So I’ve just had a quick update to the sites whole feel and outlook. I like the colour scheme, so far and it would most probably stay like this for a little while. Changing the colour scheme is quite a painless effort, so there might be more changes in the future when I get the time and feel like a change.
Written by Milton Lai
My first meet with the MacBook Air today and it is such a sexy piece of hardware. The laptop feels really solid when closed, but feels as though its about to snap when you hold it open on the corner, but i’m sure its very solid. Its just unbelievable how thin it actually is!
So there is no CD drive and no supplied ethernet, but the trackpad is just amazing at what it does.
The MBA is not something that I would buy, its not faster than any other devices, theres not enough connectivity options and it doesnt come with a CD drive. I also dont even use my built in keyboard and trackpad on my MBP, so in this case, the new MBP’s arent appealing either.
The screen looks great, the combination of the resolution with the OSX operating system, makes it useable. With the same resolution on a windows machine, I would hate it.
Just a thought for the trackpad - they should possibly include a stylus type device to write onto the trackpad since it is already so big, it would just enable users to write, just like tablets and pdas (without writing on the screen).
It is very much a toy, a very sexy toy.
Written by Milton Lai
So I bought Aperture 2 (upgrade) a couple days ago. It was listed to arrive in 4 - 6 business days, but 2 days is pretty impressive. Then again, it was delivered to work. The main reason why I bought it, was the speed increase and so far, it is a whole lot faster. It loads considerably faster, the previews appear a whole lot faster and it looks just as sleek as 1.5.
Nice small box it came in
Very handy little booklet - Keyboard Shortcuts - its one thing that I haven’t caught onto yet, but I’m sure I will now.
Installation has taken a while, and now its upgrading the library - meaning it wont be usable with older versions of Aperture.
So the upgrading took a little while, but now its loaded and it is so much faster than 1.5. The Activity Window is a lot more accurate now - it gives you a proper status (currently at 200 images, both my CPUs are going flat out - not such a good thing).
I’ll be giving it a good run later next week, or soon
Written by Milton Lai
In short, I just don’t like it. I have to say, I was so comfortable in the office I was in, and the whole feeling of the room was a lot less conversational as it is in here. The main reason is that us “developers” should be in the same room conversing about “code” and so we learn a lot more from each other. That reason is a very good reason to move. A few problems I have now are that the furniture in here is temporary - the real furniture will arrive next week, I keep walking into the wrong office, I got kicked out because we have hired a girl in operations and she needed a desk, I miss being in the room where all operational ‘things’ where happening.
My new temporary desk (the blinds cover a window, to a HALLWAY!!! I used to have sunlight in my old office and now its all artificial):
Its as though I’m just out of the loop now! But this should lead to better programming since uni started yesterday and I’ve had a change of mind about submajors and subjects. I’ve decided, and its currently pending with the university, for me to change my submajor from internetworking to applications development. This semester would mean that I will be engaging in 3 programming subjects which, by the end of the semester, I wlll have completed the submajor - then off to Europe!
Written by Milton Lai
Dell D531 and another model - screen wont wake from sleep
I’ve had this issue since last week, but I havn’t had much time to have a look into it, but basically, when the lid closes, the laptop will go to sleep. Once the lid is opened again, normally, the laptop would wake up, but it seems as though the laptop wakes up, but the screen doesn’t. I’ve tried setting the closing of the lid to go into hibernation, but that has the same results. The users are currently holding down the power button to shut it down, before restarting the machine.
I’ll be looking for a fix for this later in the week hopefully and will update this post once I have a solution
Written by Milton Lai
As I explained in the backlog, I did get myself a new computer on a budget. So the whole system cost about $1000. The reasons for most of the parts would be price. I didn’t want to spend too much, but a machine that would run quite well and quiet.
So the specs are:
Antec NSK6580 Case with PSU - $135
I needed a case, with a PSU to cut down the price. There are a lot of cases out there, but this one’s internals is quite easy to work with. Not too flashy, but gets the job done.
ASUS P5K-E WiFi - $203
I’m am upstairs from my wireless router so wireless was necessary. I already have a PCI wireless card, so no real reason why I needed this motherboard. There are 6 internal SATA ports, and 2 e-SATA ports, HD-Audio - through coaxial and optical - again, I had a Sound Blaster card with optical/coaxial out already, so it was a bit of a splurge. It does have everything you would need though.
Intel E6750 2.66 Ghz - $229
This was a price decision, since its a $100 jump to the E6850 which is the same price as the Q6600. This one runs just fine for my needs (being surfing, photo editing, watching videos, downloading videos and some light gaming).
Corsair Twin2x PC-6400 DDR RAM (2x 1GB) - $91
There is cheaper RAM out there, but this had better latency and has heatsinks over them - not necessary, but in the event I wish to start overclocking, its there.
