Windows Live Messenger

If you’re anything like me.. you like things the way they are. You don’t like changes. You sorta resist them.. Electromagnetic Engineers call it Lenz’s Law =P.. So when I find a particular software that I like, I usually keep it without upgrading it. I sorta live by the “If it ain’t broken, Don’t fix it” theorem..

So anyway, this past weekend, the usual routine of starting up the notebook and signing in to MSN Messenger proceeded ahead. Right up till the ‘Signing in’ message where the 2 little figures spin round and round.. Then it dawned on me that the happy folks at Microsoft must have found a way to disable all other versions of MSN Messenger from signing in. All except their current Windows Live Messenger version.. mine was still the good ol’ MSN Messenger 7.5 *growl*

And all thanks to the slow connection in school, I’m not able to download the new version of messenger.. so there I was left, in my room, and staring at the MSN messenger window which refuses to sign in.

So anyway, long story short, I upgraded to the new version of Messenger. And if you’re anything like me, you don’t quite fancy the advertisements on Messenger. It used to be fine.. like they weren’t very obtrusive.. they just sat there at the bottom of the window and didn’t really get in the way unless you somehow click on them.. or if they really really interested you so much.. which I sincerely doubt.. =)

Then it slowly got irritating when they begun to insert those “roll-over” type of advertisements.. So there I will be, happily doing my stuff when my mouse rolls over the adverts, and then the BIGGER version pops up and gets in the way so I end up clicking on it.. and then BOOM my browser pops up and directs me to M1’s Promotion page, or to SMU’s registration page.. …

So after searching a while, I got me a nice little program to remove the unwanted stuff, like the advertisements, from Messenger. The biggest pain is removed by simply clicking on the Remove Advertisements check box.. and of course, you can customize it to your own likings too.. I removed some of the buttons that I don’t use like the Search Box and Sort Contacts buttons.. the guy who designed this program must be a genius.. haha.. kudos to him!

So anyway, the program's called A-Patch.

Get A-Patch here.

Again, do drop a comment and tell me if it does/doesn’t work for you, and if you like-it/hate-it/have a better program.. heh.

Advertisement-Free Messenger! =)

It Begins..

Welcome Back to NTU..

And so the new academic year begins.. and it has advanced very quickly to week 3 already. Come to think of it, week 3 is ending tmr.. goodness me. It’s happening too fast.

Spent the last 2 weeks pretty busy with the club’s recruitment. Had to plan and sort out the booth and then had to try to convince ppl to join the band. Haha.. We had about 130 signups but only about 30 odd turned up for the Welcome Tea.. well that’s not too bad considering that we actually had a welcome tea.. didn’t have one last year.

The recruitment booth location that was given to us was quite good this year actually. We were at a nice corner and had lots of space and wind.. good stuff.. and they provided table cloth and etc.. so we didn’t need to sort those out.. haha.. at least SOMEONE in NTU is doing things right.. =P

Jazz & Blues Recruitment Fair 07/08

Then there’s the Welcome Tea.. the band did a couple of songs and we addressed their questions.. quite weird actually.. after the band performed they just sat there and didn’t really move. No one really touched the finger food either.. haha.. paiseh-freshie-syndrome. =)

Well that was last week and this week is the auditions and interview.. I can’t wait for it to be over. The auditions wasn’t VERY fruitful, but we managed to spot a few potentials.. heh. So that’s good news. All that’s left would be tmr’s interview.. *phew* hopefully we get potential ppl to take over the committee..

Jazz & Blues Welcome Tea 07/08

School work itself has been quite crazy too. It’s only week 3 and I’m starting to feel the stress.. of course, traveling 2 hours to school is also starting to take its toil on me.. which is why I thank God for providing me with a hostel. Hall 12. Not exactly my first choice since it’s so far from my classes and totally at the other end of where I’m used to but hey.. at least I got a place.. there’s probably also a good reason why I’m there.. so just need to figure that part out.

My room mate hasn’t moved in yet.. so for now I got me a single room.. *cheers* hah.. and praying that he won’t be turning up anytime soon. Heh. Now I just need to find out where the pantry and water cooler is.. apparently my new neighbours aren’t too helpful too.. they didn’t even know that they had a mailbox.. hah. And he was going to go for classes today during the ‘Union Day’ period.. if I hadn’t stop him he’d probably be the only one in class waiting.. =P which also makes me wonder.. why NTU must have one of these Onion uhhh.. Union Day thing. They should just leave the classes on instead of disrupting everything. I think it does more harm than good.. hur.. and this year, both candidates contesting for the EEE Chairperson are both from China. Help.. they’re taking over the world I tell ya..

