chuyeow.wtf

How my simple iPhone app made it to the top of the App Store

2009-09-22T22:26:33+00:00

Slightly more than a month back I wrote this little iPhone app</a> (App Store link</a>), almost a toy app really, to check the usage of my data plan with my local telco (Singtel). I wanted to scratch an itch and I also really didn't want to exceed my data plan - the fees are excessive.

Anyway, I submitted it to the iPhone App Store for approval as a free app and named it Singtel Data Usage. No points for creativity with the name but I thought it'd be nice to know exactly what the app did from just reading its name. After one keyword rejection (which was unfounded but I wasn't going to argue with the app reviewers), it finally got approved a few days ago.

Yeah that's what it looks like. I stole part of the design from another iPhone app - can anyone guess which one? I think I spent 80% of development time changing the design over and over again, tweaking font sizes, and agonizing over which icons to use.

Thanks to folks on Twitter (I'm @chuyeow</a> - do follow me if you're reading my blog), word got around and by the 3rd day of it being approved, my app was the Top Free app on the Singapore App Store. Going to take a time out for the vanity shot:

On to the not so fun part of this post. Yet another similar app, SG BBOM</a>, was pulled from the App Store by Singtel</a> (the telco) recently so I'm expecting to hear from Singtel really soon. We shall see.

In the meantime, if you own an iPhone and have a Singtel data plan, do check out my app</a> (App Store link) and give an honest review on the App Store. If you've already downloaded it, I'd like to know what you think in a review as well. Thanks!

Blog redesigned

2009-07-05T14:50:00+00:00

After 5 long years of using the same old blog theme, which I'd handcrafted from scratch way back in 2004, I've finally got down to refreshing it to a more contemporary look. I've also updated the woefully outdated About page</a>.
Here's a before and after shot:

I think it's much better, definitely more modern and minimalist.
The new blog theme is basically a heavily modified version of the
wonderful and free Compositio WordPress theme</a> -
you can check out a demo of Compositio here</a> to see how different it is.
The only thing I kept from my old theme, which I affectionately called "Clover", was the same clover logo. I did that with the shape tool in Photoshop - it's a simple logo and no skill was required to create it, obviously!
If you're reading this in a feed reader or one of those aggreggator-type sites, you can help me out by checking out the blog itself and giving me some good old constructive criticism.

I'm still alive, and on FriendFeed and Twitter

2009-03-24T22:48:58+00:00

Wow, it seems like I haven't posted anything this year. Don't worry, you aren't rid of me yet. I'm still alive and posting updates to FriendFeed</a> and (less often) to Twitter</a>.
If you belong to what I imagine must be now the microscopic population of loyal readers of my blog, please do hook up with me on FriendFeed</a> or Twitter</a>. I'll follow you back if you're a reader!

RailsConf 2008 Day 1 - pics and a summary

2008-05-30T13:32:11+00:00

Day 1 of RailsConf 2008</a> was basically tutorial day (schedule</a>) and started with my colleague here with me, Arun</a>, missing out on Yoga on Rails</a> and me sleeping until the first tutorial session. Anyway, I snapped some photos while trying to remain the unobtrusive tourist.
Here's a shot of Portland Convention Center where it's all happening:
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There're queues for collection of badges after registering your attendance:
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Patience in the queue rewarded me with a RailsConf badge/name tag:
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I was at the Meta-programming Ruby for Fun & Profit</a> tutorial in the morning. I think when I selected the tutorial it was before I'd seen Neal Ford and Patrick Farley's (the speakers) presentation videos from elsewhere - I know Patrick presented at MWRC</a> and enjoyed that video.
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So anyway, after the break I went over to the Refactoring Your Rails Application</a> tutorial. Was pretty good, but I didn't learn much I didn't already know.
Lunch came in the form of a pretty box:
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After lunch was the 2nd tutorial session and I went to both CI for the Rails Guy (or Gal)</a> (by Chad Woolley) and Developer Testing Tricks</a> (by Brian Takita). There were some scathing comments about how the tutorials were rather underwhelming so far in #railsconf</a> on IRC. While I agree that the tutorials were rather underwhelming, I think I should have expected it. Oh well, I'll know to skip them next time.
Later that night, at the Birds of a Feather session, after stealing a Pivotal Labs t-shirt</a> (they're launching a bug tracker, project management type app called Pivotal Tracker</a> at RailsConf), Yehuda Katz (Merb and jQuery ninja) gave a presentation on Merb (geared towards Rails folks). It was a pretty interesting talk though there wasn't much above what Ezra had presented previously at GoRuCo 2008</a> and at MWRC 2008</a> (I think Yehuda did one too but I can't remember where now). Yehuda pointed out a (heated) discussion that happened recently</a> on keeping Merb syntax as Rails-friendly as possible. I have no objection against a different syntax really, especially since Merb looks pretty well-documented in the source itself - would be nice if someone could point out an up-to-date Merb tutorial though.
Anyway, that's it from me - as always, if anyone who reads my blog recognizes me</a> at RailsConf, do say hi (#railsconf</a> works too).

