The last day of work

It is quiet in the office right now. I am the last one here, and it is very quiet. I remember liking to stay late when I first moved to this new building just to watch the sun set outside my window.


Posted March 2005

It always calmed me after a long day, that last bit of pink hanging in the sky. Way back in 2003, I remember sitting at this very spot and being sad, thinking about the words of a song. It feels like a long time ago.

There is no sunset today. Instead, just dark clouds and dreary rain to accompany on my last day at work. "The office is not just a place to do, but a place to live," I said in June 2006. So now I have to abandon this living space, and make for myself another.

I'll miss the benefits of working here.

I'll miss my desk

Singapore Biopolis

Is it just me or does it sound a bit like Huxley's Brave New World?

The centerpiece of Singapore’s biotechnology effort is the Biopolis, a seven-building biomedical hive that opened in late 2003 at a cost of 500 million Singapore dollars. It is outfitted with the latest high-tech equipment and features a bar, a day care center and an underground facility made to house a quarter-million laboratory mice.

A quarter-million lab rats! Not to mention hiring Alan Coleman who cloned Dolly the Sheep– I mean, that's Dolly you're talking about, of Time magazine fame! the first cloned sheep ever! (See Time Magazine Cover on left). Biopolis is hiring top people from UK, US, and even Japan.

Read the NY Times article here. For the sake of my country, I hope our investment in biotechnology pays off. But I also hope that we will not go boldly where angels fear to tread.

Where food and gifts equal something else

My last day is tomorrow, but I will be coming back to the office on Thursday and Friday anyway, just because there aren't enough days to fit in everyone who wants to take me out for lunch. Imagine that! I've been taken out for possibly one week straight already: Teochew food (Mong Hing Teochew Restaurant––Excellent. I must bring my family: Mum is Teochew), Russian food (Shashlik at Far East Shopping Centre––best borscht I've had), Western set lunches, office-cooked steamboat, Thai beef Kway Tiao and everything in between.

I've gotten unbelievable presents too. A $100 Adidas watch and a Pierre Cardin wallet with two dollars in it, so that my wallet will always be full.

Sigh. Everyone has been too good to me.

And because of all this activity, it still hasn't sunk in that I will soon have to give up this large office room with a view, this quiet place where, in spite of the natural grouses and office crankiness, is still very safe.

I think I am sad.

undone

Yu Sheng for Christians

Singaporeans eat a lot of Yu Sheng during Chinese New Year. Yu Sheng is a salad of shredded carrots, cucumber and various spices, crackers and plum sauce, topped with slivers of raw fish. I love the taste of Yu Sheng, but it is not for how it tastes that Chinese people eat it. It is because of what it symbolises.

If you go to a restaurant, the waitress will speak many auspicious words as she pours each ingredient on the plate. I'm always very bemused at how good and lucky everything sounds and how each auspicious word is matched with an appropriate ingredient. For example, when she pours in the sweet plum sauce, she says, “甜甜密密” (sweet and intimate); when you pours out the crispy crackers, she says, "财源滚滚" (wealth rolls down).

After every auspicious ingredient is on the plate, every one at the table takes his chopsticks and tosses the salad, the higher the better, symbolising better things to come. (步步高升: rising higher).

It is all very fun and interesting, except that some of the words will make a Christian uncomfortable. Stuff like 金银满屋 (gold that fills the house) or 满地黄金 (gold all over the floor), or even 大吉大利 （to be very auspicious) or 恭喜发财 (get rich). So I decided to try my hand at writing my own script for Yu Sheng, with (a lot of) help from my dad.

What to say while serving Yu Sheng
Place Yu Sheng on table: 主恩满溢 and 万事神意
Add limejuice: 年年蒙恩
Add raw fish: 福杯满溢 and 龙马精神
Add five-spice powder, peanuts: 主内平安 and 年年有余
Add crackers: 年年快乐 and 原主带领

Rough translations:
主恩满溢: Abundant grace
万事神意: Everything in God's will
年年蒙恩: Blessed by God yearly
福杯满溢 : Abundant blessings
龙马精神: Good health
主内平安: Peace in Christ
年年有余: Abundance
年年快乐 : Happiness
原主带领: God's guidance

Any suggestions for improvement?

祝大家梦想成真

May all your dreams come true.

I write in my head all the time. Today while walking home and composing a birthday email to a friend, I signed off with this line, then I crossed it out. Because, well... my dreams just aren't big enough. So what if I get that dream car or that dream job or that dream person? When I finally settle down and grow old, wouldn't I rather be surprised by how blessed I am, than simply having everything I expected life to be?

So, to those who stop by here this CNY season, may you be continually surprised and overjoyed with everything life brings. God bless you!

Yertle, Mac-head

I am very happy with Gimp.

I am very happy with Gimp.
Very very happy.