Leadtek Winfast PX8600GTS TDH Lost Planet Edition 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 - $218
This was the best for the budget range. The next step up would be the 8800GT which is another $100 on top - although it does have another 256MB on the memory.
WD SATA II 500GB 7200rpm 16mb Cache - $132
This is quite a standard HD. Now as much as I would love to have a raptor drive running my OS, the price would get me another 500GB HD.
So a total of $1006 for the whole tower. I already have mouse (G5), keyboard (Mac Keyboard) and monitor (Benq FP241W).
Here’s a few pics of the install - taken with Vince’s new D3 - this was a few days after he got it.
All the gear: F2.0 1/249 ISO6400 50mm
Closer shot of the gear: F2.0 1/60 ISO800 50mm
The motherboard in the case: F2.0 1/60 ISO800 50mm
The CPU box: F2.0 1/60 ISO500 50mm
The actual CPU: F2.0 1/60 ISO900 50mm
The socket without the CPU in it: F2.0 1/60 ISO1800 50mm
The socket with the CPU in it: F2.8 1/60 ISO1400 50mm
Attaching the fan: F2.0 1/60 ISO1000 50mm
Less crowded shot of the fan: F3.2 1/60 ISO2800 50mm
The graphic card: F2.8 1/60 ISO1400 50mm
Written by Milton Lai
I have to say its been another one of those times where motivation was at a low for me. After the holiday period, I just couldn’t be bothered and also, just didn’t have the time to get this done. This has been the first real chance, since I’m stuck at home with not very much to do. I could be out doing some photography work with the parkour classes that are on today, but I think it’s good that I stayed home for once.
I’ll be referring back to my calendar so I do remember what had been going on in the past month or so.
Week 23/12:
I spent most of this week eating at my sisters as well as lying around on the beach. There were trips to Freshwater as well as Coogee. Vince also got me the Canon IXUS 75 for Christmas/Birthday. I ended up getting the underwater housing for it - which cost nearly as much as the camera. It just means I can end up taking it to the beach and in the water without worrying about sand and water getting onto it and damaging the camera.
Week 30/12:
I spent that Sunday with the family at a BBQ at Bicentennial Park, which was followed by Korean BBQ in Campsie with Nick’s family. New Years Eve was spent in Balmain - Illoura Point watching the fireworks. Its a wonderful place to catch the fireworks, especially since there seems to be spots everywhere for people to turn up. Only problem is that after 3pm, no cars are allowed in, so its around a 40 minute walk from the nearest public parking spot.
Work started 2 days later, with the first problem of the day, someone’s MacBook Pro being drowned in red wine over the holiday period. Can’t say I didnt too much work that week.
Week 6/1:
So after my random meet with Amy last year at her sisters wedding, we caught up for some dinner around my work. It was just great to have a good long catch up with her. She’s back to studying in Melbourne now, with… a couple more years to go before finishing. So now I have a want to go to Melbourne, if I wanted a really short break. On the Friday, I had dinner with all the cousins since one of them, who moved to Hong Kong a few years back now, came here for a short stay before jetting off again. On the Saturday, Vince and I had our first wedding for 2008 which was a lovely and sweet wedding.
Week 13/1:
I had been planning my birthday for over a month now, and the party week started on the 16th. So my actual birthday is on the 30th of January, but Nick was going over to Danmark on the 28th and so I had to make the celebrations earlier. So the plan was, all my close mates, I fly them up to the Gold Coast, and we just party / holiday for 5 days. I’ll recount the general details later.
Week 20/1:
This week I picked myself up all the parts for a new computer. Now I didn’t need a new one, I just wanted one, and I had the perfect excuse until that was spoilt. So Nick’s dad was supposed to get him a laptop to take with him overseas to study with, but at one stage, wasn’t able to get it in on time. At this point, I had already purchased all the gear and was ready to set up my Dell Inspiron 6000 for him to take overseas. Some how, his dad pulled it off, a Dell XPS M1330. It’s a great little laptop, and I was very impressed with the price. It did, however, come with Vista, which does make it hard for me to give him support over the phone since I don’t run, and want to ever run Vista. I’ll put up pics of the build later.
On Friday, I joined Nick and his cousin at the Sydney FC v Queensland Roar soccer match at the Sydney Football Stadium.
Now having worked, and.. not really still working at ANZ Stadium (previously known as Telstra), its a pretty good stadium and a lot more relaxed and a lot less expensive than ANZ.
The was a great atmosphere that day, and its recommended that you always get seats where the real die hard fans are sitting, or standing, since the only time anyone was sitting was during the half time break.
