| William’s Rants |
| My own personal ranting page + my photoblog |
Company’s durian feast on the 26 Oct 2009 at Labrador Park
CommChest Green
Pathway to Keppel Club
Jetty at Keppel Club
Durianss
Durianssss
Fishing Rod
My own shadow
Angler @ Labrador Park
Durian opened
Cigarette butts
DANGER!
Durian…
Durian… Yummy!
Buoys along Labrador Park
Nice creamy durian
Sentosa
Gentle wave pounding against the jetty
Ehhh… the title a bit misleading? Kind of… lol
Anyway, I gonna blog about a cool and upcoming new phone from Nokia. The N900 internet tablet.
As with previous generation of Nokia internet tablets, N900 runs on Maemo. Maemo is a variant of Linux OS for mobile devices just like Android which is used to run the HTC Hero, Magic and Dream and the iPhone OS which runs on the iPhone.
But what’s cool about N900 is the new Maemo 5 user interface, it’s has the “slidiness” of what iPhone and Android has; it has a slide out qwerty keypad; and from the specification on Nokia’s website it seems have a SIM card slot for 3.5G wireless internet. Another feature that would make it uber cool is if the screen support multi-touch just like iPhone and HTC Hero, just hope some reviewers who have the set can do a demo on the multi-touch capability if there’s any.
Just can’t wait for it to be on sale here and my Hero will be history… heheheheh
There are times when we find it a hassle to copy links from websites or forum pages to download huge files that are uploaded to Rapidshare file sharing website. But it’s a hassle to copy and paste each Rapidshare URL into a new browser window or tab.
I found a tool that eliminate the step to paste the Rapidshare URL into a new browser window or tab. FreeRapid is a tool to aggregate all the Rapidshare URL you have copied and into a download queue. When a downloading slot is ready, FreeRapid will download the file automatically without the end-user to click on the download button.
Besides Rapidshare, FreeRapid is also able to aggregate URL from 4shared, MediaFire, Youtube, Easy-share and much more.
You can download a copy of FreeRapid from http://wordrider.net/freerapid/.
And yes, I’m using it to download Windows 7 Ultimate 
Most of us have seen and read in the news few months back that SMRT will be installing platform screen door at various above-ground MRT station to prevent passengers waiting on the platform from falling onto the track.
Yesterday while waiting for the west-bound MRT to arrive, I saw the platform screen door that was being installed. It is not operational yet, will the platform screen door improve safety or will it cause inconvenience to passengers?
I bet it would be frustrating when you see your own website or your favorite website fail to load and just “hang” there with the browser trying to search for the website.
This unfortunate incident happens to one of my friend website. Can you believe it, Boon’s website just went down without any warning from the web hosting provider. After more than 24 hours, did Boon received an e-mail from the hosting company notifying him that there were some outage. Wow! More than 24 hours, bet these monkeys were trying to salvage their customers data at the data center and forgot to sent out an outage e-mail/notices to their customers.
What could have happened?
The reason the hosting company given to Boon was an Apache burst occurred on their server thus bringing down the whole server. Could that be an excuse?
About 1 year ago, the data center which Boon’s web hosting provider used have an annual power maintenance at the tenants block which the data center is located. The power maintenance cause the whole data center to have a power outage.
WAIT!!! Did I mention power outage in a data center? I still remember my old pal have to work overtime during that day because the diesel generator and UPS somehow failed to elevate the power outage. Read more about the power outage incident that happened to this unfortunate dude that also hosted his server in the same data center here.
Of course not all data centers are immune to power failure, even the data center that hosted most of our government servers also encountered a power failure few years ago and cause a lot of government e-service to be unavailable. You can read about the power failure from this blog.
If you are wondering where do I host this blog, this blog is host on a server that is located in my bedroom with a 750kVA UPS 
I took half a day leave today for my driving lesson in the late afternoon, as I left my office at 12pm I went to Sim Lim Square to purchase some network equipments for a new project site. As I was leaving Sim Lim Square, I remember Boon showed me a forum about a USB flash drive that can stream 1000+ of international channels that was on sale at Sim Lim Square.
