So on Monday, I was told that there would be more to do on my project since it’s all out on the table. Yesterday he explained them to me. Basically an extra week of work (I hope) and it’ll all be done. I’m currently tackling one task a day and I should get it done. So following this project, I’ve got a 4 week project, and then a 4-6 month project. Sounds exciting, it really does! I have been very busy the past few days. There has been a virus outbreak and from my understanding, its a symantec vunerability, where the virus gets in, disables symantec and spreads itself throughout the broadcast. On the otherside of our routers, there is catastrophe, but luckily, broadcasts are stopped at routers. So today we were able to patch everyones (hopefully) PC with the lastest version of Symantec 10.1.5.5001. Apparently version 5000 was released a couple days ago, but it got through that, or maybe it was another one. But now we should be safe, unless someone decides to walk into work with the virus and hook it up to the network, and of course have people who didn’t do the update.

Last night, I had my first class for the year, networking 2. It was… boring to say the least. Everyone are part-timers and starting from 6 and going to 9 isn’t encouraging either. This subject is VERY practical with 45% of marks coming from the final practical exam. Setting up routers, and computers, having it broken which you then need to troubleshoot. Seems interesting, with only 20 minutes of lecture material and the rest is a lab. There are also weekly tests through cisco, which is set to mondays for 24 hours. Long semester for me. Having done Networking 1, I thought networking was where I was heading, I just hope this timeslot doesnt affect that.

Written by Milton Lai

So today was quite different. For once I wasn’t working… well I was still delegated the video camera, but I wasn’t the “professional photographer”. I, however, cannot keep my hands off any camera, so I brought mine along just to capture a few pics for myself. In the morning it was at both my uncles place and my cousins. There was the traditional tea ceremony for both. It was a bit of a relaxing time. Then the bridal party headed off to the rocks for some formal shots. Meanwhile, me and my other cousin headed to Len Wallis Audio to check out speakers and amplifiers. I only had the chance to listen to the speakers, and I am currently convinced that the Focal Chorus 705v are the ones I want. I will need a subwoofer if i grab these… or there are the 706v which have a bit more bass. We quickly had to head to Darling Harbour where we boarded the Morpheus, and sailed for about 3 hours. Since it was such a scorcher in the late morning, drinks were a must.

The ceremony was on board. As you can see, I wasn’t the main man (or woman in this case).

It was quite choppy at times, but it was bearable. Fantastic views from the boat. Went to places I havn’t seen before on the harbour. Passed 4 other wedding parties along the shore.

Group of all the guys and girls on the cruise.

After this, we headed to the reception in Chinatown. Again, good food, and a good night. Note the dog on the cake. That I beleive that’s Scooby, being their beloved dog.

Would love to thank William and Amy for the fantastic night.

With work, its been quite busy. On Thursday my boss said we will need to have a little meeting on Friday about what I had been doing in regards to the project. I hadn’t done that much since I hadn’t had much time. But come Friday morning, I was able to get a good understanding of the program I’ll be working on, and what I had to show him was exactly what he wanted to see. What freaked me out after that was, he described the project in depth to me, and said that it should take me a week to do it. To release a new version to everyone in the building. Bit daunting at the moment, but I’ll have to see on Monday.

Written by Milton Lai

Finally, yesterday, I received the little post slip saying that the postman missed me. Received the package today, installed it, works a treat. So its the Alpine KCA-410C Versatile Link Unit. It allows you to connect two CD changers and have 2 pairs of Aux in. One thing I’ll be looking for is the iPod adapter which may use one of the cd changers. I’m not sure yet. Will also be looking for another CD stacker if the iPod adapter uses the other cable hanging out of my head unit.

Here is my current head unit:

This is the Link Unit I just bought:

And here is one noticable change: Hopefully this whole screen will be full of different sources. So add to that another CD Changer, another Aux In (although im sure my laptop is enough) and an iPod.

