Infinitely me

Tech Speak: iPhone 4 Woes

2010-07-18T02:14:00.001+08:00

Nokia And RIM Respond To Apple’s Antenna Issues

http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2010/07/17/nokia-and-rim-respond-to-apples-antenna-issues/

http://www.intomobile.com/2010/06/28/steve-jobs-and-apple-on-iphone-4-reception-issues/

There's no problem with iPhone 4's antenna. No wait, there is a problem, I'll admit but all other phones have too. Deal with it, you pussy.

That's what old Jobs said about the newly launched iPhone 4. On 17 July 2010, Steve Jobs held a conference to address the issue. He admitted that a firmware update will NOT solve the antenna problem and is giving out free casing and some refunds of some sort for AT &T users. However during the course of the conference, he "apologised" for not being perfect "but then nobody is". You call that an apology? Furthermore putting Nokia and RIM (Research In Motion, the company behind Blackberry) in bad light by claiming that the antenna issues lie within their phones as well just shows that Apple and dear old Steve does not admit their mistake. Nokia and RIM have of course rebutted against Apple and let's face it, if Nokia and RIM with their waves of phones have had this problem, many many people would have found out. For your stupid Steve's brains sake, if only numbers would go through your dull senses, the most commonly used phone in the world is Blackberry, followed by Symbian phones (which is the operating system that Nokia mainly uses until this year). Your puny iPhone in the mobile phone market share is nothing compared to Nokia and RIM.

Wake up your idea. And if anyone still thinks that iPhone 4 is a choice of their phone, and if these people know me personally, please for goodness sake, find me. I will slap you until you wake up. Even if your excuses go along the lines of "oh i'm a right hander, my signal won't drop so much anyway", or "i'll just use a casing and the problem is minimised" or "i use handsfree most of the time instead of holding my phone so it doesn't matter", please do go ahead. I won't pray for you nor your phone.

Tech Speak: App Inventor for Android

2010-07-18T01:34:00.000+08:00

Official Google Blog: App Inventor for Android

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/app-inventor-for-android.html

Android's getting better at making apps but I still can't understand why developers don't port their nice games over to Android from iOS. You pay to make apps for iOS but it's free for Android. It's been a few days and Android just broke 100000 apps and 1 billion downloads. Gotta work harder Android. But this app inventor sure is interesting, though I doubt it'll change the situation much.

TechieEat: Swensen's One For One Lunch

2010-07-15T00:51:00.000+08:00

Swensen's weekday lunch offer is always enticing. My buddies and I have went there for quite a few times already. You can choose to pair dishes together to get the most value for money price, if you are ordering more than 2 dishes. Although I do detect a slight declination in the food quality and service during the 1 for 1 timings, I am more than happy with the savings. Its unfortunate that the ice creams do not have the 1 for 1 offers too.

my favourite meatballs pasta. nice.

Compass Point Swensen's
Ambiance: 2.5/5
Meatballs Pasta: 3.5/5
Service: 2/5

Ramblings: Against All Odds

2010-07-09T11:02:00.002+08:00

I was supposed to be in school for a faculty event but I was played
out. I knew I could trust my instinct. I know a badly organised event
when I smell one days and miles away. But honestly I am not hvery
pissed off, even though this post is under Ramblings (doesn't make a
lot of sense if this is under Brainstorm). Anyway I needed to get my
lazy ass to Sim Lim square for some stuff and I just take it as a
trial to see how much time i take to go to engineer faculty direct
using a new route. Now I'm just lazing in Bugis Starbucks. Sweet!

It's so blissful...

Tech Speak: Firefox 4 Beta

2010-07-08T14:09:00.002+08:00

http://www.pcworld.com/article/200652/firefox_4_beta_vs_chrome_ui_smackdown.html

Word has it that Firefox has taken cues from Chrome in its user interface in its newest beta. If you read the review, you can get an idea of how it looks like. I think the writer is very biased. While nobody can argue with Firefox's ability to customise the browser however they want, I do think that some features on Chrome are still way better than Firefox's. Firefox being the copycat will still have a ways to go if they want to win Chrome in terms of design and usability.

Signts And Sounds: PSLE Preparation

2010-06-30T16:17:00.000+08:00

On the bus,
Boy A: you got the science papers from which school?
Boy B: got a lot, got tao nan, blah blah blah
Boy A: you got do the other set of papers anot?
Boy B: which ones? (sounds like there's a lot)
Boy A: the blah blah one
Boy B: orh i got, i start doing liao, finished the cycles and a few already

During PSLE, I was playing street fighter on my computer. The most I did was read through the formula sheet for maths. Thankfully during my days as a primary school student, it was not too hard to get a pretty average score without studying at all. What's there to study for primary school anyway?

Tech Speak: To Girl With Love

2010-06-30T01:24:00.000+08:00

I think I've show off here that I own a Zune HD before. I chanced upon this website which took the Zune apart to see what is inside. On the metal plate inside, the words "For our princess" were engraved. I read that this was a tribute to a lady on the Zune Development Team who pass away halfway through the project. I don't think the person who took it apart was from Microsoft. Let's say even if we assume that not every single piece of Zune HD was engraved, wouldn't you still think that it's so nice of them to have engraved one or a few for her memories' keepsake? They even engraved it inside the Zune, as if to show that she was a part of the product, a part of the process of creating this device.

Event: Engin Camp 2010

2010-06-23T00:59:00.000+08:00

Last week was Engin Camp 2010. It was a blast to say the least. I was still worried the day before if I could get "high". It's been 4.5 years since I was high. Frankly I wasn't very high when I was in JC orientation, which makes me even more worried. Being a 21 year old old man, I can't really imagine myself getting high. But I was quite wrong. I wouldn't say I was very enthusiastic. In fact my whole group was rather unenthusiastic. We were always sleepy, we rather stone than play games, we choose not to go for supper unlike all other OGs. But I like it. Nobody was fake. Nobody overdrove their enthusiasm to "plastic" levels (which I really really cannot stand). Everyone just had fun when it was fun, everyone just stayed low when we were supposed to feel tired like every human being does. I liked all my seniors as well. Nobody was spastic (like how some other groups were), and no male seniors was over engrossed with disturbing little girls in my group. It's really sick to see how desperate some guys are.

Anyway, here's some concise description of what we did and what embarrassing stuff happened. On the first day, there was ice breaking games as usual. I was particularly fond of the game "la mian ah la mian". At first it seemed like a gay game. But as the game speeds up and everyone warms up to each other, it was really fun. The MRT game which seemed gay at first was quite fun as well. Lol. Then we had dirty games. My group wasn't very spontaneous actually but we were fine. We were a little forthcoming at least. After the dirty games we went to our rooms for the rest of the camp at Raffles Hall which was newly renovated. The meals came from Engin Canteen, which frankly was quite disappointing but better than Mandai Hill food anyday. Every night we had SP (secret pal) night which we are blindfolded and brought to a place to meet our secret pal of the opposite gender for a chatting session. The seniors would crowd around and eavesdrop and make us feed each other pockey sticks. We also had mass dance sessions now and then.

On the second day, there was pool games which I was initially totally not looking forward to. Cause it was raining. And... I'm freaking scared of cold. The game went on anyway with my consistent rambling of being scared of the cold. But to my surprise it turned out that the games were super fun. There was this one game which we had to let the girls sit on our shoulders in the deep pool and they would play captain's ball. Apparently I looked like (and am) the lightest PERSON in the OG and I look like a twig that can snap into 2 anytime. So the girl was worried and everyone else kept showing their concern as well. At the start, she fell forward and her legs was pushing my ear studs against my head and pulling the studs downwards. Ouch, bad choice. After the game my shoulders were really red and everyone just kept teasing me. After the pool games we went for dinner and at night it was SP night and then mystery night which we had to solve a murder case by going to 7 rooms to look for clues. It was kind of like a courage test thing. Okay I must admit, I was scared. My partner (who is female) was more courageous than me. It was so embarrassing. But just imagine walking in a completely dark room, examining scary photos with a UV light stick and then a plastic head suddenly drops from the middle, you'll be scared right? Lol. Nevermind...

The third day we went to Sentosa where we played a lot of exciting games again. One of the games we were supposed to piggy back a girl and run from the beach, into the sea where they erected poles and marshmallows-on-sticks and the girl is supposed to eat the marshmallows without using her hands. Now that's difficult since the waves will cause imbalance. I was embarrassed once again when the lightest girl insisted on piggy backing me. Luckily it was only for one round and I insisted on carrying her for the remaining game. I fell the first time into the sea, though other guys did fall as well. Apparently older guys love to dunk each other in the sea, we had so much fun dunking all the famous people into the sea. I think the director of Engin Camp probably got dunked more than 20 times. That was night was SP revelation night where we had dinner with our SP. My SP was extremely sweet looking though too bad she's attached. Everyone out there told me to snatch. Like, what's wrong with society these days. Geez. That night we went for supper for the first time. There I saw someone who reminded me of my 1SIR days, which isn't really a pleasant thing.

The camp ended off with a City Food Hunt which we were supposed to look for food in the city while searching for some checkpoints. It was quite lame cause the clues we were given were so retarded. For example the picture clue pointing to The Cathay was a Pokka bottle with Hello Kitty on it (cause Pokka and Hello Kitty = Jap stuff, and Hello Kitty = Cat-thay). We played games on the train with everyone staring at us and we also did a flash mob at The Central dancing "That's Very Hot" shown below. Then lastly there was the finale night.

The camp was really quite good. This is the first time somebody said I do not look very thin. It's also the first time I met civilised people who actually asked me for my reasons to pierce my ear rather than assuming that I am the typical ah beng which many of my close friends do. This is a great start to school though I do feel a little lethargic.

throw him into the sea!

Royal House OG Kings

Ramblings: I'm Too Old To Yell And Cheer

2010-06-15T00:42:00.001+08:00

It's been freaking 4 plus years since I shouted and screamed like some crazy enthusiastic kiddo on drugs. Tomorrow I'm going for Engin Camp which is my first proper "high" camp since JC orientation. I hope I won't have to resort to Ice to be high tomorrow and hope I'll meet lots of nice people.

Tech Speak: Brief Review MSI GE600

2010-06-12T14:34:00.001+08:00

I just bought the MSI GE600 from the PC Show 2010. For its specifications, it's quite worth its price at $1599. The specifications are as below.

Processor: Intel Core i5 430M 2.26GHz
RAM: 4GB DDR3
Graphics: Intel HD GMA and ATI Radeon 5730 1GB (switchable graphics)
Screen: 15.4inch 16:9 ratio LED backlit
HDD: 500GB 7200rpm
Wireless LAN: 802.11 b/g/n
Ports: 1 x HDMI, 3 x USB 2.0, 1 x e-SATA/USB combo port, 1 x VGA, 1 x LAN, 1 x modem, 1 x express card slot
Battery: 9 cell
Optical Drive: Super Multi DVD drive
Sound: SRS with sub woofer
Others: Touch based inputs such as mute, volume up/down, switching graphics, CINEMA Pro mode, 1.3MP webcam
Weight: 2.7kg

Exterior
The GE600 is glossy all sides, that includes even the insides of the laptop. This meant that the laptop is a fingerprint magnet. It's not as bad as some other glossy surfaces but I had wished that it was a matt surface. The description says it's black and gold but the dark gold colour is subtle and is not overly striking. The hinges are strong and does not feel like it's falling apart. The keyboard is a full keyboard with keys of ample size. However the keyboard is sunk into the laptop compared to the palm rest and this made typing a little awkward. This is something that one can get used to though. The function key from MSI is finally changed from its original position of bottom left hand corner to beside the CTRL key. There has been complaints about accidentally pressing the function key instead of the CTRL key when people play games. Glad they took the complaints into account. The glossy screen did better than expected. It was not completed washed out in bright light.

The keypad has good tactile feedback and the keys provide strong pressure. One bad thing was that the notification lights were at the bottom right hand corner and they were small. There's only lights for wireless, battery, sleep mode, harddisk in use, scroll, num and caps lock. The touch panel above the keyboard is useful but not very visible. The speakers grill at on both sides of the touch panel which seemed quite solid. There's also a subwoofer output at the bottom. The ports were also well placed with one USB port at the left, back and right side of the laptop each. The e-SATA combo port, HDMI, power, VGA (which annoyingly juts out) and LAN port are on the right as well. The optical disk and audio inputs are on the left. The ventilation fans are on the back.

The 9 cell battery juts out at the back but that's to be expected for a high capacity battery. The weight is not exactly light at 2.7kg so this is a sacrifice to make if you want a gaming laptop.

Performance
The switchable graphics works well. At the touch of the button on the touch panel, the system ask if you're sure and you can either click to confirm or wait 300s for the change to take place. The switch takes about 5 seconds. While using the integrated graphics card, you can really feel that the laptop is cooler and the ventilation fans blow out relatively cool air. Windows 7 Aero interface is not laggy even with integrated graphics but watching HD content wasn't as smooth.

The CINEMA Pro SRS certified speakers was a letdown. I'll say the sound quality was more consistent when the feature was not switched on. With the touch of the Touch Panel, the CINEMA PRO is activated, the screen is slightly more vibrant and the subwoofer is used. Listening to pop songs such as Lady Gaga's Telephone and One Republic's All The Right Moves was disastrous. The volume was loud at first then mid way the volume was fluctuating even though I did nothing to the volume setting. The feature seems more stable at mid volume. The sounds were also hollow with or without the feature. Instrumentals such as the Black Mage's The Extreme (FFVIII) and JENOVA (FFVII) also came up to about the same quality. However Lady Gaga's Alejandro was quite good on the feature. I have not watched movie on it but I would say this is one disappointing feature.

The graphics is pretty good, though ATI 5730 is still not a class 1 card. Not much can be expected from this card except mid end gaming. So far I've only tried Starcraft II Beta and Devil May Cry 4 which both yielded stable frame rates (> 40fps) at high settings. Heat produced was considerably higher but a cooler is still not required, though I don't expect the same thing if I were to play Crysis.

Overall this is a good mid range gaming laptop with sufficient screen size and gaming power. If you can look past the keyboard and the lousy sound quality, this might just be your dream machine at this price.

Pros:
Good graphics
Value for money
Switchable graphics
9 cell battery for longer battery life
Touch Panel for convenience
Decent screen size for gaming
Heat ventilation is above average

Cons:
Quite heavy
Sound quality is very bad
Keyboard feels a bit awkward to type on
Glossy surfaces which are fingerprint magnet

you can't really tell that the surface is gold colour. the screen is glossy but not overly reflective

here's a look at the touch panel and speaker's grill

the keyboard seemed a little on the chiclet side with good tactile response. too bad it is sunk in and that makes it a little awkward to type

the keypad comes with Epad technology which allows you to use multi touch to perform certain functions such as opening My Computer or scrolling horizontally and vertically

Tech Speak: It's A Guy Thing

2010-06-12T02:46:00.000+08:00

I believe many of us watched the beer commercial above before on TV. During PC Show, a few of my guy friends brought their girlfriends along to the show and boy, their faces weren't the most pleased at the least. They were frustrated though they don't say it or don't show it that much. They cannot understand why guys like to squeeze in here, and talk so much bullshit about technology and forgot that their girlfriends are next to them and have not eaten lunch/dinner.

