Just a couple of months back Apple announced the tinniest, thinnest, smallest, coolest - and many ...lest Mp3 player in the world - the iPod Nano.

This thing is so incredibly small that you would think something like that would only exist in the years to come. Apple has outdone themselves again and this gadget has been pushed backwards from the future and made available to us today!

Just when the Nano is becoming my next "MUST HAVE" gadget, a flaw has been found :(

Why? Why? Why? Why must something so small have a flaw? (it rhymes!).



Apparently, the screen gets scratched by itself as this article has reported.


Therefore, the question now is : To buy or not to buy?

(pulling hair) Again, WHYYYYYYYY???

Apple, if you see this post, please respond...

Click here for more shots of cracked iPod Nano screens

Yay! the PDA (personal digital assistant) war is finally over. This is a time everyone has been waiting for - a time when enemies become allies.

For years, there has been a debate among PDA enthusiasts; whose operating system is better? Palm or Microsoft? I have always been a Microsoft supporter. With Palm not going very far with their operating system (common, you've gotta admit it - it's not as cool as Microsoft's :)).

So there, the news is out and Palm has finally decided to roll out their very first Microsoft Pocket PC enabled Palm (sounds strange) but as long as they have decided to join the Microsoft community, WELCOME PALM!

Where did I get the news from? Check this link out :
New Palm to embrace Microsoft

More soon... cheers!

Yeah I know, it's been pretty long since I last updated this blog. As a matter of fact, almost everytime I post a new entry in my blog, I would always have this first liner. Since it's become so much of a tradition, why not just say it again? :)

For those who are interested, here's a little update on what I have been up to.

For the most part, after TechEd 2005 (please read my last entry) life was pretty much all about job hunting. I should spare you the details as if I were to give you a detailed chronological list of events which occured during that period, you'll get extremely bored. The jeez of it? I've got a JOB! Yes! I'm finally employed - my first day of work? 19th September 2005!

The job hunting experience was certainly something which I would say have thought me a number of lessons. During the process, I've learned a number of things. Firstly, the balance between prestige and enjoying one's job; the balance between money and life; the balance between other's expectations of you and your own expectations. At the end of the day, everyone would want everything, fame, money, fortune (all related to $$$), great job etc. Unfortunately, you can't have everything... so choose one must (Yoda style of typing). It was during this job hunting experience; with the help of my dad, that I have learned to evaluate and came to the conclusion of the kind of job I would love to be in. It is important to LOVE one's job. There's no other way to emphasize further.

With my first "post-degree" job just around the corner, it was evident that transportation would be quite a bit of an issue as the office itself is located in the heart of Kuala Lumpur (Gold en Triangle to be exact) while my home, as most of you would already know is that I live in Cyberjaya. That's a good 30-60 minutes drive daily to work. I needed a car.

My criteria for selecting the car was that it has to be extremely fuel efficient, extremely safe and of course must look good-lah. :)

Since I've always had this little car in mind, I took my first test drive, brought my girlfriend for another test drive, took my dad for another test drive and finally, through the power of convincing, the car was purchased! This of course, wouldn't have been possible without the help of my parents who contributed greatly to the downpayment of the car; and with the convocation just around the corner, this would be my graduation gift!

With the car booked, down payment paid, what was next? What was to come was a week of documentation, approval from various transportation departments and my non-stop hasseling of the sales girl to speed up the process so that the car could be released by the day of my convocation.

With all that hasseling plenty of running around with "runners" who basically are the people who would help send your unregistered car for inspection, submission of documents, car registration etc. - the hard work has paid off and so, let's put our hands to welcome, my brand spanking new ride - the Smart fortwo Coupe!

(I promise, I'll upload some of it's pictures soon)

So there, it's been a really exciting & tiring couple of weeks / months for me since completing my degree. With my new car which got released today, graduation ceremony happening tomorrow and my exciting new job on Monday, I'm sure there are many more excitements to come.

Like my dad has always said "things can only get better" - and it's true!

Keep watching my MSN Messenger's Status Message for updates on this blog!

The past couple of days have been tiring, fun, information overload, hectic - all in one... and what does that give you? TechEd Asia 2005!

Firstly, I must thank my very very nice Mentor, Superior, Head, Coordinator, Friend - Lai Hoong Fai for being so kind to offer his Student Ambassadors passes to one of the most anticipated Technology events of the year - TechEd 2005.

The event lasted 3 + 1 days, that one day being the extra day Joseph (the other Student Ambassador) and I lend out our hands to assist the organizer with the event set-up. I won't go through all 4 days in detail but I will pick out, filter some of the interesting features of the day.

Day 1 (Setup day)
10:30am - Suntec City, Singapore
Beautiful day, met up with the lady in-charged of the event, Esther and was later met with Joseph. We were told that we will be in-charged of the Registration Counter.

TUNGGU DAN LIHAT
So registration counter it was and we were introduced to this lady by the name of Daena (I hope I got the spelling correct) who then gave us our first job - TUNGGU dan LIHAT - direct translation - WAIT and SEE, and that was all we did for the first hour or so until we found that to be a little too boring so we approached Daena.

PAPER PLAYING
A couple of minutes later, Daena came over to where we were. It was then that the fun began. Our next job involved papers. All we had to do was to fold the event schedule and have these schedules placed into individual event booklets - all 1200+ of them! For hours - if I recall correctly, we took almost 8 hours (with the help of the staff members) to have it all packed.

The game of GRAMMAR
You see, when you've got a repetitive job infront of you, once you've got it done the first time, after a couple of runs, your hands would naturally know what to do. You can literally close your eyes, perform the folding and placing the folded schedule into a docket! It was then that my mind began to wonder. A question came to me. It was, "when do we use have and when do we use had?". I posed that question to Joseph. The answer? Dunno. My answer? Dunno. So the whole day we pretended to be English Scholars / Professors disecting the English language and finding out the cause and effect for the use of certain words - the verdict? As long as it sounds right. :)

Day 2
The actual day has finally arrived. We were requested to be at the Convention hall by 7am to assist with the registrations. At 8:30, the crowd was coming in, by 9, it was a tsunami of human beings! Joseph and I were busy punching on teeny-weeny keys on those labeling machines for the creation of tags while the rest of the staff members were attending to the attendees. Mmmm... attending to the attendees... interesting.

1pm: Tsunami was over it was calm seas ahead. Daena informed Joseph and I that we were free to go.

The first TRACK
To be really honest, there were almost 150 different tracks. Some were running concurrently, some ran back to back - I have lost track of what I have attended and I haven't.

I just remember that we leaped into one, sat there (oh yes, had buffet lunch prior to that - part of TechEd) and within minutes, we were falling asleep - as a rule of thumb, we must always blame others for the sleepyness.

1. We were too tired after handling the tsunami
2. The speaker was quite monotonous
3. We had very little sleep
4. The air-cond was too cold

Anymore? Probably :)

Day 3
Arrived at Suntec, met up with Joseph and it looked like he had caught a flu. Poor dude was sneezing with boogers coming out all the time (okay lar, the booger is something I added). We went through the day with nothing spectacular to report about.

In the evening, I received a text message from Joseph saying that he had caught a flu which led to a fever. As such, he returned to Johor that very night. Hope you get well soon dude.

Here I go again, the blaming list...
1. It was too cold
2. Someone might have sneezed into his face

Day 4
Me, muah, alone in Suntec City. Unlike most of the TechEd's I've attended, this year's was a little different. Instead of having HOLs (Hands-on Labs) throughout the 3 days, only the last day did they setup the HOLs. I went through a HOL, a number of tracks, in one of the tracks, there was a preview on Vista. My take on Vista? LOVELY INTERFACE, GREAT SEARCH FEATURES, I CANNOT WAIT!

Enough of that CAPITALIZinG... now where was I? The HOL's, Tracks and Vista.

The rest of the day went on as usual until the time came for TechEd 2005 to officially end. The day ended just like any other day would but today I brought an extra thing with me - KNOWLEDGE, something which cannot be seen or felt but is just in there. Something that is so precious that even money does not compare.

Before I start sounding like a philosopher and start boring you, I shall end this post with the words "Next destination TechEd 2006!"

Finally! 3G has finally arrived into my life. I've finally embarked onto the world of 3G (3rd Generation) mobile network.

Before I talk about my experience, I shall first introduce my very first 3G-enabled phone.

WARNING - LONG LONG LONG POST AHEAD

The phone
Drums roll... "Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the bold... the beautiful Sony Ericsson K600i!"



If you ask me, the phone resembles the looks of an iPod mini - albeit souped up with a 260K colour screen, bluetooth support, video streaming support, 2 cameras (one behind, one infront) one of which is a 1.3 Megapixel camera and more.

The Experience
I've been traveling quite a bit; back and forth between Malaysia and Singapore lately. It was in Singapore that I first discovered this phone - in a retail store that is. Prior to that, I've seen the phone on various websites reviewing it's features, aesthetics appeal and the like.

Approximately 3 weeks ago I was walking around in one of my favourite shopping complexes in Singapore (Funan IT Mall) when I saw this shiny metallic looking phone prying through a glass window - the K600i in it's shiny metallic case, smoothly curved lines and of course the flat yet distinctive keys which blends into the phone's overall look and feel. It was a beauty.

