I got myself a new blog

Yes, finally or not. It's at WordPress - ykykyk.wordpress.com. Reason after the jump.

My most meaningful portable music player.

Listening to music on the train today, I suddenly thought about an article by Woz on Gizmodo which he talked about the most meaningful gadgets in his life, one of which was the transistor radio, which gave him portable music that he could listen to all night long when he slept.

Even though it was superseded by the Walkman and iPod, the transistor radio was the one that gave him the real change in his life.

Then I thought to myself, which was mine?

I started listening to CDs when I was young, on my parents' huge roundish boom box. I've never bothered with transistor radios as a child, the reception was too bad. That's why I've always wanted a Discman, but my parents would never buy me one.

One day my dad gave in and got me a.. Walkman. Yes, when CDs were prolific in the market, he got me a walkman. Pathetic as hell, I would bug my mom to buy me empty tapes from the supermarket just so I could record my CDs on them to listen on the go, and even so she wouldn't always buy them for me. I had like 3 or 4 tapes my whole life and I had to reuse them over and over again. Not only that, it was tedious as hell to dub, nearly impossible to change tracks and I could only listen to the same few songs over and over. I grew to hate the music I had.

I finally got a Discman, but that was not what I wanted. I only could buy 1 CD a year. CD-R drives were expensive. I got a portable FM tuner too. Trashy pop on 987. Then an MD player. Glorified Walkman. I was never satisfied with my portable music.

Then, just after I finished secondary school, Apple dropped the big A-bomb. The first fucking iPod. 4GB of space in the size of a deck of cards. And not to mention it was beautiful. I wanted it so fucking badly the only thing that stopped me was the price. It sold for about $950 when it first launched. That was 1 month of my salary when I was working part time. And, it needed a Mac, or the gay Musicmatch Jukebox for windows. I was so sad. I passed.

A while later, I went to poly. I was elated. Having a laptop was compulsory. Finally, a fully portable music player with a shit load of space! I could even choose what software to use! Who the heck needs an iPod? Then reality hit. My so-called 'MP3 Player' only had 1 hour of battery life. Realistically it would only run for about 30 minutes. Not to mention in year 1, power points were as scarce as bikini babes in a desert. So I took 30 minutes to haul my ass to school, and then I couldn't use my laptop anymore until I found a power point. Not to mention it felt like I was carrying a volcano on my back. That did not last long.

About a year and 2 generations of iPods later, an old friend of mine struck me a deal. The first gen iPod. The one I fell in love with but had no damn money to buy. For $160. OMFG BUY. It was scratched as hell, and the battery lasted for no more than 2 minutes. I bought it anyway. My friend told me, "there is still warranty, I think you can still send it in." I was so fucking glad I listened to him. I sent it in to Apple, and 2 weeks later, I got a brand, spanking new 1st gen iPod. BRAND NEW. That's when it all started. Albums, songs, playlists, genres, swapped in and out at any time I wanted, in no time at all, over Firewire. It changed my life. It was exactly the way I wanted to listen to music. The battery lasted forever. And on top of that, it fit nicely in my pocket. For me, this was the most meaningful gadget in my life, EVER.

Needless to say, 7 years and 2 iPods later, I was on the train, today, still listening to an iPod, even though it's just a program, while on MSN with my girlfriend. Much has advanced over the years - colour, video playback, internet capability.. But I'm still listening to music the same way I was 7 years ago on my 1st iPod, while being able to do so much more. If not for the very first iPod, all these would have not been.

Looks like I might just skip the GS..

Why? Cos it's pointless, once I can afford one, half a year later a better one is going to come out. I might as well wait till then. By then my contract should be 7-7-8-8 already, so I should be able to upgrade my phone without worries.

What can happen next WWDC? I don't know, front facing camera, and a xenon flash? iChat? Who knows?

And seriously, besides the speed bump, I really don't find the other features worth the trouble (and the money). I am really paying the extra god knows how much to load peggle that 5-10s faster. Although I seriously wish that my phone was a little (much) faster, I bet iPhone firmware 4.0 will make the 3GS crawl as well, and by then it will be iPhone 4G or 3GSS or some fuckshit, claiming that everything loads in no time at all, boasting PS3 quality graphics at 60FPS. I wish. LOL.