While girls are crazy about jewellery and clothes, guys are crazy about technology and soccer. It's the same thing. At least in Singapore IT shows and fairs aren't half as frequent as fashion sales. You can spend big bucks on your clothes, so we can spend big bucks on our gadgets. You don't understand how we can spend so much a piece of junk, neither can we understand.

Deal with it, ladies.

Ramblings: Simpletons Don't Talk To Me

2010-06-09T13:25:00.000+08:00

This is an elitist post.

I was eating instant noodles. I love putting eggs in instant noodles to add flavour to it.

Last year while I was still in the army, I was on a driving course with 3 company mates. There was this guy who loved hanging around my platoon mate and me. We were supposed to go to the cookhouse for lunch but he insisted on dragging us to the mess to buy food to eat. He was bragging about how nice the noodles was. Not wanting to be a total unfriendly nasty bastard, I agreed along with my platoon mate. We ordered the noodles, which cost $2.50. Guess what. It was served in a bowl that looked freaky-ly like the styrofoam bowl used for Myojo instant noodles. I tried it and felt that it was nothing special. It was chicken curry instant noodles, with egg. Ridiculous! I confronted him about it and guess what he said "Oh ya, it is, but she is able to make it very nice".

For the first time, I felt laughter and anger building up inside me at the same time. I did tell him that it's due to the egg that it tasted so much nicer. I can't remember his response though, but it was something that cause intense rage which probably in turn caused the memory loss.

I really hate talking to people who are so simple minded that they lack common sense.

Tech Speak: Guide To Laptop For University

2010-06-09T01:00:00.001+08:00

This post is dedicated to all my friends who are entering university this year. This post is meant for tech idiots who know nuts about technology. PC Show is coming soon from 10 to 13 June and its a good time to buy your university laptop.

How to buy a laptop:
1) Ask yourself the questions listed below in the "Things to ask yourself before you choose a laptop"
2) Read the list of "Laptop Components and Features to Look Out For" to get a better understanding of what you're buying.
3) Research on laptops by reading reviews and forums. Reading reviews are not enough as they are often biased or they do not reflect usage in reality as reviewers often only use them for a while.
4) Research on the pricing.
5) Do the things listed in "What to do before you actually buy the laptop"

http://forum.notebookreview.com
http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg

Things to ask yourself before you choose a laptop:

1) Purpose. What are you using the laptop for? Are you into intensive gaming (strong graphics card)? Are you into light gaming (moderate graphics card)? Are you doing lots of graphics/video editing (graphics speciality cards)? Are you using processing intensive programs (strong processor)?

2) Portability. Will you be bringing your laptop to many places (small and light, long battery life)? Are you weak (light weight)?

3) Screen Size. Do you have an external monitor (probably smaller screen size will do)? Do you not want to use an external monitor (bigger screens)?

4) OS. Are you stuck up about Apple and their gorgeous interface (Macs)? Are you a mainstream user who prefers to not deal with compatibility issues (Windows)?

5) Durability. Are you someone who throws his laptop around (try getting military grade Toughbooks)? Are you okay with changing your laptop once a year or two years (get more value for money Acer or nice looking Sony but both spoils easily)?

6) Location. Are you going to work mainly indoors or outdoors (Matt screens vs glossy screens)?

A laptop's components and features to look out for:

1) Processor. The central processing unit CPU is the heart of all computers. The current series for Intel goes by Core i3, i5 and i7. These are mainly dual core processors which should all serve your needs. The higher the number, the more powerful they are but they will also consume more power. Core 2 Duo processors and Core 2 Quad processors are last generation's processors but they should be okay as well if you're not too
picky. If you are gaming or doing processor intensive work, then you should be looking at a minimum of an i5 processor. (sorry, I don't have much knowledge on AMD processors, only knowing that they are quite value for money)

2) Graphics card. The graphics processing unit GPU is the second most important part of a laptop that is if you wish to play games or watch High Definition (HD) content such as movies. There are 2 graphic cards maker, namely ATI Radeon and Nvidia. Radeon cards go by 2000 series, 3000 series, 4000 series and 5000 series. Nvidia goes by 100 series, 200 series, 300 series and 400 series. Radeon cards are usually more value for money while Nvidia cards are usually more for the hard core players. If you want to play HD content, an integration graphics processor is usually not enough. You can tell if you see words like Intel Graphics Processor or GMA (Graphics Media Accelerator) HD. While they claim that these integrated processors can handle HD content, the reality is it usually can't. As for games, you should go with a 5650 and above for Radeon (5850 is for the hardcore), and 335 and above for Nvidia (360, 385 for the hardcore). 5850 and 385 are usually very expensive, so take note there. However 5650 and 335 can only play most games at medium settings at best. With a laptop size screen and with the intention of studying for university (not playing games), you might consider them since your screen is not big in the first place.

3) Optical drive. Most laptops will come with at least a DVD multi drive these days unless your laptop is a ultra portable one (think Macbook Air). However if you're rich or you buy a lot of games, you might want to think about a Blu Ray drive. Blu Ray optical disk are Sony's (old) technology which allows lots of HD content to be put in. Blu Ray drives are however way more expensive (about 100 to 200 bucks more).

4) Random Access Memory (RAM). The RAM is used to store data temporarily when you work. Think of it as a temporary storeroom to hold the materials which you are using. The storeroom is very accessible to you are able to reach and use your materials easily. The bigger the RAM the storeroom to store your data. There are 2 types of RAM. DDR2 and DDR3. DDR3 is the newer RAM and the newer RAMs have higher speed (think of it as how fast you pull data from your warehouse into your storeroom and how fast you pull data out of your storeroom to your workplace). Frankly for laptops the speed of the RAM is not so important. However you'll want to have at least 2GB of RAM these days. A lot of laptops offer 4GB nowadays but take note that if your Windows or OS X is the 32 bit version then it can only utilise up to 4GB RAM. Any higher is useless. Windows 7 comes with 64 bit version nowadays so if you are using programs that are processor and RAM hungry then 64 bit Windows 7 with 6 to 8 GB RAM may suit you well. Take note that DDR3 RAMs are very expensive so you should not go with higher RAMs unless you really need it.

5) Hard Disk Drive (HDD). The HDD is where you store your data. Mainstream HDD size ranges from 320GB to 500GB nowadays. While you think that you don't need that much size, be rest assured that with the rise of HD content, more data are becoming much larger than you think. HDD comes in 2 speeds, 5400 rpm (revolutions per minute) and 7200rpm. Naturally the higher the better. Some HDDs come with 4000rpm but these are usually for netbooks. There's a (not really) new variant of data storage called the Solid State Drive (SSD). These do not have disks spinning inside them like the HDD, making them very low powered, extremely fast and durable (as in dropping won't make them lose data). However they are EXTREMELY expensive. A 80GB SSD can cost way more than a 750GB HDD. Only buy it if you are filthy rich.

6) Size of screen. If you are looking for ultra portables, your screen size should be 13.3 size and below. Otherwise, you should choose a 14inch laptop. Some people consider 15inch laptops to be quite big. I do agree, considering how my brother has a 15.6inch laptop so I could see how bulky it is. If you are all for gaming, you might want to go for 16inch or 17inch laptops. But be warned they are very heavy. Also remember to take the glossy-ness or matt finish into consideration.

7) Weight. A laptop should not weigh more than 2.5kg unless you are into gaming. For ladies, you should try to get a laptop that weighs less than 2kg. Gentlemen, if you think 2.5kg is nothing because you carried a 15kg load during army for a few days, you are wrong. I carried that weight for army and I carried my friend's 2kg laptop for half a day. It was really tiring.

8) Keyboard. Chiclet keyboards are the in thing now, since Apple invented it. Chiclet keyboards are keyboards with keys that seems to be floating. They are rather nice to type on but frankly you can't type that fast on it. One should always test the keyboard on the spot to see whether he likes it or not. Also smaller laptops tend to have crammed up keys. So do take a look before buying. If you prefer the keyboard to have a number pad, then you should consider getting a bigger laptop.

9) Connectivity. This is a no brainer but you should still check to see if the wireless LAN has 802.11n standards. This is the newest wireless standards and though not many household has started using it, you should still get a laptop with wireless n to prepare for the future. Unlike USB 3.0 which is the newest standard of USB (universial serial bus) interface, wireless n has become affordable and prevalent. You should also check that there is Bluetooth 2.1 and there is a decent number of USB ports (about 3). Other connectivity options that you might want to look at is e-SATA/USB combo port. I'm not going to explain what e-SATA is but combo ports are quite common now. USB 3.0 is not very common but still good to have. As of present, only a handful of devices uses USB 3.0 though so it's not important. You should also have HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) port which is the replacement for VGA ports to connect your laptop to monitors or Televisions. Firewire ports (IEEE 1394) are not common and are not needed by normal people. Express cardslots are used to expand functions on a laptop for eg. to add sound cards. However most users do not utilise this. So it is as good as useless.

10) Speakers. If you don't intend to get external speakers, it is wise to check if your laptop's speakers are up to standard. If they aren't, then you'll be very disappointed when you listen to music or watch movies. Some speakers can be so bad that pumping the volume up to medium distorts the sounds completely.

11) Battery size and battery life. Batteries come in the form of cells. They are usually 4 cell, 6 cell or 8 cell batteries. Naturally the more cells the better. Even laptops with the exact same specification and same battery can perform differently and use up battery faster or slower. Some laptops allow you to switch between Intel Graphics processor and discrete Radeon or Nvidia graphics card so when you are on the go and need to conserve battery, this will help a lot.

12) Brand. Some laptop brands are reputable, some are not. With experiences of my friends, I realised that Acer and Sony are not very reliable brands. Some recommended brands are Lenovo, HP, Dell, and for gaming, ASUS, MSI and Alienware.

13) Heatsink. The heatsink are vent like structures on your laptop that cools it. Gaming laptops or laptops with powerful processors such as i7 720QM causes your laptop to heat up. It is good to research on whether your laptop will heat up too much or you'll need a laptop cooler everywhere you go.

Accessories that you might want to get:

1) Speakers
2) Mouse
3) Keyboard
4) Laptop cooler
5) Laptop stand
6) External monitor
7) External sound card
8) USB Hub
9) Thumbdrive (at least 4GB to 8GB)

What to do before you actually buy the laptop:

1) Check the warranty period. It should be at least 2 years local. Buy more if you need more. Check the terms and conditions as well.
2) Touch the laptop, feel it, control it, type it. You have to like a laptop before you buy it.
3) Ask for hidden cost. Ask them "so at the end of the day, I only need to pay this price to get this laptop with 2 years warranty and this and that right? any other stuff? confirm only this price?"
4) Ask how to apply for warranty.
5) Check the hardware settings to check if the specifications are correct.
6) Ask if the hardware are upgradable and if that will void the warranty.
7) Ask about the free gifts. Ask if you can reject the free gifts but get a lower price or change the free gifts to some other stuff.
8) HAGGLE! If you're good at it, you might get more free gifts or a lower price. Contrary to what some people think, some free gifts such as anti virus programs are actually quite useful.
9) Check the build quality. Make sure the material is not too plastic-ty. Make sure the hinges don't creak or are loose.
10) After you buy your laptop, immediately check if you got all your stuff and free gifts. Open up your laptop to check for bright dots (aka spoilt pixels on your screen) and if a Windows 7 upgrade is available, check if the disc is inside.

Disclaimer: This guide is written by a geek who thinks he's has decent knowledge on computers. Please do not take this guide seriously or flame me for being a noob if I left something out. If you need more advice or more help, please approach me directly.

Tech Speak: iPhone 4

2010-06-08T13:24:00.000+08:00

Apple - iPhone 4 - Design of the display, A4 processor, and more

Listen to their arrogance, as if they invented video calling and unified inbox. But you got to admit that the IPS display and the build quality is just superb.

Tech Speak: There Is A Limit To How Much We Share

2010-06-04T00:08:00.001+08:00

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1990582,00.html

Contrary to what Mark Zuckerberg thinks, there is a limit to how much we share on Facebook. His idea of "sharing is default" is flawed. Yet the privacy issue is getting to many of us. The main reason is that many are lazy to find out and change the privacy settings. Admit it, Facebook has gotten too big. It's too integrated into many of our lives for us to quit it. Facebook isn't about to change their direction so it's up to us to do the necessary settings change. Look at the bright side, they did give us a choice. Not that we can be sure that they actually keep to their words (hey, no one can sure with Microsoft and Google etc either).

So for goodness sake, unless you want the whole world to know, do something about your settings.

Music: Lady Gaga's Interview

2010-06-02T12:49:00.000+08:00

live.showstudio.com

Lady Gaga offers to answer questions posed by her fans. Get to know more about her in this 2 hour interview. It's pretty awesome.

Tech Speak: Naming Tablets, Pads

2010-06-01T23:41:00.001+08:00

http://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/features/view/41546

Well done Apple. You made everyone name their tablets after your stupid iPad. MSI and ASUS are following up in the tablet race, and they also look freakishly like the iPad. Soon we'll see Samsung Pad, Vaio Pad, Fujitsu Pad. Such screwed up naming. But fret not, MSI and ASUS both have tablets that are called Wind Tablet and Eee Tablet. These look way nicer.

This is the Eee Pad, running on Windows 7. It looks just like iPad, with a semicircle as the menu button instead.

Here's a babe holding the Wind Pad. It also runs on Windows 7. The form factor looks close the iPad but the layout such as indicator lights are different.

Here's the Eee Tablet. It looks way more stylish and it's targeted at students and professionals. Seems like its doodle-able.

The Wind Tablet runs on Android. It looks more stylish too.

Brain Storm: Diversity Of Intellect

2010-05-31T00:13:00.000+08:00

This is an excerpt from Sundown Marathon 2010 Facebook group. Sundown was pretty screwed up and many people were complaining. Then this girl popped up and suggested that the organising committee might be from NTU/NUS (which is totally impossible anyway since Hivelocity was the organiser).

I think this is inevitable. There is social disintegration in our country and many who are in good schools (but may not be doing very well) tend to not know much about the intellect structure. Some people think of it as elitism when smarter-than-average-Singaporeans complain about how they are not good enough. Many of my friends are in this category. We were never exposed to the so called less intellectually inclined people (okay we do but not to many of the people out there). When I was in JC, my friend told me how as long as you are in a JC, you are already considered smart and minority of the society makes up the JC faction. I was like "you've got to be joking".

Until I entered the army, I never faced the actual society breakdown. And even after that, I never considered myself to be, well, smarter than average. I'm always surrounded by smart people so I guess I can call it peer influence. However I have also learnt to be more tactical and careful with my words when I complain about my stupidity, though I doubt I am sensitive enough.

Anyway, call me an elitist (I know I am one, but the difference is that I try to curb it), I find the above comments funny. Like, funny in a sarcastic way.

To some people: NUS/NTU students are smart? How more shallow can you be?

To yet some other people: you guys sound like you're sour because you're not university students. hah!

Ramblings: Rich Spoilt People Should Go And Die

2010-05-27T23:16:00.000+08:00

I was about to alight from bus 83. This woman who looks like she's in her early 20s grumbled to her friends "are we reaching already? everyone alighted from the bus. i've never taken a bus ride this long before!"