In my hand was the Sony Ericsson K750i - beautiful 2.0 megapixel camera phone complete with autofocus with a black matte finish but sadly, it was not 3G enabled.

The question then was, to upgrade or not to upgrade? Or a more refined question would be should I lose the 2.0 Megapixel camera feature on my current phone for an opportunity to enter the world of 3G?

3 weeks later... (3 days ago)
I was in Singapore once again, this time with my dad. My dad asked me to suggest a phone in which he could use as a backup. You see, my dad is another gadget centric person. Recently, I believe; due to my influence, he has gone a little gadget crazed. :) I suggested the K600i, described it's features and moments later, we found ourselves at my favourite - Funan IT Mall.

The purchase
At Funan, we went to a number of phone shops. We took a look at Sony Ericsson's latest Walkman-styled mobile phone - the W800i, Motorola's latest super slim Razr V3 (don't like Motorola's interface - never did - no offence to Motorola users ;P) and a number of other Nokia phones.

We finally came to a conclusion that the K600i was the best phone for his needs - an opportunity to enter the world of 3G, a 1.3 Megapixel camera and a host of other features. As with most of our 'large' purchases, we would usually go for a cup of tea / coffee at the nearby coffee chain to relax, regather our thoughts and revisit some of the features of the product we were going to purchase just to make sure we won't make a rash decision.

During that time, I too went into thoughts of upgrading my phone. In the end, I thought to myself; what the heck, I mean, I'll lose the 2.0 Megapixel camera but I'll be getting a phone with twice the number of cameras - two is better than one right? Plus, the 3G feature would bring in a host of other possibilities I have dreamed to do - for one, it's video calls. So good bye K750i and hello K600i.

After the decision, another thought came to mind. To make video calls, I would need another person to have a 3G phone. Sure, my dad will have one but with his busy schedule I'm sure he would be more interested in finishing up his work at the office than to look at my face all day long. The solution? My girlfriend! If she gets a 3G enabled phone, we would be able to talk / view all day long while harnessing the power of 3G! I'm sure she wouldn't mind looking at my face all day long and so wouldn't I - they call this love. :)

Anyway, enough of the lovey-dovey thing, the solution was to get her a 3G phone. Moreover, Stella's been bugging me about the phone since it's debut on Sony Ericsson's website. With her birthday around a corner, buying her this phone would allow me to strike 3 birds - first, to get myself a 3G partner, her birthday gift and the to eliminate the bugging - hahahahahahahah!

What started of as a purchase of just one mobile phone became 3 - 3G enabled mobile phones - boy was the sales person happy!

The 3G experience (Singapore)
I'm known as a person who want things done quickly. The moment I got the phone, I couldn't wait to make a video call. To my dismay, I found that I will have to get my Sim Card upgraded to a 3G enabled sim card for me to begin using 3G services. It was a little depressing, but it was a good thing that I was returning to Kuala Lumpur that very day.

The experience - continued (Malaysia)
After returning from Singapore, it was rather late, so there wasn't really much hype on the phones - all I cared was sleep. So sleep it was until the next morning.

It was 10am. I jumped out of bed, all set to get all 3 SIM cards upgraded (Stella's, my dad's and mine).

12:30pm - Maxis i-Centre KLCC. I took a number, when the number was called I went to the consultant, informed her of my purpose and all 3 SIM cards were upgraded in about 30 minutes.

3G SIM Card in a 3G-enabled phone
Once I got the card, I pried open the phone, slotted in the SIM card and hit the on switch. 1 minute went by, 2 minutes went by, 5 minutes went by - but still no 3G logo. You see, 3G works a little like GPRS. When a 3G or GPRS network is detected, the phone will reveal a little logo. I went back to the consultant, she took me to a 3G specialist and he started poking about the phone's menu.

According to the 'specialist', the settings were fine. All I needed to do was wait. So wait it was. Approximately 15 minutes later, my phone showed a message saying "3G Configuration updated - please turn off and turn on your phone to begin using 3G services". My dad received a similar message on his phone. It was an ecstatic moment... 3G here we COME!

My first video call
Immediately, I dialled my dad's number, it was pretty simple, really; all I needed to do was to key in the number and instead of pressing the call button, I hit the 'video call' button and that was it!

Seconds later, my dad's phone started ringing, my phone revealed the video call screen. First, the audio came through then it was VIDEO. The feeling was indescribable! We started chatting while talking to our phones. It was rather strange as we were just meters a part and to the people around us, all they see are two people talking and smiling to their phones - but to heck with it, we are using the LATEST if not COOLEST technology around... 3G :)

Watching LIVE TV on my phone...
In my opinion, Maxis has one of the best 3G services available in the market. It had partnered with it's sister company Astro to provide live video content to it's 3G subscribers. For more information, visit Maxis' 3G Website. They've got live video content ranging from hitz.tv (a local MTV styled-channel), news channels ranging from CNN to BBC World, LIVE video feed on the traffic condition of major roads in Kuala Lumpur and loads loads more.

My first pick was CNN... I surfed to a WAP site created by Maxis for their 3G subscribers, hit news channels, clicked CNN and within seconds (almost without buffering) the live feed was shown in all it's glory.

CNN - on my little mobile screen. The stream was smooth without the frequent rebuffering of the video which is common in slow connections. On the overall, the video quality was great, audio was great - albeit on the soft end - i think it's the phone's problem (I'm looking forward to a firmware upgrade). Just to illustrate the quality of the feed, even with the puney screen that I have on my phone, I could actually see the tiny scrolling text at the bottom of the screen - it's THAT SHARP! and SMOOTH!

Cost of maintaining a 3G phone...
When it comes to charges, Maxis has done a pretty good job in that area. The best part about these live video channels is that Maxis doesn't charge you according to the amount of data you download through streaming these channels. All they charge is a fixed monthly fee (according to which channel package you subscribe to) and that's it!

As for the video calls - Maxis' answer? As per normal voice calls! That's 30 cents/minute for those on the pro-talk plan and 15 cents/minute for those on the m-Style 75/138/238/500 plans!

So if you plan to own a 3G phone and you're subscribed to another provider other than Maxis, it's time to SWITCH! - Maxis, you'd better pay me marketing/promotion fees for this :)

What's next?
I've tried streaming live video through 3G and making video calls. The next step would surf through 3G connetion speeds on my notebook and to experiment with the endless possibilities of 3G...

So if you have my mobile number and you've also joined the 3G clan, let's start 3G-ing today! Why stick with the old method of voice-only communication when we can have video calls in full colour!

Just a note, I have yet to sell my K750i. If you are interested, please do not hesitate to contact me. I'm offering it at a CHEAP and AFFORDABLE RM1,400.

If you don't have my number, do add me to your MSN Messenger list, my ID is registered with the e-mail address benjern@hotmail.com.

The past couple of weeks had been hectic - filled with plenty of driving between Malaysia and Singapore and the completion of my client's website.

With all that settled, I'm finally ready for the next step - job hunting.

I've applied for countless number of jobs. Since Thursday (11th August 2005), I've applied for no less than 10 jobs. Interesting eh? It was a day filled with non-stop filling of web based forms - I never knew online job application forms were so lengthy!

Now that it's done, all I can do now is wait.

Let's hope I'll get an interview soon! Wish me all the best!

I'll keep you posted...

It has certainly been quite a number of weeks since I last updated my blog. For that, I truly apologize.

I have just been busy traveling up and down between Malaysia and Singapore. So much so that I almost feel like a PR of Singapore! The traveling along shouldn't suffice as a reason for my lack of update. What really got me busy is an e-commerce site which I have been developing for a client of mine. I have had the project pending long enough - mainly due to the stress and tight timelines of assignments and the following examinations during my final semester with Monash University.

I'm pleased to say that it is all done now and the site is finally up. When you are free, please pay the site a visit at www.pengallery.com.

Now that I'm done with most the things which I have left pending, I am ready for a job hunt. First, I'll have to update my resume and begin my job hunting escapade.

Oh yes, before I forget, a thought that has been buzzing around my head is this really really really nice, SMART looking, ADORABLE car - PACKED with LOADS and LOADS of safety features!





What do you think? :)

More updates coming up!

If you have been reading my other posts on Desktop Search Applications from Apple's Spotlight, Google's Desktop Search to MSN Desktop Search.

Today, I'm proud to announce that there is one hidden feature (not exactly hidden, really) but this is one feature that would make your desktop search experience a GAZILLION times better. Over the past couple of months, I have been ranting about how annoying it is for Desktop Search Engines from Google and Microsoft for not being able to update it's search index quick enough. Meaning to say, after creation of a file or document on your computer, it would take sometime before the desktop search engine recognizes the new file and adds that into it's index - this would typically take a couple of minutes to a couple of hours dependant on your computer's usage.

Fortunately, the Microsoft has been listening and thus a tiny little option has been created. I'm not sure about the older versions of MSN Desktop Search but I recently discovered this option which would solve the problem I mentioned earler. If you don't have the latest version of MSN Desktop search, just drop by MSN Toolbar's website and download the utility. It comes with both the latest version of MSN Desktop Search and adds tab browsing capability to your Internet Explorer browser.

