MLai - Reflecting my Life

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

I must say, the past 3 days have been a drag. It has been long, but the main reason is because I haven’t been in the working mood. Just feels like I should be taking a break. Since it has been 3 days, its a bit hard to remember everything that has happened. I have put through a request to salary sacrifice myself a MacBook Pro. I’ve also been looking at the BenQ 24 inch monitor, and just today, I had been looking at Synergy. So my little plan is to get myself the 24 inch, hook it up to my macbook pro as an extended screen, get myself a 19 inch benq, and hook that up to my desktop computer and run synergy. Also have a set top box hooked up to the 24 inch. This is of course my dreaming, but only time will tell.

I had a meeting today with the boss, and the programming will begin. I’m looking into one of the programs we have made, and I will be adding a seperate interface to it as well as combining it with the new security architecture that is in place. So much code gives me headaches. It doesn’t help when there are renovations happening above where I sit. I get in to work at 8 and all I hear is what sounds to be like drilling into the wall, or a circular saw, having its way with the wall. With both my exporting projects, they are as complete as I can make them for the time being. I will be getting a more up to date export from both parties soon and I’m sure will play with my existing stored procedures.

I also got myself an external HD. Its called My Scrap Book. My brother got me one from Office Works. 500Gb Western Digital HD for $299. Good price, and it works a treat. Free’d up my HD, only so I can download more things. I’ve been watching DayBreak over the past couple of days. It’s… repetitive, and right now, I’m just confused. I guess in that respect you may want to watch more. Either way, something to occupy me. Some much needed sleep is trying to call me.

Written by Milton Lai

Its been a great week so far. Sunday, I ended up heading with a couple mates to Cantebury Leagues for some snooker. Having not played in nearly a year, I somehow managed to win, finishing off all the coloured balls in one turn. Not being a gambler or been on the pokies in nearly 2 years, I put 5 dollars into a machine and came out with 14.85. Great win for me. Me and one of the guys headed to Dooleys for a free dinner (for members, every year, around the june/july, they put 50 dollars of credit onto your membership card, which is great for free food).

Yesterday, there was a lot of running around which was great. On the weekend, we had the big clean up in the switch room. So some peoples ports were disconnected by our errors or if they weren’t there or in our database. There werent that many, but enough to keep me busy all day. Of course everyone would blame the work we did with the network for any other problems they had. I also had a meeting with my boss about the new database he put me on. It was just to clarify a few things, because what I had understood of the requirements was not what he was trying to say. Misunderstanding. That was solved after that meeting.

So today, we didn’t have any more calls about the ports. Instead I was kept busy fixing up the stored procedure, and it now works fine, but there will be some adjustments along the way as the database owner will update the excel file with more columns and more data. We also set up 8 computers today, which was a great effort. 3 MacBook Pros, 1 MacBook, 2 Dell Latitude D620’s and 2 Dell Desktops. One thing that carried on from monday was an iBook G4 which had an error everytime the computer booted up. It was a “kernel panic” where it gives you a screen which tells you to reboot. We werent able to boot an external HD, werent able to boot in target mode either, and of course couldn’t boot long enough to back up any data. So now its at Taylor Square Service Centre being fixed. It should be hardware related but sometimes kernel panic happens when software updates occur. So we shall see about that one.

This evening I also installed my new stacker.. well its second hand, but it works a treat now. I did get a scare when I plugged it in and it wouldnt eject the cartridge. The head unit said error 1. There didn’t seem to be a manual eject anywhere either. I thought I had bought a dud. I took the whole stacker apart and was able to free one of the cd trays from the drive and it then worked a treat. They do say in the manual to not have the trays in different slots… Bit hard to picture until you see it, but this wasn’t the case, it just to happened to get caught behind the arm that grabs the tray out. So now I’ve got a stacker again! Now I’m waiting for the link unit which is taking longer to arrive from Melbourne than the stacker which was from WA.

Written by Milton Lai

Yesterday we had a wonderful wedding. Weather looked shifty in the morning, but it sorted itself out until I got home. Started at the Hilton hotel in the city. Fantastic place. Never been in there before. Then headed to Curzon Hall in Marsfield. We’ve been there before, well a long time before, but this time the ceremony was at the other side of the hall. Again, the civil celebrant was Wendy Bull who we see everywhere. I would say about 50% of garden weddings she is there. So after that we had formal shots in the hall, followed by Luna Park area, the Rocks and Martin Place. We ended up at Chatswood Kam Fook where the food was great (bit expensive) and atmosphere was wonderful. So here are a few pics of the day:

This is a shot I have taken before, but a slight change of angle. What people dont notice most of the time, is the effort and architecture skills put in designing ceilings.

Most of my pics, I get from working off Vince. And here is a classic example:

Again with the ceiling. This time with the fisheye inside curzon hall. The ceiling is absolutely magnificent.

Some humour… I had to… This was at the Overseas Passenger Terminal…

And finally, WHO DOESN’T GOOGLE THEMSELVES?! Fanstastic shirt, wish I had one.

More pictures at www.vlblog.net

So that ended a long day. I’ve been contemplating whether or not to go mountain biking on my own today. Weather is on and off, although it wouldn’t really affect the riding so much, but the first step out of the house is the hardest. I half want to relax, but feel as though I’m wasting a day.