She looked genuinely upset about the bus ride. Needless to say she was dressed in some branded goods and she's all glittering. She also constantly whined about the fact that they should have taken a cab.

Bus 83 is a short trip service. From one interchange to the other it takes about 20mins. When I was going to alight, it was only 15mins.

Go kill yourself, bitch.

Brain Storm: Principles Of Life

2010-05-26T22:18:00.000+08:00

When I just started blogging seriously in J2, when my blog address was still xunzhaoziji.blogspot, a large part of the skin was talking about my principles in life. I don't know what's the word for it, when you know, somebody lives a life rigidly. Somehow, my 3 principles of life govern my way of living to a certain extent, but I wouldn't say I live solely by them. There's still individual judgement to be made. I am still surprised at how immature they are, yet how much they apply to me, and how much I rely on them subconsciously to make my decisions.

My 3 principles are:
1) I am to help my friends as much as possible
2) I will not force myself to do something that will make me feel miserable
3) I will not lie

Each principle transcends the one below it. For example, if lying will myself feel less miserable, then I will lie. The principles sound really stupid yeah. But sometimes when I am at a dilemma and am not sure what to do, I sometimes consult this. It gives me a direction. Sounds kinda like a religion huh? For a free thinker like me, that is my guiding light.

Oh by the way, like the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics (they probably found out another fundamental law after they already came up with 3 laws, thus naming it Zeroth Law). My Zeroth Principle will probably be reserved for that special someone. Love transcends all!

Lol...

Tech Speak: Google Reduces Productivity For 2 Days

2010-05-26T19:10:00.001+08:00

Google's Playable Pac-Man Game Last Friday Destroyed Work Productivity, Cost $120M - Geekologie

Who says Google is always good?

Brain Storm: If I Have To Be Ordinary

2010-05-26T01:09:00.001+08:00

The verdict came out a few days ago. NUS rejected me for their scholarship. NUS' University Scholarship Programme also rejected me. I am only left with IDA's local NIS and NTU. I doubt I'll get NTU and one of my friend has already confirmed his overseas NIS so I doubt I'll get it too. Heck, I didn't even go for the interviews. I got outright rejected. Yeah I sort of predicted it. Who will want someone with lousy results like mine?

I always wanted to be extraordinary. Throughout my life, I have always been applying for this, appealing for that. And I always get it. Army was the first place where I was less than extraordinary, I wasn't even ordinary then. I was less than that. I was proven that society was harsher than I ever thought it to be. And for the first time, I had to consider and even accept being in the social norm.

Being introverted, I dislike taking initiative. Yet another side of me knows I want to do something bigger. I want to be different. Maybe it's better than I get rejected anyway.

When I got rejected, I always blame myself for being stupid. For the first time in 3 years (since I enlisted, and stupid army woes don't count), I was really unhappy. I feel dejected, when everyone else around me got scholarships or are going overseas to study (okay not everyone. but a lot of them). Maybe I should have studied harder for A Levels. Then again. I already studied very hard for them. So I'm just stupid afterall. Okok, someone's going to say that I did not really study very hard cause I didn't really study a certain subject and I got a C for that...

Oh well. I just hope other doors of opportunities are still out there. And I hope I get off my lazy ass to find them. I can't imagine a life being ordinary.

Brain Storm: How Booking Works

2010-05-24T15:50:00.000+08:00

This is wrong.

Moments ago I went to my friend's 21st party invitation page on Facebook. One of his friends wrote "I'll ask around to see whether the rest are going okay?" and another wrote "I'll confirm with you when the date's nearer". Now, I'll assume his first friend's response meant he wants to check if other people are going first before confirming his attendance.

Case 1

Refer to my post http://infinitelyme.blogspot.com/2010/02/brain-storm-ill-be-there-for-you-not-be.html
When you are invited to a big party, chances are you are highly valued by your friend. I mean, nobody would want to invite someone he doesn't like right? (unless you are the only person disliked by him in the whole group and he sees a need to not leave you out) Especially on someone's 21st party, I think it is not too much of a point whether your other friends are going or not. Heck, if you think you're not too close to the host and feel that you will only be comfortable with going with other friends, you bloody keep that to yourself. When Jason told me that he doesn't want to go for my birthday party cause he's not close to my friends, he knows very well that if he doesn't turn up, he probably have to treat me at some high class restaurant and sing me a birthday song himself. So unless you think it'll work out like that, you shouldn't tell the host that you want to KIV (keep in view) his party. It's plain rude.

Case 2
If there's a reason why I sent out my invitation well a month before my party, and why my friend sends out his invitation 1.5months before, it is to book your stupid ass. The reason for early notification is so that we can get you to write in your calender that "yes, techiewen has asked me out on this day 1 month ago so he should have priority". We aren't unreasonable bastards. If something truly important pops up, like your girlfriend is having her period and needs someone to bite on, fine. If you havn't seen your boyfriend for 2 days and he suddenly says "oh babe I miss you and I want to have sex with you right now" and you can't turn up for the party, so be it. These important reasons mean your backing out can be forgiven. It makes sense doesn't it? That when someone books you way in advance, it is only right that you give him your time. If your other bitch friend comes along the day before and say "hey let's go for a movie!", you mean that's more important and deserves more priority? If truly on that day you have nothing on, agree to the party first if you so want to go. Any thing that pops up urgently can be explained. If not, just keep your loose hole of a mouth shut instead of telling your friend that you're going to KIV his party.

I didn't asked you for your time a month in advance to get pang seh-ed cause you're menstruating or cause you need to go find prostitutes.

Event: Passion Run

2010-05-24T14:46:00.006+08:00

Passion Run took place in East Coast Park on 22nd May. It was the worst race ever, in many many different ways. First when I got the event singlet, I got a shock. It was not nice to say the least. Take a look below. At least the finisher tee was a tad nicer (but dark grey and bright yellow?? wrong combo). Unfortunately it's a muscle tee, the kind which is stretchable and should only be worn by people who has bulging muscles. When I reached the event area, it looked pretty okay. The baggage deposit area was quite empty and I just casually chose another row to deposit my waist bag. Then I saw Wilson. So we chatted for a while and to my dismay when I walked over to join the second wave, I realised that the starting point was no where to be found. It seems like you have to queue very close to the starting point and they only allow a number of people to pass through. So I had to wait at the "seemingly start point" for the last wave, which was retarded. They should have let more people pass. The run itself wasn't extremely bad. The distance markers were very small, the drink stations were short handed. The worst thing was that there wasn't many volunteers who were equipped with the pain relief spray. Throughout the whole run, I only saw 2 medics. Hello the race length is 25km not 2km. How can you only have 2 medics? There was many U turns in the route and other than the fact that the roads were not closed and we had to share with the cyclist and other runners, the route wasn't so bad.

The worst came after I finished the race. I decided to walk around before heading to get my bag. It took me a while to find the deposit station cause the place was really dark and they didn't bother with putting many lights. There were long queues everywhere at the station and I didn't understand how it work. It was supposed to be A to F but I saw 2 long queues at the right hand side of the booth only. When I approached one of the student volunteers, she told me to "join the queue". Later another student came to ask if our baggage number was E. After checking it seems that mine was but the first girl didn't check any of that. Then the second girl was saying how there's a shorter queue but did not explain to every individual about it but I overheard it was only for a range of numbers. Then she just shouted for people to follow her. If I hadn't overheard it, I would have followed and join the wrong queue. The queues were badly organised. Many people were cutting queue and believe me I felt like slapping that girl behind me who cut my queue later on. It was obvious that only E had a lot of people. I waited for an hour before it was my turn. I wanted to sms my friends, I wanted to wipe myself dry, wanted to change into slippers, but my phone, my towel and my slippers were all in my bag. When it was my turn, the students just kept shouting NEXT NUMBER!? and whoever shouted will get their attention. The bags were all placed randomly on the racks obviously because they had to ask the runners what's the colour and brand of their bag. Allow me to openly declare that TK students are nuts when it comes to common sense. Where's the organisation? Where's the procedure? Every queue should have a few students allocated to them, not the students running around like that. Let's say it was a class CIP, don't tell me the class chairman or the student councillors (if any) were all stupid? And the organisers didn't even bother to check. If a bunch of kids can't handle the job then you guys have to step in right?

And when I was searching for the shuttle bus, I realised that there was no signs for it. So I just followed a big bunch of runners. It turned out that they were all lost and the area was so dark that I stubbed my toe. And last I checked, even if we made it to the correct place for the shuttle bus, we would have to walked a few km. The organisers are really really retarded. You try running 25km and then climb over barricades and overhead bridges.

No more Passion Run next year. Below was my complaint in their Facebook group and it won't be surprising to know that none of their admins mann the group. Got to send a complain letter to them.

The baggage deposit was really bad. The students were just running around with zero organisation and order. It was not distributed evenly, resulting in E having a way longer queue. The volunteers did not do a proper crowd control and after trying to spilt E into 2 rows, the rows ended up messy and some people managed to cut queue easily. If the students cannot do a good job, it is necessary for some of the organisers to teach them how it should be done. They just kept shouting "next number!" and they just helped to search for the person who shouted their number even if they are not next in line. I waited one full hour before I got my bag.

There was also no signs to the returning shuttle bus. Some runners ended up lost or giving up on looking for it. The area was not well lit and it wasn't easy to make our way around the booths etc and since our phones are in our bags (which takes forever to collect), it was hard for some runners to contact their friends who did not finish together.

Lastly it seems that the organisers do not care about this Facebook group. They do not answer the questions asked (not even delayed answers). When I emailed them about an error they made with my registration, it took them 2 full weeks AND a reminder email before they replied me.

you're not going to make me wear this

this is their freebie. energy gel by shotz. i gave it a shot, and it tasted like shit. (okay it didn't taste like shit, it tasted like cough syrup)

Tech Speak: The Falling Of Yet Another

2010-05-23T22:33:00.001+08:00

Today is a day we grieve. For yet another soul has fallen to the dark side.

Luckily, it wasn't a close friend. I swear, if a the next close friend of mine gets an IPHONE, he's dead.

I think he'll rather die by my hands than to die from a lack of individuality and as a slave of Steve Jobs.

Ramblings: Confession Of My Greenish Past

2010-05-20T00:57:00.000+08:00

Okay I suddenly remembered this and felt like blogging it. When we went to Brunei, for Nomad we lost to Charlie's OC team by 10mins. It was actually because... on the last day of Nomad, Kay Siong and I actually woke up quite early, like at 7am. But because the rest were all asleep, we didn't want to wake them up and waited till like nearly 8am before we woke them up. (heck, we were supposed to move off at 6+...)

Lol.

Food: Kim Chi Seaweed

2010-05-18T00:07:00.000+08:00

You must have eaten this brand of seaweed before. Now Fairprice sells the Kim Chi Flavour as well. Fabulous. Not for Leonard.

TechieEat: Food For Thought

2010-05-17T13:57:00.001+08:00

My friend tweeted a review about this in the morning and since I was going near Bras Brasah with my other friends, I suggested this place and we headed straight to Food For Thought. It's a little red building on the right when you exit from the Queen Street exit at Bras Brasah Station. The ambience was really good. It was small, but cosy. They decorated their ceiling with 540 glass bottles. We were, however, shocked to find out that our table was the only one (occupied) under the glass bottles. Nice, but we still feel a bit insecure. Potted flowers that are hung inverted add to that unique atmosphere.

We were lucky to get seats I think. Everyone else who came in after us seemed to have reservations done. Unfortunately the menu was lacking in variety. There was Risotto, pasta, and their breakfast extends all the way up till 5.30pm. I heard their breakfast is good. Gotta try sometime. The price range was a little on the high side. My friends ordered Risotto and I ordered the spicy beef pasta. My pasta was only so so, but the shitake risotto was good. The servings are a little on the small side too. Overall this is a great place for a chill out session.

Food For Thought -
8 Queen Street
Shitake Mushroom Risotto - 4/5
Spicy Beef Pasta - 3/5
Ambience - 4.5/5

Sights And Sounds: Lame After Sale Ethics

2010-05-17T13:40:00.000+08:00

Quite a few days ago, I noticed this group of Indians, probably middle age and above with bulky Adidas plastic bags bundled with cable tie. So my first impression was, there was some Adidas warehouse sale somewhere. No it is not a crime to buy a lot during a warehouse sale. So I didn't mention anything at first, until my friend pointed out his shoes to me. They look brand new. They look disgusting. I mean it's purple, baby blue and yellow. Wrong colour combination, for a middle age Indian man anyway. And worst of all, it suggests that he wore it after buying it. Like, what's the deal? Then I also noticed his shirt was a brand new Adidas one. What's with wearing (ugly) things immediately after you bought from a warehouse sale? What are you trying to portray? That you're cool? Oh please.

Ramblings: And Then I Asked "HAPPY?"

2010-05-17T02:24:00.000+08:00

Apparently my friends are more worried about me procrastinating about getting my driving license than myself. But okay, thanks to them, I got off my lazy butt to make an account and booked my Basic Theory Test, after 7 months.

I even posted this photo on Facebook and ask if they're happy now that I booked it. Looks like they are quite happy about it...

Youtube: Lady Gaga - Speechless (Live at the VEVO Launch Event)

2010-05-13T11:40:00.001+08:00

Call me slow but I am so awed by this.

Brain Storm: Have You Done Anything You Regretted At All As A Child?

2010-05-11T00:55:00.000+08:00

It must have happened before. It might not seemed important at first, or later. But when we were young, I meant as kids, we must have done something terrible. Be it beating up other kids, stole something (with a totally innocent mind), bullied someone, or disappointed our parents badly. Now we look back and realise what a fool we had been. Does everyone has at least an incident or two, that accompanies you for life?

I have. I caused a primary school friend a scar. He had 6 stitches. It was a Saturday. The cleaners were washing the floor. We ran. And he fell, but I cried. I could never look at him the same. He was a great friend, but I was stupid and immature. I don't know how to make up to him, and I probably will take this regret with me to my grave.

But now we're older. We can make more sensible decisions. Yet at the same time, the many small things we do may cause so much bigger impact. More than a scar, more than 6 stitches. Maybe a potential career, maybe a broken heart.

Do things change at all?

Ramblings: I Changed, Okay?

2010-05-11T00:49:00.000+08:00

I went to this friend of mine whom I havn't seen in years, and frankly at first it was a little weird about how he was all passionate about seeing me. Maybe army desensitised me too much or maybe I forgot how close we used to be. Then he went on to say how "hey, you totally didn't change!", mind the exclamation mark please. I was sorely disappointed, I really was. I looked like a bowl haircut boy with oversized haircut and all. Now I sport 2 earholes, dyed hair, more trendy clothings, and you say I look the same?

Gee...

And then I have another friend who told me earlier how "earholes are insignificant and people won't notice your earstuds anyway, so don't need to buy new ones". I spent 70 bucks to pierce 2 holes so that nobody will notice it. Smart me.

Tech Speak: The meaning of Google | Relevant Results - CNET News

2010-05-09T01:53:00.000+08:00

The meaning of Google | Relevant Results - CNET News

Interesting.

Item: Drymax Socks

2010-05-07T00:38:00.000+08:00

Okay this pair of socks set me back by $19 (with Safra it's additional 10% off so it ended up being 17+ bucks). I took 10 whole minutes standing there to consider whether to buy or not, and which brand to buy. Should I buy a lousy looking one for $12? Or should I get the Drymax Socks for Hot Weather that cost $29 which feels uber good to the touch?