All you've got to do is the following:



1. If you don't have MSN Desktop Search GO DOWNLOAD :P
2. Right click on that little magnifying glass icon on your system tray (the one with your clock - bottom right)
3. Click "Desktop Search Options..."
4. Under the "Desktop Search" node - expand it to reveal the "Advanced Section"
5. Enable "Prioritize Indexing"

Once you have done all that, MSN Desktop Search will be SOOOOO ACCURATE and UP TO DATE that you'll do double back flips :P

Anyway, with all the positive remarks, there is a little drawback that I didn't tell you. Now that we have enabled the "Prioritize Indexing" option, MSN Desktop Search will continuously monitor your drive's activity - to ensure that it keeps it's index up-to-date at all times - with this continuous monitoring, your machine's performance might slow down.

With that said however, I'm running MSN Desktop Search with this option enabled on a Notebook computer with 512MB RAM, a 40GB Hard Disk and an Intel Centrino processor. I haven't really noticed any lag.

Either way, give this thing a try, you'll be amazed by the search results. If your computer can sustain such intensive monitoring, why not? :P

Enjoy! :P It's official - Google Desktop Search has now been removed from my machine. Yay! Good bye plain interface, welcome to a world where aesthetics rule :)

The time has finally come. It's been, what seemed to be a very very very long time - three years to be exact.

I still remember the time when I decided to switch my full-time job of being a producer of the Hitz.fm Late Net Show (a radio show in Malaysia) to something part-time - the voice of TGV Cinemas. Spotting pretty lengthy hair, there I was in Monash University Malaysia - a junior.

Just three years down the line - I have arrived at yet another milestone in my life, a point where I'll be embarking myself into a journey of the working world.

I am proud to say that:

I AM FINALLY A GRADUATE!

I HAVE DONE IT!

The feeling is incredible. My heart was thumping as I was logging on to the online results page to view the results. The page revealed and there I was - speechless - moments later, tears of joy were formed as I slowly accepted the fact that I have graduated from Monash University Malaysia.

My thank you's goes firstly to God for everything, my parents for supporting me throughout, m sayang, my friends in Monash University Malaysia and last but not least to all the lecturers who have been extremely helpful.

Another incredible life experience gone through - next stop - job hunting!

Okay, I was super excited when I read an article reviewing Microsoft's first attempt in enabling it's browser with tab-browsing.

I got so excited that I didn't even have the time to download the 'plug-in' and have it tested on my machine prior to posting this entry.

This so called 'plug-in' is not exactly a plug-in per say. It is actually a little enhancement that's built into Microsoft's latest Popup blocker + Search toolbar - MSN Toolbar.

Once you get the latest version of this toolbar installed, have the browser restarted and voila! - Internet Explorer 6.0 with tab-browsing!



I can't believe its out. I can finally push Mozilla aside. For me, when it comes to research - especially when I need to open multiple web pages on one go, I would go for Mozilla's Firefox browser - as a matter of fact, that's the only thing I like about that browser.

Now that I have tab-browsing enabled in IE - it's time to say sooooo long... Firefox.

Next step - User experience, let's see how Microsoft has implemented the tab-browsing feature in IE. There are still questions left to be answered:

Will it be user friendly?
Will it have seamless integration with the browser since it's just an add-on?

More soon...

Yes, I admit it. I want everyone to know about it. It's my birthday today (9th of July) and what better place to place my announcement than my very own blog? :)

The past couple of years have been speeding past. First I was 21 and now, I'm 23! Okay, not officially yet, I think I'm a couple of hours short (if the time is based on this post).

So here it goes...

Image from GettyImages.com

Happy Birthday to Ben Jern
Happy Birthday to Ben Jern
Happy Birthdaaayyyy to Ben Jern
Happy Birthday to Ben Jern

TWENTY-THREE CANDLES
how great is that? the cake hasn't arrived, but i think it would be cool to have 23 candles on the cake instead of 2 big ones and 3 smaller ones

What do you think?

More on this BIG day soon :)

Jeez... how 'perasan' am I ~ closest translation I can get to that is 'how shameless can I be?' :)

I was woken up at 9:30 this morning, got a call from my dad asking me about some server upload and download questions.

After the questions, I headed over to my sister's notebook. The moment I got it started, it (OS X) began to load the startup applications - one of which was MSN Messenger for Mac. It got loaded but for some strange reason, it insisted on not connecting to the MSN Messenger network. Her iBook has been giving erratic WiFi problems. As such, I attributed the issue to her wireless connectivity.

I then returned to my room, turned on my notebook, pumped up MSN Messenger and true enough I got this message:



There are only two reasons to this:
1. The MSN Messenger Service has 'left' the Internet
2. My broadband connection is down again

After much troubleshooting, it was obvious. Everything else was loading correctly, connection to the Internet was as fast as ever. With option 2 down, the Internet's worst fear has dawned upon us - MSN Messenger has left the Internet!

It's amazing how reliant we have become of a simple messaging client - MSN Messenger. Without MSN Messenger, we are ALONE on the Internet.

1. No more seeing friends online
2. No more publishing your status - on what you have been doing
3. No more annoying your friends with Winks / Nudges
4. No more sending files to your friend in real-time
5. No more sharing desktop apps
6. No more games via MSN
7. No more dressing up / accessorizing up your meego and placing it on MSN
8. No more letting your own meego see the world
9. and the list goes on and on and on...

MSN Messenger, dear MSN Messenger, when will thou return to us...

I've been travelling up and down between Singapore and Malaysia; so much so that I have lost track of the developments in Malaysia.

I was helping Stella to shower the 4 pups when Stella turned on the radio. It sounded pretty good. Latest hits non-stop, back-to-back and strangely - no ads. At first, I thought it was one of those Live365 stations which I subscribed to and Stella was just broadcasting the music from a nearby notebook using an FM Transmitter.

After showering the pups, I took a peek at the station's frequency and it showed "95.8FM". It wasn't one of the presets on the FM Transmitter so it couldn't have been broadcasting from the notebook.

Later, the radio station's ID was played and it mentioned "Sky FM". After much research on the Internet, I found that the station was operated by KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) and it is one of KLIA's efforts in becoming a world class airport by offering one of a kind services - in this case, being the first airport in the world to operate it's own radio station.

If you live within the vicinity of Kuala Lumpur, do tune in - 95.8FM. ZERO ads... finally... or at least for now :)

It's one of those times when a friend gives me a call and asks for assistance in reformatting a brand spanking new notebook followed by a complete reinstall of all the device drivers, applications and an upgrade to a Pro edition of Windows XP.

This time around, it's a brand spanking new Dell (yes, I like the word spanking) and the task was to format the machine which has Windows XP Home Edition installed and have a fresh new copy of Windows XP Professional installed along with Visual Studio .NET 2003 and a number of other apps.

You see, the task of reformatting, the installation of apps and device drivers are very common events in the life of a person who is in touch with his / her computers. Occassionally, these machines can drive you crazy due to strange and unknown circumstances. This was exactly what the Dell did.

The machine was beautiful. Nice and WIDE WXGA screen, nice specs, bluetooth, wifi, multimedia buttons and such. Built quality is perhaps one of the best I have seen in notebooks. At least when you start opening and closing the lid, you don't get squeeks like what I get on my Compaq - all you get is a smooth, light, yet solid feel. Before I digress further, making myself sound like some Dell salesman, let's get into the meat of this post.

The installation
There were a fleet of applications waiting to be installed into this baby. All went in smoothly, it started with Windows XP Pro, a service pack upgrade to SP2, installation of the various device drivers, Microsoft Office, Symantec Security / Antivirus solution and finally came Visual Studio .NET 2003 - this is when everything halted.

For those who are familiar with the installation of Visual Studio .NET 2003, you would recall having at least 6 CDs for the installation. The first one is the requisites disc, this is then followed the application itself (2 discs) and another 3 for the MSDN Library.

I popped in the Requisites Disc, clicked install and the process halted - indefinitely. I tried many things, restarting the machine, reinstalling - but still to no avail.

So after all those hours (4 hours approximately) spent on the prior installations, the last resort was to reformat the machine go through all that installation again.

So here I am, Visual Studio .NET 2003 has finally been installed (this time, I got the application installed before upgrading Windows to SP2). Approximately 2 hours down, 2 more to go? :) I've been staring on that machine for almost 6 hours... let's just hope I don't get those funny glitches anymore.

Update - the following day Sunday (1340hrs)
I'm awake. Just got up from bed. Yesterday (erm or shall I say this morning?) was quite an experience. The installation lasted all the way until 11:20pm and that's a total of 9 hours staring at the Delll. Progress? Mixed. Everything went well until I installed Symantec's Internet Security Suite 2005. 11:20pm, just minutes away from my long anticipated movie (yes, I forgot to mention that I was doing this instsallation at 1 Utama - Dome Cafe, simply because I reserved tickets for a movie called War of the Worlds; more on the movie later).

After installation of Symantec's suite, everything slowed down, internet applications started to act funny, further installation of software halted. This was BAD.

Since I paid a pretty hefty price for my movie tickets (RM 70 - 2 tickets for the Gold Class), I told myself, I'm going to enjoy this. I bid my friend good bye, told her that I'll be taking custody of the notebook for the night and promissed that her notebook will be ready before her flight at 10am today.