I desperately want photoshop

Because it is insane having to shut down and restart in Windows just to use my Photoshop for Windows.

Because I cannot "grow selection" in Seashore.

I have been spoiled.

Will go check out Gimp now. I have high hopes.

I don't know why I bother

When all I have in my mailbox are old love letters anyway.

How to export emails from Outlook to Apple Mail

1. Download Thunderbird on your PC.
   
2. In Thunderbird, import emails from Outlook (Tools>Import)
3. Go to Documents and Settings/username/Application Data/Thunderbird/Profiles folder. Your mailboxes should be somewhere about there. The files you want have no extension. Add a .mbox extension to it. (E.g. inbox becomes inbox.mbox)
   
4. Transfer .mbox file to Mac.
5. Drag and drop .mbox file into folder in Entourage. Wait.
6. In Apple Mail, import emails from Entourage (File>Import Mailboxes).

By this time, your old love letters will have travelled through a few transmorgifications and email clients to land up in your archived folder in Apple mail, to be opened probably only once in the next five years.

On the rocks

Working on a powerpoint on a Mac is driving me up the wall. What usually takes me 5 seconds takes me 5 minutes. It is very frustrating.

1. The text is too small. In fact, all the text in a Mac is too small. Am I that old already?
2. Scrolling is TOO SLOW! Oh gosh, I get irritated every time I have to scroll. The speed of my mouse and trackpad is already set to the fastest in System Preferences.
   
3. In fact, every thing moves too slowly in Powerpoint. Moving a text box, or anything is slow. Dang it, I have 1GB RAM! It ought to move faster than that!
   
4. When I paste something into powerpoint, that paste option button doesn't show up and I can't for the life of me figure out how to paste it with the new formatting. I am not happy.
   
5. I don't have photoshop. I cannot cope with having to go through three steps in Seashore just to rotate a simple picture.* Or not knowing how to get a colour's exact RGB**. Or not being able to right-click to save an embedded picture.
   
6. Burning a CD or bypassing the region settings on DVD just ain't that easy anymore.
7. And I miss my 5.1 speakers.
   
   
   

* My ignorance. To rotate image, go to Image>Transform rather than Layer>Rotate and you won't have the extra step of resizing the canvas after rotation.

** Use the colour sampler tool in the toolbar. It looks EXACTLY like the tool in photoshop, unlike the crop tool (bottom row, right), which looks like a scalpel.

***To invert an image in Seashore, Selection>Effects>Colour>Invert.

****Seashore has won back my affection. For now.

The Fantastic Adventures of You-Know-Who IV

The Fantastic Adventures of You-Know-Who III

The Fantastic Adventures of You-Know-Who II

The Fantastic Adventures of You-Know-Who I

We interrupt regular transmission to bring you...

....Pinky and the Brain!




Sing along now!
Pinky: And now...the parts of the Brain...performed by the Brain
Brain: Yes!
B:Neo-Cortex, Frontal Lobe
P: Brainstem! Brainstem!
B: Hippocampus, Neural Node Right Hemisphere; Pons and Cortex Visual
P: Brainstem! Brainstem!
B: Sylvian Fissure Pineal Left Hemisphere; Cer-e-bellum Left, Cer-e-bellum Right Synapse Hypothalamus, Striatum Dendrite [Brain dances with tambourine]
B:Axon Fibers, Matter Grey
P: Brainstem! Brainstem!
B: Central Tegmental Pathway, Temporal Lobe; White Core Matter, Forebrain, Skull
P: Brainstem! Brainstem!
B: Central Fissure, Cord Spinal, Parietal; Pia Mater Meningeal Vein Medulla Oblongata and Lobe Limbic Micro-Electrodes
PB: The Brain!
B: That oughta keep the little squirts happy

It's in the little things

I'm back in the office with my large cuppa. I'm in a milk and no sugar phase–which I couldn't get the last few days at home because we had run out of milk–so I'm feeling strangely pleased with my cuppa this morning, so much so that I fired up photobooth and took a photo of me and my cuppa.

It's in the little things.

Like realising this weekend that the little number on the iCal icon tells me the date. See the number "21" below? I think I'm in love.



Or being able to drag and drop photos into the Seashore icon and have the application open it immediately. No more right-click, open with, scroll, choose, click. Just one smooth drag&drop.

Or being able to SMS my sister for free in ten seconds flat, without having to open up my email client.

Or send a file to someone just by dragging and dropping it over the Quicksilver icon.

Jamie Oliver calls it puppy love. I think this just may be forever.

Apropos of nothing

Sending SMS directly from Quicksilver

Theoretically this should work. But it doesn't work for me, unless I'm willing to pay Mobileone 10.5 cents for each SMS I receive that is sent via email. But the idea of it is so cool that I'm putting it down here anyway, just in case you use a service provider that is better than mine.