Command history meme

2008-04-18T18:09:49+00:00

See this</a>.
history | awk '{a[$2]++}END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}' | sort -rn | head</code>
4605 cd 3576 svn 2141 ls 1701 ruby 1308 cap2 1066 ss 978 rake 867 sshb 688 rm 635 mate</code></pre>
cap2</code> is just my alias for Capistrano 2 (I use both 1.x and 2.x, since I'm lazy to upgrade some old Rails applications, ss</code> is my alias for script/server</code>. sshb</code> is a shortcut for ssh with a certain port number for SSH daemons (i.e. -p 22</code>) that we use in Bezurk</a> (you know, security through obscurity).
Shokudo Japanese Food Bazaar (in Singapore) - don't bother 2008-02-26T00:08:04+00:00 Subscribers who read my blog for Ruby- or Mozilla-related posts should ignore this post, it's another of those blogging as catharsis posts. To my defence, I haven't done one of those for a really long time! If you're staying in Singapore and looking to try out the food at Shokudo Japanese Food Bazaar after it was featured in the local newspaper</a>, my advice to you is, "don't bother!" Why? In 2 words, horrible service. Despite some positive reviews</a> (yes, the decor is not too bad), my dining experience at Shokudo consisted mostly of getting the service crew's attention (and failing spectacularly despite standing right at the counter) and being scowled at or avoided by most of the staff (which is not good, since being a bazaar-style restaurant, you needed to place your order at each stall manned by different members of the service crew). My friends and I were speculating that either the staff got scolded that day (and reacted negatively to that), or they were just too stuck up because business was good. Either way, it was just terrible. When leaving, I even got rudely reminded that I'd left that one of those things they gave you to reserve a table. Did I mention the service was horrible? (Granted, there were 2 counters where the staff were attentive and actually quite friendly - this was at the macha drink stall and the katsu curry counter.) What about the food? With such bad service I would say no one shouldn't really care about the quality of the food - thankfully enough, the food is of a consistently mediocre level to even bother! Has anyone had a similar experience at Shokudo, or was it just our unlucky day? My very own X of the Year 2007 2008-01-09T23:18:56+00:00 It's about 9 days too late, but I figure it'd be fun to just throw these out and see if anyone else enjoyed the same things I did in 2007. PC Game of the Year</h3> This has definitely got to go to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare</a>. The single-player campaign was short but visually impressive and amazingly realistic. It was like watching a movie in most parts. And really, sneaking by Spetsnaz just a few metres away in sniper ghillie suits and was totally pimp. Multiplayer is real good fun too, I'm still playing it now (usually on GamingSA.com</a> servers as 'konata'). Special mention: World of Warcraft (yes, I quit it ages ago, but it's still good for the early part of 2007 when I was still playing casually). PSP Game of the Year</h3> Yes, I got a PSP</a> just this year. And yes, Jeanne d'Arc</a> is the best game I've played and completed in a while. For those who don't know, Jeanne d'Arc is a very accessible Strategy RPG (SRPG) that is very loosely based on Joan of Arc. It's much easier to play than Final Fantasy: Tactics or Disgaea: Hour of Darkness</a> and doesn't leave you constantly wondering about missing out on secrets. Highly recommended if you're looking for an RPG-like game on the PSP. I haven't had the chance to play many other PSP games, but look forward to getting deeper into Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (and highly anticipating Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core in March 2008). Anime of the Year</h3> 2007 is the year I switched my anime tastes from mostly shonen</a> anime (like Naruto and Bleach) to the seinen</a> genre. My favorite anime for 2007 (this is a tough one) has to go to Lucky Star</a>. I even went through a prolonged Konata-ism phase</a> and even had a printout of Konata saying "Relax" pasted right above where I sit in the office. </div> It's therapeutic :) 2007 was a good anime year. Tekkon Kinkreet</a> had an edgy, surreal drawing style but had a fantastic plot. I highly recommend it if you've missed it - it's about 10 times better than your run-of-the-mill Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away type anime movies, in my humble opinion. Potemayo</a>'s moeblobs were just too funny to watch. Gochuko (below) had me LOL when she went around using tape to fix everything she sliced with her big scythe. At first appearances Potemayo may look like a kid's anime but it's really a work of comic genius for adults. </div> Genshiken 2</a> picks up where the 1st season left off and while the ending left quite a bit to be desired, on the whole it was enjoyable watching otakus cope with life (who knew it was so tough to get a job in Japan). What about you?</h3> What did you enjoy in the last year and more importantly, do you have any recommendations for an ani-otaku like me? Living on the Edge (of Rails) - 1st week of the year edition 2008-01-09T22:18:20+00:00 Yup, it's time for your weekly dose of the changes on edge Rails, more or less covered in the latest Rails Envy podcast</a>. Using edge Rails is neither arcane nor terrifying, and hopefully weekly reports like these will allow you to take control of your own release schedule</a> with your Rails apps. This week's report covers changes from 31 Dec 2007 to the day the podcast was recorded (6 Jan 2007). Caching changes</h3> Looks like most of the changes from the 2.1 caching branch</a> have been merged into the trunk</a>. Some key points: memcache-client has been vendored</a> (included in Rails directly). MemCacheStore works out of the box in Rails now, no need to install the memcache-client gem</a>!</li> The caching code has been refactored and moved into ActiveSupport (ActiveSupport::Cache::*</code>).</li> Added ActiveRecord::Base.cache_key</code> to make it easier to cache Active Records in combination with the ActiveSupport cache libraries introduced in this changeset.</li> Fragment cache keys are now by default prefixed with 'views/'.</li> Deprecation: ActionController::Base.fragment_cache_store</code> is now ActionController::Base.cache_store</code></li> </ol> Fragment caching now works in RJS and Builder templates</h3> Yup, you couldn't do fragment caching in non-erb views before - now you can</a>. Freezing Rails now automatically updates your Rails app</h3> If you're using edge Rails and use the rails:freeze:edge</code> rake task, you probably usually forget to run (or maybe you're not even aware of) rake rails:update</code> to update your Rails app with the latest config/, scripts/ and javascript files from the version of Rails you just froze to. On edge Rails, the rake rails:freeze:edge</code> task runs the rails:update</code> task for you. +1 for convenience! I prefer to use Piston</a> so I'm gonna have to keep remembering to run my rake rails:update</code> now and then! Check out the related changeset</a>. Optimizations</h3> Only 1 optimization in the past week worth talking about: the ActiveRecord::Base#exists?</code> method is faster. It now uses ActiveRecord::Base#select_all</code> instead of a more expensive ActiveRecord::Base#find</code> that unnecessarily instantiates AR objects. (Check out the related changeset</a>.) Bug fixes</h3> http://dev.rubyonrails.org/changeset/8541</a> - Fixed a nasty bug when trying to render partials with layout when done from within the site layout. Yes, you can have layouts for your partials in Rails 2</a>, and yes, you can run into a bug when trying to use partial layouts in your main page layout.</li> http://dev.rubyonrails.org/changeset/8529</a> - Fix atom_feed_helper</code> to comply with the Atom specifications</a>.</li> </ul> self.plug :with => 'Rails Hackfest' 2008-01-03T23:24:27+00:00 Yes, it's a plug for myself</a> and it's shameless: </div> Whatever Zed Shaw may say about Rails its community</a>, Rails has done a huge part in making web development fun again for jaded web developers (first-time web developers probably won't be able to tell the difference), and more importantly, raising the profile of Ruby more than any other Ruby project/library/framework/tool ever did (and I'm sure we're all constantly rolling our eyeballs at the new web frameworks that're so terribly familiarly Rails-like). Hell, I bet at least 90% of Rubyists now wouldn't even be Rubyists if they hadn't come across the web framework that could</a> 2 or 3 years ago. So yes I'd still be contributing to Rails so that it can make my life as a web developer easier, thank you. I think I had about 18 accepted patches in December 2007 Rails Hackfest</a> (a few of the patches were not attributed properly in the Hackfest due to technical issues with the Rails Hackfest site). Probably the only significant patches were: Allowing a proc to be set for ActionController::Base.asset_host</code> (changeset 8421</a>).</li> to_xml</code> should not automatically pass :procs</code> to associations included with :include</code> (changeset 8258</a>).</li> </ul> Of course Ruby 1.9 compatibility was a big deal in December 2007 since that Ruby 1.9 was targetted to be released on Christmas (changesets 8369</a>, 8309</a>, 8398</a>, 8397</a>, 8412</a>). Yes, I know, Ruby 1.9 is a development release. There were also broken tests to be fixed (changeset 8271</a>), bugs to be fixed (fixing Array#to_sentence</code></a>), and some refactoring (changesets 8343</a> and 8522</a>). And what would patching Rails be without random documentation fixes (changesets 8457</a>, 8471</a>, 8472</a>, 8280</a>, 8279</a>, 8278</a>, 8521</a>). The API documentation always needs a hand, so if you see any outdated or incorrect documentation, or think you can improve them with better examples or whatever, just submit a patch</a> (it's easy and should take you all of 3 minutes). This month's hackfest</a> has a terribly attractive top prize of a RailsConf ticket</a>. Too bad I won't be able to take part in this month's hackfest since winners of past month's hackfest are automatically excluded from the next's. But maybe you can ;). Time.now.obsession = PSP Slim 2007-11-29T14:27:21+00:00 </div> Jeanne d'Arc</a> is a great little SRPG</acronym> I'm enjoying right now - I don't even want to start Final Fantasy Tactics</a> until after I've completed Jeanne d'Arc. I have a Nintendo DS Lite as well and I have to say that I'm more of a PSP gamer where portable consoles are concerned. There just weren't that many involved games in the DS (except Puzzle Quest) and coming from a big fantasy CRPG background kinda made the DS a poor companion on train and bus rides. Being able to play videos on a large screen (relative to the iPod video I carry around all the time) is awesome. It's not an iPhone but it's good enough for watching videos! Harajuku Crepe arrives in Singapore 2007-10-15T09:26:51+00:00 One of my favorite foodie moments from my trip to Tokyo was at Harajuku</a> where I had a crepe with cheese cake and ice cream from Angel's Heart (need to dig that photo out). It was THE best crepe I've ever had. I'd even thrown around the idea of bringing it back to Singapore as a commercial venture. Well anyway, I found that one of the crepe shops in Harajuku, Marion Cafe, that was just opposite Angel's Heart, has opened a branch right here in Singapore at the IMM Building</a>. </div> I tried their mango crepe (it had mango and ice cream in it) which set us back about SGD 5.80. </div> It was alright, not as good as the one I had in Harajuku of course, but still a nice treat. They have 105 different types of crepe - anything ranging for your run-of-the-mill strawberry and ice cream crepe, to tuna crepe, and even crepe with Japanese curry. So apparently I'm a Rails Hackfest winner... 2007-10-03T02:19:29+00:00 Got an email not too long ago from Working With Rails</a> (my profile</a>) entitled "WWR September Hackfest Winner - Congrats!", and almost deleted it thinking it was spam. I read it in the end (after all, how often do you see spam with "Rails" in the subject title), and turns out that my</a> recent</a> patches</a> to Rails pushed me up to 6th position in the September Rails contributors rankings</a>. </div> I vaguely remember seeing Rails Hackfest</a> mentioned somewhere but only just realized it's a "contest" run monthly. The winners are the top 10 contributors to Rails (contribution being determined by the number of accepted patches, docfixes, and even comments). That's really nice of the sponsors and Working With Rails</a>, since that wasn't really what I'd expected in return for contributing to an Open Source project (that would be a sense of satisfaction, personally-speaking). I'm just really glad that the JSON patches went into Rails before Rails 2.0 and it is satisfying to see my code get into Rails (I'll blog about the patches in a separate post). There's still some more work</a> needed though - please help to verify and give suggestions or +1s ;). Some of the world's hottest startups - Bezurk on Business 2.0 2007-07-27T18:15:18+00:00 Business 2.0</a> recently published an article on the world's hottest startups outside the US</a> and Bezurk was picked</a>. Nice to know that ;) </a></div> Bezurk featured on Channel NewsAsia 2007-06-20T18:31:30+00:00 The company I work for was featured on a short "Surf Time</a>" segment on Channel NewsAsia</a>'s TV channel. Catch the Bezurk Surf Time video on YouTube</a>. So I just got back from PLAY! A Video Game Symphony... 2007-06-17T00:51:50+00:00 I just got back from PLAY! A Video Game Symphony</a> over at The Esplanade Concert Hall (in Singapore) and man, it was good! I had doubts at first about buying the tickets since I didn't play most of the games on their programme, but listening and watching to the gameplay of those games that I did play was pleasantly nostalgic. Here's what was played, with the games that I did play highlighted: PLAY! A Video Game Symphony - this is just a fanfare piece composed by the great Nobuo Uematsu</a> (composer of, most notably, many Final Fantasy game soundtracks).</li> Super Mario Bros - what a game to open with! Being a fan-favorite, it came as no surprise to hear the collective gasps of recognition in the audience when game footage of the original Super Mario was played on the video screens. A suite of various in-game music was played, each time with much audible amusement from the audience.</li> Shenmue and Shenmue II</li> Lost Odyssey</li> Sonic the Hedgehog - oh man, I didn't realize how much I used to enjoy this game until I recognized every single tune they played in this suite. I played the very first Sonic the Hedgehog on a Sega Mega Drive</a> (as well as a few others after this one - I remember Tails and Knuckles) way back in the day.</li> Metal Gear Solid</li> Blue Dragon - the much-hyped game had a few pieces of its soundtrack performed. I think I'd have been much more excited if they'd shown some actual game footage instead of scripted cutscenes.</li> Kingdom Hearts - a bunch of obvious console gamers near us made loud excited noises when the conductor mentioned this.</li> Final Fantasy VI</li> Daytona USA - the composer Takenobu Mitsuyoshi performed this piece himself!</li> The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion</li> Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross</li> World of Warcraft - I have</a> the Collector's edition of the original World of Warcraft which contains the game soundtrack (mostly consisting of music composed by Jason Hayes</a>), so these were familiar tunes. My only gripe was that they didn't play the Undercity background music - it's my favorite.</li> Halo</li> Castlevania - I played the NDS</acronym> version if that counts for anything. Can't say I recognized the music though.</li> The Legend of Zelda - yes, I really didn't play Zelda. I never owned a Nintendo before I got my NDS but I am eagerly anticipating the release of Phantom Hourglass</a>! The conductor was expecting a great cheer from the crowd but it never came heh.</li> Final Fantasy VII - for the ending, they played One-Winged Angel</a> from the game soundtrack which was pretty memorable since it was played during the boss fight against Safer Sephiroth and more recently in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. A very nice grand ending piece I must say. Still, I do wish they played game footage and more FFVII music than just a single piece. There're so many memorable songs in the game, and the chocobo tunes would have been amusing.