In the end I decided to just get the one in between. Expensive for a pair of socks? Sure is. But I think it's okay. I only need one pair anyway. Today was my second run with it. It feels great. There's almost no friction at all, unlike my Adidas one.

Ramblings: All Good Things Must Come To An End

2010-05-04T17:09:00.000+08:00

My Xmi Xmini Max 1, due to my violent actions, has torn into this state. Although the sound quality of the minimax 1 is top notch, but I would say the build quality is rather bad. The surface gets scratched easily, fur and cotton gets stuck to it easily. Now it breaks up on me. Time to get the Xmi Xmini Max 2 which has a nice plastic coating (though it looks hideous). It's 79.90 bucks though...

Youtube: Bad Romance Parody

2010-05-01T01:39:00.000+08:00

Lady Gaga's Bad Romance parody. Excellent and funny stuff. Wish I could dance at least like this. (and sing too)

By the way there's rumours that Lady Gaga amputated her leg for fashion reasons. It's madness. Please let this be false... How is she going to dance like that? Gosh...

Ramblings: Extra Good Service

2010-05-01T01:36:00.001+08:00

Coffee usually cost less than 2 bucks. As in, any coffee would worth about 2 bucks at max. But coffee at Starbucks cost 6 to 7.50 bucks. That's because you don't just buy the coffee. You buy the time you spent at the Starbucks, you buy the ambience and you buy their service.

This is how techiewen rolls. If you want me to buy something which I am not really sure if I want to buy, then the thing that will make the difference is service attitude. It's easy to bribe me. A sincere smile, politeness and not overbearingly "hot pursuit" (don't chase behind me like a dog, that is), are all it takes. And that's where Starbucks stole my heart. If the barista gives me a wide smile, I will return a wide smile (rare to see on techiewen, frankly). If the barista talks to me, I will try to chat as much as possible. Just now at Plaza Singapura, I was ordering the new Espresso Frap (which was fabulous by the way), the barista who took my order asked me how was my day and if I went to watch Iron Man 2. Then when I asked her if she had watched it, she replied with a smile that she's too busy then she went on to take other orders. When the barista was finishing up my Frap, he asked me how was my day too. When I said "good, cause I didn't have to work today", he replied "wah you trying to make me feel bad right?" with a cheeky smile. Oh he also did a "wow!" expression when he heard me ordering the Frap. Friendly, not overly so, just nice.

Service, Starbucks shows how it's done.

Starbucks - Plaza Singapura
Espresso Frap - 4.5/5
Ambience - 3/5
Service - 5/5

Tech Speak: Internet/Forum Argument Techniques

2010-04-27T20:52:00.001+08:00

http://www.cracked.com/funny-3809-internet-argument-techniques/

This article contains many commonly seen techniques that people use for arguing on forums. It's very interesting. Worth your 5mins to read.

Ramblings: Break Down

2010-04-26T23:52:00.000+08:00

Oh baby no no, I don't want you to break down. Yeah baby no no...

Okay, technically not my baby. But its still something precious to me, precious because without it, I can't read my mails, watch my videos, blog my blog, tweet my tweets etc. Being 6.5 years old is quite an age for a computer. Having roasted the motherboard once, fried the ram a few times, did a few HDD upgrades, shown a few BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death), formatted a million times, its still up and running. Oh and out of 6 usb ports, only 2 are working now (and one short circuits the entire computer if you accidentally plug something in).

Lately though, it has slowed down a lot and even I cannot find out the reason why. Bear with it my dear computer, 3 more months and I will have a new latop. Then away you go.

Event: Weight Gain

2010-04-24T14:19:00.001+08:00

I make a big hoo hah everytime. I just gained one kg.

Victory is on its way. Before you know it, I'll be 55kg again. Oops, I didn't mean to say out my desired weight (thereby implying that I am way below 55kg). Girls, and maybe some guys, please don't take offence.

Brain Storm: Rationalising

2010-04-24T14:17:00.000+08:00

I used to be a relationship-problem-confidant cum love guru cum advisor. No, don't give me that awed, surprised look, I swear I'll punch you in the face.

When I told my friend who has a girlfriend of 3 years that, he was surprised at first (no I nearly punched him but I didn't). But he admitted that its possible for that to happen, because I am a very analytical and rational person. Usually people only come to me when they have problems with their relationship. And in the midst of all that lovey dovey, stupid, blinding, whatever mysterious powers love have, what someone needs is a calm, rational, partial person to analyse the situation and tell them in the face that he/she sucks and his/her girlfriend/boyfriend sucks even harder and he/she should just dump his/her girlfriend/boyfriend. And it works most of the time. When a person is hurt, confused, the person usually seeks out an opinion of the mind, not the heart. And I can give them that. And my friend agrees wholeheartedly. I am someone who breaks down the story into logical parts and make quick work of any confusing part. (furthermore, I tend to understand more of a fickle female's thinking)

However as time passes, people grow up, and they start to think "hey, this guy has never been in a relationship before, he wouldn't understand". I started to realise that I am facing this problem increasingly and more friends start saying "you wouldn't know" or "you don't understand de lah" to me. And all I can say is "yeah, I don't", simply because I don't. Then there goes my status as a top notch love consultant.

But my friend do agree that, in times of need, a rational mindset is required to let a confused heart know what is truly good for him/her, in the long run, and help them make that important decision (oh I don't always give the break-or-not advices, more of a general course of action one should take kind of thing). Bless my talent.

Brain Storm: Camwhorified

2010-04-24T14:06:00.001+08:00

It's scary how some people change. I remember how my closest friends all detest the camera. They shy from it, avoid getting in the path of a lens direction, struggle to get out of the neoprint machine.

Alas humans change. And it's scary. This friend of mine, he likes to take photos more than me now. And I'll have you know that I have a reputation as a camwhore, though most of the time I'm the cameraman. It's age I tell you. When you realise that you're getting old and photos are the only way for you to remember what you forgot, and when you're dying, photos are the best thing to go into your coffin with you, then people start to like taking photos. Too late, my friends. I had a 8 years head start.

I'll have more photos in my coffin then you'll ever have.

"what? you say that nowadays photos come in digital form and it'll all be in a thumbdrive when they're burning it with our coffin so theoretically eveyone only has one thing in their coffin, no more no less? darn it, i thought i'll win this time"

Ramblings:

2010-04-22T18:07:00.000+08:00

http://www.onemanga.com/Historys_Strongest_Disciple_Kenichi/380/

I think I'm just getting old. I read last week's chapter for History's Strongest Discipline Kenichi and I felt so touched. Oh the emotions that come with ageing. People who don't usually read it won't get it anyway.

Tech Speak: What's Good For Your Computer And What's Not

2010-04-21T23:25:00.000+08:00

http://lifehacker.com/5520447/windows-maintenance-tips-the-good-bad-and-useless

This lifehacker article shows what good certain tips for your computer actually do to you. For example, reinstalling Windows actually don't do you any good. Not having Windows 7 Ultimate and Administrator Rights can actually be a good thing as well. Read all about it.

Brain Storm: It's Good To Be Young 年轻真好!

2010-04-20T01:04:00.000+08:00

On Sunday I met up with Zuli and Jason. Gosh the effects you get when you meet 2 people who are so much younger than you are tremendous. This is especially so when the people around you are energetic. I remember when I was in Taiwan with my 6 other friends, 5 of them will always walk briskly in front, chatting loudly, joking around. Yinning and I will be walking behind slowly, telling each how how nice it is to be young (since we're both the first to turn 21 and our birthdays are way earlier than the rest). We would think to ourselves, "oh gosh where can we find such energy now that we're so old".

And so when my friends started camwhoring wildly on Sunday like they are some young kids, naturally I had to follow and I started to feel young again. Gosh, how I wish I was 20 again. Don't you feel that your energy is sapped out of you as you become older and you just can't get high (w/o having to resort to drugs and sex) anymore?

btw, these photos are taken at the newly opened Circle Line Esplanade. it's so cool!

Tech Speak: I Am A Conformist

2010-04-19T18:28:00.001+08:00

Obviously that is NOT my iPhone.

Tech Speak: Google Defines Conformist

2010-04-19T18:26:00.000+08:00

I love how Google defines "conformist" on its dictionary page.

Tech Speak: Zune Development OpenZDK

2010-04-18T02:01:00.000+08:00

Praise Moore for such a miracle. I thought it will never happen. But these developers finally came up with a development kit that goes beyond the ~~#$%^&~~ XNA kit provided by Microsoft to develop apps and games for the Zune. XNA didn't allow the prowess of the Tegra to be tapped into, so there was no 3D, no wireless connectivity and no DRM support. It was extremely retarded.

Now I just have to wait for people to develop apps for me. (since its based on C++ language and I'm supposed to learn it either way, i should learn it now and try to create one). I think techiewen jr. (the name of my Zune HD 32gb) must be very excited as well!

P.S. Chi Weng says my Zune's name is a fag name compared to his Ipod Classic's Nora (or whatever shit), now that's the gay shit one.

Tech Speak: Lean, Mean Piece Of Metallic Earpiece

2010-04-17T11:39:00.000+08:00

http://gizmodo.com/5517845/sleek-audios-aluminum-and-carbon-fiber-sa7-headphones-will-last-for-years

These pair of earphones looks disgustingly delicious and tempting and powerful and lean and solid and gives me the "oh i just want it!" feeling.

US $400. Additional 100 bucks for wireless option. So it'll be about 750 sing dollars. Okay, it'll be my next target.

Ramblings: Oh Gosh Urbanathlon Is So Overrated

2010-04-17T04:54:00.000+08:00

http://myrunningaddiction.wordpress.com/2010/02/02/review-mh-urbanathlon-si2010/

So this guy went to the Urbanathlon organised by Men's Health and wrote a review about it. I just had to blog about this cause I was quite tempted to join it until I read about the last few obstacles (it's a race where there's 8 obstacles which you have to clear). The last 2 obstacles involved jumping into some water pool (which makes you wet) and leopard crawling across some mud area. I swore I will never leopard crawl again. NEVER.

I quote.

Finally, I crossed the finishing line. Not the best timing for a 12.5km run but this is exceptional due to the obstacles that we had to go through. Medals were given as soon as we crossed the finishing line. Everyone of the finisher was Tired, Thirsty and Covered in mud from head to toe but still we were all smiling as we had just accomplish something simply unique that only 1,500 men in Singapore had a chance to experience.

For your ~~freaking~~ information, the entire nation of men goes through this shit. Though only about 1.6km is covered in this other shit, due to the weight we carry and the difficulty of some other obstacles, its 10 times worse. Okay, maybe hundred times worse. We call that shit Standard Obstacle Course. Okay maybe this chap hasn't gone through army yet (which I actually doubt so) or he's just a ~~pussy~~ unfortunate person who was excused from SOC.

Interest(ing): Carbo Loading

2010-04-17T04:25:00.005+08:00

This is an article I found on sgrunners.com about carbo loading. It's an issue which I have always wanted to know about since I started running a lot. Now I see that I have not been doing very correctly but still if Stanchart mention something about carbo loading for the entire week, I think there might be different versions of carbo loading. I shall find out more. For now, this will suffice.

Carbo Loading for Marathon?

Posted on26 November 2007.

Introduction

Muscle glycogen provides a key fuel for training and racing a marathon. The term “hitting the wall” is really referring to the overwhelming fatigue that an athlete experiences at a later part of an event when muscle glycogen stores are depleted. Hence, carbohydrate (CHO) loading can enhance endurance/marathon performance by allowing the competitor to run at their optimal pace for a longer period before fatiguing.
Classic VS Modified
- The classic model (Ahlborg, Bergtrom & Brohult, 1967) follows a 7-day process which involves 3 to 4 days of depletion phase of hard training and low CHO intake follow by a 3 to 4 days loading phase.
- This is not practical as it can result in more fatigue and hence over training.
- Modified model only requires simply 3 days of high CHO intake while tapering for your event w/o any prior depletion of glycogen (Sherman, Costill & Fink, 1981).

Guidelines to a successful CHO-loading
- A CHO loading regime will involve 72 hours or CHO intake between 8 to 10g/kg body weight while keeping fat intake low (20 to 30g daily) and protein to 1g/kg body weight.
- Avoid high fiber product such as wholemeal or wholegrain as it is difficult to consume a large quantity of it to meet the demands of the loading.
- Athletes who struggle to meet the loading demands can utilize refined CHO such as soft drinks, jelly, pudding, candy etc. to supplement their intake.
- It is important for the athlete to know that CHO loading is likely to be associated with a weight gain of about 2kg. This needs to be viewed as positive reinforcement that they have significantly increase glycogen stores.

End of text references
- Ahlborg, G., Bergtrom, J., & Brohult. J. (1967). Human muscle glycogen content and capacity for prolonged exercise after different diets. Forsvarsmedicin, 3, 85-99.
- Sherman, W.M., Costill, D.L., & Fink, W.J. (1981). Effects of exercise-diet manipulation on muscle glycogenand its subsequent utilisation during performance
- International Journal of Sports Medicine, 2,114-118.

Rambling: I Help Because I Am Obliged To Help You, NOT

2010-04-17T03:23:00.001+08:00

Obliged.

1) To constrain by physical, legal, social or moral means.

This is the definition according to thefreedictionary.com.

Yeah you read that right. According to the definition, I am not obliged to help anyone. I am referring to the Singapore Kindness Movement's strong urge to Singaporeans to lend a helping hand to people around you when kindness is needed. From ever since I remember, I always open doors for people, even if they don't really need it, I always give up my seats for the needy. But I have never feel bounded by some physical, legal, social or moral reason to help them. I just... help them, you know?

Herein lies the big problem, with me. I don't smile. Okay, actually I do. But when I smile, other people say I am not smiling. When I don't smile, people tell me that I look like they owe me a lot of money and I have a knife in my hand and I am eyeing them a message which goes something like "you better f***ing pay me my money now or i'll chop off your limps and burn your house down." So sometimes I have to tell myself to smile "hard", which then makes me look like a retard. Anyhow, the point is, whenever I open the door for someone, and the other party says thanks, I either ignore (because I think its lame to thank such a small gesture), or I say no problem and smile. Yes, smile, which looks like me looking at them as if they owe me a lot of money and I have a knife in my hand and I am eyeing them a message which goes something like "you better f***ing pay me my money now or i'll chop off your limps and burn your house down," EXCEPT that I also said no problem. This doesn't bother except when I saw the appreciative smile of the other party coming off their faces when they saw my expression.

DO NOT discriminate me. I am born like that! I did not want this face of mine. So please do not think I am obliged to help you due to some physical, legal, social or moral grounds. I am not obliged to help you. Go judge the other guy who slammed the door in your face please.

Event: Happy Birthday

2010-04-16T03:04:00.004+08:00

Ok so like its been a month and its about time I actually post something about my 21st birthday. I think I might have forgotten what I wanted to say here already...