Source: Mac OS X Hints

1. Launch Quicksilver(Ctrl-Spacebar)
2. Hit the "." button to enter the text input mode, and enter the person's cell phone number that will go to the cell provider's email gateway, and hit enter. For instance, for Cingular users it is nnnnnnnnnn@cingularme.com. A close-to-exhaustive list of provider email gateways can be found here.
3. In the second box, type in a few letters until you get to Email Item (Send Directly).
4. Now, in the last box, use the text input method again (".") and type in your messsage.

Considering that M1 only earns money when I use my M1 mobile number to send an SMS and never when I receive an SMS, I don't see what difference it makes to them whether it was sent from a mobile phone or from email. I'm sure I'm not grasping the implications of M1 letting me receive SMSes from email free, but ppppth. I'm just sulking some.

(It works with my sis! I send it to XXXXXXXXXXX@mobile.mycingular.com. To ensure there is no duplicate text, start your message with option-enter. I saved the email under her contact in Address Book so I can pull it out with Quicksilver.)

Who else is hungry this CNY?

I am always hungry during Chinese New Year. I think I get hungry in anticipation of all the shops being closed and the larder being empty.

4pm, today. This is a picture of all the shops being closed.



I went to visit my friend's mum in hospital today. The ward was practically emptied out. Smole told me that two days ago, the day before New Year's Eve, it was somewhat crazy with half of the relatives wanting to take the sick person home, with the other half wanting to leave them in. So Smole had to explain to the family of the possible-meningitis patient that the patient really ought to remain in the hospital, and persuade the one with a small bedsore that she really ought to go home. Sometimes I forget that health care is an inexact science.

Meanwhile, my neighbour is burning up a storm for his ancestors. There is ash everywhere.

I have a blister

Right smack in the middle of my palm.

Reunion dinner

We held hands around the table today and my father said grace. And I remembered the very first time we stood and prayed as a family like that. It was at my grandmother's wake at All Saints' Memorial at Poh Huat Road.

And we stood like that again, except that my grandfather has since passed on, as we will all do one day or other. And it felt as if they were watching us.

We had yusheng (raw fish salad), steamboat (pot of soup), tofu, shabu shabu, pork ribs, and teriyaki salmon. Then cheng teng (chinese desert), pineapple tarts and almond cookies to cap. When I was young, we would always have steamboat and steamed chicken. (When my dad was young, Chinese New Year was the only time he got to have chicken!) Nowadays we experiment a little and have to catch up with each other more, but the formula remains the same: simple food, regular conversation.

And you come out feeling better for it.

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

Image goodness for the Mac

Don't have photoshop? Try Seashore. It even supports layers.



And these are the alt-print screen versions for the Mac.

Cmd-Shift-3
Makes a copy of the entire screen

Cmd-Shift-4
Toggles a crosshair so that you can select a smaller section of the screen

Cmd-Shift-4-Spacebar
Toggles a camera for you to choose which window to copy. Selecting a partially hidden window will make a copy of it in its entirety. Sweet or sweet? :)

How to sync a Sony Ericsson k618i with a Mac

Calendar, Tasks and Contacts
iSync is a pretty nifty programme that syncs the calendar, tasks and contacts on your mobile with iCal and Address Book. It ships with Mac OS X Tiger and resides in your Applications folder.



However, Apple has fallen back on providing support for the latest mobile phones and so the Sony Ericsson k618i is not compatible with iSync. To use iSync with your SE k68i, download this plugin, courtesy of faqintosh. Unzip and save the plugin in a folder labelled “PhonePlugins” inside the “Library” folder at the root level (create folder if it doesn’t exist already).

Pictures and File Transfer
Transfering of files and photos between phone and my MacBook is as easy as it was with my bluetooth dongle, just without the dongle. If your Mac comes with bluetooth enabled, click on the bluetooth icon on the top right of your menu bar (fourth from left).



Click "Set up bluetooth device". After your device is set up, just double click on your mobile phone to begin browsing.



However, you will not be able to access your SMS this way. To backup SMS or to use your computer to send an SMS via your phone, you need another application.

Send SMS via your computer
Mac OS X allows you to send an SMS to a contact in your Address Book with one simple click. First click on the bluetooth symbol to connect your phone.



Then all you've got to do is to right click the mobile number in your address book, choose "sms message", and send it off. You can also answer incoming calls, dial your phone, and send calls to voicemail with this feature.

However, please note that the sony ericsson k618i is not supported. To use the k618i, you will have to download a plugin called the Sony Ericsson Address Book Enabler . It costs US$2.90. I have yet to try it out.

Backup SMS
I backup my SMS usingt he demo version of PhoneAgent. I think PhoneAgent is much too resource-heavy to use just to backup my SMS, but I haven't found a better alternative. (If you are on Windows you can use FloAt's Mobile Agent).

