iPhone 3.0 Software Update

June 28th, 2009 at 0:26 · Filed Under At Home, Call Me a Geek, Computing, Days in My Life, Gadgets, Mac OS X, Technology · 4 Comments 

A couple of weeks ago, the iPhone 3.0 software update was official launched. I connected my iPod Touch to iTunes 8.2 and clicked Update. Unfortunately, iTunes said that the update wasn’t available at iTunes Malaysia store. I wasn’t very happy with the service Apple has provided. The update was supposed to be free but it would cost me US$9.95 to upgrade my iPod Touch to iPhone 3.0.

Here’s the screenshots (click to enlarge): Read more

Tags: , , ,

Veil vision

May 31st, 2009 at 21:12 · Filed Under At Home, Days in My Life, Medical · Comment 

My left vision has turned yellowish and veil due to the blood and debris in the vitreous humor. I can see black shadow at the top of my vision which is actually remnant of the blood which has sunk to the bottom of my eye. It will take a few days for the eye to absorb whatever debris and remnant of blood.

Tags: , , ,

Sedated

May 28th, 2009 at 20:29 · Filed Under At Home, Days in My Life, Medical · Comment 

This morning went back to the clinic for followup of yesterday treatment. My doctor prescribed Xanax to sedate me. One in the afternoon and one at night for three days so that I could sleep better not to worry too much of my condition.

After lunch, I took one tablet and felt very relaxing and fell asleep very soon. For almost two weeks, I have had too much bed rest and it becomes quite difficult for me to fall asleep. Xanax has been a great temporary relief.

Tags: , , ,

Backup your Mac with AppleScript

April 17th, 2009 at 23:45 · Filed Under AppleScript, At Home, At Work, Blogging, Call Me a Geek, Computing, Days in My Life, Hacking, Mac OS X, Software Development · 1 Comment 

All programmers are lazy. They want to automate tasks as much as they can. Because of this uniquely great habit, they have developed countless of useful software.

Ok. I am lazy. I have been using rsync to sync folders I am working on between my Macs. I have been using command line scripts in Terminal for almost two years and finally I have gotten lazy over the task.

The thing is, I need to execute the scripts in Terminal every time I want to synch my folders. Of course, I could simply use cron to automate the tasks at specific time but I ran the risk to cause havoc between the folders on different Macs. It is best not to cron the task.

So, I learned up AppleScript and after a ten-minute hack, I wrote a nice AppleScripts to do the job. It is quick and dirty.

set debug to false

with timeout of (30 * 60) seconds
	tell application "Terminal"
		set Window_Title to "Sync Documents"
		set Rsync_Cmd to "rsync -acrtv --delete
			/Users/username/Documents/
			username@xxx:Documents"
		set output_doc to do shell script Rsync_Cmd
		choose from list paragraphs of output_doc with prompt
			"Result:" with title Window_Title with empty
			selection allowed
	end tell
end timeout

Copy the script to ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Finder and save it as “sync documents.scpt”. Then launch Script Editor to edit username to your login name and xxx to your Mac IP address or computer name. This script will sync your Documents folder under your user home directory. To execute this AppleScript, at Finder, click on the script icon on the menu bar and select the script to launch.

rsync uses ssh. If you have not setup a password-less ssh login, you will need ssh-askpass in /usr/libexec. Unfortunately, it does not ship with Mac OS X. You can get it at Joe Mocker’s weblog.

Tags: , ,

CNY 2009 Lion Dance

January 28th, 2009 at 23:10 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging, Chinese, Days in My Life, Holidays · Comment 

Last year, I took quite an amount of photographs without video. This year, I decided to take video and photographs to make some DVD home movie for the family. The video was actually taken by my niece, Lilian. Not bad for her first time taking video. Here’s a digest version of the vIdeo I made for my blog. Pay attention to the way the lion played with the firecrackers. Dangerous though, but never see this in the southern part.

Tags: , ,

New Toshiba Regza

January 21st, 2009 at 22:46 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging · Comment 

Bought a new Toshiba Regza 37″ LCD TV from KL on Monday. Fixed it up yesterday and the kids were enjoying it while their two old folks working hard to meet and to deliver orders.

