MLai - Reflecting my Life

So, been wanting a new bag for a while now. Had a Crumpler “The Horseman” - It was the smallest one that would fit my Dell Inspiron 6000. Sure it was made for 17 inch Powerbooks / MacbookPros, but this Dell is fat. So its still in good condition, but its HUGE. Now that im getting a MacBookPro… supposed to come in today, but its on backorder through the bondi junction apple store, claiming that my order didnt make it on the latest shipment, so the next one is due to arrive late next week or last week of may. Bit of a disappointment, but nothing I can do. They have the 2.13Ghz in stock, but the 2.33Ghz is out of stock, which is the one im after.

So the new bag.. Timbuk2, Laptop Messenger. Now there is a reason why I am getting and have been looking at messenger bags. I did for a while ride my bike to uni. Well, its a bit far to ride the WHOLE way, so i drove to areas where there is free parking, pop my bike off the car, and ride into uni. I’m hoping Ill get back into that phase, since I do consider myself to have become quite lazy - then again, having had no time to go out for recreation, but instead at home, or at uni doing work. So saw the messenger bag, loved it, its comfortable, convenient, quick to access everything, and looks damn cool!

So the bag (fits laptop and camera in there like a treat! with plent of space to spare!):

The inside (up the top there is an organiser section and on the bottom that is the built in padded laptop section - i put my phone there to give an idea of how much space there is):

The laptop compartment (fits the Dell Latitude D620 VERY nicely - I can only hope that my MacBookPro will fit EVEN NICER!):

The straps (I couldnt decide which strap to get, SO I GOT BOTH! One is the ballistic strap pad which is the same material as the bag, and the other is the tough-tek no-slip strap pad which actually grips on very well. Its designed for people who prefer the bag over one shoulder, and i was sceptical, but having tested it, it really does hold on):

So its a top bag. Havn’t taken it for a test drive yet, maybe tomorrow, but its a whole lot smaller and lighter than the crumpler bag.

So, how much did i pay? Well, the shipping off the timbuk2 site scared me off. $50USD to ship to Aus. So I remembered (when i first looked at my crumpler bag) that the bag was available on eBay. So i had a quick look, and this bag was ending the next day! $66USD I paid for the bag with $35USD shipping. Added the 2 straps and in total, it became $120.98USD for a bag that would, though the site have cost me $160USD (without the straps - dont know how they would charge that). Even retail, Timbuk2 bags are cheaper than Crumpler bags!

Can’t wait to give it a test drive!

Written by Milton Lai

So good fun wedding on the weekend. Top couple, fast paced at times. Started in the afternoon at the brides, then the grooms, then to the church - St Bedes, then to Bulli Tops, and finally reception at Appin House. Top night and here are some pics:

They made CookieMen for all the guys and soap for the girls - (girls with too much time on their hands):

Playing with the macro:

Mum and bridesmaid grabbing a shot of the bride as she comes out:

Bride and grandpa - couple of her jewellery items were from grandma:

Was able to get this sharp shot in (never use flash):

Shot during speeches (it seems like once married OR given the role as BestMan, men turn into comedians):

The bridal waltz:

The garter:

Top night, LONG night, it was an hour away, but had a good sleep in the car. More pics at www.vlblog.net .

So ended up on sunday going to uni to study for networking. I’ve got online final and written exam tomorrow after work. I’m confident, but maybe I shouldn’t be. Hopefully a fortnight update will find its way here soon.

Written by Milton Lai

So here are a couple of videos from a tour a guy did in Australia. His name is Barnz and is from our neighbouring country, New Zealand.

Barnz Tour Part 1:

Barnz Tour Part 2:

The downloadable MOV file is available at http://mlai.org/videos/ .