But the bad thing is that I don’t know where in Sim Lim Square to find a retailer that is selling the USB flash drive. So I whipped out my HTC Hero and Google’d for Star IPTV, I managed to find the brochure that was scanned during the last COMEX show on a website. Immediately I called the number on the brochure to inquire about the USB flash drive, after getting hold of the unit number I went over to the unit and bought the flash drive.
So here’s the drive
The retail package
The lanyard, Star IPTV USB flash drive and a membership card
The USB flash drive in the box
The lanyard
The Star IPTV USB flash drive
When you plug in the USB flash drive into your PC/laptop USB port, a installer will run and install the streaming software to your PC.
When installation is completed the Star IPTV software client will load
Some channels and streaming available on Star IPTV
CSI:NY (streaming)
Discovery World (live)
HBO (live)
National Geographic (live)
TVB Drama (streaming)
Hong Kong TVB Jade (live)
For the price of SGD$178, you can get a comprehensive list of live and stored streaming video in one device with good video and sound, but the video quality cannot be compared with those from Starhub Cable Vision or Singtel MIO. Who cares as long as you can watch live TV programs from 1000+ international channels and with the recent price increase Starhub Cable Vision, this will be a better alternative. Psst… you can also stream live football matches 
You SHOULD get this if you are lazy to install various streaming software just to watch live (TVAnts, PPLive) and stored stream videos (PPStream, QVODPlayer) which is a very good all-in-one streaming client software.
You SHOULD NOT get this if you are particular about video quality and want 5.1 surround sound and HD quality video.
Ever since I got my HTC Hero 5 days ago, almost 80% of my waking hours, my thumb will be on the touch screen of my new HTC Hero. It is just so addictive! So what do I use my HTC Hero for?
1) Twittering
With the Twitter application available on the home screen as a widget, I can constantly know my Twitter contacts updates.
2) Facebook
Same as Twitter. HTC has also added the ability to add a Facebook widget to the HTC Hero home screen. This make it easy to see your Facebook contacts status and messages without the need to access Facebook on the mobile web browser or dig thru menus to access Facebook.
3) E-mail
Ever since getting my HTC Hero, almost all of my company’s and personal e-mail are replied from Hero.
4) Blogging
This is my 2nd time I’ve blogged using my new HTC Hero. Even though Hero doesn’t comes with a physical hardware keyboard like my HTC Touch Pro, the virtual on-screen keyboard let me type with ease and it auto spelling correct function works just like the one in iPhone.
So if you are a mobile warrior, I would highly recommend you get a HTC Hero.
The other day when I was at Noel home troubleshooting his laptop, he introduced to me a current low-budget horror movie that is freaking out American moviegoers. The title of the movie is Paranormal Activity.
A total of US$20,000 was used to produce this film and during it initial screening in college theater, it was such a hit that Paramount Pictures buy over the rights to screen the film in cinemas all over the US.
Synopsis:
A haunted house makes no secret of the fact it is not pleased with its new tenants in this independent tale of supernatural horror. Katie (Katie Featherson) and Micah (Micah Sloat) are a twentysomething couple who’ve just moved into a new home in San Diego, California. Katie has an interest in the paranormal and believes that malevolent spirits have been following her since childhood, though Micah is not so easily convinced. However, after several nights of loud noises and strange happenings, Micah starts to agree with Katie that some sort of ghost may have followed them to the new home. After a paranormal researcher tells the couple he can’t help them, Micah decides to take control of the situation and sets up a battery of video cameras so that if a spirit manifests itself, he can capture its behavior on tape. Once the surveillance cameras are in place, Katie and Micah bring in a Ouija board in an effort to talk to the spirits, a move that deeply offends the ghosts. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY was the first feature film from writer-director Oren Peli.
I bet this film will be a hit just like how Blair Witch Project makes moviegoers silver with fear after watching it. I hope Paramount Pictures/Sony Entertainment will screen the film here in Singapore as I can’t wait to watch it.
Here’s a trailer of Paranormal Activity
Today is the first day I brought my new, mint condition HTC Hero to work.
About 80% of my office e-mails are replied from my HTC Hero. Even this blogpost is posted from my new HTC Hero. That’s how addictive the new Hero is.