Being 21 is overrated. I didn't feel any difference on the day I turned 21. Okay maybe except a tinge of sadness cause compared to everyone else turning 21 this year, I have an awfully few number of well wishes. But oh well its okay, that's because I didn't put my birth date on Facebook. In any case, the birthday song that my girlfriends sang for me at 10am in the morning through phone was the best. They said they love me so much. HUR HUR. Too bad, it was Liyue and Yinning, LOL.

21st celebration is pain in the ass. It's like, everyone's doing it! What's the big deal? But if you don't do it, you'll be the odd one out, for the bad reason. So anyway it took me a long time to consider whether or not to hold a celebration bash thingy. First, its troublesome. It's expensive. The host have to entertain the guest, resulting in less quality time since you have to invite quite a number of people. Oh and you have to be careful when you're inviting people. You can't invite one big gang and leave a few people whom you don't like out, or there will be questioning. And boy, do I have to wonder this very strongly, some people don't understand how birthday parties are for the people who are turning 21 in question and thus they have every right to choose who they want to invite. Though I can choose to just ignore or "hide notifications" like in Facebook, it still can get quite annoying and upsetting. Oh and for some "groups" of friends, I just had to totally not invite cause its too much of a hassle to leave out people whom I am not too close with. Last but not least, you get blamed if you hold the bash in a place without aircon and without enough seats or food for your guest. Extremely troublesome, period.

But having it had its good sides too. I can totally imagine myself having a good time (though I also can imagine myself having a bad time). I havn't met a lot of my friends for a long time and it was a good way to meet them again. It was also a good way for some groups of my friends to treat it as a gathering. This bash also reminded me of what good friends I have.

Where else do you get friends whom you can force to prepare your food?

Where else do you get friends whom you can force to help bring the food to the venue?

Where else do you get friends who help to get the present that you want?

Where else do you get friends who went to cut their hair just because you told them that you don't want to see their ugly crops of hair at your birthday bash (okay except Kay Siong, at least Shaun styled his hair properly)?

Where else do you get friends who cab from another ulu part of Singapore so that they can reach my party in time?

Where else do you get friends who helps you QC all the food until he gets a stomach ache?

Where else do you get friends who helps you start the fire, failed to do so, and get blamed (by me)?

Where else do you get friends who forces you to sing so as to make it memorable for you?

Where else do you get friends who tries to get your darling to kiss you during the photoshoot (but still fail)?

Where else do you get friends who drives to and fro different places which need them and your birthday bash?

Where else do you get friends who wore red because you told them to? (actually i was very surprised by how many people actually really turned up in red, but i was also unsurprised about who did not come in red)

Where else do you get a bunch of guys who are totally nuts about arts, and still came up with a perfect, memorable, sweet 21st birthday gift which will (probably) never rot?

Thanks, all (especially to the 3 boys who did so much, boys because they're all younger than me). It was memorable.

thanks to all those who contribution and the collector Danny for my ULTIMATE GIFT the Zune HD 32GB

thanks Joshua for the gift, nicely wrapped somemore

thanks Wilson, its a really nice gift!

thanks Shang Long and Shaun Yap! i know you're trying to make me pick up the good habit again. i will!

i pestered, and i hinted, and my army friends got me these earpiece. really nice, strong bass, extremely powerful tweeters. thanks guys.

the best gift. all my friends are told to write their well wishes for me on a slip of paper then the 3 boys helped me fold them into stars and the smart boys chose to put them into the most fitting container of them all, my favourite Starbucks! thanks Danny Leonard Edwin and everyone!

TechieEat: Saizeriya

2010-04-15T16:08:00.001+08:00

My pals and I went for a "budgetless within our means" dinner the other way at Saizeriya in City Square Mall. I had suggested to go for a buffet dinner at some hotel which cost 70 bucks since its supposed to be budgetless but apparently it has to be within our means. Anyhow the food there was cheap, ranging from 5 bucks to 7 bucks a dish. There is a great variety of Italian food however one should take note that the portion is small. Thus we bought 8 dishes to share amongst ourselves. There's also free flow of drinks if you pay 2.50 bucks for a drinks bar. Its pretty worth it. The pizza was nice. What I personally really like was the pork for the Pork and Ham. The roast duck was not bad too and the spicy sausage could be more spicy. Service was only so so, with the waiter serving us having a expressionless face most of the time. But oh well its cheap so what can I ask for?

We totalled about $65 for our meal and there were 4 of us. So that's about 16 bucks for one. With 8 different dishes, there was enough variety but due to the small sizes, was just enough to fill our stomachs.

Saizeriya - City Square Mall

Ambience - 3/5

Food - 3.5/5

Ramblings: VOTE FOR ME PLEASE

2010-04-12T22:27:00.001+08:00

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=11952805&id=191921700135&ref=mf

Starbucks Singapore is currently holding a Vote For Your Favourite Starbucks Moment competition. The top ten entries have been selected and mine is one of them! Please do me a favour and vote for me!

~~First go to the main page at~~ ~~http://www.facebook.com/StarbucksSingapore~~ ~~and become a fan. Then click on the link above to go to my photo and "like" the photo. Please do not like the link or the album, else I won't get the vote. Thanks a million people!~~
Edit*

Sorry people but the voting system changed due to some lame Facebook regulations. All previous votes have been disregarded. Please vote for my photo again by emailing your votes by the end of 18 April to marketing@starbucks.com.sg and state your chosen picture (contributor's name) in the email subject. Meaning email marketing@starbucks.com.sg with the subject "Lee Wen Qin". Please help me spread around as well. Thanks for the trouble!

P.S. Frankly, I don't really think that all the photos fit the criteria of so-called Favourite Starbucks Moment. My caption is "Love going to Starbucks to hang out with my friends. Great atmosphere plus I get to taste all my friends' wonderful Starbucks drinks!" Showing that I love to go Starbucks and my favourite moment is when I get the drinks for my friends and I get to taste all of their drinks. While everyone has a nice photo, I think one should take some time to consider the requirement before voting for anyone.

Brain Storm: Why I Love Being The Head Of DB (after graduation)

2010-04-11T14:07:00.000+08:00

Whenever I go back to Xinmin, I always notice one thing. The Head of DB 2005 is around. The Head of DB 2006 is around. The Head of DB 2007 is around. And so is the Head of DB 2008.

It has been 4 generations. The Excos of Xinmin chosen to become the Head of Disciplinary Board for 4 years are always together, always going back to support the school. I started realising that no other committees are like this a while back. I must say I was lucky. I chose the right people to join DB and the right people wanted to join DB. I told them I'm glad to have dedicated and capable juniors like them. And they being my cheeky, cute juniors said "yeah! of course!". Lol.

I like to go back to Xinmin, and know that my successors have done a good job, and know that they still come back to school to help out, and know that they loved being the Head of DB and that we all share a bond, a kinship that only we know. As we grow up, the gap between us as seniors and juniors start to melt and we became more like close friends and buddies, though we only see each other a couple of times per year. It's a relationship I appreciate.

And I swear I have been trying hard to not talk to them like juniors anymore. Hah.

Brain Storm: Don't Be Evil

2010-04-10T00:30:00.001+08:00

“Bullshit.” That’s what Steve Jobs of Apple think of Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” motto. But I think it’s brilliant. Google’s early employees came up with that and it is very much just an informal principle that Google follows. Google was smart to come up with this for many reasons. The motto is extremely broad and can cover many issues like Google’s approach to doing business and within Google’s rules for its employees. The motto is catchy. Despite not being in the Google’s official ten principles, many consumers know about it. It is high profile enough to make Steve Jobs call it bullshit. The motto being informal means Google cannot be attacked frontally for not following it and Google can twist its meaning when there is a need.

It’s amazing how Google is tackling the world by not being evil. The informal motto took roots and helped Google to rise to where it is. By keeping most of its services and products free, it managed to benefit many yet grow larger as a company by day. When I first heard of Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” motto, I was intrigued by how it really fits into all that Google is doing, despite the motto sounding totally delusional. I felt the idea was a wild dream and sounded like a perfectionist. Yet the idea of Google trying to be nice to me, and the fact that it really is doing so, made the concept of “Don’t Be Evil” like a dream come true for both Google and the consumers. The solution that Google came up with to target enterprise rather than consumers was a good one. Although I knew that such a solution probably only worked for an advertising company, the concept was attractive and showed that nothing is really impossible.

The idea of not being evil encountered many issues. In order to be nice to consumers the Google way, it is natural that copyright laws will soon be infringed, since Google’s goal is to organise all the information in the world. When the concept was challenged, Google started fighting against corporations. While one may think that it is evil to change laws and override rules through sheer force and influence, I think that as a consumer I do see it as a compromise that has to be made if the consumers are to benefit. With Google and its ideals, many old, outdated laws met revisions. The way Google tackled problems and insisting that it is the “good” party opened my mind. Out in the world, there is no real evil or good organisation, we only categorise them under helping the consumers or taking advantage of them. Therefore as long as the consumers speak, the corporations listen and we don’t feel cheated, I think we win, and that’s being not evil. Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” makes people want Google to be around, so much so that it is not far fetched to think that Google may take over the world soon, in a way, though that does sound evil.

When Google went against its “Don’t Be Evil” policy to go into the China market with censored search results, it argued that the real evil is to rob the Chinese of any chance of the Google goodness. While I agree with that, it also makes me think of how long this idealist concept can keep up with the world and the pace which Google is growing. Still, I would like to believe that it is possible. And thus my dream is to join Google one day, and continue its “Don’t Be Evil” legacy.

I hope I didn't write out of point...

Tech Speak: Improved Comment Collapsing for Google Buzz

2010-04-09T22:59:00.000+08:00

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/improved-comment-collapsing-for-google.html

Well done Google. I knew you aren't that retarded. You have no idea how irritating it was to scroll through hundreds of comments with no way to collapse them. Thanks for restoring my faith, Buzz Team.

Google Buzz has improved quite a bit over the months. More of my friends are using it as well. Check it out if you havn't. Now if only they have a desktop app for it...

Brain Storm: The Little Decisions That Wrecks Your Life

2010-04-07T13:04:00.000+08:00

Don't you just hate it when a small little detour you decided to make, or a small little action you decided to do, made a big negative impact on your life? While it may not seem all that big a deal to outsiders, but when we look at it comparatively to the other things that happen in our lives, it suddenly seems like the small little things are ridiculous.

Like last friday, I was supposed to attend my friend's 21st birthday. It starts at 5 and I was supposed to have tuition until 6pm. However my student cancelled the tuition and I decided that I have enough time to head back home first. On my way home, Angeline asked me when will I reach the party and said she can't stay long enough due to work. Thus, I can't pass to her the present that I owe her. Then when I reached home, I decided to put on my contacts (which I wouldn't have put on if I went straight), and that night, my left eye become red and quite painful. It's been 3 days and it's still like that. I was supposed to go home to put down my heavy bag so that I can have an easier time later on. But everything screwed up.

The impacts aren't that big? Now I have to meet up with Angeline another day, AND I may have to go see the doctor. Screw this.

Interest(ing): April's Fool Conclusion

2010-04-06T14:59:00.002+08:00

Google forgive me, for I have missed out almost every single April's Fool jokes made by Google. I only saw it in a lifehacker article today. Nonetheless, I'll blog a few here, just for the fun of it.

1) Google Translate For Animals

Introducing Translate for Animals (beta): Bridging the gap between animals and humans

Making the world's information universally accessible is a key goal for Google. Language is one of our biggest challenges so we have targeted our efforts on removing language barriers between the species. We are excited to introduce Translate for Animals, an Android application which we hope will allow us to better understand our animal friends. We've always been a pet-friendly company at Google, and we hope that Translate for Animals encourages greater interaction and understanding between animal and human.

Translate for Animals is an application for Android phones that recognises and transcribes words and phrases that are common to a species, like cats for example. To develop Translate for Animals, we worked closely with many of the world's top language synthesis teams, and with leaders in the field of animal cognitive linguistics, including senior fellows at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

2) Vowel Outage at Gmail

If you logged into Gmail over the last hour (or visited the Gmail homepage), you probably noticed that something looked a bit off: all the vowels are missing. We realize this makes things difficult for all of you who rely on Gmail — whether at home or at work — and we’re incredibly sorry. We take morphological issues like this extremely seriously, so we want to let you all know what happened and what we're doing about it.

At 6:01 am Pacific Time, during routine maintenance at one of our datacenters, the frontend web servers in that particular datacenter started failing to render the letter 'a' for a subset of users. As error rates escalated, the strain spread to other datacenters. We worked quickly to avoid a cascading failure of the entire alphabet by implementing a stopgap solution that limited the damage to the letters 'a,' 'e,' 'i,' 'o,' and 'u.' As a result, we're experiencing Gmail’s first temporary vowel outage. (We’re still investigating whether the letter 'y' is impacted and will post an update here shortly.)

Over the last hour we've received numerous reports of this issue via our help forums, from colleagues at Google, and via email you’ve sent us. Some of you have already found creative workarounds for communicating without vowels, like Aaron, who sent us this:

Having 80.8% of the alphabet available is significantly below the 99.9% full letter uptime reliability we strive for. Since identifying the root case of this issue, we’ve started bringing vowels back to Gmail, so you should see them back in your account within the next few hours if you don’t already. In the meantime, while you may still see this issue in Gmail's web interface, both IMAP and POP access are functioning normally. We'll post an update as soon as things are fully resolved and, again, we're v3ry s0rry.
Update (7:30 am): We’ve determined that the letter 'y' is not impacted.
Update (3:02 pm): This issue has been resolved.
Update (12:01 am): Also, this issue never happened. Happy April 1st.

3) View Youtube in TEXT form

TEXTp saves YouTube bandwidth, money

It’s great news that there are 24 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, we support 1080p and HD uploads are rising quickly, but that’s also meant increasing bandwidth costs cutting into our bottom line. And so, in our drive to keep expenses under control, we’ve decided that April 1 is the perfect day to take the important step of offering a new way to experience YouTube: text-only mode, or TEXTp.

TEXTp is the result of months of intense transcoding efforts by our engineers, who toiled for weeks to ensure that a large chunk of videos on the platform could be reduced to their most basic elements. By replacing the images in the video with a series of letters and numbers, the videos are far less taxing on our system -- and have the added benefit of promoting literacy!

To give it a whirl, make sure you have the latest Flash player (10.0) and click here. Or you can select “TEXTp” from the pulldown menu on most videos, as so:

You can also append &textp=fool to most video URLs to test it out.

For every person who selects TEXTp and keeps it on while you watch a video, you save YouTube $1 a second, resulting in potentially billions of dollars of savings for us. So if you care about YouTube, you’ll use TEXTp today.

4) Google Wave Notifcation. Get Notification from Dr. Wave.

http://wave.google.com/getwavewave.html

Dr. Wave will actually come and wave to you to tell you that you have a new Wave.

5) Upload ANYTHING to Google Doc
http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/03/upload-and-store-anything-in-cloud-with.html

In January, we added the ability to upload and store any file in Google Docs, and in response to your feedback, we increased the maximum file size to 1 GB a couple weeks later. Based on the overwhelming response to this feature, we're happy to announce a big update. Starting today, you can upload and store anything in Google Docs. With this change, you'll be able to store items in the cloud and access them from any computer - all you need is an Internet connection and a Google Account.