Before you start using PhoneAgent you have to pair your phone with your computer (Bluetooth>Set up Bluetooth Device), and set the right port on the preferences pane on PhoneAgent. Click on SMS, then download (Phone>Download). Create a new folder (SMS>New Folder) and drag the SMS-es you would like to archive to your hard drive. If you want to move your sms-es to another computer, click SMS>Backup SMS to save a copy of your archived folder.



And that's about all I can think to do with my phone for now.

My blog has become boring

Ever since I switched to the new blogger and got the MacBook, my blog has become boring. I can't think of anything to write. I'm so deep into figuring out which application is best suited for my needs that I spend all day downloading, researching, configuring, and sometimes uninstalling. I am such a boring person.

It is raining outside. I'm glad for the reprieve. This afternoon was one of those unbearably oppressive days where you feel like you're getting cooked from the inside out. I was going to sit in a cafe and get some work done, but the crowd and the heat just wasn't worth it, so I headed home to have a nap. And my work is still undone. I have become too used to spending tropical afternoons in air-conditioned comfort. God help me when I start my new job.

Save me from myself. Talk to me, please?

Tagged!

Carine has saved me from the tedium of having nothing to post by tagging me with a meme. Yay!

1. Four jobs I've had:
- Toilet cleaner
- Grass waterer
- Researcher
- Powerpointer

2. Four movies I would watch over and over:
I don't usually have the patience to watch movies more than once, but there are some scenes in these that I love.
- Finding Nemo
- Ocean's Eleven
- Shrek

3. Four favorite TV shows:
Embarrassingly, I like Charmed a lot.

4. Four places for vacation I have been on:
- Medan, Indonesia
- Womberra, Australia
- Texas, USA
- Bali, Indonesia

5. Four places I’ve lived:
- Arkansas, USA (5 years)
- Singapore (everything else)

6. Four favorite foods:
- Wan ton mee
- Pepperoni pizza
- Coffee
- Chicken rice

7. Four things to do in my spare time:
(Well, these are the top four items in my to-do list.)
- Set up new table
- Move book shelf
- Cut hair
- Buy shredded carrots, turnip and sashimi

8. Four people to tag:
- Anyone else who has run out of things to blog.

9. Four websites I visit daily:
- Protopage
- Gmail
- Those on my "websites I stalk" list
- Blogspot

10. Four places I’d like to be RIGHT NOW:
- In bed dreaming about something pleasant
- Sitting at a deck facing the sea in Bali with a friend, sipping wine
- At home celebrating the end of a bond I have not yet started
- In my room, except that it has already been cleaned and organised

(I think I've done this one before... but it is too late to go check...)

Sometimes you find a reason for all this new-fangled stuff after all

Tonight, just after downloading Google Notifier and Gmail+Growl, I notice an email come in at 3am that I would otherwise have missed.

A friend's mum is being admitted to hospital for dizziness and sudden weakness of limbs and she requests for prayer.

And suddenly, all that frivolous downloading becomes somehow significant.

Quasi-kopi at the railway station

2:20am. Just got home from a late night kopi at the railway station. Actually I didn't even have kopi. All I had was a gigantic glass of green tea that filled my bladder to bursting.

It was nice to sit under the sky and chat. The area surrounding the railway station feels like Malaysia. Not surprisingly, since the land it is built on is Malaysian land. It is kinda nice to have a bit of Malaysia down your block. It also serves a very good mee siam for $2.00. I used to be able to buy a pack for $1.50 and feed a family of three with it. Not anymore though, but it is still the best mee siam I know.

The Ramly burger is a new addition, but it is possibly the only place in Singapore where you can get a Ramly burger all year round. Ramly burgers usually travel with Pasar Malaams (night markets) and so are hard to pin down. Just don't go to the railways station before 4pm or so because they are only open in the evenings.

But I didn't get anything to eat this time. Just conversation and green tea, which was more than enough for me. Except that I think I am getting hungry!

How to insert iCal events/ to-dos with Quicksilver

What an amazing function! I'm so excited about this that I want to do a dance of joy right here, right now. I can add new to-do items and events in iCal using Quicksilver in a few easy keystrokes. Oh gosh, I'm so excited.

Before you start, make sure that you have the "iCal" plugin activated on Quicksilver (Ctrl-Spacebar>Cmd-,>Plugins). Download Calendar Creator. Calendar Creator makes sense of a string of words like "Feb 14 7pm Dinner". Follow instructions on Calendar Creator's site on where to put the file.

Log off, Log on.
Open Quicksilver (Ctrl-Spacebar)
Hit "." to open text input
Type "13 Feb 6pm -- Meet A for dinner"
Press "Tab", type "Cal", choose "new iCal event".
Select the calendar you want it to belong in on the next tab and hit Enter.