</li> </ul> </div> There was also an encore which was very very cool, because the music was from Super Shinobi</a> (also known as The Revenge of the Shinobi). This old Sega Mega Drive game was one of the coolest games of the time (you get to play a ninja!). The composer of the soundtrack, Yuzo Koshiro, was there himself. Super Shinobi's theme music was chosen as the song to play for an encore on Game Axis</a> - I must say, good choice folks! Game footage was played and I recognized every single part of it - I didn't even realize I had memories like that. I'm sorely tempted to see whether my old Sega Mega Drive still works so I can play Super Shinobi again. </div> After this, the audience demanded another encore and we were rewarded with another rendition of One-Winged Angel (I'd have liked to hear Super Mario Bros again). All in all, an enjoyable performance - if you're a gamer and missed it, I feel bad for you! If Play! is coming to your location, be sure to get tickets. Firefox tips sharing session at WebSG meetup 2007-03-03T03:07:20+00:00 Kevin</a> has uploaded a video of my session</a> on Google Video - it's kinda grainy and really soft.</ins> I was at the 2nd WebSG</a> (Web Standards Group Singapore) meetup (read about the recap of the meetup</a>) on Wednesday (28 Feb 2007) where I hosted a short session on some Firefox tips. It's all thanks the urgings and encouragement of Lucian</a> (the organizer) that I finally got down to publicly sharing my Firefox knowledge ever since I wrote Firefox Secrets</a>. </div> I was asked to blog about this (since I didn't have any presentation slides), so here it is, for those of you who missed anything in my mumbling or frantic keystrokes. Keyboard shortcuts you should know</h3> Note: Mac users should replace Ctrl with the Cmd key for any of the keystrokes listed below. Ctrl-L puts your cursor in the address bar, Ctrl-K puts your cursor in the search bar.</li> Ctrl-T opens a new tab and puts your cursor in the address bar, but</li> I forgot to mention this during the session, but I personally prefer using Ctrl-L or Ctrl-K, typing in the new URL or search query, and hitting Alt-Enter open the new page or search result in a new tab - it just feels more accessible than Ctrl-T. Most people I observe still use Ctrl-T though.</li> Ctrl-Shift-T re-opens closed tabs. Keep hitting it to reopen more closed tabs in your history. This is a big time saver. Newly built into Firefox 2.0.</li> Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Shift-Tab brings you to the next and previous tab. If you're having trouble remembering both, just remember that the usual convention is a Shift does the reverse. So all you need is to remember Ctrl-Tab, and adding a Shift modifier does the reverse (i.e. goes to the previous tab instead of the next).</li> Ctrl-F brings up the Find bar, and you can start typing in whatever you want to find on the page and in any input fields. Use Ctrl-G and Ctrl-Shift-G to go to the next and previous occurences respectively. The Find bar is good, but...</li> I forgot to mention (as Zul</a> mentioned to me after) during the session that Quick Find is much better. Just hit / and start typing as you would for the normal Find bar, and the Quick Find bar will go away after several seconds. Much better in most cases than the Find bar which likes to stick around until you close it. And why is this important? Because the Find bar takes up screen real estate, especially for those of us using wide screens.</li> </ul> Getting rid of the close button on all tabs</h3> I've been told how annoying Firefox 2.0 is when it insists on putting a close button on each tab. </div> Accidental closing of tabs when you try to select them is one big complaint. Well, you can turn it off and go back to the good olde Firefox 1.5 days of a single close button on the extreme right of the tab bar. Enter about:config in your address bar, filter for browser.tabs.closeButtons, double click on the preference entry that shows up, and change the value from the default of 1, to 3. If you don't want the close button on the right of the tab bar, enter a value of 2 (this assumes you're going to close tabs with either Ctrl-W or middle-clicking on the tab - this is my prefered setup). Backing up your profile</h3> MozBackup</a> is all you ever need if you use Windows exclusively. This neat little (Windows-only) application backs up your profile into a single file - all you need is to use a very simple wizard. And of course, you can restore your profile just as easily. I loved this when I was still using Windows. Like I said, people using other operating systems can easily DIY - just read Mozilla's official documentation on Firefox profiles</a>. You're probably using either Mac OS X or some Linux distro - you can do this without any hand-holding ;) What about backing up extensions?</h4> Some people asked me during and after my session about backing up extensions. FEBE</a> is one extension you can look at unless you use a Mac (I tried the beta version that supports Mac OS X, but gave up when I couldn't get it to use the correct binaries for zipping and unzipping.) My personal take on backing up extensions: don't back them up. I prefer to dump a list of extensions (I use the Extension List Dumper extension</a>) that I have installed and just re-install them again. This is no big chore for me now since I have significantly fewer extensions installed than back in the day. I just like starting clean, after having had bad experiences with restoring extensions from backup before. Still, if you really want to back up your extensions, I say just go ahead and see if it works (MozBackup and FEBE should work). Profiles and "why is my Firefox so damn slow?"</h3> This is one thing I had planned to mention but I got kinda threw off kilter when the slowness of the wireless internet connection made me worried about quitting Firefox (didn't want to quit Firefox, load up another profile, only to find that it'd take another 5 mins to get my demo tabs loaded again). Anyway, some questions I often get is, "why is my Firefox so slow?" and "why does Firefox use up so much RAM/CPU?" The first thing I suspect is a busted profile. Whenever I experience intolerable slowness in my Firefox setup, I dump and restore my profile into a newly created profile, minus all the tab history information (and of course, never restoring backed up extensions). Sometimes I even start clean new profiles, importing only bookmarks. You'll very likely notice immediately that Firefox is back to its old speediness. And if anything happens, you still have your old profile with you. I'm not that certain of what exactly causes Firefox to get too slow over time, but my suspicions lie with: Firefox saving browsing history in all the bazillion tabs you have open - that's a lot of data to be carrying around</li> broken/bad extensions</li> a busted profile </li> </ol> Profile management for productivity</h3> Firefox hides its Profile Manager from you. You can access it by passing the -profilemanager switch to your Firefox executable. For Windows users, it's actually --profilemanager. </div> The Profile Manager is really handy for people who need to remove distractions. For me, I setup different profiles for work and for play so I don't become distracted the "play" tabs I have open while I'm working (I'm beginning to like the Tab Groups extension for segregating tabs</a> more though). Also really handy for setting up clean profiles for running user demos (I setup a WebSG profile for my presentation and installed specific extensions I wanted to talk about) - don't really want to have your naughty browser history showing up in some autocomplete heh. Some extensions I dig</h3> I also demoed some extensions that I find essential. Download Statusbar</a> for unobtrusive downloads.</li> All-in-One Gestures</a> for easily accessible Back and Forward gestures when you happen to have your hand on the mouse. Like I said, I don't use any of the other gestures because they all require memorization (I use too much of my memory storing keyboard shortcuts).</li> Super DragAndGo</a> for drag and drop searching. Great time saver when you are doing online research.</li> Web Developer toolbar</a> for its convenient Disable Cache, browser resizing, and HTML validation shortcut (Ctrl-Shift-A).</li> UrlParams</a> for easy viewing and editing of GET or POST parameters.</li> And of course, Firebug</a> - godsend for web developers, web designers, and especially AJAX developers like us</a>.</li> </ul> Oh, and Mousepose</a> was the application I used to get my keystrokes to show up on the screen. It's simple yet extremely helpful for presentations, though I probably should have used the mouse spotlight feature more. Oh well, I did just buy the license for it a few hours before the meetup - goes to show how unprepared I was heh. It's late and I'll blog more on the event and the people I met another day. Finally, Bezurk and news.com.au co-brand is up and running 2007-02-25T01:01:18+00:00 It was a few weeks later than planned, but finally (actually, about 3 days ago), we</a>'re up on the News.com.au Travel section</a>. No thanks to a CSS bug in IE6</a>, we were delayed by a week. The last thing we expected was a CSS bug hanging IE6 with all the JavaScript we were pushing out, but yeah, well, it was. At least now my conscience is clear - everything works nicely in IE6, IE7, Firefox, Safari and Opera. I brought back an abscess from Tokyo 2007-01-19T22:20:23+00:00 One of the reasons I've been rather quiet on this blog ever since my return from the trip to Tokyo</a> is this nice medium-sized abscess</a> I brought back with me. It appeared about 3 days into the trip, and I must have really bad luck because it was located on my posterior - moving around on foot and sitting down were particularly trying events. Considering that we got around most of Tokyo either on foot or by train, it made most experiences less pleasing than they would probably have been. Nevertheless, it was a great trip - had some great food, saw some breath-taking sights, bought some (or rather, not enough) anime swag. Someday soon (if not soon then probably never) I will blog about it (with pictures, of course). And I saw a bus advertising a The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya</a> DVD release: </div> Anyway, I'm glad I can say that the abscess burst yesterday, relieving me of the pain that had to be suppressed with painkillers. While the copious amounts of blood and pus that came out of the burst abscess wasn't pleasant to deal with (it's still bleeding and excreting pus right now), the relief from the pain is immeasurable. Plus, I didn't really like the idea of the surgery that would be necessary if it hadn't burst - a friend who had an abscess on his face described the procedure and while it seemed painless enough, sticking a needle up that mass of pain just didn't seem like an ideal way to deal with it. Abscesses suck. Tokyo 4th Jan - 13th Jan 2007-01-03T11:49:58+00:00 I'll be out of town (i.e. Singapore) for the next week and a half. Going to Japan, more specifically Tokyo and nearby cities. Tentacle sex and soiled panty vending machines here I come! Oh and if anyone has any pointers or places/food/experiences that are not to be missed, please let me know. Firefox Secrets on Google Book Search 2006-12-19T10:16:35+00:00 A GoogleAlert</a> (not the Google Alert</a>) email arrived in my inbox today alerting me to the Firefox Secrets entry on Google Book Search</a> (that's a book I wrote, for the uninitiated). It's listed as a limited preview so only the first few pages of each chapter are available. If you're interested in previewing a Firefox book circa 2005 (virtually the Mesozoic ages in the tech world), just maybe, check it out</a>. My Linux snob shirt 2006-12-04T12:52:25+00:00 All I got for my birthday was this t-shirt: </div> In case the image doesn't load at some point or is too small, here's what it says: Two hours of broadband to ftp the Linux Package, 15 cents. CDs to burn the files, $1.00. The knowledge that nothing on your computer is from Microsoft, PRICELESS. There are some operating systems that you don't need money to buy. For everyone else, there's Windows. </blockquote> Ironically, I'm now a Mac OS X snob, but the t-shirt still kicks arse. And no, I'm not one of those Microsoft haters without a cause - it's just a t-shirt. (Actually I got more than the t-shirt, but I wanted to start the entry with "All I got was this t-shirt".) Moving to Rimuhosting VPS 2006-08-10T19:54:28+00:00 After being plagued with performance issues running Typo</a> (the blog software on which this blog currently runs) on Dreamhost</a>, I decided it was time to give in and get a VPS</acronym> once again. I was previously with Linode.com</a> (they have a great control panel where you can drop in the distro you want - still have screenshots somewhere for an unpublished post), and then JVDS</a> (good hosting, usually quick replies to my support tickets, but slow to push out a VPS control panel they've been promising), running Gentoo on both VPSs. Right now, I'm on a shared hosting plan with Dreamhost</a>. Well, Dreamhost</a> has been good to me - I got so many referral credits from them that they paid for my subscription many times over after I posted about their $0.77/month offer</a>. Unfortunately, Typo seems to be quite a monster (compared to Wordpress), and database access is purportedly (and observably) slow on Dreamhost</a>. Still, Dreamhost is a great host for shared hosting, I'm sticking with them for delivering more static content. A VPS just makes sense now that I've been tinkering more with Ruby on Rails, plus which geek wouldn't admit it just feels more right to be in full control of your server (well, it's root on a virtual machine, but still root). This time around, I chose Rimuhosting</a>, a New Zealand-based hosting company (servers are US-based, of course), and here's why (I did some research once again on WebHostingTalk</a> and asked some people their experiences with their webhosts): Pros: Fairly affordable prices - I got their cheapest MiroVPS1 plan, which goes for $19.95/month and get 30GB of transfer and 96MB of RAM (which could be a problem, but upgrading seems easy enough anyway from what they say on their site). Comparing to several other VPS hosts like unixshell</a>, Tektonic.net, ServerAxis</a>, their plans are somewhat mid-range.</li> Their reputation is great. Yup, I've heard and read only good things about them, something that's quite hard to find in the world of web hosting. We use them at work to setup servers sometimes too.</li> Seems to be run by competent people - they have a bliki</a> (blog + wiki) with some nice posts. The one that really caught my eye is the one on their Ruby on Rails hosting stack</a>. Not that I'd use it since I'm on Ubuntu, but it shows that the folks at Rimuhosting are up-to-date.</li> They run Xen</a>, which Deepak</a>, among others, tells me is the most efficient server virtualization software. Yeah, whatever, score one for statistics (and lies).</li> Support is reasonably fast - got replies to my pre-sales queries reasonably fast (more than a few hours, but it wasn't during working hours anyway). Of course, I'll have to see how it goes now that I'm a real customer.</li> A simple web-based control panel where I can reboot the VPS. It's no Virtuozzo Power Panels</a>, but it's enough. JVDS didn't have one and it started to get old sending support tickets to do a reboot. </div> </li> </ul> Cons: They don't support Gentoo</a>, my Linux distro of choice. Only RHEL, Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora Core are supported. I went with Ubuntu, not having much experience with it (excluding a brief affair with Debian). I was wary of this at first, but my fears of bungling around with an unfamiliar distro have vanished after I saw how easy it is to install stuff with apt-get, and things are not placed in weird places in the filesystem hierarchy. I think I could get used to it, this "not compiling everything that moves" idea ;).</li> ServerAxis</a> supports Gentoo, and offers much better "value for money", except that their lowest priced plan is much higher ($30). But you get 512MB RAM, 200GB RAM, and 5 IP addresses... Too bad I'd rather pay out of my PayPal funds.</li> </ul> Well, less blogging, more server migration. Actually the application installs are mostly done. I've never had apt-get play so nice back when I was experimenting with Debian - just apt-get install [package]</typo> and things are installed quite cleanly (keyword: "cleanly"). I think this may grow on me (yeah yeah laugh and point at the Ubuntu noob) - perhaps you don't need to compile everything (gasp, I said it!). Moving to DreamHost 2005-12-21T12:05:14+00:00 I'm gonna be moving the codefront.net domain and the hosted services (Web, email, database) to a DreamHost</a> account soonish. The current VPS</acronym> is just too under-utilized at the moment, considering I am no longer using my SVN repository. Plus, DreamHost supports Ruby On Rails now. Expecting soothing server migration woes, which would be a relief from development stuff at work. Update: Migration complete!