As with documents, spreadsheets, and files, you also share objects you've uploaded to Google Docs with anyone in the world. For example, do you ever wish you could CTRL+F your house keys or your TV remote? Store your keys, remotes, rail passes, and other objects you commonly lose with Google Docs, and you'll never have to worry about finding them again. Having trouble moving your piano from New York to California? Upload it from your home in New York, then download it once you're in California. Change your mind and want to share it with your friend in England instead? No problem. With one click you can have your piano delivered to anyone you choose, anywhere in the world.

With simple pricing at $0.10 per kg, along with free pickup and delivery from any location on the planet, it’s hard to pass up. To learn more about this new feature and how to join the beta test, head to our informational site. As always let us know what you think on the forums.

Posted by: Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager, Google Docs

Brain Storm: Not Too Many Friends Please

2010-04-05T02:24:00.000+08:00

I used to think that people with many friends are cool. Some people are just inherently popular everywhere they go, thus they have plenty of friends. I always wonder how great it would be if lots of people swarm towards me when I make an entrance, and how wonderful it'll feel to be well liked by many. I have never been a social animal. I don't like to meet new people nor make new friends. If there is no need to talk to strangers, I won't. Yet I want to be popular. But they say nothing comes without effort.

Then one day, I realised, it might not be well to be too popular. In the first place, I think everyone needs their own set of so-called "closest friends". These people should know most of what there is to know about you. And more than anything else, these people should genuinely care for you, and WANT to care for you. If not, no matter how superficially popular one is, he or she is truly lonely.

I looked around me, the people, and the things that happen. I suddenly do not want to have too many friends anymore. Having too many friends whom I am not very close with kind of defeat the purpose of having friends. If you have tons of friends, but none is willing to step forward and help you, or, go out of his way to tell you that you suck, and then still hang out with you, then isn't that very sad?

Isn't it sad if you don't have somebody to pour out your soul to?

Isn't it sad if you don't have somebody to enslave when you need helpers?

Isn't it sad if you don't have somebody to sit and look at each other for a long time, without feeling awkward at all?

Isn't it sad if you don't have somebody whom you can call a friend with a smile and knowing that they think the same, with a smile?

Youtube: Lady Gaga's Telephone

2010-04-04T02:42:00.000+08:00

I just realised that I FORGOT to post about Lady Gaga's Telephone music video. I deserved to be punished by Gaga. Okay that sort of brings in wrong ideas. Whatever.

I read up on Gaga's Bad Romance music video last time at http://vigilantcitizen.com/?p=2737 and it sort of makes a lot of sense about how Gaga kind of relates to demon worshipping, and many inner meanings with the music industries and her fans. I was surprised to find out that Telephone may be a continuation of Paparazzi's music video since scene started with Gaga being in jail and in Paparazzi's music video, Gaga poisoned her boyfriend at the end of the video. Makes sense. The same website attempted to interpret Telephone as well. I'll say it makes sense to a certain extent but everyone should take it with a pinch of salt. http://vigilantcitizen.com/?p=3423

Brain Storm: The Flow Of Time

2010-04-03T03:54:00.001+08:00

I spoke to Leonard just now (ok, on msn i mean), for like, 3 hours plus. We talked about many things. Our topics jumped, literally so, from relationships, maturity, growing up etc. It ended with me saying "given 4 or 5 years ago, we couldn't have this conversation. this is a sign of maturity".

Time passes. It can never be "time passed" because time never stops flowing. It's been 7 to 8 years since I know my closest group of friend. I daresay we've watched each other grow up. Some of us got into relationships, some of us are still spouting vulgarities around (like me, ok i meant one of us). With that, we started talking about how it'll be like when we find the "one", and how we will act like. Funny isn't it. We've known each other for years. We had classes together, sat beside each other, went to camps together, slept on the same beds, talked through the night, shower-sang together but there's still so much to know, still so much to grow.

When years have gone by, from time to time, I like to look back. Looking at photos, reading chat logs and blogs, these things bring me back. I like to go from segment to segment, time frames which describe my own growth, my development in my heart, my soul and my personality. I wonder if my friends noticed my change in personality. I wonder if they saw that I have mellowed, from an angry kid, who used to flare up over little things, who used to be weak, seeking attention all the time, to someone who can stand the wind, who walk the rain alone, knowing that yet I am not lonely, convincing myself that there's more than just me. Or have I? Growth cannot be ascertained by oneself. How naive can I be, to try and tell myself that I have changed and have grown up? There can be no absolute terms. Mellowed I may have, but still the wind gets stronger, still the rain gets heavier. I wouldn't know, I couldn't. Maybe everything is based on a spectrum. Maybe everything is not the same as how you see it compared to others.

Maybe the spectrum is stretching till never ending. Maybe the flow of time is never forgiving.

Rambling: The Legend Lives Again

2010-04-03T02:11:00.001+08:00

Okay so goes the legend that "techiewen does not look like someone who has a girlfriend".

It might just be a curse that will not be lifted in years. I have no idea why I heard the legend 3 times previously. But I just heard it again.

Dear Leonard said "it would be really interesting to see u in a relationship to be honest".

NOW, I have absolutely no idea why it would be interesting. Okay, so like, I am vulgar, extremist, and cranky. But there are times when I am nice too!

What's so interesting about me having a girlfriend?

Do my friends think I'll change 180 degrees when I get attached since I am usually "evilish, nonsensical and weird"? I have my romantic times as well...

This is illogical to me. Period.

Interest(ing): Top 10 Harmless Geek Pranks

2010-04-01T17:13:00.000+08:00

http://lifehacker.com/373817/top-10-harmless-geek-pranks

Take from lifehacker.

Configuring your friend's computer to show the Blue Screen Of Death as a screensaver, making your office printer (HP) show the words (insert coin) etc. Fabulous. I'll try it on my friends next time.

Interest(ing): Starbuck's April's Fool Day Joke

2010-04-01T14:07:00.000+08:00

http://www.starbucks.com/blog/10113/starbucks-listens-to-customer-request-for-more-sizes.aspx

Way cool. 2 new sizes. I would love to drink green tea latte's from the big one.

Remember I post about Starbuck's April's Fool Day joke last year? They invented a usb device that allows Starbucks to transfer coffee over the internet.
http://infinitelyme.blogspot.com/2009/04/senseless-stuff-aprils-fool-day.html

Event: Happy 21st Birthday!

2010-03-29T17:45:00.000+08:00

So like, more and more of my friends are turning 21. I think I have a one way love-hate relationship with 21st birthdays. I love them cause I like seeing my friends fall into the eternal darkness of old age with me, since I have already reached the dreaded adulthood myself. I also hate them since they burn a big hole in my pocket. But oh well, nonetheless I enjoy meeting old friends at 21st birthday parties. I'm surprised how everyone changed, yet everyone still remained the same. It's a wonder of life.

happy 21st to Angeline! hope you stay pretty and always be the 开心果 everywhere you go!

Tech Speak: Google VS China - The Showdown

2010-03-23T15:09:00.000+08:00

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-approach-to-china-update.html

Google has finally come to a conclusion for its take on China. Early this year, after Google was cyber attacked by the Chinese, Google has announced that it can no longer censor its products on google.cn. Even though there were many times between now and then that Google tried to uncensor its search results, and failed terribly (reports show that Google uncensored then censored again, repeating this for a number of times).

Google first broke its "don't be evil" mantra when it sealed the deal with China to allow Google content in China. Though it claimed that small evil deeds sometimes are required for the greater good, in this case to bring content to the Chinese, it is still widely recognised by most that it has betrayed the motto for its own benefits. That said, who wouldn't want a piece of the large Chinese market?

With Google's decision to deliver content to the Chinese through their Hong Kong servers, Google hopes to make everyone happy. However, no matter how I look at it, I don't see why China will just let Google announced that the Chinese can access uncensored content through another means. Even for the consumers, competing with the Hong Kong people for bandwidth doesn't sound like a good idea either.

China will block google.com.hk. Wanna bet?

Brain Storm: Loyal To My School

2010-03-22T18:16:00.000+08:00

Have you graduated from your secondary school/junior college? (sorry poly folks, I'm not sure if you guys have a school song)

Do you still remember your school song?

2 weeks ago, I went for a musical put up my by alma mater. It was nice to see so many juniors supporting this (ultra expensive) musical. I felt age was really catching up to me, since there was a time when I knew almost everyone at a concert but now I know almost no one at all. The musical was also part of the celebration for the school's 65th anniversary. The last concert I went to was meant to celebrate the school's 60th anniversary. My gosh, 5 years have passed. Did I have these wrinkles on my face back then?

I shall not talk about the musical in detail. I will just say that next year onwards I'll just buy the ticket and donate it to the school for students who can't afford it. My dear juniors should consider rehearsing for the gift presentation to the VIPs next time, at any rate.When the concert ended, it was time for the student audience to sing the school song. I was surprised that I still remember the lyrics quite well (hey I swear I didn't rely on the on screen lyrics that much). But what was even more surprising was that everyone sang the school song really loud. So much for all the "rebellious students nowadays who do not show appreciation to their school". I dare not say this shows my juniors are loyal to our school and appreciate it. But I am proud of my juniors for being able to do at least this bit.

I am very proud of my secondary school. We have a relatively rich history. We have a extremely good reputation. We are value added. We have tons of awards. We have a holistic approach in education. The thousand plus people who put Xinmin as their first choice of secondary school and the long queue of parents waiting to appeal their child in shows how good my school is. That said, not every student in the world will love their school just because of this.

What makes one appreciate his/her school? Whether it is studying opportunities, the teachers, the friends, the leadership chances, the environment, the reputation, the pride of a school comes from the identity. Do you identify yourself with the school, as the school? Only when you feel that you are one with the school, that it is your home, can you truly be sure that you appreciate it, that you are proud of it. I am grateful to Xinmin because it really shaped me to be who I am today. My school took care of me during my fragile teenage years. It helped me in a way no other school could and would. My friends, the leadership opportunities given to me and the results I've gotten all came from my identity. Xinmin has brought all its students together. Our alumni is really strong and banded too.

And then, we sang at the top of our voices, the students, the teachers, and the graduated Xinmin students, as one.

Xinmin, Xinmin~

P.S. yes that is how my school song ends.

Brain Storm: Nick Name For A Love One

2010-03-20T21:27:00.000+08:00

Okay, so I admit that I have been a promiscuous bastard. I have many lovers. Okay, I lied. I mean I have many so called "lovers" who were all forced to be called intimately by me. I call them affectionately with lovey dovey nicknames.

A few days ago, it struck me. If I were to really have loved one, what remaining words can I use? I mean, I already used "darling", "honey", "girlfriend" and many others.

Promiscuous bastards like me out there, be careful. I don't think you want to be forced to re-use a word. It'll seem so insincere. Darn, gotta start thinking.

Guide: How To Prepare For A Race

2010-03-20T21:02:00.002+08:00

On 14th March, I went for the second race in my life. North East Run, as the name suggest, was organised by the North East Community Development Council (CDC) and was held at Pasir Ris Park in the morning. I participated in the 16km race and clocked 1 hour 31mins. It's not half bad, but not good either. Oh well. I took this race way too lightly, and paid for the consequences. A race, no matter the distance, needs ample preparation in order for one to run to the fullest of his potential, as well as with as much as comfort as possible. So here I put a guide, done by myself. This should be taken only as a non medical advice by a amateur-marathoner-wannabe.

Before the race,
1) Training - depending on the distance, you may need to start training one to three months in advance (based on a 4 times per week training schedule). always start with small distances. make sure you train for a certain distance a few times first before increasing the distance you run. for eg. run 2km 2 or 3 times before you increase to 4km. then run 4km a few times before increasing to 6km. do not try to double your training. instead, have a proper and realistic increment value, such as 1km or 2km. personally my increment is 2km and my starting pace is 5.5mins per km. if the distance is not very long, you may consider only training up till half of the total distance for the race you are participating. for races such as a full marathon, do consider training more.

2) Health and supplements - while i am not a total believer of "carbo loading", the process is said to be important for long races because one needs a lot a lot of energy to run a long race. i usually do carbo loading one to two weeks before the race. for carbo loading, i eat slightly more carbohydrates for each meal and increase the number of meals from 3 to 5. make sure you eat lots of fruits and vegetables so that you don't fall ill during this crucial time.
3) Check the route - while most reputable races have relatively flat routes, it is not wise to assume so (for eg. the North East Run had several overhead bridges which we had to cross, as well as many slopes). it is important to take these features into account when you are training. it would be even better if you can try out the route before the actual race, but com'on none of us are really that hardcore.
4) Your meals one day before hand - drink a lot of water one day before the race. it is wise that you eat more soluble meals the day before as well so that you can pass them out before the race itself. be sure to drink lots of water before you start running as well
5) Season your shoes - running a long race in new shoes is a big no no. you need to condition your shoes, or you'll get lots of blisters and pain
6) Prepare your clothes - bibs, timer tags, and your race attire should be prepared the night before the race. this makes you better prepared. i don't understand why some people like to put on their bibs only when they reach the race. personally i put it the day before and i go to the race with it on my chest, nothing's wrong with that. if your timer tag needs to be placed on your shoe, make sure you secure the tag on your shoes properly the night before as well. you should have put the necessary clothes you want to change out of into your bag beforehand. it is wise to bring a tee shirt, a pair of shorts and a pair of slippers that you can change into after the race
7) Sleep well 2 days before the race - it is understandable for one to be unable to sleep the night before the race. there is research showing that it will not affect your performance. even so, i recommend that you get sufficient sleep at least 2 nights before so that your sleep debt does not accumulate.

During the race,
8) Salt supplements - make sure you have enough salt intake just before the race, and drink lots of isotonic drinks along the race. it'll reduce the chances of you getting muscle cramps.
9) Warm up - many people think this is non-essential. but it is important to loosen your joints and warm up your body since races usually start early in the morning.
10) Lubricate - you're really wrong if you think it is too hardcore to lubricate some of your body parts before a race. a long race can really cause some bad abrasion. some places that i recommend you lubricate with professional lubricant are in between your toes, your soles, the thigh regions, nipples (for guys especially) and maybe your arm pits.
11) Tighten your laces and wear comfortable clothes - for a long race, your shoes shouldn't be too tight, but neither should it be dangling off your feet either. your running attire should feel comfortable. if you don't like wearing tights, then there is absolutely no need to follow the trend
12) Watch your posture - wrong running techniques can cause you to experience aches earlier than you should
13) Rest and drink water - there's no shame in stopping during a race. we're mortals. resting is meant for us to continue running later. if you rest when your legs are still not in immense pain, chances are the pain may subside and you can run for yet a few more kilometre pain free. drinking water at the drink stations will replenish your fluid loss and gives you a chance to catch your breathe.
14) If there is food, eat - there's nothing wrong with eating during a race. if the organisers provide bananas or energy supplements, do take them if you're hungry. they give you more energy to continue.
15) Stop and stretch - many people stop to stretch their muscles in the middle of a race. if you feel that a cramp is coming up, chances are a stretch will do plenty of good
16) Motivate yourself and others - don't give up. anyone and everyone can run or walk 42.195km. you just have to keep walking, or keep running. if there's a cute girl beside you who seems to be having difficulty, cheer her on. you'll never know if a spark may charge her up and make her spirited enough to continue running. you'll be surprised by how friendly your fellow runners are.
17) Finish the race with a smile - you deserve it. when i saw this pointer on Standard Chartered's race guide, i found it funny, but yet so true

After the race,
18) Drink and eat - drink water, eat the bananas. self explanatory.
19) Walk around - don't stop immediately, walk around to slow down and let your heartbeat slow down gradually.
20) Change out - change out of your sweaty clothes, let your feet get a breather, you'll feel better after that.
21) Run somemore - insane, more running after a crazy marathon? that's what i thought too. but research shows that going for a short run/jog/walk after a race helps to remove the lactic acid accumulated in your legs

22) Improve - check out your timing and set targets. before you leave the race venue, tell yourself "i'll be back, with a better timing". .'-p

Brain Storm: When I See You Again, 5 Years Later, What Do I Say?