And there you have it.

Calendar Creator makes sense of practically everything you throw at it, but for best results use the format "date and time -- name of event". Documentation here.

How to append text using Quicksilver

I'm going to lose all my readers if all I post are instructions for the Mac novice. I promise I'll post something more interesting soon, maybe a picture of a squirrel a la Eric. But for now, here are some instructions on how to append text using Quicksilver.


Make sure you are all set up
1. Open Quicksilver (Ctrl-Spacebar)
2. Open Preferences (Cmd-,)
3. Tick "Enable Advanced Features"
4. Go to "Plug-ins"
5. Tick "Text Manipulation Actions" Under "All Plugins".

Append the text
1. Create a text file titled "test.txt" in your documents. (Ensure that it is in plain text.)
2. Open Quicksilver (Ctrl-Spacebar)
3. Hold down . for a second.
4. Type "This is the appended text."
5. Press Tab to go to the second panel, then type "APP" for "Append text to..."
6. Press Tab to go to the third panel, then type "test" to access your document. (If QS hasn't catalogued the system, type "Doc" to go to your documents, then right arrow to choose the file.
7. Enter.

A quick note about the difference between spotlight (Cmd-Spacebar) and Quicksilver (Ctrl-Spacebar). Spotlight is good for searching for files and emails quickly because it is built into the OS, but Quicksilver is more powerful in what you can do with the files you find.

I'm using the append text function to maintain a text file of books to check out.

Fragile String

(an old one.
found this while clearing out my documents.
posting it here so i can delete it from my hard drive.)

Each time they shared a coke
or ran laughing in the rain,
they tied a piece of string
around two bamboo canes.

Each time their voices raise
and good nights go unsaid,
a blunt rock gnaws away,
the bamboos split and break.

My blogspot page is empty

Apparently due to to some ISPs blocking blogspot addresses.

Use an anonymous proxy server, like this:

http://www.pkblogs.com/mis_nomer.blogspot.com/

How to set up a VPN connection on a Mac

More boring stuff.

To set up VPN connection

1. Click on AirPort symbol on the top right corner of your top bar (it looks like an expanding sound wave).
2. Choose "Open Internet Connect"
3. Choose "VPN"
4. Choose either L2TP (Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol) or PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol). Mine's PPTP.
5. Enter server address (something.something.something), your user name and password.

Remove a VPN configuration (in case you got the L2TP/ PPTP wrong)

1. From the Apple (top left), select "System Preferences".
2. In System Preferences, select Network.
3. From the pull-down menu next to "Show:", select Network Port Configurations.
4. In the list of port configurations, select the VPN configuration you wish to remove, then click Delete.
5. Click Apply Now to remove the configuration from Internet Connect.

Now that you're connected, where are your files?

1. Go to "Finder"
2. Choose "Network". You should be able to view your network there (scroll down if required).
   

Re-wiring my brain

I don't realise how many things I take for granted just because I have been using a PC for the last six years or so. Simple things like expecting the menu to be on the top of the application window. Because I expect it to be where I think it is, I don't ever see it a mere 2cm above where I'm expecting to see it, at the top of my screen, so I spend 15mins wondering how in the world I'm supposed to rip a CD in iTunes when I cannot find "Preferences".

Now I know why it is difficult for older people who have never used computers in their lives to pick up the skill. There are so many things we know intuitively that we don't teach them what it means to "click on the icon", or "drag and drop" or anything else in between. We have been trained to see what we need to see and when they don't get it from the get-go, we think that they are slow.

It is all a matter of the context of our knowledge. For example, folks who grew up using the dial telephone where you stick a finger in and turn it a full circle, tend to hold the buttons on a modern telephone for far longer than necessary until they figure out that they don't need to do that anymore. What will my generation look like to the young 'uns in 20 years' time?

So I'm starting from scratch. I have to google the simplest of tasks, like the Mac equivalent of Windows shortcuts, how to burn a CD, and embarrassing enough, how to rip a CD with iTunes (that was when I didn't see the toolbar in front of my nose).

How to secure your D-Link Wireless Router

(I'm sorry for the flurry of boring posts.)

Enable WEP
Enabling WEP* (Wired Equivalent Privacy) will require anyone wishing to access the Internet through your wireless network to enter a password. After the correct password is entered, a connection is established, and all data sent from the D-Link to the computer and back is encrypted. From the D-Link configuration screen:

1. Click the "Home" tab.
2. Click the "Wireless" button.
3. Click the "Open System" button next to "Authentication".
4. Click the "Enabled" button next to "WEP".
5. Set the "WEP Encryption" to "128 bit".
6. Set the "Key Type" to "ASCII".
7. Type a 13 digit password into "Key 1".
8. Click "Apply".
9. When you connect to your wireless network from a computer, you will need to enter the 13 digit password.
*Note that you have to choose "WEP ASCII 128 bit" when you next connect to the wireless network otherwise there will be an error.