Happy Birthday Singapore!

oh and I’ve been eyeing on a polarizing filter for my camera.. I’m waiting to see if this fad wears out or whether I should really get one. There’s this shop off ebay that sells a brand new Polarizing Filter and UV Filter, together with a lens cap and an adapter tube to fit them onto my Canon Powershot A520.. all for the price of only 38 SGD, delivery inclusive.. It’s probably one of those things that I’ll just keep wondering whether I should get.. anyone have any comments/suggestions?

Donuts & Cheap Booze

Back from the trip.. quite glad that we had chosen it instead of a chalet.. for one, it’s much more relaxing and exciting..

We got a 15 buck package that brought us around for a day trip; got to see some funny bridge, see some local produce shops and a seafood lunch.. and then a couple of hours for shopping.. quite nice.. the places that they brought us to weren’t exactly very cheap though, I kinda figure that there’s some commission involved, so these shops were prob meant to KAR singaporeans like us..

They called the bridge the Silver Gate Bridge. Named after the golden one at San Francisco. I kinda think she’s joking.. but I’m not all too sure.. anyway, it isn’t exactly anything spectacular.. just a bridge that allows 2 carriage ways and it offers some view of the many islands that surround Batam. Other than that.. nothing special. Give it a miss..

Silver Gate Bridge

Lunch was quite good.. some sorta communion dining style involving the entire group of about 12. Typical seafood stuff but the highlight of the lunch was probably the fact that the kelong place had a stage for ppl to sing karaoke.. and towards the end of the meal there were some older folks from the other table, singing their hokkien songs heartily.. thank God it was at the end of the meal..

The lunch place also had a short little performance.. there was some fire/coal eating thing.. he also ate some glass too.. and jumped through a hoop of fire.. nothing too exciting.. but well.. you don’t really see that around in orchard, so it’s worth a few pictures I guess.. the last time I saw something like this was in Crescendo..

LEFT: Fire eating

RIGHT: Glass eating.. morbid.. heh.

So anyway, the view from the balcony was quite good.. some pool view.. we didn’t really realize that it was nice until we saw the other side of the blocks and realized that their balconies faced the bleak lifeless hill/mountain landscape.. boring.. so I’m happy we got a nice place. =)



the nice big mushroom is actually part of the pool, loads of water starts flowing from it later in the morning..

the spa in the resort..

We also managed to get to Mega Mall, Batam Center to get those donuts.. J Co Donuts.. did some shopping there too.. and things are pretty cheap.. well, not ALL but some are.. I got me a shirt and a polo shirt for 30 bucks total. And I almost got a pair of jeans for 14 bucks.. but well, I don’t really need it and I don’t want to be buying something just cos it’s cheap.. so I gave that a miss.. but really.. some of the stuff there’s quite good and cheap. Take the beer for example.. I opened the mini bar and saw that a can of beer was 4 bucks.. Good. I thought that was cheap.. cos I mean, you walk into NTUC and you’ll prob get it around 4 bucks too.. but until we went to the supermarket there, then I realized how cheap beer was. A can of tiger/carlsberg/Heineken beer costs 1 SGD. And a can of bintang beer costs slightly under 1 dollar.. MADNESS!! Too bad you can’t bring it thru custom.. unless of course you live by the Do Anything Just Don’t Get Caught rule.. =P

And then of course, there’s the much hyped about donuts.. weren’t too expensive either.. it works out to be about 54 cents a donut. That’s about the same price you pay for donuts from any neighbourhood bakery.. so really, it’s nice and cheap.


Clockwise from Top: DONUTS.. 48 of them, Hello Panda crackers with chocolate dip, mentos chewing gum, gummy candies, more gummy candies, kueh lapis (VERY CHEAP), and more kueh lapis.

Not included in the picture are cans of beer ($1 each) and 2 Gatsby hair wax ($1.20 each).. woohoo!

Oh and we also finally tried the ATV, All Terrain Vehicle.. about 20 min which was just about right; anymore and you’ll probably get bored and a sore thumb from pushing the throttle. There were a few different tracks/circuits which includes a speed track (with a 5 feet mount that dar bravely jumped over with the vehicle), a mud bar, some s-course thingy and even a jungle trail one.. quite cool.. these vehicles..

I’d like to go back again. Probably for a day trip since megamall is just beside the other ferry terminal. Take a boat down and do some shopping, eat at the A&W there and get a whole tonne of donuts back.. =) that would nice.. heh.

2 Nifty Programs

I’m back after what seems like forever.. Took a while to settle into the new place and also to bring all my gear back from hall.. let’s hope that I’ll get a place in hostel for next sem and soon..

Feel like sharing some stuff today so I decided to upload some files. 2 actually.. these 2 programs are small but definitely useful, so just thought I’d share them.