2010-03-17T22:51:00.000+08:00

During a barbecue I organised on Sunday, my army friends reached the pit and one of them asked me, "so what now?"

I was shocked. Did that question ever came across my mind? "What do we do now?"

Gatherings have a good purpose. Some don't see it immediately. Gatherings are meant for us to gather. Duh. When humans gather, they interact. And when we do, I think the easiest and most likely thing for us to do is talk. From the last time we last saw one another, I'm pretty sure many many things happened. If you had chosen to gather, there must have been a reason. It might be due the the fact that you were bored, or that amongst the gatherers lie some of your better friends. Either way, you will want to fill in your friends on each others' lives, won't you? People change, and people do things. Sometimes they change drastically, sometimes they do very different things (like how my very obedient friend who used to be a very reserved girl goes to club often nowadays). As friends, we want to know, we want to talk, we just want to see each other again.

Was it so hard that we need to think about what to do?

I don't think so, it'll be so natural, we just know what to do.

To my friends, 5 years from now, I'll see you again. From morning till late night, till the next morning, we'll be beside each other, catching up on each others' lives, till no end.

My friend tweeted after my barbecue. She commented about how amazing it was that when we talk to our Xinmin friends, we just picked up where we left off in secondary school, as if we didn't graduate. It struck me that how much my friends pull me away from the harsh reality, about how much they make me feel better. 5 years later, we'll still be the same, friends forever.

Interest(ing): Duct Tape - Saviour Of All Soldiers

2010-03-10T21:48:00.001+08:00

http://lifehacker.com/5478624/a-celebration-of-duct-tape-our-favorite-duct-tape-diys

Any soldier or ex-soldier will recognise this. It's all too familiar (though we aren't so hard core to use duct tape).

It's the ultimate item. It's on par with the final quest item you have to get at the end of a RPG (except we get it at the start) and it seems to have infinite ways of using it to deal with things.

Lo and behold, it is our black tape.

Admit it, we celebrate it, we're forced to use it, we can't live without it. The almighty power of the black tape allows us to use it for many different purposes, from taping blank attachments to taping loose ends of your backpack to taping the mouth of that faggot beside you who just can't stop blabbering nonsense. We love it so much that we restock it every so often.

I remember during BMT, my sergeants always say black tape can be used to solve everything. I didn't understand it, until one fine day. I realised that I had multiple cuts on my hands and legs due to outdoor training and I didn't bring plasters. You've guessed it, I used black tape. My commanders saw me and they were awed. I thought I did something wrong until they just kept laughing hysterically.

Black tape. The most powerful piece of item on the planet. When you're wearing green that is.

Tech Speak: Cute Video On Google Chrome

2010-03-10T20:47:00.001+08:00

Chrome has come a long way. It is a very much customisable browser with its themes and extensions (much like the firefox). It is indisputably fast and user friendly as well.

That said, Chrome is not fully compatible with every single website, even including popular sites like Facebook and its own site Blogger. I have learnt to live with it though since the bugs are minor. Chrome's cold start speed is remarkably slow on my computer. But look beyond all that, and you have a blazingly fast browser.

Brain Storm: Birthdays Galore

2010-03-10T16:41:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I saw one of my friends status update on Facebook. It says "so and so birthday today, so and so birthday today, so and so birthday today. so and so birthday today, so and so birthday today.. etc" He was exclaiming about how there's many people whose birthday falls today. It struck me that some people have an over reliance of tracking their friend's birthday using Facebook.

This year, majority of my peers are turning 21 years old. Earlier in the year, I had a resolution to remember as many birthdays as possible, and to wish them an awesome 21st. But alas I was naive. After seeing my friend's status, I remembered that there are people who don't have Facebook or do not put their birthdays on Facebook. Why, I am the perfect example. You won't find my birth date anywhere in the cloud (techiewen: Cloud refers to the internet, for eg, if you use gmail or hotmail, your emails are stored in the cloud rather than your PC). Despite this, I didn't realise it. Tsk tsk. Tonight I shall scan through my address book thoroughly.

Aside from that, there may also be times when you do not log onto your Facebook often or you may be too tired to notice that a close friend's birthday is up and coming. In some cases, it would also be ideal for you to remember a friend's birthday way in advance if you need to plan a surprise or get a gift for your friend.

So do you totally depend on Facebook to remember your friends' birthday? Or do you have other ways to remind yourself, such as a diary or handphone reminders?

Brain Storm: You Wife Should Be 27% Smarter Than You

2010-03-08T23:27:00.000+08:00

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10463132-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Okay this article is funny. This excerpt from the article really made me laugh.

Still, let me tell you about one of these guidelines: marrying a divorcee makes it far more unlikely that you will be happy. I know, I know. It doesn't seem fair, does it? But science has spoken. And when science speaks, you bow your head until your nose tickles the frigid floor tiles.

Lol.

Still I resent that. There is no need for anyone to be smarter, though I do feel that both must have a similar intellectual capacity. If one party can't even speak proper English, or can't even comprehend basic physics, I don't think I can very much communicate with her.

Ramblings: Doraemon Jigsaw Puzzle (3D)

2010-03-07T22:54:00.000+08:00

Ain't this cute? I'll get one to put in my dorm next time. But it's expensive. The small one cost $40 over. I can't imagine how much the big one will cost.

Tech Speak: Street View

2010-03-07T11:08:00.000+08:00

This is old news. Okay it's not even news. I did use it before but today was the first time that it helped me so much. I showed my dad the street view of my school because he needed to go somewhere near it but couldn't remember how the road goes.

To use street view, either click on Terrain view or just scroll to zoom in until the highest level. And darn I just realised that you can jump to a place further in front of you by clicking. (cause I was retardedly pressing up again and again) Nifty.

http://maps.google.com

Ramblings: I Like You List

2010-03-06T22:17:00.000+08:00

Frankly, I didn't know that Facebook has a very in depth privacy setting option until about early this year. Even after I knew, I couldn't be bothered as it was very troublesome. You can tweak such that every single person can be customised to see what you want to them see.

Last month, I finally decided to do something about my settings after some arsehole stalked my account like a book. The general settings are allowing different preset group of people to see different sets of items on your account. The preset groups are Only Friends, Friends Of Friends, Everyone and Customise. For Customise you can just choose a few people from your friends list, or you can use a list you have already set up. For example, I have a list of all the people from my platoon, from the Student Leader's Board etc.

First I set from default settings of Everyone for everything to Friends of Friends. After a while, I thought it's not good enough so I changed it to Only Friends. Last week, I created a list called "Closer Friends" which only excluded a minority of people so that a few people I have on Facebook yet I don't really know them won't see my wall. Now I've had it. So I'm going to create 2 new lists. One is "I Like You List" and another is "I Don't Hate You List". The I-Like-You-List is done. It's as below.

You qualify to be in my I-Like-You-List if:

1) I look at your photo and I don't say "who's that?"
2) I look at your photo and I don't say "how did we know each other?"
3) You see my Wall, you put in constructive and/or funny comments.
4) You are already in my Close-Friends list.
5) I don't have the urge to beat you up when I see you.
6) I've known you for years and you still remember my name.
7) You ask me to go for your 21st birthday party and I say "yes" without hesitation.
8) You havn't irritated me so much before until I squirm at the sound of your name.

How this list works.
Some people fulfill certain criteria yet not others. For eg. Some people say very constructive comments but I can't remember how I know that person, or I will hesitate to go for his/her birthday party. For this case, he/she will still be in my list. Such situations will be on a case to case basis.

You qualify to be in my I-Don't-Hate-You-List if:

1) I don't hate you.
2) I don't feel like slapping you (whether I was reminded of you or not).

This blog post sounds so self centred. I don't have many friends. And I guess I ought feel grateful if people don't dislike me. But oh well, many things on Facebook shouldn't be shown to half the world. It has to be done. I suggest you do it soon too.

Event: Platoon Dinner @ City Link Mall

2010-03-06T13:21:00.000+08:00

Yesterday I met my platoon for dinner. It's been a long time since we came together as a platoon (well not everyone was there but...). The feelings' kind of different too. It's hard to describe. It's weird. Anyhow we had dinner at Niwa Sushi in City Link Mall. At first it appeared to be cheap, and the food seems pretty good. But it appears that there wasn't much quantity in the first place. Sadly Ben bought the last pack of bento and for some reason they refuse to cook anymore rice so the most value for money menu is out. I got the seaweed soup udon and a couple of sushi. Frankly the taste is only so-so.

Then we went to Starbucks as usual. There was this guy who was wearing exercise attire, a RJ PE tee and some spilt shorts. Now, we don't see that everyday at City Hall and he was sweating. Weirdo. We also saw someone with a LJ face with a bunch of flower in his hands. My friend was commenting about him. Sounds bad, but it was quite funny nonetheless. Shaun Lim ordered my favourite Green Tea Latte but iced. I tried it and frankly it was quite good too, though the taste isn't that full bodied. Shaun and Kay Siong spent a good amount of time trying to decide what ridiculous present to get for me. And I am so glad they didn't go into New Urban Male to get it. I'll rather not get any present at all. Geez.

Niwa Sushi - City Link Mall
Ambience - 1.5/5
Salmon Sushi and Beancurd Sushi - 2.5/5
Seaweed Soup Udon - 2/5

Starbucks - City Link Mall
Ambience - 3/5
Green Tea Latte (Iced) - 4/5

TechieEat: Ding Tai Feng

2010-03-06T12:12:00.002+08:00

On 26 Feb my gang and I finally went for our reunion dinner. We met at Ding Tai Feng at Junction 8 since Danny only ends at 7 odd at somewhere near Serangoon. Anyway the fried rice was good. Nothing beats a good meal with your closest friends. NOTHING. :)

Ding Tai Feng - Junction 8
Ambience - 3/5
Egg Fried Rice With Chicken Floss - 4/5

Tech Speak: A Joystick For A Mouse

2010-03-06T11:21:00.000+08:00

http://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/product-guide/view/5256/review/first-looks-3m-ergonomic-em550-mouse

This mouse has its scroll at the side, and the clicks at the top. It's supposed to relieve stress injuries from prolonged usage. Interesting.

Senseless Stuff: Grocery Shopping At NTUC

2010-03-04T20:54:00.000+08:00

I like to shop for grocery, especially food and drinks that's meant for myself. Usually I get my stash of milk, juices, tea, crackers, tidbits, ice cream and other personal hygiene stuff myself.

Here's what I bought yesterday.
1.5 litre Pokka Carrot Juice
900ml Dutch Lady Banana Milk (i hope no melanine anymore)
1 litre HL Chocolate Milk
1 litre HL Fresh Milk
2 litre Peel Fresh Powerberries Juice
1 litre Peel Fresh Apple Juice
1.5 litre Seasons Ice Lemon Tea
1 litre Yeo's Soya Bean Milk
4-pack Gillette Power Shaver Refills (techiewen: I can never understand why this thing cost $25 when my shaver itself cost $15)

Total: $45 (what!!?!? 45 bucks for all this shit? stupid shaver refills)

Brain Storm: Chance(s)/Experience(s) Are But Once

2010-03-04T11:21:00.000+08:00

When I went to NUS to meet my friends, a gloomy topic came up. They mentioned how they wished to can attend my batch's orientation. That's when I remembered that they were going for overseas attachment for a year. Gosh, it's going to be one year, they said. They wanted to be school mates with us once again. It's been what? 4 years since we were school/class mates. The weird sensation that we would spend time together in our second home is a nice one. But unfortunately, we can only be school mates for one year.

Time passes too fast. We all agree. In the blink of an eye, they're going to graduate. They don't want to, I don't want to. The bonding and friendships we have in school are far too fantasy-like. The society out there is too realistic, it is too harsh.

When we were school mates, we never thought such a relationship will come to an end. Yet it will, and it is nearing. As we grow old, some experiences and chances will never come back.

Forgive me, for bitch-slapping you in front of you, for giving you nonsense every single minute, for calling you bastards and bitches, for showing you middle finger all the time, for being whiny and arrogant, and for throwing tantrums and being selfish. From now on, I'll still do all these things, but I'll savour every moment of it, and I'll appreciate every action I do. Promise.

Brain Storm: Say No To Suicide

2010-03-04T10:58:00.001+08:00

It is incorrect to discourage the idea of suicide by saying that it is but a shortcut to solving his problems. Humans are selfish. They think of themselves only. And a shortcut sure is tempting, no? On surface value, everyone would think that they lead a tough life, maybe even the worst life amongst their friends. This is how superficial it can get, for when we say no one is ever the best, since there's always someone better, the same is true for no one ever gets the worst, since there's always someone worse off. One who has not seen the world cannot claim that suicide is the only way. Even if you're the one and only person to face such a devastation in your life, it is still possible for you to be the first person in the world to every conquer it. When Helen Keller became deaf and blind, that didn't prompt her to suicide, that didn't stop her from success, and she had no role model to look up to either.

Many people don't realise what they leave behind and what they take away when they commit suicide. There'll be holes left in the hearts of the their loved ones, the parts they took away with them when they die. And they will never return. The holes are permanent. It's stupid to wonder who will cry for you when you die. There's people who will weep for the loss of you, and then there's people who will be depressed for others' loss of you. Maybe people do realise. But they cannot or refuse to comprehend. Like I said, humans are selfish creatures.

I heard that somebody committed suicide in NTU. She happened to be my friend's friend's girlfriend. And my friend said, there was a period of time when that guy's facebook status was "hey bao bei, where are you? come back..."

:'(

Think not of only yourself, fool. Once you die, you will never come back.

TechieEat: Full Tea Latte @ Starbucks

2010-03-03T03:33:00.002+08:00

This is still quite new. Starbucks is offering a new series of full tea lattes. Previously they only had chai tea I think and I heard it's freaking bitter. Now, I like my coffee and teas slightly bitter but anything without milk is a big no no. I went to the counter, pointed to the poster and stupidly asked if they offered that many different types of tea lattes as the words as such "earl grey, mint" etc were on the poster. She explained that those won't really flavours but ways to customise my drink. I chose Earl Grey over English Breakfast and I think that was downright a big mistake. The vanilla taste was strong. I didn't really understand what's the sweetness until my friend who's a barista explained it to me. He mentioned that English Breakfast tea latte will be less sweet. Despite all this, I shall do Earl Grey tea latte justice. The latte is has subtle tea flavour, with strong and fragrant vanilla aftertaste. It is sweet yet the tea has its gentle characteristics. This is not for the bitter-hearted such as myself, but if you love tea yet prefer it to have some the-liked-by-all-vanilla taste, Earl Grey Tea Latte is the way to go.