Change the SSID and Disable SSID Broadcasting
By default, the D-Link is set to advertise the existence of your wireless network to computers. It does this by broadcasting an SSID (Service Set Identifier), also called a "network name" because it identifies your wireless network. Changing the SSID and disabling SSID broadcasting makes it harder for someone to locate the network. Note that if you disable SSID broadcasting, you will have to know the SSID in order to connect wirelessly to your network. From the D-Link configuration screen:

1. Click the "Home" tab.
2. Click the "Wireless" button.
3. Change the "SSID" from "default" to an SSID of your choice.
4. Click "Apply".
5. Click the "Advanced" tab.
6. Click the "Performance" button.
7. Click "Disabled" next to "SSID Broadcasting".
8. Click "Apply".
9. When you connect to your wireless network from a computer, you will need to enter the SSID.
*Note to self: SSID = surname

Source

The things people don't tell you

That using your third and fourth finger to scroll on the trackpad of a MacBook is much much better than using your second and third. With the correct fingers, scrolling vertically and horizontally actually works quite well!

I have to relearn everything. I keep hitting Ctrl-T for a new tab when I need to hit that-apple-button-T instead. I'm sure that apple button with the squirly bits has a name.

I have done a full charge, installed Adium, Quicksilver, Skype, downloaded firefox, configured my email to my gmail account, thanks to popagandhi's handy list. (Thank you!) And there are still so many things I have yet to do.

I just realised that I don't have Keynote installed though. Boo. Was looking forward to playing with it.

Seeing if a republish will help

There seems to be something wrong with the index page of this site. The archived pages and individual posts are fine though.

Buying a Macbook

I've just about decided on getting the 2.0GHz MacBook. Now I just have to figure out the details.

What do I want inside it?
Actually, that is the wrong question. Of course I want 2GB RAM and a 120 GB hard disk. But am I willing to pay another $304.50 and $252 for the RAM and space respectively? I think paying $252 for an extra miserly 40GB is a rip-off actually. Does anyone know how and where I can upgrade for less?

Where do I want to buy it?
That is the clincher. If I get everything I want, RAM, space and Microsoft Office, it will come close to $3,000 no matter where I buy it from. But if I just get the machine as it is, I can get it for $2,090 with a teacher/ student discount. (There was a one-day sale yesterday where it was going for $2,088.)

Online store
Machine: $2,248
Office: $269 (Student/ Teacher Edition)

Education store
Machine: $2,112
Office: $269 (Student/ Teacher Edition)

EpiCentre@Wheelock
Machine: $2,091 (Teacher/ Student) | $2,248 (Regular)
Office: $269 regardless

iShop at Cineleisure
Machine: $2,090 (Teacher/ Student) | $2,248 (Regular)
Office: $269 (Teacher/ Student) | $149 (Regular)

iShop will give a mambo bag, a keyboard protector and a logitech mouse if I buy it at the regular price as well.

As an NUS/NTU student
Price probably close to or slightly less than the Teacher/ Student price, but may get AppleCare thrown in as well.

Truth be told, I've never paid so much for software, but now that I can afford it (and it doesn't cost $700), I would like to pay for what I use. So I'm leaning towards the iShop option, without upgrades. (I feel like such a saint for foregoing extra 1GB RAM for legit software. Argh. Must not think about it.)

[Reference: Popagandhi's guide for every new switcher]

Web 2.0 explained

via mrbrown



It actually makes sense.

Death: The High Cost of Living by Neil Gaiman

You've got to admit that Death, as personified in this series, is pretty hot.

Gaiman toppled the traditional image of death as a hooded man in black carrying a menacing scythe in his creation of Death (see picture on left). For starters, she is always smiling.

Can you beat that?

And she has a genuine empathy for people, going about her work with a cheerful mercy.

Every century, Death gets to be mortal for one day so she can better understand human beings. This issue is the one day.

Download the issue here! How cool is that!

Day 21

Sleepy. My eyelids are heavy. It feels like forever before I'll get to pack up and go home today, and yet I can number the days I have left at this desk, behind this computer, before I pack up once and for all, and say goodbye. Counting down from Day 21.

----

I plod to the water dispenser in my socks and fill my cup with cold water to shake myself out of this sleepiness. My socks make dull thuds on the carpeted floor. Being friends with a doctor makes your mind run in strange directions. I am thirsty — do I have diabetes? Is an itch fungal? Bacterial? Psychological? Am I well-balanced? How is my cholesterol? My uterus? My blood pressure?