First up, we have Hamachi. I’m not too sure about what’s with the name, but it’s a nifty little program that helps A LOT with those who wish to play multiplayer games.. What so special about it? Well you see, for a start, most games, if not all games, that are able to be played multiplayer will NOT allow you use the same cd key when you play over the internet.. almost any game from CounterStrike to Command & Conquer will not allow that. You can only use the same cd key when you’re playing within a Local Area Network aka LAN. So what’s the next best thing when you want to play a game with some friends? 1) Go to a LAN shop 2) bring your notebooks together and crash somebody’s home or 3) Get Hamachi. Back to the question, what so special about Hamachi? Well, Hamachi creates a ‘Virtual Lan’ over any number of computers that have connection to the internet. So I can be at home and you can be at your home but using Hamachi with our internet connection, it creates a virtual LAN, so now, the game sees our 2 computers as being in a common LAN. Tadaa! So now using Hamachi, everyone can be at home and still play a multiplayer game over the internet if for SOME REASON, you happen to not have different cd keys.. I shan’t go into that part.

Get Hamachi here.

Next in line, we have Star Downloader. Yes, another cheesy name, but it’s good. As the name suggests, it’s a downloader. Similar to the more common ones like Get Right etc.. It allows you to resume downloads but at the same time, it also allows you to do abit more than that. Every website on the Net which hosts files for download, anything from download.com to a sneaky underground site that lets you download mp3s, these sites all limit the amount of bandwidth that ONE download can use. Well, at least most sites do that.. one good way to check, is the next time you download something, check and see if the download speed shown, is what you paid your ISP for.. For example for a user on a 1mbps Singnet internet connection, this calculates to approx 122kbytes/sec. So if he’s not getting anything close to 120, then there’s most prob a limit on that particular website. Most site administrators limit the bandwidth per download to allow a ‘fair use’ of the site’s bandwidth. So that if for example, 100 people want a file from the site at the same time, the bandwidth is SHARED and everyone’s download will begin, just at a slower rate, rather than waiting in queue for your turn to download something. So what so special about Star Downloader? This little program detects when you want to download something and it then splits the file, to a number of parts. For example, it splits a 100Mb video to 10 parts and then it requests the bandwidth from the site accordingly for each smaller part. So if the site limits users to a max bandwidth of 10kbytes/sec for downloading, when you use Star Downloader, it downloads your video file at 10 x 10kbytes/sec, which is 100kbytes/sec. Another way to look at it would be that the program ‘sucks’ bandwidth from the site you’re downloading from.. So there you have it.. now you can go download that HUGE 10Gb file from the site that only offers you 50kbytes/sec.. but be warned.. since it’s birth, more and more sites are beginning to put a restriction on such ‘bandwidth sucking’ programs.. so it might NOT work on all sites. But still, it’s such a small and unobtrusive program that keeping it around will do more good than harm. =)

Get Star Downloader here.

There you have it, 2 nifty little programs that should keep you happy. Leave me a comment if the files/link don’t work.. or if you find any better stuff!

And it’s July.. New quote of the month. =) well I actually take personal offence in this one. Haha!

Quote of the Month.. Utter despair.. heh..

1st of July 2007

R-age is 10! Happy birthday R-age..!

Went for the 10th anniversary dinner at YWCA this evening.. to commemorate 10 years of God’s grace on our youth group. Quite cool, got so see some old familiar faces from around the ‘alumni’ table, I guess I myself would have qualified for it since I’m no longer under CAMY.

But anyways, it looked to me like a mini-prom night kinda thing. Where everyone was all dolled up and pretty-fied. Even dar looked gorgeous.. =) I never really had a prom night in sec school (blame it on the overwhelming Y chromosomes), so this sorta reminded me of my commissioning ball in the army, where everyone was frantically taking photos and ignoring the emcees. *grin* so like I said, ppl seemed more interested in running about taking pictures and I really really thought that more should be done to involve the alumni.. I mean, you DID cordially invite them back and got them to strut down to the VIP tables and these ppl, like jenn, david, vincent and so many more were the pioneer leaders of what was to become CAMY and R-age as a whole.. sadly, nothing much really involved them.. it seemed more like a get together just to thank those currently involved in the ministry.. *shrug*


LEFT: CX's 12 girls.. not all present though.. left to right, anna, dar =), candida, regina, CX, jeanie, suhui, serene .
RIGHT: me with Jon and Hann whom i grew up with.. the lucky 2 of them are leaving for Hillsongs' Conference right after the dinner.

Moving on.. Today’s also the SAF day. 1st July.. and *drum roll..* we did it again! Best Combat Unit for the 21st time.. 4th time consecutively in the past years.. no one even comes close, so that would be Best Combat Unit again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.. *phew* heh.. there’s definitely a sense of pride when you talk about it.. so do excuse me.. I’ll work on containing my excitement when we win it again next year.. =P

Best Combat Unit 2006/2007

The DIP Journey

Decided to compile my entire DIP journey for easy referencing.. =)

Well, the journey has indeed come to an end and what better way to commemorate it then to have Channel News Asia come down and film our project. Heh.. how cool is that. So please tune in to Channel News Asia on the 11th July 2007, 2030 hours (Singapore time). Not sure how it’s gonna turn out but well, it’s better than nothing. Although I do have one bit to complain and that would be that our prof Handsome wasn’t the one being interviewed.. dare I be so daring also to start a conspiracy by saying that I’d bet it was NTU’s idea at not letting our prof get interviewed since he was gonna leave the school for Australia..