</ins> Plugging Firefox Secrets 2005-07-30T21:01:39+00:00 So here it is, the inevitable "author plugs his new book" blog post. In the last months of 2004 and early months of 2005, I was spending a good number of my evenings after work writing what was to become (and now is) Firefox Secrets</a>. "Writing" being a broad term used when tasked to churn out a software book - I'd say that almost 50% of the time was spent fiddling with Firefox, tracking elusive things down, verifying that things I intend to say actually work, and taking screenshots. For those of you who were regular readers, you know how I love to put up screenshots in blog posts, but I tell ya, it kinda gets old after awhile. (Thankfully, MWSnap</a> is an amazing screen capture tool that's freeware to boot.) </div> I'd like to thank SitePoint</a> for approaching me with this offer to write a book on Firefox, considering my (non-)experience in book-writing. The content of the book was initially intended to be geared towards the non-technical Firefox user (as proposed by SitePoint), but we (SitePoint actually) decided to rebrand it as a "Secrets" book when they discovered that my submitted drafts weren't that much of a plain old technical manual but more of a "stuff you don't know" kinda book. Honestly, I never really warmed to the idea of writing another "blah how do I use Firefox" grimoire so the rebranding is for the best. So, what's in the book? Well, this table of contents</a> should give you an idea. SitePoint also included a nice little CD-ROM with Firefox, Thunderbird, and extensions and themes that I've mentioned in the book material. I tried my best to include everything for both new and experienced Firefox users, so there should probably be something in there that interests you. For those of you who want a preview of the book, check out the You Don't Know Jack About Firefox! article</a> over at SitePoint.com, or download the sample chapters</a> (PDF format, requires email address). Acknowledgements</h4> I've acknowledged these same people in the book, but it bears repeating here. I owe it all to SitePoint</a> for making the book come through, even though things weren't all that smooth-sailing. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to write about Firefox. Asa Dotzler</a>, for being an awesome technical reviewer for the book, thank you. Asa's reviews relieved me of several misconceptions, and I even picked up a few secrets from him (and yes - these secrets appear in the book). Dear blog readers, I admire you for tolerating with my absence and sticking around even when at times I seem to have died and left my blog in an owner-less limbo. Thanks for reading as always. Last but not least, the Firefox community: developers, evangelists, users, all of you. Firefox is the success it is today (and a wonderful browser to boot) because of you guys. Elsewhere, on Firefox Secrets</h4> I'll be keeping (and updating) a list of blogs, articles, and other miscellanous web stuff that talks about Firefox Secrets here. SitePoint Forums announcement: SitePoint's New Book, "Firefox Secrets"</a></li> Blog post: Firefox Secrets</a> - cheeaunblog</a></li> Blog post: SitePoint Lifts The Lid On Firefox Secrets</a> - Lockergnome</a></li> Blog post: Firefox Secrets</a> - Bernie Zimmermann</a></li> Blog post: Firefox book written by Singaporean</a> - Tomorrow.sg</a></li> Blog post: Firefox Secretes</a> (sic) - Zhang Yining</a></li> </ul> Getting back on track 2005-07-28T12:26:47+00:00 It's been a while since I last blogged huh? Well, I actually was back, until a particularly unfortunate incident with my VPS</acronym> where the database tables for WordPress got corrupted (likely due to overflowing backups and running out of space) threw me off track and got me real grief-stricken that I lost my blog template/theme and a couple of posts (I've managed to restore the template/theme since). Excuses, all. I'm horrified that I've actually allowed my blog to fall into a state of disuse and disrepair. I'm back and I hope to stay back. But first I've to clean up all this crud that's on my blog (comment spam, Trackback spam, etc.). Public Service Announcement I lost a post entitled "Ooh look at this old website I dug up". I believe I offered something to the person who guessed correctly, but I only have Jed Brown's comment in my email. Whoever guessed first before Jed did, please do send me an email (chuyeow at gmail dot com). The ones I read first in my long blogroll 2005-01-13T21:57:08+00:00 I have a long list of blogs/websites</a> (233 feeds at this moment) to read in my Bloglines</a> account. I don't have the time to read all of them nowadays (I used to), so I'm finding myself skimming through a select few blogs. Weirdly, even though bloggers like Scoble</a> make very interesting posts, I tend to not read them because he's just too damn prolific and I don't have the time to read all the posts. Hmm... Interesting... I was just about to check whether there was a way to keep a post unread in Bloglines and there is (there's a "Keep New" checkbox at the bottom of every feed item). Well, maybe this will get me reading Scoble again. As I was saying, I don't read every feed I subscribe to nowadays. (By the way, Bloglines only keeps 200 entries per feed before it stops keeping track of new ones.) What I do now is go through the list from top to bottom and check out the ones that I seem to be more interested in. It's interesting to see a pattern. I tend to give feeds with too many unread items a miss, resulting in a vicious cycle of them never getting read. Feeds with 30 new items a day, these I also tend to not read. I also read too many Mozilla-related blogs. Here's my list of "To Read" blogs (arranged in no particular order) whenever I'm short on time or just too plain lazy to read everything: Jon Hicks' hicksdesign</a> One of my favorite designers who also happens to be a mean programmer (at least from what I can tell from Jon's hacking of Textpattern, which powers his blog and portfolio). </li> Bernie Zimmermann</a> Mozilla blogger and Firefox GrayModern Theme author </li> Chris Pederick</a> Chris Pederick is the author of the Web Developer Tools Firefox extension, among other cool projects. </li> Forever Geek</a> Which I contribute to, but I'm on hiatus now. </li> Gadgetopia</a> Lots of neat posts and links on technology </li> Gentoo Linux News</a> Not a blog, but I love Gentoo! </li> Gravatar blog</a> I think Gravatars are pretty sweet, this keeps me in the loop of what Tom Werner's up to. </li> Life At Ngee Ann</a> This is a fellow Singaporean's blog, quite humorous. "Ngee Ann" refers to Ngee Ann polytechnic, a local academic institution. </li> life in mono</a> Fellow Singaporean Adrianna</a>'s a cool techie Mac evangelist. </li> adot's notblog*</a> Asa Dotzler's blog. Mozilla stuff is always interesting. </li> cheeaunblog</a> Author of the famous Phoenity theme, who happens to live in Penang where I some relatives stay. Maybe we can meet up when I go there, huh, Chee Aun? </li> Neil's World</a> Neil Turner blogs stuff that I would blog myself if I could. Well, mostly. Mozilla and tech blog. </li> Photo Matt</a> Matthew Mullenweg's the lead developer of WordPress, and turned 21</a> not long ago. </li> philwilson.org</a> Phil Wilson blogs mostly on Firefox and the Semantic Web. </li> vantan.org: The Daily Weblog</a> Fellow Singaporean Vanessa Tan is a "devoted Netizen" who works in an environment unfriendly to Firefox. </li> The Burning Edge</a> Used to follow this religiously, but a little less now because of more infrequent posts and also because much of the work now is bug fixing since the Aviary branch landing. </li> </ul> Not too many A-list bloggers in that list, but that's probably because people like Simon Willison</a> and Doug Bowman</a> have been posting less of late. Give these blogs/sites a visit or two and let me know if you know of any related blog that I can add to my feed aggregator (yes, I'm still interested in more despite an unread list of hundreds). Full disclosure (of useless Web statistics), Dec 2004 2005-01-02T14:58:44+00:00 How fun, starting a new year with a bland post on Web statistics. December 2004 was a record month for this blog, with record highs in visits, pages and bandwidth. I exceeded my monthly transfer limit of 20GB by just a little bit as well. </div> Getting an average of 4.7K visits per day, or 10K pages per day. </div> Thanks to the "Homer Simpson uses tabbed browsing</a>" post, transfer spiked to almost 3GB on Dec 15. Top referrers included SpreadFirefox.com</a> and Bloglines. There was a referrer spammer (brushed out in the screenshot) which made it to the top 10 before I caught it and blocked it. </div> Here's how referrers are blocked (with .htaccess), for those who are still looking for a solution. What these 2 rewrite rules do is to, respectively, rewrite the listed IP addresses, and rewrite the referrers with the following strings in them, back to the client's IP. This works extremely well, and I know because I've had my server (a VPS) brought to its knees from constant referrer spamming. The hit rates from these spammers were so high that it practically became a DOS</acronym> attack. Since I've implemented these rewrite rules, all has been peaceful and I can finally see uptimes of more than 3 days (believe it or not, the VPS did go down that often). RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^195.175.37.26 [OR] RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^195.175.37.24 RewriteRule ^.* http://%{REMOTE_ADDR}/ [L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} texasholdem [OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} example\.com [OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} example2\.com RewriteRule ^.* http://%{REMOTE_ADDR}/ [L] The referrer spammers are still going at it (though they don’t appear in AWStats) - I can see them hitting me when I check my server-status page (see the mod_status</a> module). I don't think I'll need to upgrade my hosting plan yet, since the bandwidth spike was a one time thing caused by the crazy Homer Simpson entry. And here's the top 10 browsers as requested</a>. Unsurprising that Firefox tops the list.</ins> </div> Well, here's to a better year ahead for everyone. For myself, I look forward to having a good time at my new job, (finally) getting published, finding religion, and finally getting a move on in life. I'm not one for "Happy New Year"s and new year resolutions though. So blah, have fun. Look me up in the Cenarius server if any of you are playing World of Warcraft - my main character's Lucita (gnome rogue). My favorite songs of 2004 2004-12-26T23:07:27+00:00 I like music. Well, I like the music that I like, not all genres. OK, honestly, I'm fairly picky about the songs I listen to. I only listen to alternative, alternative rock, punk rock, punk pop, and rap (mostly Eminem) music (I'm not even sure if the genres are correct). Music keeps me sane on commutes of more than an hour long to and from work, and shuts out noise at work whenever necessary (not that it happens often). As a result, I probably have a rather unhealthy dependence on my iPod mini - I can't go anywhere without it. Argh, I realize that recently, my thoughts don't flow in a coherent manner when blogging. I think it has to do with a combination of factors: World of Warcraft</a> addiction (anyone interested in a Firefox guild?), book writing, and not getting enough sleep. Anyway, let's get back on track shall we? Now, since almost everyone is doing it (posting their top 10 albums of 2004 and the like), I thought I'd share a little on what I have been listening to over the past year. These are not songs that were released in 2004 though, just the songs I've listened to the most often in 2004. Slow Motion (Dirty Version) by Third Eye Blind I love Third Eye Blind. I probably played this song more than a thousand times over the year. This has such a catchy instrumental background - at first I wasn't aware of the "dirty version" (drug themes) and only heard the clean instrumental version that had minimal lyrics. I liked that a lot and after I was made aware of the version with lyrics, I liked it even more for its quirky lyrics. </li> Hands Down by Dashboard Confessional With lyrics like this: "My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me. So won't you kill me, so I die happy", what's not to like? I had this song set to repeat over and over again on my iPod quite a few times. </li> Rough Draft by Yellowcard This is actually a sappy love song if you follow the lyrics, but I kinda like the way it flows off your tongue. Same for this, I had this set to single repeat as well for a period of time. </li> Friends O' Mine by Bowling For Soup Damn catchy and nice to sing along to. Well, I sing along (very, very quietly and discreetly) to almost every song here in this list. </li> Vindicated by Dashboard Confessional This was popular because it was in the Spiderman 2 OST. I didn't catch it on radio (I don't listen to radio anymore actually) and didn't know that it was that popular until I heard it on the radio. </li> Inside Out by Yellowcard "Here. A little sympathy. For you to waste on me." Yellowcard seems to like writing songs that are self-pitying. And I seem to like those songs. Self-pitying bastard. </li> World at Large by Modest Mouse I didn't actually like Modest Mouse at first when introduced to them by a good friend. They're one of my favorites now. </li> Map Of Your Head by Muse This song is just good. I mean, listen to it. The guitars sound great, the Muse lead singer is at his best. </li> El Scorcho by Weezer "I'm a lot like you, so please, hello, I'm here, I'm waiting." </li> Undone - The Sweater Song by Weezer This is a weird semi-song. "If you want to destroy my sweater, hold this thread as I walk away." </li> Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind This makes number 11. I can't leave out this one - this introduced me to look away from mainstream pop songs that I was somewhat into at the time. Granted, Semi-Charmed Life is almost a pop song, but it did spur me to check out Third Eye Blind and that led to other similar artistes. </li> </ol> So, what have you guys been listening to this past year? Anyone have similar tastes? More importantly, do you have any songs or artistes to recommend? Firefox NYT ad, some disappointment 2004-12-17T15:58:05+00:00 Update: Daryl responds</a>, and so does Rob Davis</a>, both from the Spreadfirefox team. Please do send an email to nytadcorrections@gmail.com</a> should you believe your name listing to be in error or if it's not there.</ins> So the Firefox NYT ad has gone out</a>. Great-looking ad, great work everyone at sfx</acronym>. Ooh so here's my name: </div> I must, however, express my dismay at how the exercise was handled. No communication with the donors as promised</a> (we were supposed to get an email prior to the release of the ad), and no one will answer my comments on sfx</a> nor my emails. After significant pimping</a> and whoring</a>, I think I got 13 donations, but no one at sfx has yet to reply to my emails when I requested that they run a check for me on whether I was a "Community Champion" (who get their names underlined, among other things that they may or may not get as promised</a>). Surely it counts for something, insignificant as my efforts were in the greater picture. Is there a lack of communication somewhere? I'd say so, and not just because I wasn't replied to, but because there weren't much in terms of updates on when the ad would have been released. There also wasn't a draft of the ad put up for review, meaning some people had their names reversed or they simply weren't there. Commendable, of course, that they offer to do this</a>: We will incorporate all requests for corrections we receive and, where we are responsible for the error, we will send out free, corrected posters of the ad autographed by some members of the Firefox development team. As appropriate we will also issue credits or refunds on a case by case basis.</blockquote> Still, great ad, I can't imagine how much of a nightmare it must have been to get the names in there, and go Firefox</a>! Awesome work, awesome fund-raising campaign for an awesome Web browser. Leaving a good company - muvee Technologies 2004-12-17T01:25:09+00:00 Yesterday was the official last day of my 6 months tenure as Web Developer and webmaster at muvee Technologies</a>. It was a good 6 months, with the first 3 months being great (it is my first job after all), and slightly tapering off towards the end as I started to realize that perhaps being a Web Developer is not quite what I want to do. The bosses found out about my doubts somewhere in the middle and were totally awesome to involve me in projects that would interest me and kept me going for the remaining months. Still, it was not to be and I needed to make the hard decision to leave. It was coming all this while (my leaving), so I wasn't surprised and I'd say neither were many people. I tendered my resignation a month ago. </div> I remember being rather impressed with the company during the interview process because of the questions asked (these included some creative aptitude questions which I sort of floundered on), the keenness, friendliness, and plain techie-ness of the CEO (Pete Kellock), the COO (Phil Morgan), the Chief Opportunities Officer (Terence Swee) and the VP of QA/Customization (biographies</a>) at my 2nd interview. People were working, walking around, talking in a comfortable environment and dressed in jeans - this was something really different because I never expected such a relaxed atmosphere as there was at muvee. Crazily enough, I almost didn't want to go for the 2nd interview after the 1st one because I didn't think I'd accept their offer even if muvee made me one. But I did go and I did take up their offer, rejecting another offer as a J2EE software developer in a decision that I will never know whether was right or wrong. From the company's perspective, they have lost the investment they've put into me. From my perspective, I have lost the opportunity to be a software developer for the past 6 months, which I am now discovering I want to be, much more than I want to be a web developer. I'll miss working at muvee</a>, the great bosses (who never really acted that much as superiors but rather as equal colleagues), the "everyday is Friday" rule (in terms of office wear), and, most of all, the people (not everyone, I'll readily admit - in fact, just a few peeps). Cone of gayness 2004-12-13T01:01:38+00:00 Reason why linking to this post may not work: mod_rewrite rules rewrite all URLs that contain the word "gay" (and for that matter, "sex", "porn", "beastiality", "viagra" and more) to the client's IP - this is to block out referrer spam which I get a lot of and brings down the site in a fashion not unlike a DDoS</acronym>.