Written by Milton Lai

So yesterdays wedding, finally a weekend with great weather. Great couple, great food, even better entertainment. So started at darlinghurst at the bride and grooms place. Then headed to St Benedicts Church at Broadway for the ceremony. Some formal shots at Centennial part and then reception at Le Montage. It was quick paced, something was always happening. Here are some pics:

As the bride arrived at the church:

Church was quite big, love the colours of the dress/suits:

As they came out:

Group shot (cute little flower girls and page boy):

Loving the view from the wharf outside Le Montage:

How could I resist this shot?

The bride and maid-of-honour sing a couple songs (feat. page boy & eeyore):

More pics at www.vlblog.net .

Great wedding. So today, headed to Coogee at around 8:30. No waves, but had a good swim. Just needed a relaxing day. Followed with some fishnchips at chish and fips. Quick clean of the car and tightening of speakers (they were rattling when my sub would go off) and been trying to get some Networking done.

Written by Milton Lai

So here comes probably the longest (I’ll try to make it as short as possible) post I should be doing. So for the past month I’ve been… really busy. Had enough time of course to put the wedding pics up but other than that, havnt had any time for a personal post - really just to catch up on everything so I remember it in the future.

1st week of April - Finished my 3rd? project at work. Basically, I had to have the database of a client converted and implemented into our database and running with our applications. There was one problem which stood out from others this week. We had a laptop which, after connecting to our network and getting an IP, was able to visit websites, unable to PING websites, able to PING the server, but unable to connect to the server. No firewall, unless it was hiding somewhere. So basically stumped. The user of the laptop still hasn’t come back (she said she would bring it back after a week). So this problem is still outstanding. Also, had a guy at work, go on holidays for 3 weeks, which had me inheriting his parking spot! It’s 5 minutes walk to work - made me so lazy and loved it so much! Too bad parking costs too much.

2nd week of April - This week is a blur (dont have a summary - well cant find it at home). I do believe I was working on my 4th project (which was running alongside the 3rd) and was able to get it done by the end of the week. No testing or commenting had been done though. Shouldve been commenting WHILE i was coding, but for some reason, i just dont. Bad habit? I did, with a perl programmer at work, make a solution to a problem which people seem to just avoid. So when moving from a mac to a PC and using Eudora as the mail client. Basically, importing mail over onto the pc would mean that you lose the connection between the email and the attachment. People can generally handle that. So this migration involves opening outlook express and importing the mailboxes. If you then wish to get the emails onto outlook, then you will need to open outlook and import emails from outlook express. The problem, apart from losing the link to the attachments is losing formatting. So HTML emails become plain text. So I had a look at the plain text of the emails and spoke to my Perl friend, and was able to make a script which converts the html emails over to HTML and keeps the plain emails as plain text. This just stopped the HTML emails from appearing as html code. Ran the script, imported them into outlook express, imported them into outlook and everything works a treat!

3rd week of April - Week of testing for project 4, and commenting. Thats all that seems to have happened. Seems like a bludgy week. Nervous leading up to John and Em’s wedding. I do believe it was an unbelievable week though…

4th week of April (last week really) - Seems like another bludge week. Well to me, testing is bludging, testing Vista is the worst thing ever! I can go into that later (if i remember / have the time). Went out for lunch a couple of times. Got introduced to project number 5. Its framework related, so its a big deal, and it looks fun. So currently am getting stuck into it. Spent the week also clearing out our store room, and our office. New guy starting on monday - making the store room into an office which possibly I might be moving into. Basically the new guy will be helping my boss with design and modelling of databases. Also helping with developing applications. I am also into developing applications., moving away from operations. I do love operations and solving all the problems that are thrown my way, but development is.. preferable as a career and the rewards seem so much greater. The move hasnt started yet, so will be doing both for a little while to come.

Now apart from all that, spent the first 2-3 weeks helping a friend with their assignment. Linked-lists are my FAVOURITE! Oh they are so bad, I hate them forever - especially since you would never use them ever again (well I havnt anyway). Basically I’ve been coding every day / night for about 3 weeks. As of last week, been staring at john and em’s photos… slowly getting them together.

I think thats a reasonable summary of the past month. Missing many things im sure, but many things to come!

Written by Milton Lai