The Good Old Days

Just a quick update to refresh my blog's main page. Yes, I know I've never posted anything for over a month now already. My ultimate reason (or excuse) for my extended hiatus is largely because of my increased workload this school term. I think I'm starting to feel the strain of taking 6 courses concurrently.

OK. So, I've installed the latest Windows Live Messenger (Build 12 or something) just a couple of days ago. In short, it's atrocious. It has a gawky new interface, a substantially shriveled messaging space, a mediocre approach to displaying custom backgrounds, and worst of all, absolutely no support for sharing folders. Admittedly, I do use the sharing folders quite often. Also, I despise the way in which my contacts are labeled busy, away etc. I very much prefer the old style where Messenger simply displays a 'stop' sign or a clock, instead of assigning coloured boxes to my contacts. It's just more convenient to read symbols than coloured boxes. So just earlier today, I've reverted back to the good old Messenger 8.5. To everyone else who has not updated theirs, like many of my friends who have already done so, I strongly recommend that you do not.

Mech-nostalgia

I have also longed to play my favourite childhood game, MechWarrior 2, since last week. I remember when I was about 5 or so, the game which ran on Windows 95 was so enjoyable that even my dad used it as a pacifier to subdue my lust for going on a vacation to Sydney, Australia with the rest of my family. I guess I was too young to go on a lengthy holiday then, partly due to me leaking occasionally as I slept. But now, 13 years later, I can't seem to be able to run MechWarrior 2 on Vista or XP natively. I've heard about DOSBox, but I haven't got the time to try it yet. For those who have played the game before, here's the incredible opening scene to ring a bell:



T'ang


(image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechwarrior_2)

Here Comes Another...

I recently discovered that my free copy of ZoneAlarm Pro (I'll explain later) was causing process problems on my pc. For one, it randomly 'hangs' certain processes, such as Firefox and uTorrent, rendering such programs unusable. Worse still, it prevents the processes from closing even through Windows Task Manager's Processes tab. As a result, even when I try to restart my system, I am unable to do so; Windows is not able to end these processes and thus won't shutdown. If that ain't bad enough, whenever I put my pc on standby, the monitor will enter power-saving mode but the cpu itself wouldn't power down. After a couple of minutes, my pc would blue-screen and restart itself.

Weird.

I never expected ZoneAlarm to be the culprit. Initially, I actually blamed other programs, such as Videora and a Firefox plug-in which I both installed not long ago. This problem is actually a known one. A probable solution involving a revert to the firewall's factory defaults was believed to be able to solve this pesky issue. As anticipated, the proposed 'solution' didn't work out for me.

My copy of ZoneAlarm Pro was freely available for download during CheckPoint's 15th Anniversary. I got the download link from PC Mag's site. So effectively, I got US$39.95 worth of software for free. I wonder if I'm applicable for a full refund now.

Since ZoneAlarm Pro's uninstall, I have never seen a hung process that prevented a shutdown. Hopefully this problem wouldn't repeat itself. However, my experience with my problem-plauged pc tells me otherwise.

Screw this crap,
T'ang

Notes from the Lab

I've been learning programming using C through one of my courses this term. I initially thought that it would be a wearisome course. But right now, I actually find it quite fun (or maybe it's because it has only been the first few introductory classes). The course encompasses three, one hour lectures and a two hour lab class every week. However, the pre-lab exercises are pretty exhausting (the second took me a good 4-5 hours to complete), and there's a bothersome weekly quiz, not to mention both a written midterm and final examination! The tricky thing is that we will be required to write all the C algorithms for a given question, but we don't get a chance to test it out on a computer.

Here's a snapshot of what I've been doing this week:

(click to view full-size)

It's a really simple program created using Dev-C++ that converts a force in Newtons to pounds. I believe that I'll have to construct much more intricate programs sometime in the future.

I heard from a friend who took the course last term that the course gets progressively harder through the weeks, and that it gets real harsh near the end of the term. I certainly hope that it doesn't turn out to be the way he described it as, fingers crossed.

T'ang

Like Sound Through Water

I nearly thought my US$249.99 Ultimate Ears earphones was in need for an RMA request after I carelessly allowed a drop of water to collect on the internal components of an earpiece itself. Fortunately the water evaporated over time and the earpiece became usable once again.

Here's how it happened.

As usual on a weekly basis, I removed the silicon eartips of my earphones for a regular rinse under the faucet yesterday. Normally I would wait overnight till the eartips dried before reattaching them to the earpieces. But yesterday, I was feeling a little hasty as I wanted to use them right away. Well, I paid for that dearly.

I briefly rubbed the silicon eartips against my hand towel and connected them to the earpieces. Alarmingly, I discerned that my right earpiece's sound was noticeably louder and more profound than the left. Specifically, it was the high frequencies such as the clash of cymbals that seemed washed out. At first I thought that it was due to a lose cable connection, but after detaching and reattaching the cables, the result was merely the same. I removed the earpieces and shone them over a flashlight, and there lay the cause of the hindrance. It was a tiny water droplet residing inside the plastic canal of the left earpiece which routed sound waves from the armatures to the outside.

"Water + electrical components = recipe for destruction," I imagined.