Saturday, me and Vince had a wedding, which was big and colourful, which was an awesome change to how things usually turn out. That evening, I left earlier than… 2 a.m. and headed over to Nick’s place for his farewell party. Long night of catching up with people and just having a good time.
Week 27/1:
Sunday, I ended up giving Nick a hand in packing his bags, and setting up his new laptop. Monday, his flight left at 3 p.m. and I ended up going there with his family and girlfriend to the airport to see him off, before lunch with his family without him. Further in the week, Vince calls, informing me that there is a cheap HD. 2TB WD My Book for $479. I was playing games at the time and so I really didn’t want to talk about it, but agreed for him to get it for me. I checked the following day on the Officeworks website and yes the price was wrongly advertised, since the cheapest price that I could find was about $770 (from memory). It ended up getting taken off the website at noon, with the 1TB drive price set to $479 - down from $499.
On Saturday, the wedding was a long, but relaxing one, simply because we did have a break in the middle, since it was just the Bride and Groom for about 6 hours or so.
Week 3/2:
Sunday, took Nick’s counsin, Lucas, out Kayaking in Middle Harbour. He has been out here form Brazil for nearly 3 months now, but hasn’t had anyone really take him out to see Sydney. So it was a very wet sunday that we headed out to the Spit Bridge. Hired the sea kayaks for 2 hours, where we paddled out to Balmoral beach and back through the Spit.
Dropped by Chinatown on the way back home, since Lucas hadn’t seen any Chinese New Year celebrations before.
I picked up a Dvico Dual Express, on Thursday. It didn’t cost a bucket load but with my new PC, I would say, its nearly, if not better than a top of the line Topfield settop box. So now I can set schedules to record TV shows, it’ll turn the PC on to record, I can watch 2 channels at the same time, or record one whilst watching another.
On Saturday, another wedding, which started pretty early but it was a lunch reception, before a whole set of formals, so it was pretty relaxing.
Week 10/2:
Sunday, I took Lucas out to Mountain Biking on the Manly Dam track. I was a good ride, with only a couple accidents from the both of us. What’s mountain biking without a few injuries?! We finished around 2 p.m. before heading back into the city - thought there were Chinese New Year celebrations. I parked the car outside UTS Building 10, leaving the bikes on the car since we didn’t have locks and not being able to bring the bikes into Market City. We got in there, and finding out that we missed the celebrations, but there would be certain things happening in Darling Harbour. I decided we should go back to the car to get the bikes to ride down there. Getting back to the car, I find my bike got flogged off the roof of my car. Yes, I now don’t have a bike anymore. The straps were up and there is a small dent on the roof of my car. Reported it to the police and Dad is checking with the insurance company, and after this, I’ll be speaking to Thule. At the end of the day, I just want my bike back, a new one just isn’t the same. My bike had CHARACTER! SO below is the rack which my bike was last in. I’ve left it as it was, but i did remove the straps, so they tried to take the whole rack off, then realising it was locked in, then they just took off the straps and ripped the bike out of the rack. This is not what I call, “locking the bike to the bike rack”.
The rest of the week had been pretty quiet, and of course, I had other things on my mind. Yesterday, Angela organised me a birthday BBQ with the family and cousins, which was a good time to see a few of them, whom I haven’t seen for at least 2-3 years.
With work, I’ve got the worst kind of bug possible in my opinion. So I’m programming in RealBasic, and the program I’ve got going on Windows machines will crash randomly, under different circumstances and through all the debugging I have gone through, I can’t find out where it is. I don’t believe its in the code I’ve written since I would be able to find that out, but haven’t seen any signs of it. I’ve even run the IDE on the target computer, so the IDE could catch the error, but the program crashes outside of the IDE.
Birthday Bash:
So I’ll just write a summary here, since certain things, people may not want to or need to know.
Turned up to the gold coast, weather started to clear up as we were there. There was a few days of beaching, went to Wet n Wild world, and Dreamworld, the rest of the time was spent in front of the TV with the cricket on, eating party pies
and drinking beer (XXXX is really bad…),
or out at the clubs / pubs. It was an awesome holiday, and a relaxing one, which was what I was after for a 21st party. There are some hilarious photos from the theme parks which I will have to scan in and upload at a later date.
I’m currently using MarsEdit to get this blog done. I will be trialing it out for the next month to see how well it goes, as this means I can blog offline and when I get an internet connection, I can just uploading - hopefully leading to more entries.
Uni - will be starting in 2 weeks. I’m currently enrolled in 3 subjects - Project Management and Quality Assurance, Enterprise Development with the .NET Framework and WANS and Virtual LANS. Means uni for the whole of Thursday and afternoon of Tuesday - I am hoping for the tuesday class to be moved to the evening class so I can work a bit more, but we shall see if I can even get it.
I’ll be back soon!
Written by Milton Lai