----

I'm breaking a personal record today. Two treats in one day; I feel like Santa Claus. Brought two brothers out for a steak lunch because one will be starting work soon; tonight I'll bring my parents out for dinner because my dad turns 63. Happy birthday Papa. May your days be long, full, blessed and happy.

----

It still feels like forever to 6pm.

This is a test

Guess what I am testing?

The "Read more" code of course!

It's cool. It works.

There are two methods of creating expandable posts. 1. the "peekaboo" method, where the posts appear on main page after you click on the link; 2. the "post page" method, where pages appear on its own page after you click a link.

This is created using the "post page" method, as it is the same method I used in the old blogger.

Ramani of Hackosphere shows us how to do it in this post.

1. Find the

</head>

tag in your template and add this line before it (if you have not already done so).


<script type='text/javascript'
src='http://www.anniyalogam.com/widgets/hackosphere.js' />



2. Find this div for the post-body and add the portion of code in red color.


<div class='post-body' expr:id='"post-" + data:post.id' >

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<style>#fullpost{display:inline;}</style>
<p><data:post.body/></p>
<b:else/>
<style>#fullpost{display:none;}</style>

<p><data:post.body/></p>

<span id='showlink'>
<a expr:href='data:post.url'>Read More!</a>
</span>
<script type='text/javascript'>
checkFull("post-" + "<data:post.id/>");
</script>
</b:if>

<div style='clear: both;'/> <!-- clear for photos floats -->
</div>

To include the "Read more" link in your post, type <span id="fullpost">
at the point of the break, and </span> right at the end of your post.

I have to go back to all the old posts to change the code from "class" to "id". The costs of progress... :)

(Thank you Ramani for the code.)

A gripe about the new blogger

I like the new blogger because it allows for labels and it is faster to publish. All the other stuff is just just bells and whistles to me.

But this gets under my collar: I can't customise the html so that I can make expandable blog posts or align my images any more. There must be a new way to align the images not hosted by blogger—I can't imagine them upgrading blogger and not including this function—but I don't know it for now, and even if I do, I have 988 old posts using the < div id="image_left"> and <span class="shortpost"> tag which is now completely useless. Aghhh.

What is a blogger supposed to do if she has an afterthought that she wants to append to a post?

(Just noticed that "blogger" may refer to the person who blogs, the software that we use to blog, or the company that hosts the software. Very versatile!)

Is it even possible to switch back to the old blogger?

Seven deadly sins

Jessica Hagy titles this "We're all going to hell".

Via Boing Boing: "If you arrange the 7 Deadly Sins around a heptagon, label them A-G, and connect each sin to the others, you get 21 secondary sins. For instance Sloth + Pride = Slackers."

Update: I think BE and BF are swapped around.

The Sandman, A Game of You, Vol 5

In the afterword, Neil Gaiman says:

I spent more than half a year with Barbie and Wanda and Hazel and Foxglove and Wilkinson and Thessaly and the rest of them wandering around in my head.

Some nights I still miss them.

I kinda miss them too.

This is a thought-provoking series that I can't quite wrap my mind around yet. Barbie has stopped dreaming and the land of her dreams is dying, and she needs to go save it. But the boundary between the dream world and the "real" world is non-distinct. In fact, Gaiman suggests that they occupy the same space.

It is about gender and identity, names and perception, with an ending that is both sad and curious. I don't suppose I can say any more than that.

To Wilkinson! All seventeen of them!

Super Bowl Ads

Watch them here. :)

The Gadget Post

Before I start work at the new place, I plan to get myself a Gadget. This is 20% reward for finally having enough guts to leave, and 80% security blanket. The tools of my trade are technological, and dang it if I will let myself start my new job empty-handed. The way I look it, I need all the help I can get.

The question is: what should I get? Should I stick with what I know and trust, i.e. Acer and an Windows Operating System, or go with something new, i.e. a MacBook 2.0 GHz? Should I get a full-blown laptop, or will a Palm TX suffice? These are a few needs I hope the new Gadget will be able to meet (apart from its role as a security blanket).

1. Presentations
I want to be able to teach using slides. I realise that perhaps this is being too idealistic (no time, no projector), but it feels so much better to be able to be able to have bullet points, pictures, diagrams, whatever, to illustrate what I am trying to say. I'm just used to and confident about this method of conveying information.

2. Information
It is a digital age and there is so much information out there, if you only know where to look for it. I need information and I need it fast. (I also need an online dictionary because my spelling is horrible.)

3. Software
I have come to rely on Photoshop, Excel, PageMaker, Adobe Acrobat, Konfabulator, Calculator, Outlook, Word and Protopage to cope with simple tasks such as organising my life, making brochures, newsletters, calculating figures, creating charts, making PDFs, etc. Software is expensive, and if I switch operating systems, I'll have to start from scratch.