Why the new product line up is trash

I think only 2 of you who read my blog is gonna know what I'm gonna talk about next. Lol.

Anyway, it's about WWDC. Yes the camping on the live blog was exciting for that night, but when day broke and I woke up, I can't help to think, that god damnit, the product line this WWDC is so damn stopgap.

It's like they have something really great in the labs but they couldn't push it out in time and so they just shove 'new' products in our face just because we were expecting something.

I mean, look at it. The product lines are completely messed up now. The only MacBook left is the white one, which they were supposed to phase out early this year. So when it's finally time for it to go, then what? Their notebook line will only consist of MacBook Pros? That does not make sense. They obviously have a product line that had to go somewhere but they flatly missed the mark and just had to make do.

And then the 3GS. What the hell. Again, what is the damn difference between the 3G and the S besides the point that it's faster and has all the extra whatever under the hood? It's really as though they couldn't make the iPhone 2 in time and figured what the heck, let's just take 1/2 of the iPhone 2 and shove it into a 3G case and make do for now.

The only thing I liked about Monday was the new 7 hour batteries for the 'Pros'. That's it. 2 hours of keynote and the only takeaway point was the battery. Nice.

And the 15" MBP without discrete graphics? WTF? MBP gay edition? No longer can you tote a 15" MBP around feeling smug about yourself at StarBucks when you know that there is a shitty version out there that looks exactly like yours. Like a fake LV bag. I really pity the suckers who bought the 1st gen 15" unibodies cos there is no product differentiation anymore.

You see, the 13" was fine you know, small, chic and cute. Didn't matter if it didn't have a lot of horsepower, it was still better than Intel Integrated anyway. But what the hell is a crippled 15" MBP doing there? Bastard child of Apple? It's big, looks fierce, and it has no balls. A Ferarri with a Honda engine. It should have been a 15" MacBook joining the 13" MacBook family and not the other way around. Seriously, the only unique difference between the 2 lines now is the fucking battery. And the aluminium.

And, all the removable HDD and battery nonsense for nothing. All gone in 1 generation. Not that it was a good design, I've always found it clunky. But still, with all the hype back then, wth man.

Jobs, please come back soon. We miss you.

StoneJamz

I think they are going bust. I just received a SMS from them in the afternoon, asking people to sign up for a 'membership', $100 for 10 hours of jamming a month, to be used in 30 days. Just 5 minutes ago, another SMS saying $55 for 5 hours. I think they got not enough to cover for rent and need cash up front. I kinda pity them, they don't seem to have much business, but then again their equipment is so bad.. It's an endless cycle. Nobody goes there because the equipment is bad, and because they have no business they cannot fix their equipment.

なに？！？！

Wtf, BSS just received a C&D for FMA:B. And supposedly everyone else subbing it too. How the fuck am I going to watch it now? Not like the fail remake was a bad enough disappointment already.

massive thoughts

I've been thinking, or maybe have been troubled, for some time now. Some of you might know what predicament I'm in, maybe most. If you don't, it's about this:

I've got myself into this shit by wanting to do too many things at one time. But I can't help it when none of them are moving, I can't just sit and wait. I've been looking for a job, applying for school, looking for a serious band, and starting a business with my friends.

So the thing now is, none of them are moving along. And I'm becoming irritated. Maybe because I haven't been giving my fullest attention on any one of the above, choosing to spread my focus among all 4 and hoping that at least one will be successful. Maybe because I'm greedy. Maybe because I'm undecided. I don't know.

Out of the four, 2 of them are putting up a tough fight now, getting a job, and the business. I can't put my fullest attention into looking for a job because of the business, and I can't put my fullest attention on the business because I'm looking for a job. It's shitty. It's a fucking shitty cycle. And I can't make up my mind to focus on one.