Stella and I left for the movie and yes, Gold Class was certainly Gold Class. It was comfortable, clean, plenty of leg room, you could literally lie on the leg room they have for you. Let's just say, it's like a First Class airplane experience with more room and certainly a MUCH LARGER screen ahead of you.

Since this post wasn't really meant for a movie review, I shall just give a super short take on the movie. Fantabulous sound effects, visual effects and plenty of exciting scenes. There were mixed reviews of this movie. The friend (Sylvia) whom I am fixing the notebook for, claims that it wasn't great. In my opinion, it was erm... perhaps not the best Steven Spielberg movie I have watched but certainly worth the money.

Anyway, back to the notebook. Movie lasted till about 2+. Got home and started troubleshooting. The problem? It was a no-brainer, "Symantec Internet Security 2005". This Symantec thing is actually a suite of Symantec's applications which include Norton Antivirus, Norton AntiSpam, Norton Firewall and so on - intergrated into one application / interface called Symantec Internet Security.

I uninstalled the application and the machine literally came back to life again. No more hiccups, smooth installation of applications, Internet applications started working again. I was telling myself, there has to be something I can do to fix this. A big company such as Symantec couldn't have created such a CRAPPY software.

Since I had quite a bit of Windows Updates to perform and a number of other apps to installed, I went through all the updates, installations and re-installed Symantec's app last.

IT WORKED!

It was almost 5:30am. Stella and I delivered the notebook to our friend's place, she thanked us profusely, we said our "all the best's", "take care's" and off we went for BREAKFAST!

The meal? Best porridge in Malaysia's China Town. The streets were clear, traffic lights were green and it was smooth sailing all the way to our destination. We had porridge with pork balls, century eggs and raw fish. It was great. Arrived home at approximately 7am

Took a shower and hit the bed.

As Yoda would say : "A long day, it has been
and I would reply : "indeed, indeed"

To my friend in Australia - Saliva Binti Mohd Dewi (not her actual name) have a GREAT TIME IN the land of Kangaroos and Koala Bears! Study hard, play hard and have plenty of FUN! See you back here in exactly 15 weeks!

Good spanking morning Malaysia! It's 10:48pm and I'm all pumped up and ready for a change.

No, I'm not going for some plastic surgery or anything like that. My change, although physical has nothing to do with knives. It will take sometime, but I'm sure it will pay off.

For the past couple of months, I have been binging like some crazy monkey locked up in a cage with tons and tons of bananas. So there, I've been putting on weight and it's obvious. Many people that I have met from my family members, to relatives to friends have claimed that I have put on weight. Some just say "Ben, did you grow bigger?" - just to be nice or some would be straight off blunt and go "Ben, did you put on SOME weight?". Just like good ole' pumba from the Lion King, I'm a sensitive soul BUT I shall do something about it.

I trust that I have put on at least 5kgs during the past couple of months so today, I'm going to gear up, return to my beloved gym - Fitness First and lose those unwanted kgs...

Personally, this gym thing and this weight thing isn't all about being vain, wanting to look good or something like that; of course, that's partially the case but mostly, it's the health benefits that come with it. Imagine this, I used to be able to walk up flights of stairs without breaking a sweat. Today, you'll see me panting all the way up. That does explain something doesn't it?

So there, in front of all you nice people who have been reading my blog, I shall vow to have

1. NO MORE sugary drinks (soda's in particular)
2. NO MORE fattening foods
3. to hit the gym at least 5 times a week
4. to enrol myself into a proper gym program

Bring on the GYM!

The time has arrived. It's the time of the year when I increase the counter which keeps track of the number of mobile phones I have own. The only problem is that I don't exactly recall how many phones I have owned. All I know is that it has peaked over 50 - if my calculations are correct, this should be phone number 55 or 56. Or is it?

Anyway, here is what I got. For those who has been my blog, you would have heard of my excruciating problems with Sony Ericsson's S700i. The problems persisted and I could not hold on any longer. The solution? A BRAND SPANKING NEW... Sony Ericsson K750i!

Okay, some of you may ask, since you had such a bad experience with the S700i, why would you purchase another phone from the same company? The issue, in my opinion does not lie with Sony Ericsson, the brand itself. The brand, as a matter of fact is GREAT. I have always been a Sony Ericsson fan. If I recall correctly I have used at least 10 Sony Ericsson phones. All of which, with exception for the last one was nothing less than GREAT! These phones are packed with features and looks GREAT.

Enough of me blabbering about Sony Ericsson the brand. Let's focus on my black, sleek and beautiful Sony Ericsson K750i as pictured below.



If you've been keeping up-to-date with the mobile phone arena, you would have heard of the array of features the K750i offers.

Here's a quick overview of the features

• 2.0 Megapixel Camera - with Auto-focus - YES! It actually focuses just like a normal camera!
• Brilliant colour screen
• 64MB Memory Stick Duo - supports up to 1GB
• Built-in radio
• Built-in video editor (they call it Video DJ)
• Built-in ringtone composer (not the Nokia type - it actually has drums, trumpets and such!)
• Mann... it'll take me forever to list the features

Anyway, those were just some of the published features. Here's my personal take on the phone.

The box... I shall say is nothing spectacular... just good ole' regular Sony Ericsson style. What's inside was pretty nice...

• 64MB Memory Stick Duo (along with an adaptor to convert the miniaturized memory stick to the size of that of a regular memory stick)
• USB Data Cable - FINALLY!
• and of course, the usuals, the phone itself, manuals, battery and charger.

There is one thing which I really liked about Sony Ericsson mobile phones; and that's connectivity. I've always had no problems sending ringtones, pictures and the like from my notebook to the phone, vice versa and my phone to other phones. Unlike some Samsung or Nokia phones where propreitary software is required for transfer. The key advantage of Sony Ericsson is that they follow industry standards... from bluetooth to the basic infra-red data transfer protocol.

The K750i has followed Sony Ericsson's tradition. This time, they've added an even more innovative idea. Since the phone is capable of using a 1GB memory stick duo, why not change it into a portable storage drive? That's exactly what Sony Ericsson did. Plug in the K750i and it appears just like any other thumb drive.

Another thing I liked about this phone is user-upgradable firmware. If you have owned a Nokia, Samsung or any other mobile phone brands for that matter, you would have experienced faulty firmware, causing the phone to hang, suck up too much battery and the like... requiring you to send the phone back to an authorized service centre for a phone upgrade.

As a matter of fact, the user-upgradable firmware feature was incorporate in most if not all Sony Ericsson phones created or released into the market after the the release of the Sony Ericsson P900 (PDA Phone). All the user is required to do is to have the relevant data cable / docking station (in my case - the USB cable which came with my phone will do), log on to Sony Ericsson's support site, hit "firmware upgrade" and 20 minutes later, your phone is flashed with the latest firmware. So no more waiting in queues and long drives to the service centres.

Go Sony Ericsson go! I'll be posting pictures and videos taken with my brand spanking beloved phone REAL soon...

I am a music person. I love music. Music regenerates me. Music puts me in the mood. Music changes my mood.

A couple of months back, I discovered this site called Live365.com. This site lists thousands among thousands of community run online radio stations. Literally any genre you can think of is there - POP, ROCK, SOUL, LOVE, DISNEY... everything and anything!

The best part of this service is that the service is FREE, supported by ads of course, but if you don't feel kiamsiap (chinese word meaning stingy) and are willing to spend USD4.95 for a monthly subscription, you get ALL the stations in near-CD Quality (I really can't tell the difference between CD and near-CD) that are completely AD free.

Just logon to live365.com and experience it. You don't have to pay a single cent, that is if you don't crave for ad-free and near-CD Quality stations. :) If you do, it's just ~RM19. That's just 2 Starbucks drinks!

Enjoy!

Live life. Live a life with music.

Lately, I found myself getting a little paranoid when it comes to typing e-mails, typing a post for my blog or even having a casual verbal chat with friends.

I learned that I have become extremely dependant on Microsoft Word's infamous grammar correction tool. All I do is blab and rely on Microsoft Word's grammar correction utility to inform me when grammatical errors occur. This paranoia thing doesn't happen to me when I'm using Word to type out my assignments. It only happens when I type an e-mail or document using a standard text-box on the web or through web-based e-mail interfaces.

Instead of just jabbering all the way when typing or verbally chatting with people around me, I have this tendency to repeat the words that I have spoken or typed in my head and actively seek for grammatical errors. At first, it was fine but now, it's gotten to a point where its beginning to be a little annoying and stressful to say the least.

Just imagine yourself chatting with a friend and seconds later, you're repeating that whole to yourself; in search for grammatical errors - it's mind boggling.

There are two things that will be an outcome of this.

1. I become super proficient in grammar
2. I go mad :P

Neither option seems positive enough for me. Instead, I'll create an OPTION THREE... NOT LET THIS HAPPEN. Of course, given a situation where I am required to pick from one of the two, I'll pick the first one :)

So what am I going to do about this? Whenever words repeat in my head, I TELL MYSELF TO RELAX and try not to be too dependant on Word's grammar check feature.

Is this happening to everyone or is it just me?

