We are now on the latest WordPress version 2.6.2. Just upgraded… wonder if it resolves the email blogging problems with the older versions (no Rich Text support, cannot email images for blogging).
Hmm… seems like some Unicode settings are off as well… at least one category is showing ?? instead of Chinese characters.
Just started to add links to the blog… Colafish will have to keep up the good work. This is just to start it off…
It seems that people often dote on bad news. But it is really not difficult to understand why. Every day, we are bombarded with bad news, especially sensational ones that can help popularise a blog, a magazine, or a newspaper. I normally get my news from GoogleNews. I believe the news headlines there are picked from the most viewed news from around the world. Obviously, it is mostly bad news. (P.S. You can get slightly more localised news if you go for the website for your country. E.g. add .au for australia)
Here’s a good news for today though. One that I haven’t heard much talking about outside of China… China has successfully launched, landed and completed a spacewalk! Read more about it here. I think it is such a great accomplishment, not only because they did it, but also did it in accordance to their previous plans, and without much politicking (at least not that I have heard/read about, and certainly not enough to delay or derail the mission). China and its leaders do really inspire trust and respect IMHO. At least, they really do punish people who are outright doing wrong, whether they are part of the Communist Party, and irrespective of how high up they are. This is something that many “democratic” countries fail to do…
Anyway, I am really happy for China. I think they are the best hope to keep the fascination, enthusiasm and even fanaticism for space alive! NASA is good, but unfortunately, too much politics and internal money-siphoning (probably — why everything is so expensive and slow?) just doesn’t do it much good. I would also wait for all those private companies now trying to make space travel a reality for the masses…
Definitely welcomed good news after reading all the upsetting news on Malaysia’s politics… 
I may have been away from Malaysia for 13 years (almost half my life), but there’s still a Malaysian in me… And at least for me, there is no place like one’s birthplace. Maybe that’s why even turtles keep going back to the same place to lay their eggs, even though they realise that humans are there to trap them, disturb them and remove the eggs they so lovingly placed in their yearly ritual until they are now almost extinct…
P.S. Colafish is still incubating the little one… Adam must be too comfortable in mama’s tummy.
Been quiet for awhile over here. Colafish is feeling like a humpty dumpty. The little one inside has been rather naughty, either that or he has been busy exercising…
Meanwhile, I have destroyed my 5+ years old Toshiba laptop recently. The LCD screen is broken, so there is no cheap way to fix it. It still works — with a cracked screen!
Colafish is actually happy that I broke that old laptop, forcing me to purchase a new one… So, I picked up a really cheap one to replace it. It is the Acer Extensa 5220, for an unbelievable price of AUD399 after rebate! I paid an extra AUD50 to get a 2GB RAM added, giving a total of 2.5GB. It is actually a really good computer for the price! It includes nearly everything one can expect:
I can also pay about AUD40-50 to get a built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. From one review online, it appears that the CPU is a slotted one which would accept a Phenom based processor if I wanted to change the processor (and claim that I have a Core 2 Duo, for example)… Anyway, the system works well… I only dislike Vista with a passion (crashed like nobody’s business), and I have already uninstalled it and I am using Windows XP SP3 at this moment… That was another reason why I chose this cheap system — it has full support for XP unlike some newer laptops with only official support/drivers for Vista. I also wished it came with all the cables, but well, I have ordered an S-Video cable for AUD3.50 on Ebay. No biggie.