One thing, I've always wanted to do what I'm going to do for my business. It's a good potential source of income, but I definitely won't be making much, or any, till much later. I need to eat, I need to buy things, I need money. That's why I want to get a job. So I can get instant monthly income. It's not what I like, but I do get paid. But if I do this, I will barely have time for the business, not to mention the other 2 things in my life as well, band and music studies.

But I need the money. Or want? I don't know. There's a saying that there must be sacrifice to get what you want. And I believe sacrifice will definitely come with suffering. But you see, I don't mind the suffering, but I just don't want the people around me to suffer with me as well. Leila, for having to pay for my meals all the time. My parents, for having to pay for my living expenditures and having to tell their friends and colleagues that their son is useless and jobless.

And on top of that, to put it in an even more twisted way, I've got to sacrifice getting a job for the business, or sacrifice the business and musical passion, to get a job.

MONEY OR PASSION

That's the question. In life, you can't have both.

Think different

Hell yeah. I'm being offered a job at Dell selling computers. Every Winshit I sell, one less Mac buyer. :D

My White iPhone is spawning cracks

Fuck. Just barely a month from my last replacement my new iPhone is spawning hairline cracks all over. Should I replace it again?

EDIT: SingTel gave me a new one again. But for something else, because my screen wasn't flushed to the bezel. I think I'm not going to care anymore, till the new iPhone comes out then I shall bug AppleCare to give me the new model..

MobileMe replacement

I'm sick and tired of MobileMe. I seriously am. $140 a year just to sync my calendars, contacts and bookmarks across my 2 Macs, and to my iPhone OTA. $140 upfront. For a service whose iDisk doesn't even work properly, and does not sync my subscribed cals OTA without some hacking (running a shitty buggy program that I have to PAY for, again)

So, I've found myself some replacements.

Having 2 Macs, I needed my cals and contacts to be consistent across the 2. I absolutely must have calendars and contacts syncing. So how do I do this? Simple. Enter Google, and Spanning Sync. Spanning Sync syncs your cals and contacts to and fro Google. And you still get web access to them, from Google's own web apps.

The only thing you lose is OTA syncing with the iPhone, but I realised that the additional convenience does not justify the battery life I lose at the end. You can actually use Google's new Exchange service for OTA syncing, but it will screw up your contacts as Google stores contacts in a slightly different format than Apple. Spanning Sync sorts it all out for you so your contacts look a-ok on the Mac.

Spanning Sync costs US$25 for the 1st year, US$15 for subsequent years, and US$65 for forever. Google, is of course, free.

Next, bookmarks syncing. This one is easy, Foxmarks. Bookmarks syncing across Safari, Firefox and ShitIE. You also get web access, something ME screwed you over and removed. It also has sync profiles so you can choose what bookmarks go on what machine, if you don't want the porn you bookmarked last night appearing at work. And once again, 3 browsers. Winblows too (fox and shitie only)

Foxmarks is free.

Lastly, data syncing. This is my favourite, Dropbox. I've been using this for nearly 2 months now and I absolutely love it. Although the measly 2GB isn't much, you can pay US$99 to get 50GB, and for the same price from MobileMe, you only get 20. And why the hell would you want to store so much data in the cloud anyway?

And the best part is, it works. Dropbox exists as a folder in my home folder, and the whole Dropbox folder is synced in real-time. It doesn't matter what the directory structure is, it acts just like a drive.

And syncing data barely takes any time, I just put the file into the folder and Dropbox will tell me when it's fully synced and ready to go. I remember back with iDisk I've always had to wait for the f**cking bar that never completes, and most of the time it will just crash Finder because it's just too damn slow.

And guess what? Winbitches can use Dropbox too! And you can do collaboration with this, e.g. creating a folder inside your Dropbox that you can choose whoever to access. This is something iDisk can't do. And it has a public folder too, for you to share your porn or whatever with the world.

Dropbox is free for 2GB, US$99 for 50GB. Just use the free one.

If you ask about push mail, I will slap you. Push anything drinks battery like water. I've set my phone to check my gmail every hour, and it is more than enough. Use Google. Google is free. FREE.