It's pretty amazing. PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) has been around for quite sometime now but it's only today that it caught my interest.

I have downloaded, installed then uninstalled the PGP software countless number of times. It could be perhaps I didn't exactly understand how the software worked - or I simply had too little friends or shall I say ZERO friends who are using PGP.

I have recently renewed my interest for PGP after going through a semester's worth of a Security unit. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) was one of the main topics - in there were examples of PGP and how the entire thing worked. Sure I knew the basics of the PKI but when you study this technology in detail - it is when the beauty shows. It's amazing how simple yet complex and secure the infrastructure is with applications in a myriad of areas... ranging from SSL to signing of digital documents and the like.

With the PKI knowledge that I have gained throughout the course, I have decided to join into the world of cryptography by having a copy of PGP installed and creating my very first - OFFICIAL key pair.

Step 1: The download experience
It took sometime before I managed to get a "FREE" copy of PGP. I went to pgp.com and was a little let down to find that the entire - freeware section was gone. That would mean NO FREE PGP for me and the possibility that I might be required pay for the tool. Going through the product catalogue, I found that the cheapest version availabe, the Personal Desktop Edition costs USD 99! Converted to Malaysian ringgit, that's a WHOOPING RM 380! (approximately).

I was on a roll. I needed a copy of PGP installed and I wanted it badly - however, the idea of forking out RM 380 for satisfying a possibly temporary crave does not justify anything. I searched the web, keyed in "FREE PGP" and out comes "The PGP International" webpage with outdated links to a free version of PGP 8.0 at pgp.com. Upon clicking the link, I was brought to the "Trial version of PGP 9.0".

After a thorough reading of the page, I discovered that although they only provided a trial version of PGP 9.0, after the 30 days trial period, the product will revert to a much simpler form with some of the advance features disabled - only retaining some of the more basic functions such as creating encrypted archives, signing and encrypting text, decrypting archives / text and the maintenance of keys.

So there, downloaded the app, got it installed, selected the "stripped down" version during installation (I don't need those additional features) and whoala! It's done.

Step 2: Do you trust me?
Anyone can create a public key pair and claim themselves to be Bill Gates, Bill Clinton or George Bush. All they need is to key in "Bill Gates" during the keypair creation process. So the issue here is, how can these people verify that I am who I claim to be? PGP's solution was it's web of trust, the idea where keys can be "signed" by associates, friends and such. Once the key is signed, the key can be seen to be more "authentic". For instance, if you trust me, know that I am the real Ben and signed my key, your friends who know you would trust me because my key was signed by you.

Ultimately, if you have PGP - please sign my key. You can look me up from https://keyserver.pgp.com/ - just search for benjern@gmail.com.

Step 3: I need friends to use PGP with
No one that I know at the moment uses PGP. So if you have PGP do send me a copy of your public key to my e-mail address. Don't worry, I won't spam you or anything. It's just nice to see my PGP Key Library filled with addresses :)

If you don't have PGP, go grab a copy of PGP 9.0 from here.

Enjoy and bring on the world of ENCRYPTION...

It's sad but it's true. I have been meaning to post this entry. As a matter of fact, I have posted quite a number of entries regarding the ever competitive world of Desktop Search. This time, it's another development and it will certainly change the way you look at MSN's Desktop Search.

The three competing products that I have experienced was OS X Tiger's Desktop Search (Spotlight), Google's Desktop Search and Microsoft's MSN Desktop Search.

One of the most frustrating bits about this desktop search technology was that it doesn't index documents in real-time - that is the moment a file is created or copied into the hard disk, the file will not be included in the search results until much later.

This was an issue that Spotlight took note of and had it resolved. Kudo's to the Apple people.

In the PC world, Google was one of the few to release beta versions of their Desktop Search software and during the beta stage, this problem persisted, documents created couldn't be found in real-time, it took sometime before the utility recognized the newly created or copied files. So imagine this, you have recently typed one of the longest masterpieces in your novel writing career, got the file saved and for some reason forgot where you saved the file. Google Desktop search; during it's beta release wouldn't be able to find that file. You'll have to leave the computer idle for a bit, say 10-15 minutes, before you can get the newly saved file included in the search results.

This problem was not only occuring in Google's Desktop Search (Beta) but also Microsoft's Desktop Search (Beta).

A couple months have passed and being pro-Microsoft when it comes to software apps, I got my system installed with the latest release of Microsoft's Desktop Search. The problem persisted. The only way to get around it was to force the Desktop Search application to "reindex" the drive to ensure all newly created files are indexed. This, I thought was a feasable solution until I discovered that Google have released the latest version of their Desktop Search. I heard from a friend that Google's Desktop Search was intelligent enough and he had no such problems in searching for newly created files.

I got Google Desktop Search downloaded and had it run side by side Microsoft's offering. I created a file on the desktop and immediately searched for the newly created file through Google's engine and true enough - it was INCLUDED in the INDEX! I then tried MSN Desktop Search - and no results were found. This speaks plenty. Google's Desktop Search is more intelligent and constantly scans the drive for new files while Microsoft's offering doesn't.

My questions is WHY??? One thing for sure, Microsoft's offering has a much more intuitive interface but takes longer to load and does not provide realtime monitoring of the drive while Google's offering provides a much simpler (but not necessarily good) interface but has faster loading times and constantly monitors the drive.

So what do I have now? I have got both Google and Microsoft's offering running side by side. This way, I get the best of both worlds, when I do not need to search for files created less than a day ago, I will use Microsoft's offering to take advantage of its highly intuitive user interface while Google will be used to search for files created within the day.

My message to the development teams of both tools...

Microsoft
Great interface but PLEASE work on faster startup times and monitoring of files
Google
The search is great... but PLEASE work on the interface

I have finally gone through all four papers. It feels very good to have all that examination stress lifted off me. It was quite scary, during the examination period; whenever I took naps I would have this voice inside my head telling me "go studyy.... go studdyyy... go studddyy...".

Now that it's all over. I'm relieved. All that is left now is to leave the rest to God and pray for the best.

It's been an extremely long day. Right after the paper, I left for a long needed hair-cut, had dinner with a friend, Azim who just returned from the US, had an extremely long chat with him and headed for a movie.

Batman - The Beginning - it was called. Do you notice that the current trend seems to be moving back in time? With movies such as Star Wars that goes all the way back to Episodes 1, 2 and 3 and now, we've got Batman - the beginning - the story of how the legendary hero came about. I wonder what's next...

The movie was great. 8 out of 10 perhaps? :)

I'm pretty worn out - time to go to bed. More soon...

Finally... and this time, let's hope I hear no more voices telling me to go study.

Good night... or shall I say... Good Morning... :)

Today marks the beginning of the examination period.

Of the four examination papers I am set to sit for, I have finally gone through one...

• MKW 3444 - International Marketing (6th June 2005)
• GCO 3601 - Infrastructure for Electronic Commerce (14th June 2005)
• MKW 2402 - Consumer Behaviour (15th June 2005)
• MGW 2230 - Organisational Behaviour (16th June 2005)

It's one down, three more to go... SMOOOOTH SAILING ALL THE WAY BABY!

Wish me all the BEST!

* sorry, this post was meant to be posted before 12 midnight, it was meant for the 6th of June 2005.

Introducing the four poochateers - up close and PERSONAL!



Seen here is what we believe is the eldest poochateer of the four. His uncanny abilities? Hand and leg movements... and therefore, we shall temporarily call him - "Beethoven"

A video dedicated to his movements will be posted REALLY soon... :)

The poochateer who has more black patches than the rest...

The light brown poochateer - temporarily known as "Garfield" - thanks to my sis :P

The poochateer with a little dot on the head... - temporarily known as "Darth Vader"... :)

It's finally done. Amidst the increasing tension of the upcoming exams, I told myself, this I had to do. I decided to record a video of both my beloved dog and her puppies and had the video encoded for the world to see.

So there, presenting Girl Girl and her 4 erm... boys? :)



Hit play and make sure your speakers are turned on!

Enjoy...

After a good 2 months of labour, our beloved dog, Girl Girl has given birth to 4 healthy puppies!

Names and genders are currently unknown. We have not held the babies yet - apparently, mummy would get over protective.

You are welcome to suggest names for the puppies in the comments section!

Girl Girl with one of her puppies right beneath her...

Girl girl and her puppies...

Close-up shots of her puppies...

More close-up shots of her puppies...

I heard over the radio today that Proton might just be launching yet another model. To me, anything new is exciting. As with anything new, there are always the trust-worthy spies armed with a spy camera or a device as simple as a mobile phone camera who would manage to snap a picture or two.

In an effort to seek for these pictures, I went online and started searching. Within minutes - there it was - staring me in the face were pictures of the code named "SRM" - Satria Replacement Model.




Pictures from autoweek.nl

If you were to ask me, the car looks pretty sleek. Proton seems to be bringing in some pretty good talents as far as design is concerned. With aesthetics taken cared of, all that is left now is quality control.

With Proton's competitive priced + great aesthetics + great quality cars, Proton is certainly heading towards a brighter future.

Apart from the SRM, there were also rumours of a replacement for the least successful "Tiara" - ironically code named - TRM (Tiara Replacement Model) - I'll keep an eye on this.

Bring on SRM and TRM!