</ins> If you got a weird page (like a page requesting you login to a router) before, it's your own router (or your ISP's gateway). The link works now because I've removed the word "gay" from the mod_rewrite rule list. Remember, if you wish to comment on technical faults of this site, please base them on correct information (and if you are arguing from a technical standpoint, you'd do well to vaguely recognize several familar IP addresses). On the other hand, I admit my callousness in the "gay joke" and am duly chastized - for that I have no excuse.</ins> Also, I should have listened to the warnings and not posted this entry in the first place - homosexuality is still a touchy subject. Nevertheless, the image is still there (for, um, posterity) - I'm only not displaying it in this entry.</ins> Cheers, and chill out.</ins> An author, I am trying to be 2004-12-10T00:01:12+00:00 I've always kinda loved writing. Writing fictional stories was fun up to secondary school - thanks to my fascination with (medieval) fantasy fiction and gamebooks. Argumentative essays were not my forte though - I got a B3 in 'A'-level General Paper. So anyway, enough of trying to write a "charming" little backstory (which wasn't really going anywhere, considering the state of mind I'm in). These few months you'll probably see a decreased frequency of posts on this blog, mostly due to my being on assignment writing a book - my very first one. Before you ask: yes, it's a technical book, and no, I'm not sure if I want to say what it's about just yet. It's too early. I'm going to miss blogging and nights where I don't have to think about <Insert book subject matter here>. Not that thinking about it is bad (because it is one of my main interests and I am writing a book on it), but I'm wondering how I'm going to keep up with late nights and the inexorable temptation to play one more hour of World of Warcraft (which still hasn't arrived, but will soon, with any luck). Stay tuned, don't go away. I'll still be blogging. On the prow for World of Warcraft Collector's Edition 2004-12-05T15:08:13+00:00 Update: I got it! I went all out in an eBay auction and bidding ended at USD130. My very first eBay purchase. Here's the item listing</a>. I should feel guilty splurging this much but: 1) this should be worth it, 2) life's too short, 3) life's too short to waste time refreshing eBay auction pages and losing eventually, and 4) money in PayPal doesn't quite feel like real money.</ins> I'm looking for a copy of the World of Warcraft Collector's Edition</a> which is incredibly sold out. If any of you chance by one of them in an obscure store, please let me know</a>. I'll be more than happy to pay for everything (cost + shipping and handling) plus extra for your efforts. I've been bidding on eBay but keep losing the auctions and my local pre-order is uncertain to arrive. Here's a look at what's in the Collector's Edition</a>. The Art of World of Warcraft coffee table book and the behind-the scenes DVD look so neat I just have to get the Collector's Edition. Thanks! Job ads: Product Evangelist and Web Developer/Webmaster 2004-11-24T22:33:51+00:00 The company I'm working for, muvee Technologies</a>, is on the lookout for a Product Evangelist</a> in the US for our core product, muvee autoProducer</a>. If you're a fan of muvee autoProducer (like Chris Pirillo</a> is), and fit the requirements</a> nicely, why not find out more about it - drop Tania (our Communications and PR manager) an email (find it over at the job spec</a>). The other position is that of a Web Developer cum Webmaster</a>. This will be a replacement for yours truly. If you're competent in PHP and SQL, comfortable with Linux and the command line, have lots of ideas on website promotion, apply for the job or write me</a> to find out more (see also the JobStreet listing</a>). Half-Life 2 is not here 2004-11-16T20:30:22+00:00 The whole world is playing Half-Life 2 except for those of us in Singapore who pre-ordered or decided to get the retail box versions. Apparently, and this is news from the local community forum grapevine, the sole distributor of Half-Life 2 in Singapore, iGames</a>, has delayed the release date to 19th November (GMT +8). Lots of disgruntled people in the HardwareZone PC Games forum</a>. (I'm one of them, but I prefer to be quietly disgruntled.) After I posted my previous entry</a>, I decided to go for the retail Standard Edition and went down to the local computer hub to reserve a copy. The guy there said it'd probably be out tommorrow (unlikely, as I found out later it'd arrive probably on the 19th like I said above). Argh... More waiting. Now I kinda wish I'd bought from Steam a week or so ago and I'd be playing it right now instead of blogging about not being able to play it. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines ships the same day as Half-Life 2 2004-11-14T20:09:18+00:00 I must have missed this with all the excitement and coverage of Half-Life 2. It seems like Vampire - The Masquerade: Bloodlines</a> will be out on November 16</a>, the same day as Half-Life 2. That's another 40+ hours of playing time on top of the 20-odd hours in Half-Life 2. Goodbye life! No wait... I don't have a life. Half-Life 2: How are you getting it? 2004-11-14T19:53:02+00:00 3 more days to Half-Life 2. The wait is killing me. I'm also mulling over how I should get Half-Life 2. Should I get the cheaper Standard Edition (SGD69.90) that comes in a whopping 6 CDs (5 + 1 for CS:Source), or the Collectors' Edition (SGD129.90) that comes in a convenient single DVD (plus a shirt and, I think, a strategy guide). Or perhaps getting it from Steam</a>? The Gold package looks pretty sweet (and naturally, so does the price tag). But you do get a whole lot more gimmicks (because that's what they are) sans a physical copy of the game itself. I guess I'm just not so comfortable with that (and the USD89.95 price tag). So, take a look at the Half-Life 2 Package FAQ</a>. Let me know what you are getting. It's something to keep you occupied while you (we) wait. (Anybody have any idea whether the Collectors' Edition comes with the strategy guide? The Package FAQ I posted above has conflicting information - the first post says it comes with a "Prima book sampler", the later press release says it comes with a "Half-Life 2 Prima strategy guide book".) Opera 7.60 Preview 3 for Windows 2004-11-13T15:22:37+00:00 Just posted a Opera 7.60 Preview 3 entry</a> at Forever Geek</a> (where I have posted too seldom these days). Firefox fans, don't be offended or surprised - I still love Firefox! But really, Opera seems to have had some improvements ever since our very own Asa Dotzler ranted about the horrible-ness of its UI.</a> Firefox NYT ad campaign covered in local paper (and I'm in there too) 2004-11-01T23:44:30+00:00 Well, Streats</a> isn't exactly a high-profile paper (its parent company, Singapore Press Holdings, publishes The Straits Times which is in much greater circulation), but it does get around (and its website</a> does validate as XHTML 1.0 Transitional, FWIW</acronym>). Anyway, here's the article: S'poreans back free browser</a>. I'm quoted in there saying (pessimistically): A few Singaporeans, myself included, have actually thought of doing the same (advertise) with a local paper, but prices are high and it would be a challenge considering the penetration of Firefox in Singapore.</blockquote> Of the (relatively) long reply I sent to Chris (the journalist) for the email interview, I can't say I wasn't a tad disappointed that that bit was published. But oh well, at least it got the word on Firefox out. Interestingly, someone from Singapore (I can tell from the IP) wrote a comment</a> saying my blog "sucks shit". Thanks Kathy I bet it does. And good day to you too m'am. Another guy wrote me an email coming in from the Streats article asking me to point out the influential bloggers in Singapore and South East Asia. (Yes we do</a> exist</a>!) </div> Christopher Lim (the journalist who interviewed me via email, and get this: via SMS</acronym>) wrote us Singapore donors an email asking our thoughts on the campaign</a> and why we made our donations. I am writing from Streats, the newspaper. Blake Ross from www.spreadfirefox.com passed me your emails after I explained that I'd like to run a story this coming Monday on Firefox's New York Times advertisement campaign, and am interested in interviewing donors from Singapore.</blockquote> The To: header of that email tells me there were 14 Singaporeans who donated to the cause. Not bad I'd think, considering our small population and tighter fists. Chris Henry, another Singaporean donor, wrote about the article too in his sfx blog</a>. Well, if any of you donors want to discuss more on "spreading Firefox" in Singapore, do join up at http://sg.firefoxsupport.com/</a> (it's not my site, in case you were wondering). How "well designed, popular and accessible" is your website? 2004-10-27T23:58:28+00:00 You'd probably already have heard of or seen Silktide Sitescore</a> that purports to "rate how well designed, popular and accessible your website is". A while back it used to tell me I was a criminal for having an inaccessible website. I got sub-5 scores and a close-to-zero score for accessibility. I was surprised but attributed it the script doing something wrong somewhere (it is automated after all and Cynthia</a> did tell me my site was OK in terms of accessibility). Recently, after reading Ingoal's post on an update to his score</a>, I tried out Silktide again and to my surprise, got a respectable 8.6. (Ingoal's</a> a fellow Advisor at SitePoint</a> - this guy knows computers.) After some fixing some XHTML-validation borkage, I eked out a 10 for accessibility and managed to get a 9.2 overall score (and a 9.3 once). That puts me in the top 10 (true to form</a>, I'm right at the bottom at number 10 below SitePoint</a>). </div> I'm not sure it means anything except that it goes to show what a poor boy I must be to keep posting about rankings and scores. Perhaps it's my low self-esteem working here. But I have to say again, thank you for your donations to Firefox and keep donating whether you do so via my donation link or not! (What am I talking about? Read more</a>. This too</a>.) Made it into Spread Firefox Weekly Roll Call Top 5 Climbers 2004-10-27T19:33:06+00:00 Thanks to everyone's kind donations to the Firefox New York Times ad effort</a>, I made it into the top 5 climbers (of the past week) on Spread Firefox</a>. </div> Once again, thank you for donating to the cause. (There's 100 points to be had per donation, and there were 12 made via my donation link.) I'm bowled over by the support for Firefox and more so by the support for me (or at least I'm glad that people are bugged enough by my constantly going on about donating to actually donate!) 6 more days to show your support for Firefox! 2004-10-24T16:52:00+00:00 Update 2: Mission accomplished! Spread Firefox</a> tells me I've got 1140 points which means 10 other people have donated via my donation link. Thanks for the show of support and, more importantly, for supporting and loving Firefox</a>!</ins> Update: 1 more person has donated via my donation link! Thank you, Ken Pratt</a>! 3 more to go!</ins> I wrote about it before</a> but I'll write it again now as the deadline nears (6 more days). Anyway, here goes... Show your support to Firefox if you love it by contributing to the expense of full-page Firefox ad that will be in The New York Times</a> (leftover donations will be safe-kept by the Mozilla foundation to fund the Firefox 1.0 launch campaign, a non-profit organization). Donations are tax-deductible in the US. $30 for a normal donation, $10 if you're a student. If you've ever thought of donating to the Mozilla cause before, now is the best time as ever to do so. And I'm throwing in 2 free WordPress weblog hosting accounts</a> (sponsored by ReviseMedia</a>) should you make a donation (just let me know</a> if you're going to do so). </div> I'm thankful to the 5</del> 6</ins> of you who've already donated due to my exhortations. If you do donate, and you feel general goodwill towards me (heh), I ask that you donate via my donation link</a>. If I manage to get 9 of you to do so, I'd get the faux title of "Community Champion" and get some extra perks (I really want the free Firefox t-shirt signed by the Firefox crew). The Straits Times says Half-Life 2 will be delayed... Right 2004-10-24T14:35:21+00:00 Local (Singaporean) news publication The Straits Times</a> has a mini-article today proclaiming "Half Life 2 Delayed"</a>. (You need to login to read the article. For that purpose, I've created a BugMeNot entry for The Straits Times</a>.) Publisher Vivendi and developer Valve are suing and counter-suing each other over the rights to gaming cafe usage royalties. This battle could hold up the release date by up to six months</blockquote> Now, am I the one who's out of the loop</a> or is The Straits Times publishing old news? (Insert snide comment on how The Straits Times has been trying to portray itself as a world-class newspaper here.) Portions of Spamx plugin for Geeklog minimally based on MT-Blacklist Updater 2004-10-24T14:07:52+00:00 Part of the Spamx plugin</a> for Geeklog</a> (a PHP blogging script) proclaims to be based on MT-Blacklist Updater</a> (MassDelete.Admin.class.php</a> and Import.Admin.class.php</a>). I hardly see the similarity though. My name will be in The New York Times 2004-10-22T00:20:21+00:00 Update: 7</del> 6 days left to get your name in The New York Times! Thanks go to Ingoal</a>, Alexandre Juneau</a>, and one other anonymous reader for donating via my donation link</a> (and even more importantly, for donating at all).</ins> You've probably heard about the full-page Firefox ad that will be in The New York Times</a> and wholly funded by donations from the community. If you haven't, you probably don't read Slashdot</a>, c|net's news.com</a>, and I'd imagine a good number of news sites, in English or otherwise. Anyway, I was a little slow on the uptake myself, and have only just made my donation (of USD30) that goes towards a one of my favorite causes. If you're a student, you can get your name listed for just USD10. </div> If you'd like to make a donation, and if you go through my donation link</a>, I'd be branded a Community Champion and get some extra perks</a> (best of which is a free Firefox t-shirt signed by the Firefox crew). C'mon, be a part of Firefox users' ad in The New York Times!</a> By the way, would a US resident kindly inform me when the ad is taken out? I'd like to buy a copy of it for keepsakes. Would have to go hunting for a copy. Why does VPS hosting take so long to setup? 2004-10-18T23:12:19+00:00 Update: After 3 days, I finally got my activation letter. It took a post to WebHostingTalk to get JVDS' attention. It seems that the activation email was sent, but it never landed in my inbox.