 

Mounted on the wall to save space

Mounted on the wall to save space

It costs me RM2,400 for the unit and extra RM100 for the wall mount. It is not a full HD model as I decided that we do not need one. Of course a full HD model will be nice to have for watching movies on Blu-ray disc. The player is still very expensive, more than RM2,000 and the original movies titles are also expensive. Unless till Blu-ray hack is widely available and the equipment and software prices have come down tremendously like the DVD, full HD is not our utmost priority.

Tags: , ,

A good head start

January 1st, 2009 at 23:46 · Filed Under At Home, At Work, Call Me a Geek, Computing, Days in My Life, Hacking, Holidays, Mac OS X · Comment 

Happy New Year 2009 buddies!

It seems like a good head start for me. Everything I planned for today seems to be smooth sailing although I am having one problem which I do not know why it happens. I guess I will need to toy with it and/or hack it to learn why it isn’t behaving as it supposed to be. If everything is running perfect before end of this month, I will acquire an iPod Touch to proceed further. This will be my first wish on this very first day of 2009.

Tags: ,

A relaxing Christmas at home

December 25th, 2008 at 23:11 · Filed Under At Home, Days in My Life, Family, Holidays · Comment 

First, we wish all our family, friends and readers a Merry Christmas.

We decided to stay home this Christmas. The main reason was recession and heavy traffic everywhere. The price of petrol had fallen to RM1.80 per litter causing everyone to start taking to the roads with this more affordable price. Our petrol consumption has become even lower because of the cheaper price and the driving habit we picked up after the price hike a few months back. We planned our outings and routes so that we hit the roads less often.

On Sunday night, we went to the Portuguese Settlement to see Christmas decoration. Nothing unusual, same as it is every year, but for the fun of the kids. It was a four days before Christmas and the traffic there already built up. Some silly-no-brain drivers were part of the cause of the traffic jam in the settlement.

We spent whole day watching movies and listening to Christmas carols at home. What a relaxing Christmas.

Oh yea! My wishes this time… you know, don’t you?

Tags:

Kung Fu Panda

November 19th, 2008 at 22:53 · Filed Under At Home, At the Movies, Days in My Life, Family, Philosophy · 1 Comment 

Just finished watching Kung Fu Panda with LA and kids. It is a really nice comedy with good meaning. My boys like to watch animation and Dmitry has been asking me many times, “Daddy, when can we watch Kung Fu Panda?” Finally, there it is.

The CG animation has brilliant colors and Chinese culture cleverly blended into it. I think it is the best CG animation ever that involves many great complexity. I am not going to talk or comment about this movie because it has been released in cinema sometimes ago. It is pointless for me to review it now. But one thing which has caught my attention is near the end of the movie. Po’s goose father Mr. Ping, tells him about the secret of the secret recipes of the noodle soup. Ping says, “The secret of the secret recipe of the noodle soup is nothing at all. There is no secret recipe.” (I hope I get the line correct, I am lazy to play the video again). Then Po realizes why the dragon scroll is blank. He then defeats his enemy, the much feared Tai Lung, with his determination and courage together with a little enlightenment.

The moral of the story, there is no secret recipe to become success. Courage, determination, faith, hardworking, persistence, strive and a little enlightenment are the secret ingredients of success.

Oh yeah, I forgot, a dream and a miracle are also secret ingredients in the secret recipe. So, dare to dream for a miracle and realize it.

For those who have not watched the movie, I strongly recommend to have a watch. You will certainly have a good laugh.

Tags: ,

Busy

November 1st, 2008 at 9:13 · Filed Under At Home, At Work, Blogging, Days in My Life · 1 Comment 

Dear family, friends and readers,

If you have noticed, I post less starting October. Perhaps some of you are wondering why. Yes, you are right, I am busy working on my research and the thesis. Please continue to check my blog regularly and all comments are welcome. I will check and reply comments and will write new posts when time and ideas sneak in. I will be writing selectively rather than random thoughts.

Thank you for your patronage.