Just returned from, in my opinion, one of the goriest movies I have ever watched.



It's blood everywhere... wax everywhere and a host of torture instruments.

So if you like Paris Hilton or Chad (One Tree Hill Dude) or simply love bloody scenes or all three, this is a must watch.

Movie ranking? 6 1/2 out of 10 - it's just too gory for me. If you enjoy gory and bloody scenes - you'll probably give it a 7 1/2 out of 10. Go watch the movie, tell me how you rank it!

If you own Apple's OS X 10.3.9 (Panther) and have been oogling over OS X 10.4's (Tiger) Widgets - fear not, Amnesty is here.

Amnesty, similar to Konfabulator (mentioned in an older post) allows you to run the infamous widgets on pre-Tiger OS Xs.

The only problem with Konfabulator was that it was unable to recognize widgets created specifically for OS X Tiger. So if you were to download some widgets from Apple's Widget site, it simply wouldn't work with Konfabulator.

The solution? Amnesty! Amnesty allows you to run OS X Tiger specific widgets on OS X Panther (10.3.9) by creating an environment similar to that of Dashboard where the widgets could "LIVE" in.



Only problem? Amnesty doesn't work with Windows nor versions of OS X older than 10.3.9 (Panther). If you are in these two categories of operating systems, Konfabulator would be the best alternative.

If you have OS X Panther (10.3.9) installed, go grab a copy of Amnesty today and start enjoying Apple's version of widgets!

The title tells one thing. I have not been spared by the Star Wars craze.

That said, this post has nothing to do with Star Wars but my phone. The incessant restarting phone. This I shall say is the second installment of my story - a sequel to episode I.

In a galaxy far far away...
Ben finally purchased the docking station / data cable which would allow him to upgrade his Sony Ericsson S700i's firmware. After a successful firmware upgrade using the newly purchasing docking station, Ben finally thought, it was all over - the incessant restarting phone will finally turn into a perfect communication device - a gadget worth every cent and worth every effort made to have it fixed.

1 week later...
The phone has been doing pretty well. No restarts, as a matter of fact, due to the firmware upgrade there were a number welcoming improvements.

Then it started all over again. The phone restarts. I couldn't believe my eyes! After all that effort, and forking out over RM200 for a docking station, the phone still restarts! I was beginning to lose faith in the phone. Immediately, a call was made to Sony Ericsson's Service Centre, from there, I spoke to a senior officer and had my problem related to him.

The solution?
Has yet to be found. I shall now wait patiently for something "GREAT" to happen. As Master Yoda would say, "patience it is, my young padewan".

Keep an eye on this post. I'll update the moment I get a "GREAT" response :)

Since my vow not to step into campus, I have been left in quarantine mode - leaving myself and my Shingles (which, is going away pretty rapidly).

I am not so much of a TV person. I am more of a gadget person. I need buttons to press... not the ones on the remote-control that is, buttons on devices such as mobile phones, mp3 players, iPods, digital camera's, keyboards - you get the idea.

Aside from completing my last assignment this semester, I have been thinking of changing the face of my blog. At first, I thought of redesigning the entire template all by myself. With the design out, I found that it was way easier to design the template than to actually implement it. Blogger has some specific rules and tags which seems completely alien to me.

What I did was to scour the web for a template, found one from Blogger Templates, got it implemented onto my blog and from there, I had the coding modified and added a nice little picture of myself, Stella (my girlfriend) and our dog (girl girl - who is incidentally pregnant and should be giving birth to 3-4 puppies in the next 1 week or so).

So there! You hate it? You like it? Post your comments! This is version 1.0, so please, bear with me :)

Cheers!

It's been 3 days since I had myself diagnosed of having shingles (if you don't know what I'm talking about, read the last few posts).

It's been healing. The little "pimples" have semi-dried up and I trust that it would be time to return to campus. I haven't been to classes for the past 2 days - I miss campus... OK to be really honest - I feel guilt.

So there I was heading for campus early this morning, arrived, fresh environment of people moving around (you see, I have been "caged" or shall I say "quarantined" in my home and all I see is my dog, my room and Stella - when she's not out and about).

I headed for my first tutorial of the day. Since it was nearing an assignment dateline, the tutor gave students some time to roam about and work on their individual assignments. Everytime a student came near me I would say "WAIT! Have you had chicken pox???" - and they would go "Erm... Yes/No, WHY?" and I would go "erm.. nothing...".

You see, the word Shingles sounds REALLY SCARRY. It sounds like a life threatening virus. A virus which would kill. The fact is, yes, it could kill, if not taken cared of - and can spread, causing chicken pox to those who have not had chicken pox.

After conquering the first class, I felt that I was prepared to move on and this shingles thing will not hinder me from the rest of the classes.

As I have missed Monday's and Tuesday's classes, I decided to drop by a lecturer's room to hand him my Medical Certificate and inform him of my condition. Immediately, he took a seat back, GASPED, and went "you shouldn't be in campus, its CONTAGIOUS. Maybe you shouldn't come for the tutorial class later. You could be spreading it to everyone...".

What he said was true, I could be spreading it to those students who have never had chicken pox. With examinations nearing, I do not want to jeapordize anyone's ability to study and sit for the examinations.

Thanks to Moral Studies - I learned the word - Utilitarianism - that is, to perform an action for the greater good. In my case, if I were to decide not to attend my classes for the rest of the day, I might feel more guilt but then, since I'm doing it for the hundreds and thousands of students in Monash University Malaysia - it will be a noble, right and moral thing to do. :)

So there, Ben has spoken. I shall now return home, back into "quarantine" mode.

The world is going crazy about searching. From Yahoo, Google, Microsoft then Apple. A couple of months back, Google released their desktop search and Microsoft followed with it's Beta version of MSN Desktop Search.

The idea of searching files within the computer is nothing new, but the speed and the accuracy in which these applications offer is way superior than the aging search methodology which literally searches through each file and folder on the drive.

I was one of the early adopters of both Google's and Microsoft's offering. The verdict was that Microsoft's offering with better integration into the operating system and support for more file formats is more superior than that of Google's.

It has been a couple of months since Microsoft released their beta version of desktop search. I found that the search product has left it's beta stage and is now ready for general public use.

I downloaded a copy from MSN Desktop Search's official site and got the application installed - overriding my beta copy.

So what's new?

Aesthetics

• The Desktop Search Bar (sitting on the taskbar) looks more sleek and refined
• The little MSN Desktop Search icon on the system tray resembles more of a magnifying glass
• There is now an official application in the start menu called - "Windows Desktop Search"

Features

• More intuitive
  The search results are now more intuitive - in a way where a preview of the file/picture/contact/appointment/e-mail etc. is shown when a file is selected
  
  
• Quick access to programs
  It now indexes programs! Just type "Word" hit the "Down Arrow Key" hit "ENTER" and voila! Microsoft Word launches! Imagine, no more going through the super duper long list of programs from your start menu. Just type, arrow down or up and hit enter... SWEET!
  
  
• Shortcuts
  You can now add shortcuts to desktop search. If you have a couple of files which you open pretty often, simply type "@shorcutname,c:\documentpath" hit enter and the next time you type "shortcutname" and hit "ENTER", voila... out comes the file...
  
  
• Better integration with MSN Network
  Apart from emphasis of shortcuts for the desktop, Desktop Search, thanks to it's affiliation with MSN Network allows you to search MSN Content such as Encarta, MSN Movies, Expedia etc all from within the desktop search interface
  
  
• Extensibility
  If Microsoft Desktop Search doesn't support a specific file type by default, simply get to Microsoft Desktop Search's site and chances are, you'll find a plugin to enable support for the file type of your choice.
  

A note for Beta users of MSN Desktop Search
If you have got a Beta version of MSN Desktop Search and have performed the indexing, the new copy of Desktop Search will require you to re-index the entire drive - it's still indexing as I type this blog.

What about performance?

• In the past, what I didn't like was the fact that desktop search requires an "initialization time" which can take anything from 5-10 minutes after Windows have completely loaded.
  
  Update: 1:57pm - it's been fixed! Yay!
  
  
• Also, new files added or created were not indexed immediately. Thus the search results were not as up-to-date as I would like it to be.
  
  Update: 1:50pm - the same as before.
  
  The solution?
  Leave your computer on all the time. Desktop search indexes the new files you added while you are away from your computer. That way, the next time you return to your machine, the new files would have already been indexed and thus results will be up-to-date.
  
  If your machine cannot be left switched-on all the time or if you saved a file a couple of minutes ago but completely forgot where you saved it, simply right click on the "magnifying glass" icon on the system tray (the clock area - bottom right corner), hit "index now", give it a minute or two and try searching again.
  

So should you download this?
Absolutely and most definitely YES! Microsoft's Desktop Search with it's improved features is, in my opinion, the best Desktop Search Engine available for the Windows platform. It's free, it's useful, it's FAST! - you'll never go "where did I save that file?" again... :)

Grab it now from MSN Desktop Search's official site

My last assignment this semester is to create an XML file along with it's corresponding DTD. I tried a tool which my university uses, HTML Kit - a pretty comprehensive free tool for web development but in my opinion, its pretty crappy when it comes to XML. Troubleshooting my DTD was a nightmare... the built-in validator would identify error locations which simply doesn't exist!