In total, if you go for the cheapest route above, it only costs US$25 for the first year, and US$15 for subsequent years. This, compared to US$99 a year for MobileMe, is quite a huge saving. US$65 for forever still beats US$99 every year. If you absolutely need 20GB of space in the cloud, though, you can still choose to use MobileMe, but if you manage to sync the whopping 20GB into iDisk, let me know, I will treat you to dinner. I was already having problems syncing 50MB.

There you go, if you are contemplating MobileMe but squinting because of the cost, think about these free (or significantly cheaper) alternatives I've listed above. Thank me later if you want.

Fixed? Not really..

After v24-TNG my internet was becoming progressively slower for no reason (1.5KB/s anyone?) so I gave up and used tomato instead. Much better. Awesome control of QoS. Everything else is fuss free.

UPnP FIXED!!

If you are using a linksys router and DD-WRT v24-sp1, you might have realised that UPnP does not work. It never populates the UPnP table and iChat's video chat is always laggy, or it wouldn't even connect.

Here's the fix. Go get v24-TNG svn10431 over at DD-WRT's site. It's under downloads/others/eko/V24_TNG/svn10431

Remember to reset to router defaults before and after you flash, from the main menu, not from the flashing menu. After I flashed my router it was still the old version (confusing, yes). I reset to router defaults from the main menu and then it showed the new version. Weird. But yes, UPnP is working now!

oh shi-

Safari 4 beta is out. And it looks pretty fantastic.

More on it here

EDIT:

First impressions, pretty impressive, but not flawless. But as everything Apple, it makes the old look like antique almost immediately, no matter how much you dislike the new.

Example, here I am trying to accept the tabs that are now all the way on top, being so hard to click and all, going back to my Macbook looking at good ol' Safari 3 I can't help but to feel that the tab area looks way fatter than in Safari 4. Safari 3 actually looks old.

Not all 3rd party plugins work. Inquisitor doesn't work (cry). 1Password works after some .plist hacking, thankfully.

You can finally customise the behaviour of opening new tabs and windows! You can make new tabs load the current page you're looking at like the good old shit of an IE6, or whatever you want, actually! Home page, same page, empty page or bookmarks. Note that in Safari 3 it defaults to empty page and you can't do jack schitt about it.

It's faster than 3, but probably because it's new. Living in an uncluttered location on my hard drive maybe. Can't say much about memory, got to use it for 2 days without closing it to tell. But as it is it's already running 200MB with 5 tabs.

Dragging of tabs is a BITCH. You have to aim. Very well. You can't drag the tabs like before, clicking anywhere you want. Only in the right corner, in a specified place.

I'll see how long I can live with this, but with the impending Snow Leopard, if they are going to stick with this UI, I will need to get used to it, and fast.

Oh and did I say it looks a little like Firefox 3? No? Well ok I just said it then. Shame on you Apple, shame on you.

OMFG THIS IS FUCKING HILARIOUS!!!

The colour of apple

.. is not black, nor is it silver, nor is it bondi blue....

It is White.             

I just realised I have not post pics of my new pedalboard yet..

Tadahh...

It didn't come in such a nice condition tho, so I had to reupholster it.. with this!

INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH! It looks very nice tho, like carpet..

The other side of the pedals are stuck with this..

So yeah, they stick like glue. I can flip the thing around and the pedals won't drop off. If you're lucky you will get to see it next jamming!

(it's bloody fucking heavy tho)

Best Vuze replacement so far

It's been nagging me, Vuze taking up 300MBs of memory and sometimes more, on my old iMac with only 2GB of ram. 2GB is little nowadays, how fast time flies. Anyway, Vuze absolutely kills my iMac. It beachballs my Mac to no end. So today, during spring cleaning, I decided to take up a solution suggested by Jem: uTorrent.

Well if you are an avid pirate, you should know that uTorrent was bought over by BitTorrent, a completely legal, legit company, sometime back. That doesn't make it very safe, but it is the fastest and most lightweight client on windows. So recently, after the cows finally came home (hey, Lunar New Year, happy year of the cow guys) they released a supposedly kick ass Mac version. I remember Jem hyping about it "it has RSS downloading and it's really fast!" so I decided to give it a try.