Oh by the way, they let me try their new Earl Grey Cream Pot as well. It's truly amazing how tea can be made into cream with such full bodied taste, much unlike the Earl Grey tea latte. Fascinating.

Starbucks - Fusionopolis
Ambience - 3/5
Earl Grey Tea Latte - 3.5/5

Event: My Trip To NUS

2010-03-03T03:16:00.004+08:00

I call it the quarter-life crisis. It is the most difficult choice I have yet to make. NUS? Or NTU? Which is the university meant for me? Although I asked my friends out for a dinner, I didn't expect it to be in NUS itself. The tour to Prince George's Park Residence (PGPR) was a bonus which I hadn't planned in advance either.

So there I was, taking a bus into NUS. It's odd. I was like a child going into the known, unknown. I had been there before, I walked around the place a couple of times. The place itself is really no big deal. But I felt excitement. Knowing that I am to become a student here soon, knowing that all these people around me are going to be my school mates soon, it made my heart beat faster. Okay, maybe it was because I sprinted 50m to catch the bus after drinking 3 tall size tea. And I was quite disappointed with the influx of nerdy looking people near the entrance.

We went to the NUS Graduate Club for dinner. After waiting like eons for Yinning to fetch me at Central Library (so much so that I spotted Limin running and spoke to her for a while), we took the shuttle bus to the Guild House and met Liyue there. The new business school is really quite new and cool. The food there was not bad. Above all, the price was decent, if you're a club member that is. The ambience there was really good. We sat outside in the open. Though there was live performance inside, the feeling outside was better. The bar inside looks gorgeous as well. No doubt I will go there to try someday.

After chatting at the restaurant, we headed back to PGPR. They brought me to see the study room, sofa room etc first. Then I went into their rooms. I saw the blueprint of the rooms before and I thought it looked really small. So I was surprised to know that it exceeded my expectations. One more point to NUS. They also brought me around to their guy friends' rooms. Incidentally, all the guys' rooms look way more spacious than my gal friends. I reckon its because it's way more tidy. Tsk, girls.

The table was bigger than the one I had back when I studied in the Sengkang Community Hub's study room. It had space for me to put another 23inch monitor. There's space for a fridge as well. I was pleased to know that there's enough space for me to do my sit ups and push ups. I'll be looking forward to it. Thanks, girls for the trip!

Bad lighting, but fear not for my camera has manual settings!

Fish and Chips

Hawaiian Pizza

Grilled Beef, medium well

This is the club's chillax area, heard there's special programmes on Fridays, got to check it out!

NUS Graduate Club - The Guild House

Ambience - 4.5/5

Food - 3/5

Brain Storm: Weakness Of The Heart, Show Me Not

2010-03-02T03:23:00.000+08:00

Recently I was strongly reminded again of how I really hate people who are weak in the heart and mind, and show it publicly. The way they sought attention by changing their statuses on Facebook, MSN Messenger etc, is plain disgusting. That is so, because seeing it I am reminded of myself. None of them were bad compared to my previous self. Reading my chat logs, my old blogs, my old smses, I could never imagine why I said those things, why I wanted people to look at me as a weakling. Sure, everyone has their problems, everyone has their weakest links, everyone has their time at the bottom pit. But I don't see many others grumbling like the whole world just bullied them, I don't see them telling everyone how pitiful their lives are.

Yet I cannot say I hate certain people, simply because they are my very close friends. All I can say is, you're wrong if you think the world is against you. You're wrong if you think you have it worst. And you're definitely wrong if you think no one cares of you. (Okay disclaimer, that last statement applies to my friends, but I can't really see how it'll apply to some scums I know who are nothing but whiners. Do they even have friends?)

When I was in Junior College year 2, something really bad happened to me. I was absolutely down. Then suddenly this insensitive bastard smsed me a generic message (no worries, insensitive bastard doesn't read this blog). It says something like "whenever you are down, always remember, you're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think". I wasn't particularly shocked then, we're close friends after all. I'll admit that it didn't help me much spiritually back then either. But looking back, yeah, someone cared.

It wasn't that bad. You're not alone. You're stronger than you believe. Have faith. Have strength. Walk through. There's a bunch of people waiting at the end. They're your friends. They may have forgotten, they may have overlooked, they may have been busy. But they'll always be there.

So don't be weak. Be strong.

Songs: 温柔 - 五月天 (DNA Live Version)

2010-03-02T02:04:00.000+08:00

I've always like this song. After all May Day is my favourite Chinese band. The song is about letting go. The DNA Live Version has an additional part which just involves the lead singer talking. But that part is seriously the nicest.

走在風中今天陽光突然好溫柔
天的溫柔地的溫柔像你抱著我
然後發現你的改變孤單的今後
如果冷該怎麼度過

天邊風光身邊的我都不在你眼中
你的眼中藏著什麼我從來都不懂
沒有關係你的世界就讓你擁有
不打擾是我的溫柔

不知道不明瞭不想要為什麼我的心
明明是想靠近卻孤單的黎明
不知道不明瞭不想要為什麼我的心
那愛情的綺麗總是在孤單裡
再把我的最好的愛給你
不知不覺不情不願又到巷子口
我沒有哭也沒有笑因為這是夢
沒有預兆沒有理由你真的有說過
如果有就讓你自由

如果你對我說你想要一朵花那麼我就會給你一朵花

如果你對我說你想要一顆星星那麼我就會給你一顆星星

如果你對我說你想要一場雪那麼我就會給你一場雪

如果你對我說你想要離開我那麼我會說我會對你說

我給你自由我給你自由我給你自由我給你自由
我給你全部全部全部全部自由 oh.........

這是我的溫柔還你一個自由這是我的溫柔還你一個自由 oh...

不知道不明瞭不想要為什麼我的心
明明是想靠近卻孤單的黎明
不知道不明瞭不想要為什麼我的心
那愛情的綺麗總是在孤單裡
再把我的最好的愛給你
不知不覺不情不願又到巷子口
我沒有哭也沒有笑因為這是夢
沒有預兆沒有理由你真的有說過
如果有就讓你.....
如果有就讓你自由
自由....這是我的溫柔 (這是我的溫柔.這是我的溫柔.這是我的～
溫柔....)
讓你自由...oh.......

Senseless Stuff: Starbucks Love Story Winning Entry #2

2010-03-01T12:11:00.000+08:00

http://www.facebook.com/notes/starbucks-singapore/your-starbucks-love-story-winning-entry-2/358528346263

This is the reality love story writing competition that Starbucks held in line with Valentine's Day. Winning entry #1 wasn't so sweet, but the photo attached sure was.

There I was-I grabbed her small hands on our second date while crossing the road. It almost seems like I was trying to re-enact those scene we often see in love drama. "Your hands are very warm", she said. They still are; here to keep your cold hands warm.

Oh my gosh, I'm a hopeless romantic and I really feel that sentence is so sweet.

Brain Storm: Brush Past And Be Forgotten

2010-03-01T00:57:00.000+08:00

Do you used to be able to remember the class register number of your classmates? Maybe not all, but you would have remembered some at least right? Do you still remember all your primary school classmates' names? Do you remember how the important friends of yours back then influenced you and made an impact in your life? Can you recall the memorable times you spent together with them?

I met up with my primary school classmate on Thursday. It was kind of awkward at first, since we havn't met for 7 years. We tried to recollect all the things that happened when we were in primary 5 and 6, and we're surprised to find out that we forgot a lot of it and at the same time surprised that we remembered so much.

We sat there, we tried to remember. She asked, "Who else was there in 6/1?" I answered, "Oh yeah there's so and so." Then silence. And I asked "Which other girls were in there 6/1?" She replied "Oh you know recently so and so..." It repeats. Before long, we got half the class out (but we couldn't remember all). And it was amusing how we actually did connect with our classmates
one way or another after everyone last saw each other when we were in Secondary 2.

There's this guy whom she was quite close with, and I spoke to him online last year. There's another guy whom she invited to a party when we were sec 3 and I saw him 2 years ago at Recruit Express. There's this other person whom was quite close with all of us and I saw him during Stanchart Marathon last year, she saw him in NUS last week. I see updates of this other girl quite often.

We remembered things which were interesting. Like how this guy and gal quarrelled. Like how we used the internet on a computer in the class after PSLE was over. Like how we sat beside each other and the 2 guys behind us always disturb us. Like how it was a "cool" thing to talk on the phone, even among guys last time. Like how I always walk home with one friend, and chat on the phone with another friend everyday without fail. I wonder how many of them even remembers that?

Now everyone's changed. Okay apart from the fact that she insisted that I still look the same (but hello, I have 2 earholes now and dyed hair, how can that be the same?). Someone has depression now. One other has some bad illness. One guy became an ah beng (not me!). One signed on. Another is having happening life in university. One is probably studying in US now. One joined MLM. One changed from JC to polytechnic.

These people were once in my life. For a period of time, they were everything I've got. For a period of time, they were people who brushed past my life. How many people used to be significant in your life? How many of them became mere shadows who never returned? How much of the memories with them have you lost? I was kinda shocked. My memory is considered one of the best among my friends, at least, used to (I can remember all sorts of weird, little things). Nowadays I find that my memories lie to me a lot. I assume that I always remember things correctly, but lately it always turns out that I was wrong. Scary isn't it.

There must be some people in your life whom you don't want to remain as shadows. There must be memories you hold dear which you don't want to lose. Take heed, they slip away as time passes. And time, it does not wait (techiewen: god, I love this phrase from Final Fantasy VIII).

TechieEat: Starbucks and Coffee Bean

2010-02-27T21:11:00.002+08:00

Ok so like, I'm sensitive to caffeine but I still went for a drink at Starbucks and Coffee Bean lately. I had my usual Green Tea Latte. The photo below shows a Tall size drink. Ok I'll admit that I ordered a miserable tall size drink. And I'll admit that I mention before that tall size drinks are for pussies. But here's my excuse. I drank it 30mins before I was supposed to meet my friends for dinner. So a venti size just don't do.

I went to Coffee Bean with pals and gang yesterday night. I was never a fan of Coffee Bean but Junction 8 doesn't have Starbucks. Coffee Bean had this new series of cappuccino in the flavours Spiced Honey, Salted Caramel and Cinnamon Chocolate. I love cinnamon coffee but I wanted to try something else. I ordered the salted caramel but they ran out of caramel, well done. So I went with the spiced honey. It's an interesting taste with spices obviously. But I can't taste the honey. Overall its a good drink I guess.

Starbucks - Vivocity Level 1

Ambience - 4/5

Green Tea Latte - 5/5

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf - Junction 8

Ambience - 1/5

Spiced Honey Cappuccino - 4/5

TechieEat: Green Tea Soya Ice Cream

2010-02-27T20:14:00.002+08:00

I finally got to try Mr Bean's green tea soya ice cream. It's not bad, but people who prefers Green-tea-er green tea may avoid it. Macha lovers usually avoid green tea with milk. However for Mr Bean's green tea soya ice cream, you will taste the distinct soya instead. So it's up to you to try.

Mr Bean - Raffles Place
Green Tea Soya Ice Cream - 4/5

Ramblings: Caffeine Addict

2010-02-23T22:37:00.000+08:00

The world is unfair. Amongst all the things you like to do or like to eat, there must be some you can't do or eat because of certain reasons.

This morning I drank a can of Nescafe Latte. It's not even a double shot caramel macchiato, and I felt it. My stomach can't really take caffeine, apart from tea and green tea. Maybe that's because I don't drink as much tea as coffee but I definitely drink a lot more green tea compared to coffee. It's been a couple of months since I last drank coffee. Chi Weng and Chin Hua would probably laugh at me.

I love coffee (not black though). I used to drink a lot of it. I started drinking it when I was in primary school, to the surprise of all my relatives since coffee isn't really a favourite drink of a kid. But ever since my regular gastric started, I believed that spicy food and caffeine were the cases since my problems always come after I drink coffee or eat spicy food (I still eat a lot of spicy food though, there's just no escape). If there's some coffee in sight, I would drink it. There was a period of time when I was addicted to Starbucks and I would just spend my time sipping my favourite caramel macchiato.

I still have the urge to drink coffee nowadays though I try not to. There's no stopping me totally though. Darn this stupid restriction to drink my coffee.

Ramblings: Paper Heart

2010-02-23T22:15:00.000+08:00

I was reminded of this a few days ago when Valentine's Day was coming. I remember Edwin teaching the method to fold the heart to Bang Hui and me. It was during a Civics class and the topic was about loving parents or something like that. Part of the lesson involved making a heart but it was simple and it didn't look nice. That's when Edwin boasted that he knows how to make a nice one and intrigued Bang Hui and myself.

Cool eh?

Sights And Sounds: Baby With Doraemon Shoes

2010-02-23T22:10:00.000+08:00

Look at his shoes! There's a face of Doraemon sown on each shoe. It's cute! Too bad this is the best my camera phone can take without letting the whole world know I snapped a photo of this cute baby with his cute shoes.

Food: Hokkaido Cream Bun

2010-02-23T22:06:00.000+08:00

I needed a snack when I was working. S Mart at 8 Shenton Way sells this cute looking bread originating from Japan. There are many flavours but this is the most odd one. The bread itself is soft and feels great to the bite. Unfortunately there isn't any "Hokkaido Cream" though. The packaging boast of a different method of preservative in a form of a card. It says it's alcohol. Interesting. $1.50 for one.

Food: FairPrice Treats

2010-02-23T21:58:00.000+08:00

I went to FairPrice at Punggol Plaza as usual to do my grocery shopping. I saw a few new stuff that I never knew were there before.

Papaya milk. We saw this in Taiwan and we really loved it. It's expensive here. $2.85 for a pack of 3 250ml. When chilled thoroughly, it's quite nice.

Since I'm a fan of ice lemon tea, I just had to try this out. Unfortunately its too sweet for my liking. Seasons is still the best.

This shaker-fries alike potato chips looked very interesting. Its unagi flavoured with seaweed powder. But both packets of seaweed were too dried up. It's a failure on its part. The unagi chips itself were also too blend. $3+ for 52.5g pack.

Ramblings: Mood Swings

2010-02-22T20:50:00.000+08:00

This morning I was in a very good mood. That was all the way up till early afternoon. Then I guess the ang mohs at my company pissed me off, certain smses sounded way insincere etc. Then I blew it. Now at home, the kiddos are driving me insane, I get blamed for hurting them etc. Darn, soon to be 21 years old and still having mood swing. This is wrong.

Side story.

This 2 ang mohs at my company wanted to open a DBS bank account. My direct supervisors ask me to bring them there, though it's just a stone throw away. They do look that stupid though. So I led them downstairs, and because we walked out of the wrong exit (hello I'm a temp, I don't know the building that well) and they decided that they could well walk themselves to the bank. So they walked in front of me, despite my efforts to walk fast (they're ang mohs, their legs are twice the length of mine). I overheard their conversation. Without hesitation, they walked into DBS Tower 1, which is the main office. Believe me, I wanted to ignore them and just let them make a fool of themselves. But I didn't, I'm so nice.

They also mentioned something about working in a primitive environment at my company cause the screens are all so small and they'll need binoculars to see. HELLO, you use a magnifying glass for this purpose, stupid retards.