Ok, so much about that, we also cleared away the entire project board, meaning that there’s nothing left, so we’re never EVER gonna get called back for any sort of testings.. *grin* but perhaps, after spending so much time in the lab, we’ll prob treat it as a in-between-lecture pitstop. Kinda like a hang out place.. and hey, the lab technicians welcome us back too.. so what can we say.. aww..

=)

my DIP journey as follows..:

• Design & Innovation Project
• DIP Update
• DIP Update II
• DIP Update III
• DIP Update IV
• DIP Update V
  

DIP Upate IV

And so the whole DIP episode has come to an end this week.. started with an uphill climb trying to get past the rest of the Power Division projects during the first round of the competition on Tuesday. Well, Murphy and his law dropped by on Tuesday during the presentation, leaving us with better than expected sunshine, which resulted in an increase in the current which eventually left our whole circuit oscillating. (interested in murphy’s law? I highly recommend the book Why the Toast Always Land Butter Side Up.. heh..) Well, from where I was, I guess I could see that the judges’ minds were oscillating too, I’m just thankful that we were the first team to present.. Thank God that we were group E001. haha.. they say that in competitions like these, the first group will always leave a better impression. Well, maybe THAT plus the fact that prof Handsome is gonna leave, so maybe that’s why we sorta got in. But you really can’t deny the fact that we put in our hundred percent and then some, to make it happen.. like we also emphasize.. ‘Everything was done from scratch’..

So anyway, right after judges left, we had to await the results of the thing, which was said to be released at 1700 hours. Handsome strolled in and managed to get the rest of us, who were just about to watch Pirates of the Caribbean on the projector, to get started with the project again.. That went on till I got back and eventually heard the news that we got through the first round, and that we were now in the top 6, vying for the top 3 positions.. So you could pretty much expect the excitement that followed in the morning when we all came back to the lab.. and well, thankfully, some stuff actually did work out. And we managed to power up a Lamp and a Fan. Hmm.. the mood, Delirious. Haha, it was frenzy all over again rushing out to take pictures of the fan and the lamp working.. haha. Abit silly thinking of it now..

That's us with the working circuit. The Fan and Lamp is on the left.. I had a crazy perpetual motion idea. You use the power from the circuit to drive the computer, which produces the switching signals to the circuit, which activates the circuit and provides the power which you use to drive the computer... *repeat* haha..

So there we were 48 hours away from the competition, making it just in time and getting the silly thing to work.. quite a feat I’d say. As Handsome puts it himself, he never expected us to get this far.. haha.. perhaps that’s what you get when you throw a bunch of 20 post NS guys together.. you probably get some sort of an efficiency that would be otherwise hard to come by.. and so we went on to the final competition on Thursday where I had to give a presentation in the LT..

Some said I didn’t look nervous at all, but hey.. who am I kidding.. I’ve given orders to a company before but this is different, add that to the fact one of the judges was falling asleep.. argh. The audacity of some of these creatures.. so again, I’m thankful that I was the first group to present.. at least you get to set the standard and thankfully, the second group didn’t manage to deliver their presentation that well, so that gave a slightly better contrast to our advantage. =) thank God.

That's our little booth during the final competition.. with the main group of judges.

And the end result, we got a Silver, 2nd position. Well, of course I’m a little sore (and we all are) about not getting Gold. But I guess, we all agree that even coming to the top 6 was a milestone for all of us and esp Handsome.. so none of us really bitched about it. We gladly accepted it and then went on to a terrific international buffet dinner at Miranmar Hotel, to mark the end and also as a farewell for Handsome.. Nice place, nice food and ever so relaxing, having closed the curtain to this chapter of my academic life.. kudos to all 19 of you.. thanks!


TOP: Wilson (our dua tao), receiving the award from the Big Boss of EEE. I think he's now the Chairman for the College of Engineering of NTU.

BOTTOM: Raggio Di Sole.. Silver Award Winner.

LEFT: That's the official slip that we get for our silver award.. the coupon to 'exchange' our prizes.

RIGHT: Farewell and End-of-Frame dinner for Handsome at Miranmar.

Oh and it’s June.. June 9. hmm.. my 3rd anniversary from my enlistment date.. haha. That was one day I’ll never forget. So anyway.. new month = new quote of the month. =) I just love this one.

Quote of the Month for June.. despair.. utter despair.. heh..