So, it’s been weeks now that I had the Ritmo CL-3590 (also known as Ritmo 650 LANserver) … I have much to share for the people who end up buying it and keeping it. It is really cheap (AUD70+) for a 3.5″ USB2/SATA/SATA2/LAN enclosure, and does its job reasonably well if you are willing to work at it. It is hard to find anything like it for the price… Here are some tips to make life easier:
想来想去， 还是决定用中文。
如果不会中文， 自认和中国毫无瓜葛的人，是不会真正的被北京奥运开幕典礼感动的。
轰轰烈烈后，有些西方国家似乎从另一个角度报道。最严重的几个指控如： 在开幕典礼歌唱的红衣小女孩唱对嘴， 聘用专业拉拉队， 假烟花效果 等。
我倒觉得这样的指控有点多余。 反正当开幕典礼是由电影导演负责时，就摆明了这只是一场好戏。 重要的是视听效果。谁管真材实料嘛。像李宁表演飞檐走壁没有用替身已经很好了啦。
唉，像那红衣小女孩林妙可用的是另一个小女孩杨佩仪的歌声，真的让人难以接受吗？当父母决定让孩子去甄选这些童星角色时都应该预了和选美没两样，不够可爱就会被淘汰，再者就是有什么才能就表演什么。又不见大家去抗议电影演员用配音或替身。。。
专业拉拉队，没有说是几时派上用场。 不过如果是用在一些冷门的比赛或是给一些小国的运动员喝彩加油，我倒是觉得中国政府还真大方大爱呐。不然冷冷清清运动员也没劲。 不过如果只是用在中国运动员上，那就有点不必要了。不过，各个国家也不必妒嫉，谁都可以请专业拉拉队如果不服气。 有钱就可以了。反正买不起票看奥运的中国人还很多，苦练英语的也愁没机会发挥。
假烟花效果控诉最无聊。 用高科技效果你们不喜欢， 放真烟花又嫌北京空气污染严重。真是。
中国人自己也有许多意见，但多是批评开幕的内容文化等。让人见识到了举办一个大活动，总是顺得哥来失嫂意！！
虽然不是中国人，看着和自己流着同样的血液的人民能有这样的成就还是很感动，并为身为华人感到骄傲。（幸好父母明智，没让我变成香蕉人，不然就只能为最擅长‘所多米 ’的榴莲共和国感到骄傲）。
I have an antiquated 5+ year old laptop. A Toshiba 1135-S125 upgraded with Wifi built-in and 768MB of memory and an external DVD-burner running Windows XP Home. Of late, computing technology has been uninspiring, and most of anything anyone wants to do with their computer (excluding games), I could do on my computer, albeit slow (especially video editing!). The one thing that makes me want to upgrade is my storage space. I could not upgrade my hard disk as the screw that keeps the DVD drive in the bay has gone kaput and there is no way for me to remove it without specialised tool (like a screw extractor kit). Furthermore, now that I have gone from single bachelor to happily married within the past five years, it has been a nightmare trying to keep track of photos (two computers, two copies of the same photos with a few missing from each computer), documents, music files, videos, etc.. SO… what did I do?
Randy Pausch was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University (one of the best computer science university in US and keen rival of Cornell university esp in unofficial online computer gaming competition according to Bumblebee.) He became famous after giving his ‘Last Lecture‘ speech. Unfortunately, he succumbed to pancreatic cancer and passed away recently. (Steve Jobs also has pancreatic cancer, though a different form. Wondering if there’s a relationship between pancreatic cancer and long hour of computer usage.. bumblebee, better wear a shield at your left upper quadrant!)
His ‘last lecture’ had gained much popularity among chinese bloggers in Malaysia (probably because one of the chinese papers did a coverage on it). So one fine evening, we downloaded the lecture in youtube and watched it over dinner.
Adelaide is a peaceful and slow paced city.
That’s a fact supported by these crime news from the city free weekly newspaper - The Messenger.
1. Handbag Grabbed (not bad, we have snatch thieves too!) -A man grabbed a woman’s handbag off her arm as she walked through Victoria Square on Friday, June 27,about 8.30pm. The woman chased and confronted the man who dropped the bag and ran away (feminism rulez!!). She was not hurt.
2. Knife Wielder - three men, one wielding a knife, tried to rob another man of his backpack as he walked along Princess St, city on Thursday, June 26, about 6am. The backpacker ran away and kept his bag. (hope he didn’t get caught by the traffic police for running over 50km/h - that’s the speed limit in the city)
- amongst other news of breakins, speedings and booze bashings.
That’s why the papers doesn’t need a joke column when there is a ‘low and order’ column. Haha.
Whoa! Was playing Dance Dance Revolution with colafish recently on the Wii… then came a series of knocks on the door. I finished the dance (and beat the Venue Master! ) before answering the knocks…
Turns out it was the neighbour complaining about banging noises! Well… ahem. Let’s see. It is 8:30pm at the time. And, even though I do dance like an orang utan, the floor is carpetted, and we only have the rare occasion to play the game in recent days.
Well, I apologised about the noise, thinking it might be due to having the TV a little louder than usual. Then, I thought, hmm… there are banging noises from the units above us as well. So, I wrote a (hand-written) note stating that the noises might be from the units above and left the note on the neighbour’s door.