</ins> This is the 2nd time I've signed up with a VPS</acronym> provider and it's taken too long for my account to be set up. Linode</a> took 16 hours</a> to set it up when they promised: Apply now and your account will be activated within hours! </blockquote> 16 hours does technically qualify as "within hours", but it's a mighty long wait. But I do understand that there's a lead time needed to setup a VPS so it's acceptable. But now that I'm intending to switch from Linode to JVDS</a> (for reasons which I'll expound in an entry in the near future), and I'm again left waiting, this time for more than 34 hours (at the time of writing). And this after sending in 2 support emails asking about activation, and being told that the account details will be given to me "shortly". Sigh. Even the expensive (comparatively) The Planet</a> dedicated server that I ordered for my company was built within 12 hours. And I signed up with JVDS because of their excellent reviews in WebHostingTalk</a>. They may be mighty quite to reply to support tickets and emails, but what good if you can't deliver. I wonder if I'm just unlucky. Maybe the dedicated host on which they were setting up my VPS blew a hard drive. And so I wait... And I wait... Half Life 2 review in PC Gamer (and Vampire: Bloodlines) 2004-10-16T00:51:48+00:00 I went to get some DVD+Rs today (TDK 8X DVD+R RICOHJPNR02) and went to the magazine rack to look for the issue of PC Gamer</a> with the exclusive review of Half-Life 2 (it was all over the web and even Slashdotted). And there it was calling out to me to buy it for SGD7 (SGD1 ≈ USD0.60). Well, I used to have a subscription to PC Gamer when I was a hardcore gamer a few years back, even though it cost ridiculously high compared to the USD1.99 per issue you can get in the US. Anyway, enough with the life story... Check out the PC Gamer December issue cover</a> (at IGN.com). </div> Just finished reading the review (it got 98%, if you don't know by now), and damn I'd so like to get my hands on a copy of Half-Life 2 (no, it's not out yet) to play with the Zero-Point Energy Gun (aka</acronym> the Gravity Gun). And maybe shoot down some Striders. The recommended system requirements are a little worrying though - the low end 3D card is an ATI RADEON 9600 PRO 128MB, which PC Gamer equated to be the same as a GeForce FX 5700 128MB. I only have a (now) crappy GeForce FX 5200 128MB. I do have a 3.0GHz HyperThreading processor, but that hardly helps when the graphics card is the bottleneck. Upgrade? Sigh. And what's more in this issue, there's also a hands-on scoop on Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines</a>. What a game this could turn out to be. To tell the truth, I'm marginally more excited about this game than Half-Life 2 (I am, first and foremost, a CRPG</acronym> player). I thoroughly enjoyed the original Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption</a> and even read the Vampire: The Masquerade novels. I mean, you get to play a vampire from 1 of 7 of Camarilla clans and experience the Vampire: The Masquerade world in its Source engine glory. What's not to like? The waiting is the hardest part. Please let them be released on November. muvee Technologies in Business Times 2004-10-12T11:45:21+00:00 Looking at the global picture</a> Dreamhost hosting at $0.77/month 2004-10-11T15:40:28+00:00 Update: Well, I am getting 10% referral credit from this and DreamHost has confirmed that we can keep that. Thanks everyone for the referral credit! I have $44.62 right now from referrals and am wondering what to do with the extra money. Ideas anyone?</ins> It's true. Dreamhost</a> has real cheap hosting plans at USD0.77 per month. You have to pay for a year, but at USD9.24 with a free domain name, I'm surely not complaining. The first 777 customers to sign up for service with DreamHost using the promotional code "777" will pay just $0.77 for each month of hosting - for an entire YEAR! That's a $119.40 value - for just $9.24!</blockquote> I signed up almost immediately when I saw it (I put Daniel Glazman as my referrer because he recommended it first</a>). On referrals though, it does say this: Referral credit will not be provided to referers of customers who sign up for this promotional sale.</blockquote> Anyway, if you do sign up, do put my ID, chuyeow, as the referrer - I suppose referral credit will accrue later when one signs up for other plans, if I read their rewards page</a> correctly. They say getting your site ripped off is the greatest honor 2004-10-02T14:15:09+00:00 I was going through my referrer listings (it's early in the month, so it's much easier to catch any referrer spammers). Thankfully, there were very few, now that I've blocked referrers with the words "sex", "porn", "viagra", "cialis", and so on. Anyway, I came across this referrer that had no page views and plenty of hits - an almost sure sign of hotlinking (or it could also be RSS readers, forum threads, which are legitimate). So I checked out http://cristal.inria.fr/~yakobows/</a>, and almost thought I was viewing the wrong tab (it happens sometimes when you use tab-browsing) and was looking at my own blog. Of course, upon closer inspection, I realized it wasn't my site but a rip-off of the current site's design and layout. The CSS is identical, even the favicon. </a></div> I wasn't pissed - rather, I was flattered (as this entry's title indicates). But I'm sure I want this Boris to quit using exactly the same design as mine. I kinda like what I have now (because Bart Noppen</a> said he liked my color scheme, and I'm a big fan of Bart's design skills) and I want the blog to be (somewhat) unique. Boris, appreciate the honor, but please try to make it less of a rip-off would you? Thanks. Interesting SMS message from my clinic 2004-09-18T14:48:47+00:00 Interesting. I got this SMS message this afternoon, apparently from Raffles Medical Group</a>, a local medical establishment with a hospital and a chain of clinics. Thank u for using our clinic recently. Pls share your feedback to help us serve u better. Would u recommend our services to others? Raffles Medical Management</blockquote> I'm not sure whether this is legitimate (though it almost has to be), and I wonder who'd reply to a message like this. Should I say "Yes, I would recommend it to my friends and family, but your prices are exhorbitant?" (I visited their hospital's outpatient clinic because it was nearest to my office.) Back to trying not to scratch my rash-covered body... Forever Geek, have you read it? 2004-09-17T02:05:50+00:00 It seems like I am not beyond a little self-promotion now and then. Well, the story goes like this. Paul Scrivens of Whitespace</a> fame also runs Forever Geek</a>, one of those blog/website types that posts news for geeks. Excellent stuff - I'd been reading it in my feed reader for, like, almost since I knew about it, which is around February when the site first appeared. (Of course, when I said "excellent", you will soon realize I have a vested interested in saying so.) Anyway, Forever Geek</a> was looking for articles</a> so I submitted the search article</a> that was also posted here. That got into Slashdot. Recently, Paul posted that Forever Geek</a> were looking for some new members</a> to join the crew, so I applied - I find these things hard to resist, weirdly. And I got accepted. So now I am a contributing writer on Forever Geek</a>, which I am unashamedly telling you to add to your reading list (Atom feed</a>, RSS 2.0 feed</a>). This is not my first group blog (well, it is my second). The first was ensight.org</a> from the before time (when most of the bloggers were SitePoint forum staff</a>). Anyway, read Forever Geek</a>. Yeah. Things I have to do 2004-09-15T23:29:09+00:00 Same old story - too much to do, too little time. To-do list: Find out why the virtual server hosting this site is crashing (this explains the intermittent downtime).</li> Blog an average of 2 entries in 3 days for Forever Geek</a>, where I am now a contributing writer.</li> Study and pass SCJP</a></acronym> exam.</li> Learn how to play the guitar.</li> Finish reading the Vampire: Dark Ages</a> Clan Novel series (I'm currently at Brujah, book 8 of 13</a>).</li> Fix a client's website. Make some backend changes.</li> Get more involved in WordPress development. (Anyone know where to get WordPress from Subversion</a>? Or is getting from CVS still current?)</li> Blog more often here.</li> Update my About page, and bring back the Archives page.</li> Get to work on this Mozilla-related website I've been thinking of doing.</li> Finish watching all this unwatched anime: Berserk, Last EXILE, Kenshin, Kiddy Grade, Hunter X Hunter.</li> </ul> 20 "sponsored" Gmail invites to give away 2004-09-08T01:41:58+00:00 Update: Sandip has 12 more invites.</ins> Update: Sandip has given away all his invites! To date he has given away all 79 of them (from multiple Gmail accounts). Nice. Thanks Sandip for you generosity!</del> A kind reader by the name of Sandip Bhattachary emailed me this today: i have 20 gmail invites to give away. I actually have 7 gmail accounts myself. Receving so many invites per day. I have given this to everybody. Please post my thread in your website that I want to give away gmail invites to those who email me at the above mentioned email address. This is a serious email.</blockquote> You can get him at bhattacharyas AT gmail DOT com. Thanks Sandip. This also signals that Gmail invites are now actually undesirable and a burden on the soul. (Just kidding, Sandip.) Line of the month 2004-09-02T00:05:34+00:00 If you want to destroy my sweater Hold this thread as I walk away</blockquote> From Undone - the sweater song</a>. That's one of the most loaded/quirky/semi-humorous lines I've heard in a while. Anyway, AudioScrobbler</a> tells me</a> I'm listening to too much Weezer</del> Weezer quite a bit (though AudioScrobbler erased my music entries once before so that's hardly an accurate list). It also tells me: Your plugin reported a submission error: Your plugin (itw version 0.0.4) is banned. Please contact the plugin author for an updated version</blockquote> Any idea what that is or anyone have the same error? I'm using the iTunes plugin - what else? This is because the iTunes plugin is making multiple submissions while iTunes is paused. See the relevant thread here</a>. You can grab the latest plugin from http://www.xurble.org/iScrobblerWin_0_0_5.exe</a> - it's not yet official, but it works. (Thanks Suman!)</ins> (Wondering what AudioScrobbler is? Go read the AudioScrobbler Help page</a>.) To Matt Gough 2004-09-01T22:44:06+00:00 To Matt Gough, the guy I've been trying to contact and send a Gmail invite to: I've been trying to tell you that the Gmail invites that I've sent to you don't seem to get through (nor do my emails from my Gmail account, apparently). I'd sent you one before and one just today. Let me know if you don't see them (then I can just pass you the signup link). Figured this was the best way to get your attention when I tried, in vain, to post a comment on your weblog (it says "registration is required" and I couldn't find a registration link - what is that? TypeKey?). Make your muvee contest 2004-09-01T16:31:14+00:00 The company</a> just launched the "My Vacation muvee" contest</a>. Interested in a real simple piece of video editing software? Check out the "I'm new"</a> page to find out more. Don't know what to do with Gmail invites 2004-09-01T14:20:15+00:00 So everyone has started giving away Gmail invites again because Google has started giving them out again. I don't really know what to do with them because most people would have one already by now. Well, at the risk of being uncool and mainstream, I'm going to give 4 of them away to readers. Drop me an email or leave a comment. For a start, I'll be giving them only to people whom I've heard from before. Just in case. If all 10 (OK so Bloglines tells me there are 296 subscribers to my RSS feed) of you already have a Gmail account, I'll waive this and give to just about anyone. You are being served by Apache2 on Gentoo Linux 2004-08-29T02:07:11+00:00 OK I got Postfix and courier-imap up and running now. Plus, switching to a 2.6 kernel was as simple as changing it in the web-based Linode Platform manager and rebooting. Just select a few things and click a few form buttons. Very nice.</ins> The migration to the new server didn't go quite as smoothly as I'd hoped it to be, but all is good now and you are currently being served this webpage/rss feed by Apache2</a> web server running on a Gentoo Linux</a> box. </div> I'm using this Virtual Private Server (VPS) setup offered by Linode.com</a> which is an unmanaged User Mode Linux</a> hosting solution. Which means I've had to take a crash course in system administration in the attempt to transform a base Linux system with minimal services into a production web server. It's hard because of the esoteric configuration that Linux is so notorious for, though it was still easier than I thought, and very satisfying when things progressed from a state of borkage to reasonable functionality. Gentoo's Portage</a> probably played a good hand in making things easy. emerge, emerge, emerge. I still need to set up a email services (the whole kahuna - MTA</acronym>, LDA</acronym>, AA</acronym>) - any advice on this area would be very nice. More on Gentoo, system administration, User Mode Linux, and Linode later. Stupid mistake - fix in 9 hours time 2004-08-27T00:21:47+00:00 I made a stupid mistake while backing up my files on the old server and uploading them to the new one. That's the problem when you have 2 similar SFTP windows (1 for uploading, 1 for downloading) and taking part in multiple chat sessions. You tend to not notice that you're uploading to the server you're supposed to be downloading from. So this is the default WordPress template you're seeing right now. I remember making another backup copy at work so in 9 hours time, fingers crossed, things will be back to normal. The "other" switch: From MovableType to WordPress 2004-08-23T00:55:19+00:00 Somewhat in relation to my last post on my search for new a webhost</a>, I've switched from Perl-based MovableType</a> to PHP-powered WordPress</a>. The connection between hosting and the weblog script switch isn't really obvious, but it will be once I tell you that the server "admin" on the dedicated server that I'm currently on (and sharing with several other guys) showed me that MovableType was causing MySQL load to spike. Not to mention the recent rash of comment spam, a particularly bad case totaling over 400 comment spam from a single source. I can imagine how the rebuilding frenzy brought the server to its metaphorical knees. </div> And that, my friends, is the technical reason I'm being booted from that dedicated server. I was spitting curses when requests to the codefront.net domain were redirected to a "suspended" page yesterday. It turned out that the server admin suspended my account intending to bring it back up, but forgot to. Anyway, I have been refunded my pre-payment for the next 5 months hosting (plus 1 month from July to August), and given my walking orders. So I am now looking for alternative hosting. Of course I don't think I was being fairly treated, but I'm not going to argue my case here. My advice to you: if you share a dedicated server with several peeps, make sure you appoint a server admin and pay him for it. Have agreements (preferably in contract form) on what would cause account suspension and termination. Having put that aside, let's go back to the much more interesting "switch". WordPress. Ah written in a language I can understand. And having to tweak certain things to keep this blog as it was when running on MovableType made me delve into the source</a>. And I realize that being based on b2</a> (another weblog script) has meant that WordPress has a lot of cruft to clean up. But working on a nightly build (2004-08-04), I could see that the developers are hard at work cleaning and firming up the code. The main beef I have with WordPress is the way it has everything running of a single index.php page. Well, there isn't anything really wrong with that, but having it this way makes the code a little more complicated when you have to differentiate between a single blog entry page and, say, a category page (which lists several entries and is sort of an index page). WordPress has this is_single() function to tell you which situation you are in. Which is good, except that it isn't exposed to users. I had to look at the source code to discover that function. I'm not sure if it's meant to be exposed, but here I am using it because there doesn't seem to be another way to determine which of the 2 contexts the page being displayed is in. Let me know if I'm wrong here. Anyway, I'm so glad I persevered and made the switch. It was tedious because the dedicated server was sometimes borked (there were times when FTP didn't work, shell access definitely didn't and Apache seemed to have gone down too) today. But other than that, being able to read and understand the source code of WordPress is a very, very uplifting feeling. It makes me want to contribute as a developer. In short, I'm happier because: I can read PHP code.</li> No more nasty long rebuilds.</li> Visitors can comment with speeds 100X faster (non-scientific estimate). And no more double-postings too.</li> A very nice and fast admin control panel.</li> Comment spam doesn't bring the server down as easily as for MovableType.</li> There's a neat "Post Slug" field that you can use to define each entry's URL. For example, this entry has a URL ending with "movabletype-to-wordpress" instead of "the-other-switch-from-movabletype-to-wordpress". Frequent readers would have noticed by now that I like long titles.</li> I feel like I can contribute to WordPress (if they'd have me). That is a good feeling because I've always wanted to write some MovableType plugins but never got around to it because of my fear of Perl CGI (I can do Perl string manipulation pretty well, just not CGI).</li> Fast is good!