Written by Milton Lai

These past two days have been busy. Spent yesterday completing the new project the boss put me on. It was finished when I left on thursday, but today received a call, and i guess we understood two different things. I followed what he had scribbled down on a piece of paper, so he is at fault as much as I am. I did finish it today though, so I’ll see his verdict on monday. I did come across a problem, which I don’t know how to do it. Basically, I made a short script which ran all the create files, stored procedures and pop files. I also needed at the end of this file to update some fields in the database. I had been trying to figure out a way to do it, other than creating another file and running it. No luck as yet, but I’m sure the boss knows how.

One thing I did fine humorous today was, I had to call Dell tech support today about a Dimension that had lost its USB ports. So Windows thinks everything is fine, but when you plug anything thing in, nothing happens. It doesn’t recognise anything and doesn’t do anything. Our judgement being the motherboard is dead. So I called them, and it started off great. The phone was answered immediately by someone. It went downhill from there when they treat you as an idiot and ask you to reboot, see what happens, ask you all sorts of stupid things which of course I had already done. The one that topped it today was, to boot into safe mode and try the usb. I was thinking to myself… Safe mode doesn’t load drivers, how can it load a usb drive. Of course while restarting he constantly mentioned F8, as though I didn’t know how to do it. After that, I tried a UBCD, which I hadn’t tried (not under Dell’s instructions) and that came up with nothing. He then came up with a wonderful idea of system restore, but I was told that the problem was prevalent 6 months ago when we had another problem and so system restore would do nothing. He said to restart, I asked him “in safe mode or in normal mode” he insisted on safe mode. “Idiot” I thought. I explained the story that it wouldnt work, and he told me to boot into bios and hit ctrl + e then ctrl + f. Apparently there is supposed to be a beep from the computer but nothing. Then the shock of my life when he told me that the computer wasn’t under warranty anymore. Of course we normally get all computers from Dell and Apple with 3 year warranty thrown it, but this one only had 1 AND it ended in 2004 so there was no way a 3 year warranty would still be valid. This was all a big mistake since the purchaser of the computer hadn’t told us about this. So that little exercise was a big waste of time.

After work today, I met up with my cousin to watch Epic Movie. Wasn’t that great. Having not seen a few of the movies added to its ‘epic’ failure. I of course found the ’stupid’ bits funny, but majority of the movie was a bore. It was worse than the Scary Movie series. Just got home to the little note from the Postal Man saying he missed me. So I missed ONE of my eBay purchases!!!! and its not open tomorrow either so I’ll have to wait till Monday to get one of them and one more to come. I’ll have to find something to do on Sunday. Hopefully not playing games again, but who knows. Anyway, wedding tomorrow, So pics will be up sometime sunday.

Written by Milton Lai

Its been 3 days, 3 very long days, or very short depending on how you want to look at it. As mentioned, I had a meeting with someone who needs clarification on many aspects of my export. It went quite well, I spent the first half of monday generating error pages for her, where there is bad data. It of course had to be in a usable format so to make it easier for her and others to fix. During that day, and since then, we have been flooded with new users, new computers and more computer problems. Not blogging everyday of course means I dont remember them.

I’ve been shifted by the boss to another database, which needed to be completed asap. Well, its a bit of a mixed message, since originally I was told that the users stopped inputing data into their access database, and writing on paper until we get all the data in. So in which case, I need to be quick. The boss comes in late yesterday saying he’s spoken to the people and they are now inputing data into their database again, and will continue until we have everything working. So the heat was taken off. Today he comes in and asks about how I was going with it. He normally doesn’t ask me about how things are going, especially the day after he tells me about it. So, I’m only to assume it needs to be completed asap.

Apart from that, I spent an hour this morning creating a script that will generate my error report pages on their own. This saves HEAPS of time. I spent the other half the day today, going around one floor of the building, checking port numbers, ip addresses and hostnames, for all the computers. This weekend, not that I have the time since there will be another wedding, one of the guys will be in, ripping out all the cables out of the switches and only plugging in occupied ports. Running out of ports in the switches and so a clean up is necessary. Its also too messy. It was a great chance to meet some people. Everyone there is very friendly, its fantastic.

Main brain picker this week so far has been my brothers website. Basically couldn’t upload to it from home when using windows computers, but macs run fine. So it doesnt make sense. It doesnt put the blame on the modem, or on the hosting company, or even on the ISP. I spent a couple hours last night trying to figure it out, and I brought it down to macs and pcs, use different FTP protocols which either the modem, isp or host is blocking the pc ftp protocol. BUT I’m sure they have the same protocols, I mean, FTP IS a protocol. So really no idea, but apparently earlier tonight, he told me its working again. So no idea whats going on.

It just seems this week so far, I’ve got so much to do, and the day ends so soon, even though I’ve been putting in more hours than normal. I half wish that everyday would be like this, but again, I like the feeling that I’ve accomplished something in a good timeframe instead of dragging things on. Its been a great week. Can’t wait for the weekend… I hope my eBay purchases arrive by the weekend (they were sent on monday from melbourne and perth so i doubt it), so i can install it on sunday. Otherwise, just a relaxing sunday, or possibly go on an adventure…

Written by Milton Lai