Even my colleagues who are using iPhone are amazed with my HTC Hero. They love the interface and a plus point is that you can have your up coming appointments displayed on the homescreen, whereas in iPhone you are greeted with row and column of icons.
Since this my 2nd day with HTC Hero, I have installed the following softwares:
1) wpToGo – A Wordpress mobile blogging software
2) Mortgage Calculator – Calculation of loans
3) Mileage Log – Keep track of your vehicle fuel usage, actually I don’t own a car, but good to have it when I will be getting my car in December
4) Task Killer – To end any background programs that will slow down HTC Hero.
5) sipdroid – For making free/low cost SIP calls using Pfingo account.
Ending my post here as I will be alighting from the bus soon. Have a great evening
Woke up early on a Saturday morning at 8a.m. which is unusual for me, because Saturday is my off day from work and my usual wake up time is around 10a.m.
The reason for waking up so early was because Starhub is going to deliver HTC Hero to me. At around 9:30a.m. The delivery guy came knocking on my door with a Starhub paper bag, in it contains my HTC Hero! Yay!
After signing the delivery slip and paying the money for the HTC Hero, I took a few shots of the unboxing with my Canon 40D.
My Newly Arrived HTC Hero in the Starhub Paper Bag
HTC Hero Box
Android in the Corner
The Unboxing
Wheeee! HTC Hero!
Half Unboxed
Items Out of the Box
Accessories List
Sync and Charge Cable
Earpiece
Micro SD Card with Sygic Map
Charging Adapter
The Manual
SD Card Adapter
HTC Hero
As I’m posting this blog entry, the HTC Hero is still charging as I did with all my phones is to charge for 10 to 12 hours before first use.
And tonight I will flash the phone to the latest firmware from HTC Europe website.
Gotta end here as I need to rush down to Funan IT Mall to collect some free gifts and head to Noel’s home to fix his laptop.
I encountered the above error message and code when I try to connect to my Windows Live Messenger on my Windows 7 office’s workstation. When I clicked on the SIGN IN button in Windows Live Messenger, an error message just keep popping up that Windows Live Messenger service is not available.
Clicking on the round MORE DETAIL button show an error code, 80040200. Initially I thought the firewall was blocking Windows Live Messenger services. But running thru the log, I did not notice any unusual deny rule in the log file that indicate Windows Live Messenger ports or service has been blocked by the firewall.
In frustration I exited Windows Live Messenger program and went to task manager to ensure that msnmsgr.exe is not running and end it process and open Windows Live Messenger again. And viola! Finally I can sign in to Windows Live Messenger.
The building where I work house various government related companies. Unfortunately, there have to be this darn government health care service provider headquarter which is situated in the office tower where I’m working.
My usual smoking point is at lobby of the office tower and the smoking point also happen to be the shuttle bus waiting and pick-up point for staffs from the health care service provider to a public hospital which under their care.
Something that irritate me is that these fucktart staffs from the health care service provider also stares; grumble about; and make the tsk tsk lizard-like sound to smokers at the smoker point. BUT WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH SMOKING!?
Smoking Kills? Yeah right! You walk on the street, some hooligans bash you up, you will also get killed.
Smoking Causes Cancer? Yeah right! My ex-girlfriend’s grandmother, who is 97 years old, stays in a rural mountainous region in Northern Thailand, she is a chain smoker and she is as fit as a cow!
Let me emphases on the latter cause, cancer. I have seen various old folks living in the rural village where my ex-girlfriend’s grandmother stays, they smokes, they walk and talk without any sign that they are down with any terminal disease. Why?
1) The food they ate are rear and grown in their own backyard. No insecticides were used; no hormone were feed or injected into their livestocks; no artificial color were added to their food; their food are not genetically modified to have a better yield or to prevent disease.
2) Their utensils aren’t made from plastics, their bowl and spoons are made of ceramic; chopstick from wood in the forest.
3) The air they breathe when they open their eyes from bed are fresh unpolluted air
4) They lead a stress-free and laid back lifestyle
So the point here is that smoking is not the main cause of cancer. It’s urban/city life we are in and the food that we put into our mouth, have you seen non-smoker with lung cancer? Cancer in the ENT region? Breast cancer, etc? The plastic packing that you pack your food from the food court is leeching carcinogenic substance into your food; the colored chewy candy you are chewing is make from artificial coloring that is carcinogenic; your favorite yogurt drink is laced with carcinogenic color dye and much that I can write which can mutate the p51 gene.