I decided to scour the web for the best XML editor I could find. The keywords were "FREE XML editor" but I kept getting XML editors offering FREE Trial of their XML editors. Finally, I came to a link (actually one of my few stops for web development resource, w3schools.com) and under the XML section, they recommended this application called XMLSpy.

I downloaded the app (a hefty 17MB) and got it installed. I launched the application, and the moment I opened my XML files, they were validated against my DTD instantly! This time, errors were shown with pin point accuracy... immediately, I got it corrected and whoala... I was done.

The second bit of my assignment which also involves the creation of a DTD was completely done through XMLSpy. It was a charm to use. It's one of those applications that you begin using and almost immediately, you feel so at home - everything is within reach, the relevant buttons, relevant features, great shortcuts...

In terms of ratings, I give this application - 9 out of 10!

If you are undergoing an XML course, you simply LOVE working with XML or you are just looking for something to download - XMLSpy is it!

For those who are notepad loyalists when it comes to XML, once you use XMLSpy, you will no longer be loyal... :)

Oh well, have fun and start downloading XMLSpy NOW!

It all started a week ago. Remember the time I got my OS X Tiger from Low Yat? I was having a meal with my parents and there was a sudden numbnest on my right side of the waist. At first, I thought I must have sat down too long. I ignored it.

The numbnest then turned into a sudden pain. Again I brushed it off telling myself I walked too much today.

The following morning, the numbnest was still there. This time, it had spreaded towards my back and a little towards my groin area. It felt wierd... but interesting.

Numbness + Absolutely nothing on the skin - no red spots or lumps.

3 days later...
The numbness is getting a bit bothering. I started thinking of wierd thoughts, like I'm going through some symptoms of heart attack or something. Still... there is nothing on the skin. Just pure numbness and perhaps occasional pain (feels like someone is constantly pushing).

3 + 3 days later...
The red spots develop. It began to itch. As a person who is prone to itch due to my sensitive skin, I decided to drop by a pharmacy and requested for a "rash" cream. I was being dispensed - Betnovate. In my opinion, Betnovate works wonders... so I applied on the infected area, hoping that the numbness and the rash would disappear.

Sunday (today)
I woke up early this morning and discovered that the spots have developed into little lumps. At first, it looked like pimples so I decided to continue with Betnovate and see what happens in the next couple of days.

Later during the day I told my mum of my little "pimples" on my waist, after showing her - she went "aiyah... lei sang SEH ah..." - translated as "oh no! you've got a snake!".

I was like WHAT? SNAKE? You see, as person born in a typical chinese family, there are many names of illnesses which sounds completely alien in the western medical world. There was shock in the entire family. Stella recalled that she heard of such illnesses and that if this "snake" wraps around a person's body - that person will DIE.

I had a problem - and yet, I didn't know what the problem was. If I were to go through the Chinese methods of healing, I'll be sent to this "snake catcher" who would literally burn the little "pimples" on my waist and be given some strange chinese concoction to drink. Inside me was this voice saying "there are millions of people in this world - I'm sure if it exists in Malaysia, it would exist in the Western World... there has to be a cure without going through the snake catchers".

I decided to find out more about this "snake", but if I were to key in "snake disease" in google, I'll start getting results related to diseases which snakes can catch and the various types of snakes in the world today. I didn't need literature on snakes, I need to know what is this "snake" that my family talked about.

Stella got off the phone from her mum and I was told that the western term is "shingles".

Some facts on Shingles

• Looks like chicken pox
• It hurts
• It itches (hurts more than itch)
  
• Comes from the chicken pox virus a.k.a second outbreak of chicken pox
• How does it come about? Well, when you had chicken pox when you were young, the virus stays within your body and is not completely destroyed. The virus stays forever - within the nervous system and will create an outbreak (shingles) when it feels like it (mostly when your body is weak)
  
• Can only happen to those who have had chicken pox
• It's only contagious to those who have NOT had chicken pox - confused? Well, if you have had chicken pox, you can't get Shingles from someone who is having Shingles... however, if you haven't had chicken pox, a person with Shingles (essentially the chicken pox virus) can be transmitted to you causing you to have chicken pox.
  

Now I've got facts on this "snake" - so why did the chinese call this snake?
Shingles is a virus which spreads (not through touch - for the host) but through the veins. Wherever your vein goes, it will spread. It commonly spreads in a form of a belt, around the waist, making it look like a snake.

Back to my story...
My family and Stella's family have gone high and low, looking for the best doctors for the "snake" or Shingles.

They came up with a number of chinese and western doctors. To save myself from the fire, I decided to head for a western doctor.

Upon arrival, the doctor inspected my infected area and immediately, she confirmed it was Shingles. I was prescribed anti-viral medication, some cream and some pain-killers.

* OOohh.. pain * sorry, sudden pain while typing this blog.

I've had my first dose. It's time for rest. Let's hope Chicken Pox 2 will end soon...

Oh by the way, the cure?
Just keep your body healthy. Have multivitamins and lead a healthy lifestyle. :)

By now, if you have been keeping yourself updated with the latest craze and technologies, you wouldn't have missed the latest craze on the Mac OS X's Tiger (see my last few blog entries) and it's features.

Apart from the Spotlight technology and the many other interesting add-on's in Tiger, there's this new thing called the "Dashboard" which is some desktop application which can host mini applications called widgets.


Widgets in OS X

The only problem is that you will have to own a Mac with OS X Tiger installed; which brings about a problem... what about those running Windows (which holds 86% of the market) or older versions of OS X?

The solution? Konfabulator!

Konfabulator works for both older versions of OS X and the infamous Windows operating system. As Konfabulator was developed a number of years before Tiger's Dashboard, expect to see LOADS more widgets compared to Dashboard.

The only drawback? This application is shareware, so you'll probably have to fork out USD25 or approximately RM95 to remove the nagging message boxes reminding you that its a shareware and that the company needs support and bla bla bla... but hey! If you don't mind the nag, the software's pretty much free. If you can't stand the nagging, get it registered, it's way cheaper than a brand spanking new copy of OS X Tiger @ the retail price of RM499!

Just imagine, a day with all these cool widgets on your Windows or Mac OS (pre-Tiger) desktop.





and loads loads loads more...

Get a copy of Konfabulator today!

The world is getting more interesting day after day. From the creation of dolly to thoughts of cloning human beings; which is still debatable today due to its ethical concerns, human beings have thought of another form of cloning... though non-genetical... the creation of robots that can clone itself!

This article simply reminds me of iRobots (starring Will Smith) where robots started manufacturing themselves and started taking over the world... scarry? very.

Check out some photos of this self-replicating robot - here

From my last post - on OS X Tiger, I mentioned something about some cable which I purchased wrongly.

Here's the story. If you have been following my posts or at least have met me recently, my latest phone in my ever increasing collection of over 50 different phones (no... I don't have all of them... I have OWNED them, its the past - and yes... I am should I say - a cellular phone freak) is the Sony Ericsson S700i.

Ever since my ownership of the phone, it has been giving me plentiful problems, from non-stop restarting to self vibration for no apparent reason. What I did was to send it to my faithful Sony Ericsson Service Centre in Berjaya Plaza and the kind Technical Supervisor would help sort it out for me.

After the first software upgrade, the phone did it's crazy antics once again. Annoyed, I decided to return to the service centre and requested for a change of phone - which they happily did for me.

Its been quite a number of months since I had this phone. After the software upgrade and the swap of phones, it still has its crazy antics. According to my pal at the Service Centre, he mentioned that the fault lies with the network operator's SIM Card - Maxis. I then decided to purchase a prepaid card from a different network operator and ONCE again it did it's vibrations and restarts.

I have given up. According to Soo Jin, since I have changed the SIM card, changed the phone and did the firmware upgrades, the only thing left to be changed is ME! Obviously, there's nothing I can do about that. The solution? Live with it.

It's been months now and this annoyance has got to stop. The restarts and vibrations are getting on my nerves. The worst bit of this is that it restarts whenever I receive an SMS or a phone call, rendering the idea of having a phone for communication completely USELESS!

After tracing back, I did notice one thing. After swapping the unit with a brand new one, I never actually upgraded its firmware. The firmware was only upgraded on the older unit. In my opinion, its not Maxis' fault nor is it me, its the PHONE! It's the PHONE's firmware!

After so long, there has to be a few versions of the firmware released by Sony Ericsson. To remove the hassle of having to go down to town every few months to get my phone upgraded with the latest firmware, I decided to use Sony Ericsson's Web Update service which allows end-users to perform the update by themselves - the catch? You need some form of a data cable.

On the day which my dad purchased OS X Tiger (refer to my last blog), my other reason for going down to Low Yat Plaza was to purchase this cable which supposedly allow me to perform the upgrade.

The cable cost me RM85 bucks - which was hefty but since it was going to save me from all the trouble of getting to town simply to get my phone's firmware upgraded, it was well worth it.

I brought the cable home and logged on to SonyEricsson.com to begin with the firmware update. After an hour and a half getting the cable installed, getting to the right site and getting everything configured, the procedure failed - the reason, WRONG CABLE! - ARRGGHHH!