</li> </ul> Time to submit some bugs to WordPress Mosquito</a>. Looking for hosting 2004-08-22T05:08:55+00:00 I'm on the hunt for a good webhosting package. I'm having some problems (technical and political) with the current one on the dedicated server I'm sharing. If any of you have any recommendations, do let me know by leaving a comment or writing me</a>. These are my requirements: 500MB storage 25GB transfer (at least) Unlimited databases Unlimited subdomains Unlimited email accounts Multiple domains (on a single hosting plan) I'm thinking of getting a Virtual Private Server (VPS) solution and have been taking a look at some User Mode Linux (UML) hosting plans. In particular, Dinix</a> and VPS Colo</a> (I'm looking at their lowest priced plans) stand out after much searching and reading over at WebHostingTalk forums</a>. $35/month isn't something I can afford though. If anyone wants to share the plan with me (we can split it 50-50 or whatever), do let me know</a>. I'm a very nice trustworthy guy (honest!). UML</acronym> == root access. Mmmm... I can finally get the stuff (Subversion, PostgreSQL, mod_python) I want installed. Loving my iPod mini 2004-08-13T01:05:33+00:00 I wished I had an iPod mini</a>. I have now got an iPod mini - a silver one. </div> To clear several plausible doubts judging from the comments in that last post</a> (well, mostly directed at the rant by jbelkin</a>): Roshambo, I'm not sure how Sumajin SmartWrap</a> is going to be useful for me. The website isn't very descriptive so if you could explain to me what it does... :)</li> Like Luke said</a>, jbelkin, you said you "never read (my) original post" and yet go on to say "and this is why (I'm) wrong". I liked the self-contradiction there heh. But, but, I agree with you most of your points (well, right now because I'm the owner of an iPod). Except that the iPod (mini) is overpriced. Perhaps you haven't met poor people before (OK that isn't fair, but you weren't being fair). The iPod mini cost me a week's salary. I am now willing to pay for it because I am drawing a salary.</li> I have no idea what "Fry's" is. I live in Singapore.</li> I am loving my iPod mini.</li> </ul> For my fellow Singaporeans, do go get your iPod mini if you want one from SGL at Sim Lim Square (it's on the 2nd floor, and if you go by the connecting bridge from OG, it's the first shop on your right). It's $440 ($18 less the the market price of $458 at places like the AppleCentres) and the lady there is very friendly. Another thing I must say is that the Best Denki people manning their phone lines give pretty crappy service. They don’t sound very friendly and don’t bother to check for you the availability in other stores. Neither did they take the initiative to tell me when the new stocks will arrive. Harvey Norman is a completely different story because the guy who serviced my call was totally friendly, checked out the stocks in the other branches, and even told me when the stocks will arrive. Boo Best Denki. Anyway, more on this (the iPod mini) later. Flattered 2004-08-12T01:54:13+00:00 John Stone</a> sent me a very nice email today about his redesign</a>. I've got my own blog and I used your's for inspiration, it doesn't look nearly as good as yours and thats good because I wouldn't want people to think I "stole" the design, but I just wanted to clear it with you first, if you think it looks to much like a clone, i have another design i can use.</blockquote> Someone took my crummy design as an inspiration - I am at once amazed and utterly flattered. Thanks for asking nicely John, and yes it is more than alright. iWish iHad an iPod mini 2004-08-09T03:21:09+00:00 I know I pointed out</a> 5 reasons not to buy an iPod</a> 6 months or so ago. I take that back. I caught the iPod bug. More specifically, the iPod mini bug - don't really fancy the larger iPod, even if it's much better with the 4G</acronym> version. I'm really getting it as something to soothe me and make my sad life a little brighter (believe it or not, pathetic as that sounds). I haven't got any gadgets yet and this will probably be the first time I'm (modestly) splurging my salary. Yes that's right. I don't have an MP3 player, no palmtop device, no 3G phone (I kinda like my trusty Nokia 8250). I don't even have a Discman that works. Anyway, the sadness of my gadget-deprived life is besides the point. The point is, I want an iPod mini. And I wish I can get my hands on one tommorrow against all odds. Well, someone at an Apple reseller told me that there was a national shortage of iPod mini with interminable queues. Pretty disheartening, especially when I got a couple of colleagues to go down with me to buy it. And we were arrogantly told by the sales person (I reckon he was a Mac evangelist) that "Apple does not intend to include FM radio in the iPod or in the future". (It really was more arrogant-sounding then that, but I forget the exact words to quote him verbatim.) Good news is, a friend told me that she saw iPod minis selling around a tech place today. Well, at least she saw the boxes. And someone at the Mac Users Group (Singapore)</a> posted that he bought an iPod just today. It just might happen! Will be calling a few places to check on their iPod mini stocks 10 hours from now. Fingers crossed. Did you think I'd lay down and die? 2004-07-30T00:08:19+00:00 "Oh not I." Well, seems like I was caught off-guard when a reader (thanks Roshambo!) wrote in and alerted me that I'd exceeded the 10 GB bandwidth limit I'd set for the codefront.net domain. There were times when I thought that even 1 GB of bandwidth was a whole lot. Granted, 10 GB of transfer is a pittance, but I am a nobody with an unremarkable website (I think people come just for the Mozilla entries with them screenshots, heh), so humour me. Luckily I have a 20 GB reseller account with left over (or rather, unused) bandwidth from my other domains, so problem solved with a little bit of quota adjustments in WHM</acronym>. Looks like I gotta get more of that bandwidth thing for next month. No time for gExodus - (Python) source released 2004-07-01T01:26:01+00:00 Ugh, I've been having less and less time to work on gExodus</a> (version 0.2</a>, version 0.1</a> - I really should put these in a consolidated area), mainly due to work and my need to relax once I get home (well, most times I just surf around, watch anime, and blearily gaze at the TV as it screens Euro 2004 matches nowadays). Adding support for Outlook Express (.DBX) and Outlook (.PST) email formats was something I thought would be in the offing for gExodus, but it seems that the format is just too proprietary to figure out. Arne Schloh has been working on decoding the .DBX format</a> but only has achieved about 90% of the task. There are what seems to be very good C libraries, LibPST and LibDBX</a>, but I don't really want to dive into using C libraries from Python - though if anyone is willing to shed some light, I'd be all ears. Python libraries for decoding the .DBX or .PST formats? Well, either I haven't looked hard enough or there really aren't any. So that's that, which basically means that I won't be looking at adding Outlook Express and Outlook support to gExodus barring a breakthrough. Sorry. Anyway, I thought it would be good to release the source for gExodus as I'd promised - just for the unlikely event that someone wants to extend what little I've done. So here's the Python source files for gExodus (0.2): gexodus-0.2-src.zip</a> To run gExodus from source, you need to have installed Python</a>, wxPython</a> and PythonCard</a>. Gordon McMillan's Installer</a> is needed to build the Windows executable. What is written here</a> should help if you really want to try to work on this. Either way, do feel free to drop a line via my contact form</a>. Critique my employer's website, please 2004-06-29T23:48:05+00:00 A little background: I work for muvee Technologies</a> as a web developer. Much of what you see there isn't my work though, since I'm only 3 weeks old in the company. I'm coming up with a list of things to improve with regards to the website</a>, in terms of making it persuasive and consequently generating more sales. Of course, things like layout, accessibility, design and look and feel are important as well, but secondary for this evaluation. Truth be told, this is something my boss asked me to look at, because I've a pair of fresh eyes undeadened by years of working on the same old (same old) pages. Nope, I'm not going to be try and get away with hoping that everyone here will generate enough ideas for me to present to my boss. I have my own list and I'm coming up with more stuff (gradually), but I thought that while I had your attention, I might as well see what other minds can come up with and if they are so discordant from mine. So there, if you could help me evaluate and recommend things that can be changed/improved, I'd be grateful to you, dear mister or missus reader. Focus on how the site</a> could be more persuasive to prospective buyers, or conducive to buyers (transactors). Recommendations on design, layout, accessibility are also welcome, but secondary (I expect plenty of these, nevertheless). I don't have Gmail invites now, but I promise you I'll send one over if you help me out. Those already with Gmail will instead receive my gratitude (really - a favor is worth something nowadays, right?) Danes Czeched-out 2004-06-28T05:55:20+00:00 Czech Republic 3 - 0 Denmark I wish I'd bothered to look for a betting station earlier today - the odds were 1.78 in favor of a Czech win. The Czechs really booked their place in the semis in style, beating the Danes by the most solid margin of all the semifinalists. And what a sweet chip from Milan Baros. Gmail invites - so hard to give away 2004-06-26T00:00:58+00:00 When I last gave out a Gmail invite</a>, I had to squeeze out 1 for my dear blog readers (actually, when I got more invites, I gave another one to Joshua</a> too). Now it seems that even 2 invites are so hard to give away. It seems that the Gmail craze is finally dying down. Well, at least in the blog circles. Gmail's on almost every blog and almost every blogger has one (either through an account at Blogger</a> or through viral means). Colleagues at work have Gmail. Friends don't see the need for Gmail. I'm actually having a hard time thinking of people who could use an invite. So from now on I'm giving away invites on my blog to readers. I'm not giving them to just anyone who searched for "Gmail invite</a>" on Google and popped over. I happen to be listed on the first page of search results on Google for "Gmail invite" at this moment, and that has surpassed my usual high-ranking search terms of "bittornado</a>", "uxtheme.dll</a>", and "hotmail thunderbird</a>" within 3 days - 1466 visitors via that search phrase. I was looking down the list of people who posted in response to my entry</a> asking my readers to show themselves, looking for people to give away the invites to, but I wasn't sure who wanted them. If you posted before and want an invite, let me know. Czech-ed in 2004-06-20T06:00:23+00:00 Exhilarating match, Holland vs. Czech Republic. I'm (openly) rooting for the Czechs to win Euro 2004, so it was nice to see the Czechs come back 2 times from behind and winning it with a sweet tap-in. They played very well at that, and Milan Baros scoring was just sweet. Now, onto the quarter-finals! Away 2004-05-15T19:06:49+00:00 Before anyone jumps to the conclusion that I've fallen into torpor or crumbled to dust in Final Death, let me assure you that I will merely be away on a short trip for the purpose of getting away from Things That Suck™ (among other purposes). Will be back Wednesday evening (my time, CCT</acronym>). If I'm not back by then, assume the worst. Interesting job interview today 2004-05-12T03:31:36+00:00 Fresh graduate that I am, I have been submitting applications for quite a number of jobs, mostly revolving around the "web developer" and the "software developer" careers. Of course, I am always supplementing my income with web design and development work, and have always been on the lookout for freelance work. Sometimes I wonder about work, about whether to work for someone else, or to strike out on my own... ah, ah, ah... That's a topic for another day. So, back on track, I went for an interview today with a SME</acronym>, and the interviewer was seemingly the owner (educated guesswork involved). He was young, he was entrepreneurial (he had at least 1 major startup that crashed, the current one is the one I was seeking a position in, and it's successful enough). But what was most interesting was how the interview went. You see, he was looking over my resumé, and he actually made suggestions on how I should rearrange it and present individual sections, in the most friendly, I'm-here-to-help-you-friend manner. I was surprised, pleasantly. This guy was actually spending time offering very very valuable advice to me. Great stuff. And he was honest, he said he couldn't meet my salary expectations, he said that the job I'm applying for ("Java Developer") is a tedious, repetitive job. He also said something to the effect that starting at a small company like his is not something he'd recommend I do, "as a friend". Everything made a lot of sense. Excellent career advice. I didn't get the job. He said "it'd be a waste" for me to go with this job, when I should be aiming higher. I believe that this is what he felt (not that "it'd be a waste" - that's subjective), that he wasn't going through this amazing amount of trouble just to make me feel better about myself for not getting the job. Sincerity shone through. Either that or he is a sterling actor (which I doubt). Computer problems (er, need help) 2004-04-30T02:12:05+00:00 Update: Well, the problem seems solved now, and thanks to everyone for your advice :). Rather than repeat what I said in my comment</a>, do check it out if you've replied to my call for help. Thanks again!</ins> This is a computer problem that has been bugging my desktop PC and me (me mostly - the machine seems pretty happy, and sometimes I think I hear sniggers). Well, the problem is, it boots up and then freezes irrevocably (resetting is the only recourse). Nothing out of the ordinary yet, considering I'm running Windows XP, but it freezes at any point from bootup to a fully logged in session in Windows XP. Sometimes it even fails to POST. Sometimes there is just a white line across the screen and the rest is black. Here's what I think could be causes: 1) The monitor (it's a Phillips Brilliance 105 - circa 1996 I think) is too old. But does an old monitor cause the system not to boot or to freeze? Anyone had experience with old monitors? Will it blow up in my face? 2) The power supply's dying. Possible. But it's a new one and it should be way above requirements. I don't know how to debug (or perhaps I'm just too lazy), so I'm casting about hoping someone would bite and tell me that they have had this exact same problem and how to solve it. PS. I'm ready for any suggestions that my monitor is truly dead or highly dangerous in its current state - gives me an excuse to get a new, bigger (it's 15 inch) one. Server move imminent 2004-04-26T18:30:02+00:00 Just a note in case someone wonders why this site is down or looks kinda funky in the next 24 hours (or so), I'm changing servers yet again. Update: after some problems with DNS (there wasn't a SOA</acronym> resource record), we're finally at the new server. Write me</a> if you notice something missing or just plain wrong.</ins> I stand corrected 2004-04-20T02:33:11+00:00 Email from an anonymous visitor: Just to inform you, your tagline -- "rambling's of a misfit" is misspelled. It should be spelled "ramblings."</blockquote> Ouch. I always thought I knew my apostrophes. Like how there is no apostrophe in "CDs" (it's not "CD's") - short for "compact discs". And the possessive form of "it" is "its" (no apostrophe). "It is", however, can be shortened to "it's". Blah. Thanks for pointing out my oversight. Server went down 2004-04-17T19:21:02+00:00 Ugh the server hosting this site went down for at least 7 hours today with no news or emails from the hosting company. Even their own site was down. I'm looking at sharing a dedicated server with several online friends, so maybe I'll be rid of these problems and have less downtime. Jack I'm so jealous! 2004-04-03T15:52:23+00:00 Wrapping up my final year of study at NUS</acronym> pretty soon - final thesis defence/presentation on Monday, last examination paper on April 16. Getting a job has always been there on my mind but I never really bothered about it and have been somewhat noncomittal in looking. Well, I did apply to several companies, went to 2 tests, but no interviews yet. The thesis issue is somewhat blocking everything out, because goddamnit I want to get First Class Honors. Not that I'm certificate-driven or anything, but just that since I'm in the position to get it, why the hell not? Will it even have an effect on my job prospects? I don't really know. Probably not, you know. Oh Jack why didn't I do better for the aptitude test? Thesis submitted 2004-03-19T16:54:01+00:00 Ever seen that movie where this guy has to do an Honours thesis and went through an extended period of staring at the computer trying to code and write technical reports and a 100-page thesis, and he finally went blind and led a pathetic life after that before dying alone? No? Well, I didn't either. Sounds like a pretty boring movie. Well, anyway, so I've finally submitted my thesis to the examiner for review. That's a veritable mountain off my back, really. What have I gained from this test of willpower, this despairing journey of initial disappointment</a>, this obstacle-ridden trek, this inward journey (yikes!) that made me realize that I'm just not cut out for a life in academia? Well, I can write on and on about this, recounting my experiences, or I can just stop here and link gratuitously to my thesis. Thesis - The Incremental Genetic Algorithm with the Michigan-style Classifier System</a> (PDF format) Adding a link to my (much shorter) technical paper: Technical paper - The Incremental Genetic Algorithm with the Michigan-style Classifier System</a> (PDF format), because I see the thesis has become the number 1 result on Google for "incremental genetic algorithm". Good to provide a shorter readup. To the people asking for an Orkut invite... 