Well apart from my excitedness today (I even left work a BIT earlier – 20 minutes), it had been very busy. This week I’m on IT help, so all the IT emails directed my way and the phone is all mine. There were a few computers to set up on Monday, nothing major, and today there seemed to be a lot of running around which was good. Nothing memorable since I was just looking forward to my package. My work mate wanted to have a clean install of Vista for testing. Booted Vista, realised you couldn’t format and install and so installed XP before upgrading to Vista. Had a look at it today, and not having all the time in the world to play with it, it looks very confusing. Although I’m sure with some time I would get used to it, and everything would be customisable, but as far as I could tell, it looked like a nightmare to learn for beginners. Also, it seemed to just idle using 500mb of RAM, which isn’t too great. I guess you really do need, as a minimum, 2 gigs of RAM. Something to look towards, but not at this time… waiting for my MACBOOK PRO!

I did have a problem with my laptop last night, not being able to surf the net. It’s the same today. Basically both my desktop and laptop are wireless. Desktop connects to the network and I can surf, Laptop connects to the network but cannot surf. I can see my desktop files, but just no net. When I hook up the ethernet cable, it works on my laptop. So somethings wrong with the wireless… and I dont want to format or do anything drastic right now until my… MACBOOK PRO comes. So right now, I’ve bridged my wireless and ethernet connections on my desktop and have an ethernet cable between my desktop and laptop… Just a temporary fix.

Written by Milton Lai

So today started off with me heading to Garigal National Park. By recommendation by my sister, since it isn’t as far as the blue mountains and shorter. In fact it was very short, but a workout nonetheless. So it starts on Cascades Track and you turn off at the second TrackTrail. This connects onto Bare Creek Track and you take a left back onto Cascades Track. It is a short loop which you can go around and around. Its fast. The downhills are a lot of fun. Slippery in parts, but so much fun. This was my first time, reached 35km/h, not the fastest down a mountain, but enough to nearly get air without trying. Nice river that flows through:

So it was short. In fact it took me 30 minutes of riding time. Sure I did walk around 300 metres of the track. The uphill was a killer. I mean the faster and further you go down, the further and harder you have to climb back up. The track is 5km long.

So after that I headed into the city for the first official Training Workshop held by the Australian Parkour Association. I trained a small amount, but was quite tired from my sprint down George street, avoiding myself being hit my buses and cars. Basically, these workshops are “designed to benefit newcomers by teaching the fundamentals as well as building on strength and conditioning. For regulars it is designed to drill techniques and build strength and conditioning.”

It started off with warm ups, drilling landing, drilling rolls, drilling speed vaults, drilling climb ups and a warm down. 17 people turned up which was fantastic. Here is a bunch of photos from today.

End of a good long tiring day. Can’t wait till next time. Check out www.flexibility.com.au/blue for training sessions and information as well as www.aparkour.com .

Written by Milton Lai

Wedding yesterday was a nice one. Started at brides place, moved onto the church at Mona Vale, then to Balmoral Beach for some formal shorts, and finally to Gunner’s Barracks for reception. Gunner’s Barracks was a very nice location. Great view of the harbour. Here are a few pics:

Loving these kind of shots. Bride was gorgeous.

Just had enough time to rip out the fisheye to get this shot as the father of the bride walks her daughter down the aisle.

Had to make use of the tele-lens. A change from my usual shots.

This is a shot I have done before, but it was a silhouette and didn’t look right. This time, I couldn’t get the silhouette to happen but it is just how I pictured it.

Looks like the world is actually round. Something different.

Another fisheye shot. This is at Gunner’s Barracks. The famous red door. This is my interpretation of it. Due to its immense size, the nice curve suits it.

And finally the Bridal Waltz. It was outside, and so I worked with what I had. Shows the ambience of the night.

And finally, just something I thought was very cool. Guess it shows how many pictures I take, but nonetheless, its pretty cool:

It only plays 5 times, refresh the page if you wish to see it again.

More pictures are at www.vlblog.net .

Written by Milton Lai