Tags:

Happy Diwali and a great start for Richie

October 28th, 2008 at 23:05 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging, Days in My Life, Dietrich, Dmitry, Dominik, Family, Holidays · 2 Comments 

First, our warm wishes to all our Indian friends a very Happy Diwali. Nothing special over the weekend and on the Diwali itself yesterday. Except we watched a Hindi movie, “Om Shanti Om”, on Sunday night. Yesterday, we visited Dmitry’s classmate and her parents who were celebrating Diwali. At night, we watched a Tamil movie, titled “BOSS”.

Today? Richie went to school for the first time to get him familiar with schooling life so that he can accustom easily when he starts his school officially next year. It was quiet at home with only LA, Nik and I. Nik was able to enjoy quiet moments without Richie bullying or disturbing him.

Tags:

Against All Odds – The Rise Of An Industrious Country

October 2nd, 2008 at 10:40 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging, Education, Humanity, Japan, Philosophy, Social · 1 Comment 

It was two weeks ago, if my memory served me right, my kids were playing around the dining hall. One of them, took a hard-boiled egg and put it into a basket of uncooked eggs. LA was getting crazy about this. I heard the incidence and I came out of my working room.

“This is the great opportunity to show the kids about science I learned when I was in lower primary.”, the thought emerged quickly. At that age, I used to read science comics for kids published by a Hong Kong publisher. I never had any chance to use that knowledge. My mom would do the cooking and I did not mess around her kitchen so there was no chance to mix up the cooked and uncooked eggs. This time, my kids gave me an opportunity to show off. ;)

I took the two eggs in my hand and LA gathered the boys around the dining table. Mom told D, “Look, daddy is going to demonstrate science.”

I took one egg at a time, stood it on its broader end and then spun it on the table, One egg would spin standing until it lost its angular momentum. The other egg couldn’t hardly spin on its end for a fraction of a second. The cooked and uncooked eggs had been determined. The boys, especially D, were astonished.

Well, what is the relationship about this egg tale and the rise of an industrious country?

Read more

Tags: , , ,

Two more kids get pox

September 26th, 2008 at 21:37 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging, Dietrich, Dmitry, Dominik, Health, Medical · Comment 

Well, Dmitry had recovered from his chickenpox and began schooling this Monday. Unfortunately, Rich began to get the symptom on Monday late morning when LA noticed some red spots and small blisters popping out on his face. By Wednesday, he had blisters all over his body.

And today, guess what? Nik begins to show symptoms. His outbreak is slow with fewer blisters. We are supposed to meet up with LY tomorrow but it looks like impossible. They are so afraid that their daughter (same age as Nik) may get the chickenpox too.

Well, all three of them have gotten their chickenpox.

Tags: ,

Nassi-Shneiderman Diagram

September 12th, 2008 at 12:44 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging, Software Development · Comment 

I came across a highly influential graphical representation method of stating algorithm while I was reading books of system analysis and design. This method is called Nassi-Shneiderman Diagram or NSD. It was developed by Isaac “Ike” Nassi and Ben Shneiderman in 1972. Isaac also helped design the Ada programming language.

Many people claimed NSD to be very easy to read and understand, especially for beginners. This is probably quite true but maintaining NSD can be a problem for system designers. Unlike flowchart, NSD lumps all the symbols into one large block and does not use connectors between the symbols.

Contrary to flowchart which uses connectors, NSD provides a better structural approach of design where Goto should be avoided in structured programming. NSD provides simplicity and a compact overview of a program that can show some relationship nicely. NSD, in particular, provides visual aid and guides thinking about nested conditional structures.

Personally, I find that NSD is useful for rapid prototyping. It is quite simple and easy to draw a conceptual design before expanding into a flowchart. Modifying a stage or symbol in NSD is rather tedious compared to flowchart. On the other hand, after a careful and thorough investigation, I find NSD most suitable for structured system analysis, design and programming. NSD was designed with structured system analysis and design in mind as mentioned in the above paragraph, it has many advantages over flowchart despite of problem maintaining it. I think it is worth to study and to use it.

Here is an example of NSD and flowchart stating an algorithm to find a summation given by the equation:

 

If S > 100, then display k and tell the user that k is in range.