So these shallow minded staffs from the health care service provider must be thinking these smokers will get cancer one day and need their service, but read what I have written above before you make those tsk tsk lizard-like sound.
With my recent interest in hybrid electric car and a bid to reduce my carbon footprint (and of course moneyprint as well:P) because I went to booked a Honda Insight during the weekend. Currently it’s the cheapest electric hybrid car you can get in Singapore.
The new Honda Insight
When my ICT mate, Jimmy, found out that I have booked a Honda Insight, we had a small discussion on plug-in electric vehicle. To my surprise, I found out from Jimmy that plug-in electric vehicle is still not in commercial stage of availability in most part of the world since it’s trial in California in the early 1990’s.
Upon further reading on the net, I found that that bastard, George Bush, used to be a president of a Texas oil company. No wonder during his tenure as President of the United State, the electric EV1 car from GM was scraped and he ordered the invasion of Iraq not for WMD but to invade the oil over there. What a bastard!
Trailer of Who Killed the Electric Car
The haze is back again. Today seems worst and there’s a defined smell of burnt wood in the air since late morning.
Reduced visibility at AYE
I tried to get to bed at 10pm and now I wide awake and posting this blogpost at 11:40pm.
I keep tossing and turning in my bed but just can’t get to sleep because it’s damn warm and stuffy in my room with fan at full blast 
Gonna get myself a cold drink and see if I can get to sleep.
Here’s the photos taken at Sentosa on 9 September 2009.
Noel – surprise shot while waiting for the train
Drayden looking at the sceneries
Vik
Ann and Drayden
Noel posing in the train
Drayden
Ann and Drayden
Sentosa – Tram pick-up point to Palawan & Tanjong Beach
The sandcastle template
Drayden destroying the sandcastle
Drayden destroying the sandcastle 2
Drayden’s legs buried in sand
Noel and Vik have to get Drayden out of the sand because he was irritated by the sand
Bridge connecting to another small island at Palawan Beach
Noel and Vik
Sentosa
The bridge connecting Palawan Beach and the small island
Noel and Vik
Sentosa
AFAIK, both of them can’t swim. Wonder what happens if both of them drop into the sea below
Noel and Vik
Southern Most Point of Asia
Performance at Song of the Sea 1
Performance at Song of the Sea 2
Performance at Song of the Sea 1 – Cartoon fishy
Performance at Song of the Sea 2 – Cartoon fishy
Performance at Song of the Sea 1 – Volcano monster
Performance at Song of the Sea – Hot magma
It’s not the real thing or some kind of molten hot metal, actually it’s sea water jets shoot out from an outlet below an orange city color lighting luminaries.
Performance at Song of the Sea 1 – Explosion from Volcano Monster
Performance at Song of the Sea 2 – Explosion from Volcano Monster
I bet Ris Low will love this… you know… Booms!
Performance at Song of the Sea 1 – Fairy
Performance at Song of the Sea 2 – Fairy
SYT
Performance at Song of the Sea 2 – SYT having orgasm. SHIOK!
Performance at Song of the Sea 3 – SYT after orgasm
Performance at Song of the Sea 1 – Water fountain
Went to Sentosa with Noel, Ann, Drayden and Vik to Sentosa yesterday. We were suppose to head to Tanjong Beach but due to lack of amenities at Tanjong Beach, we headed over Palawan beach.
Due to lack of sleep the previous night, I was feeling very tired and lethargic after the swim and playing of frisbee with Noel, Ann and Vik.
Noel, Ann and Vik also try to built a sandcastle, but whenever one pop-up, Drayden try to destroy it. Ann managed to shoot some of the sandcastles with her cellphone. You can view the photos at http://babyboyd.blogspot.com.
In the evening, we head over to Song of the Sea performance. It was spectacular, the lighting and HD projector used for the light show were awesome!
Photos for the Sentosa trip will be up this weekend when I get it processed. So stay tune
Below are 2 shots from my Nokia 5800
Palawan Beach
Drayden sleeping in his pram