Then I realised, the hard way why people always say not to follow hype.

First of all, there is no RSS downloading in sight. RSS downloading only existed for a little while on a leaked pre-release alpha build. It's beta now, and it's not there. But what was true, was that uTorrent is pretty damn snappy, and barely took up 30MBs of memory.

So fine, no RSS downloading, I can live with workarounds. Stumbled upon a program called TV Shows, where you just choose what show you want and from which episode you want to watch it from and it will download the torrent files for you, once they are available. The version on that link doesn't work but this dude fixed it. Pretty damn cool, works better than Vuze. +1!

Now I don't only watch TV shows, I watch anime too. So I need something that can handle generic RSS downloading for me, and I found Automatic. Automatic works roughly the same way as how Vuze's RSS downloading works, so that's good enough for me. Oh, both TV Shows and Automatic has options to open your torrent files for you, so they start automatically.

All's well, well almost, till I realised, uTorrent does not have web administration. I mean, what if I need to download something and I'm not at home? I've always loved Vuze's web administration, and I can't live without it.

Then I remembered an old gem: Transmission. It is a BT client that I believe, originated on the Mac. Popped by the site to take a look after this long while, from all the google results of people comparing Transmission to uTorrent.

I must say, I did not use Transmission back then as I couldn't select files within a torrent to download. It's such a simple feature and they didn't have it. But they have it now. And because it originated from the Mac (I believe so) it is the only BT client that fits the UI of the Mac. Simple, sleek and informative. It is also extremely lightweight, much like uTorrent. So I gave it a shot, and WOW. It does everything uTorrent can do, and looks much better. AND, it has a web interface that looks EXACTLY like the Mac interface. Not even Vuze can match that. Also, it has built in peer filtering, with a list that is consistently updated from the intarwebs, just like Vuze can. That's 2 to nil for Transmission against uTorrent. Together with TV Shows and Automatic, Transmission just supplants uTorrent. This solution is better than Vuze too, if any portion of Vuze fails you can't just replace it, you got to live with it.

If you use a Mac, give Transmission a shot. It's pretty damn good.

Please guys, use GTalk

Guys, replace MSN with GTalk. MSN is passe. And you don't even need to create an account if you are cool and already have a gmail account. On Macs, you can use Adium. On windows, I bet there is a windows client. Dump MSN man.

This is amusing and informative at the same time

I never knew there was such a detailed categorization of shit.

"The Bristol Stool Scale or Bristol Stool Chart is a medical aid designed to classify the form of human feces into seven categories." -Wikipedia

Finally a decent contender to the iPhone..

Fuck man the Palm Pre is really sweet.. It aggregates all your contacts from everywhere into a single, simple interface, from Facebook to Gmail to Exchange. It also aggregates all your conversations into a single interface, be it IM or SMS, so you can SMS or MSN someone from the same window and it looks like 1 flowing conversation. Yes it also aggregates your calendars from everywhere. UI wise, it can do everything the iPhone can do- swipes, pinching, etc. And it's actually smoother. And guess what, it can multitask. The only thing that will be lacking will be powerful third party apps because the API is HTML CSS and JS, but that might just change, who knows.

So what is it going to be, to be stuck on Apple as a stuck-up fanboy or go on to something better? Palm was the 1st ever PIM I've ever used and it made my life so much better (before it died on me, and then the company died as well). Now they finally come up with something that is as wonderful and exciting as my Palm V. Funny thing is that it doesn't have the same charm the iPhone gave when it 1st came out.. Maybe it was the Reality Distortion Field..

My newly refurbished room!

Tadahhhh...

It's not as pathetic as before now. Still pathetically small, but at least it's finally pleasant.

A pity I don't have any before pictures to show you how pathetic it used to be, it was so hideous I couldn't even bear to take any photos of it lest the camera breaks. Anyway, try to imagine it without the blinds, without the rug, and with an ugly toilet-like florescent circle-light on the ceiling. Took me quite a bit to get the blinds on, I used cable tie, but the end result is great. Yes, it works flawlessly. :D Blinds, rug, ceiling lamp and lamp shade courtesy of IKEA.