Read more

Tags: , , ,

Hit the books

September 10th, 2008 at 23:32 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging · Comment 

I have eight books to gnaw in 4 weeks but I only found one and bought it yesterday. So far, I’ve managed to gnaw one and half chapters of all eighteen in one book. The list of the books that I need to chew is growing. Looking at the list and the progress that I have made so far makes me a little worry. It is one mission impossible.

Some of the books are available as ebook but I prefer a hardcopy. Downloading of ebook pages are quite slow. The other drawback of the ebook is that I am unable to flip between pages for cross referencing. Hence, I would rather to invest in hardcopy books.

Local bookstores have limited titles. I believe Borders and Kinokumiya may have titles which I am looking for. I have to travel to KL one of these days to search for the books I need.

Tags:

Pox Party

September 8th, 2008 at 12:17 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging, Dmitry, Health, Medical · 5 Comments 

Hurray! Let’s have chicken pox party! Wait a minute… Am I going crazy? Who wants to have chickenpox? Huh… You see. In the past, parents would throw a chicken pox party when their children got chickenpox. The idea was to let other children to contract the virus naturally rather through inoculation. Once a person has contracted chickenpox, he/she will have immunity to chicken pox for the rest of his/her life. The only drawback is that person will have a chance to have shingles when the immunity gets low.

Dmitry has got chickenpox this morning. I didn’t see any when I had bath with him yesterday. So, the doctor gave him one week medical leave and advised him to stay at home. Nowadays people are so afraid to let their children to get chickenpox. This is a sign of overly protective. Children should not be sent back to school. But I personally think that why not as long as the children have no fever and as long as personal hygiene is taken care of.

Lets go spread some virus! He…he… :D

Tags: ,

Algorithmic art

September 6th, 2008 at 0:34 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging, Mathematics · 2 Comments 

Jean-Pierre Hébert, a 68-year-old French artist, is an algorist. This is a name, proposed by Jean himself, for artists who create arts using unique computer algorithms. Apple featured Jean and his works in May 2008. You can read about him here so I am not going to repeating writing about him and his works.

When I was doing shopping alone this evening, the idea flashed in my mind. I could use Mathematica to explore algorithmic art. So, I sat down in front of my Mac and explored. Here’s my first piece of algorithmic art . It is not comparable to what Jean has done but is definitely a good start. I can’t call myself algorist yet because I created no algorithm.

The following examples are two very simple mathematics equations. The plots demonstrate that mathematics can be visualized as art.

Read more

Tags: , , ,

Writing a conceptual paper

August 17th, 2008 at 0:00 · Filed Under At Home, At Work, Blogging, Days in My Life · 2 Comments 

This may or may not be the greatest invention or rather I will not call it an invention yet. I am thinking of how to write a paper to record the conceptualization of my idea which I talked about earlier. First, at this point, I can’t discuss my idea with anybody in order to protect my interest; that makes the writing more difficult. Second, I have nothing to prove so writing this paper is like writing a Sci-Fi novel. So, I need a different approach, may be.

I dug out my collection of conference proceedings yesterday afternoon, hopefully I could find some inspiration. Obviously, I haven’t.

Tags:

Yummy little cup cake

August 16th, 2008 at 17:32 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging, Days in My Life, Family, Food, Photography · 4 Comments 

LA had baked some little cup cakes. She decorated them so well that you wanted to eat them. If you look at them for a while more, you wouldn’t want to eat them because they were so colorfully beautiful.

 

These photos were taken in May and I did not have time to process them and to write a post. I was processing Dmitry’s graduation photos last night so I conveniently processed them together. Some good and mouth watering pictures to get rid of the eye sore.

Read more

Tags: ,

Sudden flooding of wild ideas

August 15th, 2008 at 1:57 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging, Days in My Life · 2 Comments 

I have a sudden flooding of wild ideas these couples of days. Most of them seem to be really wild and not practical or logical enough to implement. But I see one with great potential which may change the way of computing.

I need some time to think it over and if it is viable, I then have to look at possibilities to patent it. If I am lucky enough, I may get venture capital fund for research and development. I hope so. Let’s dream big.

This is going to be exciting though.

Tags:

Next Page »