmushroom (sadly, greenmushroom was taken), player1, 1UP..

So far the leading contenders are t9b and onegreenmushroom. Thought of milk&nuts, but it loses meaning without the &.

Send help!

Of STUNS and Stunners

2007-04-24T19:24:00.000+08:00

Packet of Work for the week: Create STUN server.

And STUN clients.

Gah. So far the STUN server is up, after much teeth gnashing. A very simple barely interactive client set up, after even more teech gnashing.

So right now I have 2 clients, one is Resurrection, behind your typical linksys router, and the other, my work comp, which is behind some Symmetric NAT thingy. Which is BAD, as STUN supposedly doesn't work on it :S

So far what I've managed to do is to get both clients to talk to each other through the server, "talk" being a rather grand term here as the server is merely getting a message from a client and echoing it to all the connected clients.

Been trying to go to the next step but it's not really working. Always get ICMP unreachable and Address binding exceptions.

Gah.

Egads. How huh. I already port+1 liao leh, why still liddat!?

-_-;

More teeth gnashing tomorrow. I will not be defeated by such a problem!

Need to ninja another client for connection too .. sigh!

Finally tiny sock no more

2007-04-19T10:38:00.000+08:00

For months, tenshi has been living in a sock too small for him ..

Showed it to bvo + ad during dinner and they made the sock become normal sized again >_>

Bah, how would I know it got all rolled up and such!?

Socks aren't supposed to roll up! It didn't look rolled up to me! I turned it inside out and it still didn't look rolled up! <_<

Once there was a screw

2007-04-10T22:47:00.000+08:00

Once there was a screw, who was as shrewd as can be.
It left me one morning like a shrew, and left me in a spew.