The next logical step was to dry the earpiece of course. I placed the left earpiece face down above my computer fan as the heat and gentle air currents will help dry the earpiece out. After at least 6 hours, I tested the earphones again and alas, the sound came out crystal clear once again.

This is the short story of it though. I actually did much more than that, like using the ear-wax removal tool to be sure that there are no solid (or semi-solid) pieces of junk obstructing the canals :)

So, always remember kids: always be sure to dry your hands before you handle electronics. Well, that's one lesson I should've known years ago.

Phew,
T'ang

New Year's Post

2008. It has been a wild ride that’s for sure: 2008 was the year in which I moved to Canada; 2008 was the year in which I attended a high school; 2008 was the year in which I enrolled into a university; 2008 was the year in which I met the most Caucasians in my life; 2008 was the year in which I attempted to loose my Singlish accent and vocab; 2008 was the year in which I was finally freed from the ‘short-hair policy’ of Singapore; 2008 was the year in which inexpensive and good food was no longer accessible to me; 2008 was the year in which I got tired of English songs; 2008 was the year in which I was no longer required to wear uniforms, and the list goes on.

Now, onto my New Year’s resolutions.

I don’t think I'm a person who progresses through a list of aims and targets. I remember those days in primary and secondary school where our form teacher will force us to pen down a list of resolutions (especially our grades) on the first day of school every year. I would just write anything and everything I could think of and then chuck it aside, never to be revisited again. So, I’ll not be filling this area with phrases labeled 1,2,3 and so on. I guess my life is shaped by whatever that comes my way. Of course, there are the ‘standard’ goals of doing well in school, making new friends, staying healthy and sort. But I feel that these have come to a stage where I would say, are customary.

And so, I shall be meeting 2009 with a sense of optimism.

Bring it on!
T’ang

Operation Walküre: A Quick Look at Valkyrie, the motion picture, and the theatre where I watched it at

It’s a decent movie and is certainly not too shabby. This is especially true if you’re into Germany’s militaristic past.

The film’s supporting cast features quite a number of actors I recognize, and the Hitler in the film really does look like the real one! I loved the suspense created whenever the Führer appeared, and as expected, Tom Cruise’s acting was stupendous. I don’t think I’ll have to reveal the movie’s plot here, as you might most probably already be well informed about Stauffenberg’s failed coup d’état and plot against Hitler’s life.

The cinema itself was pretty underwhelming. I was actually expecting to watch Valkyrie in my area’s best theater. But for some reason or another, the theater was not featuring the movie there. Instead, I was told to saunter off to another nearby theater of a much lower prestige which did feature it. The theater looked eerily vacant, seemed run-down and still carried a 1980s aesthetic of having incandescent light bulbs emblazoned all over the entrance to attract viewers. However, my cinema room had a “Lucasfilm THX” logo proudly displayed just next to its entrance. At least I know that I’ll be getting a worthy cinematic experience.

On the contrary, I did not; the projector’s image was too large for the screen! In other words, the white screen left out a border on all 4 sides. Worse still, near the beginning of the presentation, the projected motion picture went awfully out of focus for a good 5 mins or so, requiring someone working for theatre to manually readjust the projector. When asked to rewind the film a little, that dude did not (I don’t think the projector is capable of doing so anyway). As a result, I missed a few minutes of the movie. What a bummer! Furthermore, a few of the seats were broken. I don’t expect them to be replaced in the foreseeable future anyway, for the theatre is simply not worthy for a renovation.

I think that THX metal plate has been there for quite some time already. It may have been placed there when THX went around certifying cinemas, and that was a long, long time ago. I just can’t believe that it’s still THX certified when almost everything has fallen into disrepair.

To sum up, I openly recommend you to catch this splendid movie. It’s too bad I couldn’t watch it the way I should have, but I do hope you will.

"Es lebe unser heiliges Deutschland!",
T’ang


(image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valkyrie_(film))

Notes from the Lab

I bought a pair of Kingston 2GB SO-DIMMs from a Best Buy Boxing Sale today. It was on sale for half the retail price, which is obviously a pretty darn good deal. I installed it without much difficulty on my brother’s 2-3 year old Dell laptop, replacing his old 533MHz, 512MB pair to the spanking new 667MHz, 2GB pair. The installation process couldn’t be easier; I just had to loosen a couple of screws, pop a cover open, release the retention brackets, remove the old sticks, slot in the new ones and replace the cover. The entire process took no longer than 5 mins.

As anticipated, Windows XP detects approximately 3.25GB of RAM installed. Some say that upgrading from 1GB to 4GB on XP wouldn’t give much of a noticeable boost in performance. However, my experience falsifies that statement. The enhancement is downright tremendous. Windows Explorer is now openly more responsive and switching between tasks is now an instantaneous process. My brother had to wait 5 mins after exiting Battlefield 2 just to allow the laptop to turn usable again. But no longer; the desktop now appears without delay upon hitting the ‘Quit’ tab.

Gaming performance has benefitted from a similar outcome; I can now run Battlefield 2 on the highest details on a 1280x800 resolution with 4x Anti-Aliasing. Previously, the laptop struggles to produce a playable frame rate with even the lowest details activated.

With DDR2 RAM prices now hitting a record low, there’s no excuse not to get more of it.

T’ang