4. Speed & Stability
See point 3. I want a fast machine so that I can have three things open at the same time without having to reboot. (I have 11 tabs and 2 applications open as we speak). And I want it to last a long time. Acers are amazing in that aspect. They rarely break down or have configuration conflicts. There is also a really fast turnaround time if you need to send your machine in for repair. I've seen my friend deal with the Apple Customer Care. Although they eventually replaced the faulty machine, the process was neither easy nor fun.

5. A wow! factor
I want more than a workhorse. I want something that makes me smile and feel confident about what I can do with the machine. I want to be able to do more than what I can do with my current computer and to be able to do things that I didn't think I could do. I want to be surprised.

I and my machine are one.

Al Forno Trattoria

Need a place to bring a date? Craving pasta? Try this cozy and intimate eatery at Goldhill Centre which serves very good pasta. (By `very good' I mean better than I can ever cook on my own, for example, I like Pastamania but it isn't `very good' because I can reproduce their pasta in my kitchen.)

Over two visits, I've tried the Pasta alla Carbonara (rich and creamy), Lasagna Emiliana (yum!), Pappardelle alla Venexiana (my first pasta in a saffron sauce; won't be the last), a tomato cream pasta with bacon and mushroom (very rich and filling; it was served with a flat and fat homemade pasta that filled the belly) and a penne pasta with crabmeat and tomato sauce (this one didn't have as much wow! factor as the others but it was a lighter pasta, and good for offsetting the richness of the others).

Wholly satisfying.

This yahoo user thinks Al Forno Trattoria is snotty. I thought it was very nice actually. Dim Sum Dolly recommends the Tiramisu. I'm not a dessert person so I wouldn't know. Al Forno Trattoria also specialises in traditional thin-crust pizzas baked over a wood-fire oven. According to this source, it was the first restaurant to introduce thin-crust pizzas to Singapore in 1992.

Cost: about $25-30 per person without wine, appetizer or desert.

Al Forno Trattoria (map)
203 Thomson Road, Goldhill Centre
(S) 307638
Tel: 6256 2838
Opens: 12 - 2pm; 6.30pm - 10.30pm.

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

This is a curious book with more twists and turns in its plot than an Auntie Anne's sour cream and chives pretzel.

It is written with an interesting premise: one, that gods actually do exist; two, that they live off the worship and belief of humans; and three, that gods can die.

The immigrants to America brought with them a plethora of gods. There is Odin, the All-Father, Kali, Hindu female goddess, Loki, contriver of all fraud, Easter, a pre-Christian goddess of fertility, and dwarves, leprechauns, pixies, a red squirrel, a world tree, and everything in between. (I think it would have been fun if the kitchen god, the pontianak and sun wukong was in it as well. I wouldn't mess with Tua Pek Kong or Guan Yin though... but considering Gaiman dared to caricaturise Kali... *shiver*)

American Gods is an audacious book. Gaiman weaves these old legends into a modern myth, which though modern, resonates with the same old strain of war, sacrifice and rebirth. Considering that Gaiman is British, it is uncanny how well he describes America, down to the signs declaring "pop. 720. Home of the Illinois girls' under-16 wrestling semifinalist" (162). That made me giggle.

I wonder how American Gods would work as a graphic novel. In many ways, it is suited to the medium. The characters are fantastic and sometimes I found myself wishing that I had a single comic panel rather than the hard work of translating a page full of words with my imagination. The structure of American Gods is also suited to a graphic novel. There are many independent sub-plots and minor characters that eventually get tied together in a grand conclusion. Gaiman's conclusion is impressive.

I liked Shadow. The protagonist of this novel is a quiet, bookish and physically strong man who has more integrity than all the gods in this book. If anything, this is also the story of Shadow's journey, a journey that stretches the imagination with the places he will bring you.

I need a place for lunch

Right now, I have three possible posts in my head. One starts with the line: "Gone are the days of the wind-up clock, where time moved languid and slow." The other is about gadgets. And the third, is this:

I'm taking my boss and department out for lunch next week. There will be six of us in total. Any suggestions on where to take them? Right now, these are the options:

1. Pete's Place ($26+++)
2. Tang Court (cost?)
3. Jack's Place
4. Seah Street Deli

I'm thinking of a set lunch place that is nicer than Jack's Place, maybe $15-$20pax.

Update:
Leaning towards Foster's set lunch. ($15.90+++)

Advice please

I asked my buddy if she had any advice to give me now that I've taken the plunge and taken on a "real job", and she said:

1. Always remember to take your coffee in the morning.

Heeheehee.

I'm making a list. Any advice you would like to share with me?

I'm an M&M

Gwynne made me an M&M. So cool! I look like I can kungfu punch any mean M&M that comes along my way. I like!

Make you an M&M here.

My M&M has an admirer.



Sure cool! I accept! :)