I decided to return to Low Yat Plaza and asked for a change of product; but before doing so, I started Googling for information on this supposed "end-user performed firmware upgrade". It turned out that I need a specific docking station or a cable with some speaker stand which I do not have. With the specific product models in hand, I left for Low Yat and informed the sales personnel who sold the cable to me of my recent adventure with the WRONG CABLE.

The docking station turned out to be RM 230! What a slap on the face. As the shop had a no cash-refund policy and I have no other products to purchase from that shop, I had no choice but to purchase the product.

Earlier today, I went to the shop and picked up the docking station (they didn't have it in-stock the other day) and topped up an additional RM 140 (they gave me a RM 5 discount).

I am now at a pretty popular Hong Kong styled restaurant in Low Yat Plaza. The upgrade was finally completed just minutes ago. I'm now with an RM 225 docking station which I would treasure for some time; and hopefully, with all the trouble that I have gone through, these the phone's crazy antics will finally end...

If you have a Sony Ericsson and requires a firmware upgrade, you know who to consult :)

Since the day Steve Job's introduced the Mac Mini, iPod Shuffle and a preview of Apple's latest operating system called OS X 10.4 Tiger, I have been oogling over the operating system. Since then, it was relentless scouring over the internet, in crave for more information about the latest operating system. The more information I found, the more I want Tiger!

The arrival
Finally, after a gruesome 3-5 months of waiting, the operating system was finally launched on the 27th of April 2005. The operating system arrived at Malaysian shores; but there was one issue - the PRICE. At RM 499 with no educational discount available in Malaysia, purchasing the operating system would mean burning a BIG whole in my pocket.

The wait continued...
On the 7th of May, my family decided to drop by Low Yat Plaza - and there it was, standing tall in the Apple Stores were boxes of Apple's latest operating system. Realizing the fact that I wouldn't be able to purchase a copy, I left for the higher floors and roamed around some stores and see if I could pick up anything.

The lunch
After picking up some items, a USB cable for my phone (which I later found was the wrong cable - long story) and some Pau's, my parents, Stella and I had lunch at this Hong Kong Restaurant (forgot its name - it's right across from Coffee Bean) which is popular for it's HUMONGOUS "Ha Kows". My dad and I was chatting and there I was, ranting about the fact that I couldn't purchase the operating system because of its super high price - and then a magical moment, he said "Why don't we buy a copy now! :)". I was shocked. I gave this grin and 20 minutes later, we found ourselves in an Apple Store, holding a brand spanking new copy of OS X Tiger... joy!

The return of the Tiger
From the point of having Tiger in my hands, all I had in my mind was to get this cat installed into my Mac Mini. The time finally arrived. It's 9pm. Some of my most important files ie. assignments etc were backed-up to my server. 20 minutes later, I was ready... time to bring life to the cat stuck in that beautifully packaged, black glossy box.

The Installation
Upon inserting the installation disk, I was prompted to restart the machine. After numerous clicks and a wait of 40-50 minutes... behold... OS X Tiger.

The feeling inside me for excruitiating. It was a blend of excitement and an anxiety, exciting to see the brand new OS X installed into my beloved Mac Mini but anxiety due to concerns if the new OS will meet my expectations.

The experience
After the restart, the only noticeable thing which I saw, vastly different from the startup screen of the old OS (Panther) was that the fluid blue background behind the login screen had a bit more lines - more refined in fact.

I clicked on my face, keyed in the password and hit "enter".

The OS took a number of minutes to load. First, it was my personalized wallpaper which I crafted with my Adobe Photoshop skills to give me words of encouragement, then it was the revealing of the dock, the desktop icons and finally, the loading was over.

Perhaps it was because I chose the option of "upgrade" instead of a "clean install", as such, the impact wasn't that great. Most if not all of my personalization in my account was retained, so was my personalized Hard Drive icon, compliments of iconfactory.com.

One of the more noticeable changes to the operating system is the menu bar - to be more precise the right most section of the menu bar where the clock resides. There is now a little magnifying class icon symbolizing the "spotlight" technology Steve Jobs have been ranting about since the public preview of Tiger.

Upon clicking it, a dropped down menu revealed - stating - "spotlight is indexing the drive". My first response was WHAT? Does this mean that I will always have to wait for Spotlight to index my drive prior to searching for newly added files? That would be very similar to Microsoft's Desktop Search! Then why bother? - Before I give you - the reader negative perceptions on Spotlight... please keep those negative thoughts away and keep reading.

Minutes later, Spotlight completely indexed all my assignments, PDF documents, manuals, e-mails, music, videos - literally everything meaningful to me in my drive. This is when the test begins. I keyed in the letters "Monash" and out comes a list, arranged by file type showing me the various e-mails I have sent and received, assignments which I have written, contact information of Monash coursemates and loads loads more. To ensure that Spotlight has a seemless integration with the Operating System with every file indexed the moment it enters the drive with ZERO waiting time - as promised by Steve Jobs, I took the liberty in creating a Word Document containing the word "baby". After saving the file, I went to Spotlight, keyed in "baby" and Whoala! Out comes the file I saved seconds ago! So there... the upgrade was worth it after all!

Smart folders
One feature I really really really love about the new cat is it's smart folders! Imagine a world where you save your files anywhere, in any drive and in any folder and just FORGET about where you left them. After all that, you create "smart folders", these are basically folders that reveals documents, images... and everything else that is related to a particular keyword. For example, if I have got pictures of my dog "girl girl" and essays about her life history lying all over the place, smart folders provide a one stop solution in consolidating everything and anything that has to do with the keyword "girl girl". The next time I write another bibliography on my dog, no matter where I have the document placed, Spotlight will detect it and have it listed in the smart folder which I created for "girl girl". Smart!

Widgets...
Ooh.. the name sounds so similar to gadgets that I feel like I'm already drooling all over it! :) Widgets, or should I say mini applications which are installed and used in a sub-environment called "Dashboard". "Dashboard" is a place where you'll find all these mini applications such as mini-calculators, miniature version of iTunes, a miniature calendar, package trackers, flight trackers, language converters, dictionaries... and the list goes on and on and on. The whole idea is that these mini-applications run in the background and whenever you need to say, check the time and weather in Nebraska or get up-to-date information on specific flights such as current speed and altitude, all these are accessible by as click of a button. Since Tiger's launch, many developers such as Amazon with it's Amazon.com have jumped on the Widgets band wagon.

Spotlight integration is seen EVERYWHERE!
Just imagine, you open up your favourite application such as Word or Adobe Photoshop and the thought of just saving the file into that particular folder you created, requiring you to dig deep within the countless levels of directories to to save that masterpiece you created with Adobe Photoshop is giving you a headache - then you thought to yourself, wouldn't it be easier to just search for the directory, click on it, type in your Masterpiece's file name and click save? The solution is available today. Spotlight is intergrated into the "open" and "save" dialogue boxes of literally every application there is made available for the Mac platform...

So there, it took me almost 3 days to get this out. It's been saved as draft many times due to the inherrent workload which has been placed upon me. Now that I'm 75% done with my assignments, I can finally complete this post.

Should I discover more about Apple's new Cat, I'll have it posted.

In the mean time... if you have the opportunity, go experiment with this brand new Cat... :)

My cousin from Singapore is my main source of these hillarious links...

Here's another. It's not scarry. It's just plain HILLARIOUS!

Check it out here!

You have probably heard of David Blaine, the guy who does street magic and performs the infamous "levitation" stunt.

Here's something new, in one talk show, he had his heart taken out infront of the audience... check it out here!

If you ask me, I think he's not pure human. He's of human + alien descent <- previously "decent" - kudos to Soo Jin for pointing it out :).

During my free time today, I dropped by the computer labs. With nothing much to do, I decided to start up Internet Explorer and started poking around Google's website.

After much clicking, I discovered Google Labs; this is some place you can call Google's playground where visitors get to explore and play with some of Google's "under development" products.

Below are some of the few notable services...

• Google Web Accelerator
  It's pretty much a plugin which you can download into your computer, have it installed and whenever you start surfing the net, I suppose it pre-caches the content of the links within the page you are currently viewing. One interesting feature to note is the "time saved" counter which is built into the toolbar
  
  
• Google Ride Finder
  This service literally maps the exact locations of taxi's around parts of America in real-time! Just imagine, you've got this map in-front of you with various "dots" representing taxis. If you need to know the taxi's exact location, clicking zoom will bring you all the way down to street level! Cool! Unfortunately, the service is no use to Malaysians :(
  
  
• Google Compute
  Works a little like the SETI service where you download a tool and participate by giving some of your computer's precious idle time for processing data which would assist in Protein research and various projects supported by Google.
  
  
• Google Suggest (My personal favourite)
  Once you logon, it looks just like the Google search engine. The beauty is when you begin typing keywords for your search. Just imagine typing "Monash" and outcomes various combination of keywords in a little "auto-complete" drop down box such as "Monash University", "Monash University Australia", "Monash University Malaysia" and so on... this is a MUST TRY!
  
  
• and load, loads more such as personalized web search, google scholar for looking up journals - useful for assignments, video search... and the list goes on...
  

So give it a shot and logon to Google Labs! It's loads of fun - in my opinion of course :)

More later...