2004-02-21T00:02:37+00:00 Note: I am not inviting anyone I don't know even a bit of anymore! I've been getting a good number of requests and I have decided that it just isn't right to invite just anybody. Please do not ask for an invite. Thanks for your understanding.</ins> ... You forgot the most important thing - your email address! I've been getting a couple of people coming in from Ben's Thought Crimes</a> asking if I was willing to invite them into Orkut</a> when they noticed I gave Ben an invite when he asked. I don't really like to do so, but I could invite people I don't know (I know Ben, sort of, so that's different) when they ask politely. But it's hard to do so when there isn't a way I can get back to them, much less get Orkut to send out an invitation (Orkut sends invites via email). Not that Orkut really does anything for me at the moment. If you want to see what it's all about, fine, I may send you an invite, but I'll "delete" you as a "friend" after that. The force that is Slashdot 2004-02-01T02:44:09+00:00 You must have heard of the Slashdot effect</a>. It is real. It is of a magnitude beyond your imagination. Yesterday I felt a teeny weeny jolt in bandwidth simply because someone linked to my "New IE vulnerability - fake URLs"</a> entry in this Slashdot article entitled "Microsoft Advises to Type in URLs Rather than Click"</a> in a comment. A comment that is found about 80% down a page that scrolls at least fifty times when you press the page down button. Lucky for me I'm just below my bandwidth allocation for this month. Pretty in pink, and yellow and green 2004-01-28T00:50:00+00:00 Perhaps you'd have noticed the new colors and a slightly changed layout. </div> Is pink too effeminate? Think the color palette is garishly eye-blinding? Do your eyes bleed from the white background? The monthly report - December 2003 2004-01-02T02:13:17+00:00 redemption in a blog</a> received 13,728 visits for the month of December 2003, meaning there were an average of 442 visits daily. Most visited entries: The recent entry on TrackBack spam</a> that spurred a short burst of inter-blog discussion made it to Blogdex</a>. The beginning of a wave of TrackBack abuse? Joanne Jacobs</a> and I seem to think so.</li> Abyss Web Server - small and really neat</a> pointed out a small and amazingly easy to configure web server. It's not Apache, but it works fine for local development alright!</li> My Mozilla Thunderbird</a> 0.4 new feature summary - Mozilla Thunderbird 0.4 - new features, upgrading, and more</a>. I love Mozilla Thunderbird! It's not perfect, it's not final (it's still in what you would call beta stages), but it beats email clients I've used before (which include Outlook, Outlook Express and Incredimail).</li> </ul> Of note: A new year, a new webhost - I've just changed my webhost to a dirt cheap webhosting plan at PinchPenny</a>. Not that there was anything wrong with my last host, but PinchPenny had unlimited add-on domains that was just too good to miss, and there being end-year promotions (I get 10% off for as long as I'm a PinchPenny customer) as well. Besides, I was using almost my full bandwidth allocation (1,824,125KB - wait, Google can convert that to GB</a>... It's 1.74GB) at my last host, who kindly sponsored my hosting. Just didn't feel right.</li> MT-Blacklist Updater</a> is a simple PHP script I wrote to keep my MT-Blacklist setup updated automatically with any changes in the master blacklist at the Comment Spam Clearinghouse</a>. What was interesting was I screwed up</a> completely at my first try. Nevertheless, it works now, and feedback like this</a> makes me smile.</li> </ul> As always, thanks for reading, and a Happy New Year to one and all! Past monthly reports: November 2003</a></li> October 2003</a></li> September 2003</a></li> August 2003</a></li> July 2003</a></li> </ul> Changing webhosts - temporarily funky 2004-01-01T12:59:51+00:00 I'm in the process of changing my webhost for this site so some things may seem funky at the moment. In any case, a Happy New Year ahead to all! The monthly report - November 2003 2003-12-01T21:05:18+00:00 redemption in a blog</a> received 12,262 visits for the month of November 2003, working to a rounded average of 408 hits per day. Most visited entries: Ahem! 5 reasons not to buy an iPod</a> - yawn! </li> How to really kill Windows Messenger</a> has been getting many hits from Google. Nice! I'm now an official Windows Messenger killer</a>.</li> One of my shortest but sweetest ("sweet" as in sweet!) entries: 101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that IE cannot</a></li> </ul> Other interesting stuff: I've been blogging for 6 months since my very first tentative steps into the blogosphere. I can say I'm thoroughly addicted to the weblog world and picked up a whole buncha stuff along the way. So yay for blogging!</li> My Google PageRank is still 6! OK maybe that's not so interesting. It will be when (or rather, if) I hit PR</acronym> 7.</li> </ul> Once again, as always, thanks for reading! Past monthly reports: October 2003</a></li> September 2003</a></li> August 2003</a></li> July 2003</a></li> </ul> AIDS awareness 2003-12-01T20:47:50+00:00 Today is World AIDS Day</a>. </div> The beauty of 20/20 vision 2003-12-01T03:03:54+00:00 You never realize what you're missing until you experience it for yourself. I'd just bought a new yearly supply of contact lenses with the refractive index amended to the latest -6.00 (right eye) and -5.75 (left eye). Last time I had contacts made, they were -4.50 (right eye) and -4.00 (left eye). Either the last optometrist had the measurements all wrong or staring at the monitor the whole day has worsened my myopia. And now with the new contact lenses, everything is so clear. I thought it was a slightly blurry with my old contact lenses, but in retrospect, it was definitely more than "slightly". I can see every blade of grass and every pore in your face (that is, if you ever stuck your pretty face close to mine in real life). I can see the bus number from a greater distance away. I can tell you what the first letter is in the 20/20 row of the optometrist's eyechart. To those few of you who aren't myopic yet: take care of your eyes peeps! Stop staring at your monitors for too long! Hmm... What's the point? Nobody ever listens to nagging like this. I know I didn't. The monthly report - October 2003 2003-11-03T23:48:48+00:00 redemption in a blog</a> received 10,617 visits for the month of October 2003, working to an average of 342 hits per day. Most visited entries: Unbelievable optical illusion</a> was most visited, probably because it got onto several LiveJournals.</li> Comparing Mozilla Firebird with other browsers</a> - why you really should use Mozilla Firebird</a>.</li> New IE smells like Mozilla</a> had some screenshots on the IE that will come with Windows Longhorn.</li> </ul> Other interesting stuff: My Google PageRank went up by 1 from 5 to 6.</li> Over 1 Gigabyte of bandwidth was used last month, a record which I attribute to the picture in Unbelievable optical illusion</a> being hot-linked on many forum sites, and (eek!) LiveJournals.</li> </ul> Thanks for reading! Past monthly reports: September 2003</a></li> August 2003</a></li> July 2003</a></li> </ul> Happy Birthday! 2003-11-01T01:25:00+00:00 To my better half, Archive</a> I've got Mini-tab Shapes 2003-10-27T06:19:00+00:00 I've always been wanting to try out Mini-tab Shapes</a> and finally got down to doing so. Granted, the whole thing was a no-brainer since all that had to be done was to copy the source in that page and tweak the CSS to suit the rest of the site. Initially though, I'd wanted to put up tabs like those in the Sliding Doors of CSS</a> article at A List Apart</a>, but my graphic design skills weren't up to the task - I had problems coming up with tabs that weren't child-like doodles. So I settled for mini-tabs. Anyway, for those of you who've been visiting lately, you'd probably also have noticed the new look. Hate it? Like it? Let me know! Update: The Sun Report</a> has Vertical Mini-tabs, inspired by Mini-tab shapes!</a> The monthly report - September 2003 2003-10-01T02:51:12+00:00 redemption in a blog</a> received 9039 visits for this month of September 2003, working to an average of 301 hits per day. This entry also marks my 100th entry - the 3rd of many useless statistics to come in this entry. Most visited entries: My entry linking to a Naruto cosplay picture</a> was rather well-visited, mostly because of Google. (2nd on Google</a>)</li> Flash your keyboard lights with Java</a> is also something interesting that I picked up from someone else's weblog. Pretty neat.</li> The most recent entry on Kids these days...</a> was a more "human interest" entry which I'd hardly ever done since I started blogging.</li> </ul> Other interesting stuff: September 2003 is the best ever month for me in a long long time, for personal reasons which I will not divulge. Yay!</li> I've added a Mozilla banner</a> to the main page of my weblog.</li> </ul> Once again, as always, thanks for reading! Past monthly reports: August 2003</a></li> July 2003</a></li> </ul> Kids these days... 2003-09-25T14:07:23+00:00 Just today, I was waiting in the queue for the bus when the secondary school girl (probably 14 years of age) who was behind me in the queue dropped a coin. I think it was a 20 cent (the currency is the Singapore Dollar) coin. And she didn't pick it up. I'm pretty sure she'd noticed it, and it is easily within reach if she just bent down. She wasn't carrying anything that would inconvenience her picking up the coin. She just stared at it for a moment and then promptly ignored it as she whipped out her Nokia 8310 handphone and started pressing the buttons. I remember back when a 10 cent coin used to matter (10 cents could get you 3 sweets), not to mention a 20 cent coin. In fact I'd pick it up if I dropped it, now. Why not? Should anyone feel embarassed to pick up a 20 cent coin? No. Should a 20 cent coin have so little value that it isn't worth the effort to pick it up when dropped? Not yet (at least until inflation gets real high). I realize I'm being critical of the young lady without giving her the benefit of the doubt, but I make no excuse for that. The monthly report - August 2003 2003-09-01T13:52:32+00:00 redemption in a blog</a> received 6701 visits for this month of August 2003. This is also the first time my weblog has gotten a Google PageRank, the first being 3 and finally increased to 5 after the recent Google major update. What can I say? Google loves weblogs! Most visited entries: I'd recently implemented a PHP hack to keep track of the referrers for each entry</a> in this MovableType blog, and it happens to be the most visited entry in my blog (hmm... it even has a PageRank of 4 - must be those trackbacks and backward links).</li> Free Classics eBooks</a> was surprisingly well-visited. Must be the word 'free' must have caught some attention.</li> DHTML Lemmings</a> - this I can understand. It's Lemmings on your web browser! Lemmings!</li> Stumped by regular expressions? Try the Regex Coach</a> points out the very nice Regex Coach</a>.</li> Nature's flawed programming</a> - interesting dung beetle trivia.</li> </ul> Other interesting stuff: For some unknown reason, pages from https://chuyeow.wtf/ were unlisted on Google for a few weeks. They have started to re-appear in the recent major Google update. Why did they disappear? Some possible reasons I thought of: my DNS not working correctly for a time: there was a time when DNS stopped working from several locations, but my host promptly resolved this.</li> my updating of blog pages from HTML to .php pages: not likely, but the site did stop being listed almost immediately after I did the switch.</li> </ul> </li> I'm finding redemption in a blog</a> has made a few people's blogrolls and feed subscriptions (like Bloglines</a>. Who are you people? C'mon introduce yourselves and let me have a peek into why you read my weblog :).</li> </ul> Until next month, and thanks for reading! Past monthly reports: July 2003</a></li> </ul> Fatal incident in campus (NUS) 2003-08-13T09:16:25+00:00 I just received notice via email from the NUS</acronym> President that there was a fatal incident at the Faculty of Engineering this morning. It appears to be an attack of a staff member by another - the case is currently under police investigation. I wasn't in campus today. Hopefully it isn't someone I know - it is still tragic nonetheless. I wonder what instigated the attack. Update: Read about it in the news</a>. Alphabet != Letter 2003-08-08T14:05:52+00:00 One thing that turns me off is when people (wrongly) use 'alphabet' in place of 'letter'. An alphabet</a> is a collection of letter</a>s. 'A', 'b', 'c' are letters. They are not alphabets. Everytime I hear someone say it wrong, I'm tempted to correct them whether they like it or not, and I often do. Don't make that (painful, painful) gaffe. At least don't make it in front of me. Life as it has never sucked before 2003-08-08T05:13:07+00:00 I'm really on a downward spiral. There's not one thing I can't bitch about, but right now what really gets me down is being scammed by my FYP(Final Year Project) supervisor. I went through a whole lot of trouble just to get his project and now he gives me one that is totally unrelated to the project title or synposis. _Design of intelligent evolutionary software agents for e-commerce_ is the title and I'm doing nothing related to agents nor e-commerce. Instead, I'm continuing someone else's FYP(Final Year Project) which had disappointing results - something to do with Incremental Genetic Algorithms using the Michigan approach. Rest assured I don't understand what it is, nor does it excite me (I've read that someone else's technical paper) in the least. I did get assurance from the supervisor that there is a high chance of publishing a paper, so that is some consolation. Whatever. I'm tossing around the idea of getting _yet another_ change in FYP(Final Year Project). Or should I just stick with it and tough it out? Damn. Why am I so goddamn unlucky? It's like I'm furiously failing every saving throw as I come to each challenge. Or maybe I just have a Luck of 3 (only RPGers will appreciate that). The monthly report - July 2003 2003-07-30T15:39:41+00:00 redemption in a blog</a> has seen a total of 18,000 16,000</s> odd hits in this month of July 2003. Not much - a petty amount in fact, but I'm glad to see that I am getting some readership at all. Now onto more interesting facts, first being the most visited entries: Rounded tables with CSS</a> had the highest number of hits, despite it being a no-show in terms of delivering what is expected from the title</li> Mozilla Firebird 0.6.1 released</a> - Mozilla-related entries seem to get good viewership for some reason</li> I got my Google tan</a> wasn't really anything serious, but the word 'Google' seems to draw some attention</li> </ul> Top search strings: thunderbird email - currently ranked no. 5 on Google</li> firebird google toolbar - 1st on Google</li> mambo 4.5 - 6th on Google</li> </ul> Other interesting stuff: ranked 3rd and 4th for rounded tables - who would have thought?</li> ranked 1st and 2nd for jade weblogic - now that would have my old colleagues at the company I was interning at visiting my blog and finding nothing of use</li> NetNewsWire</a>, a news reader for Mac OS X, is one of the top user agents - I wonder who you people are, or maybe someone got here from an aggregator.</li> Java1.3.1 is another top user agent - I wonder what exactly this is</li> </ul> Until next month, and thanks for popping by! CPE - the illegitimate, forgotten bastard child of ECE dept, NUS 2003-07-30T13:56:56+00:00 Those of us Computer Engineering (CPE) students in the Engineering faculty of NUS have really been hard done by this time. First of all, our selection of modules are a subset of those in Electrical Engineering (EE) - EE students have a much wider range of modules to choose from, while CPE have to compete with those from EE for places in modules in our concentrations. I've heard it said that an EE student can convert his degree into a CPE one, provided he or she takes sufficient modules related to CPE. I now understand why the split of Computer Engineering from the School of Computing (SoC) has been said to be for political reasons. Now, in the recent allocation of Final Year Projects (FYP), some CPE students (yours truly included) were wrongly allocated projects deemed 'Unsuitable for CPE' "because of a glitch" in the system. I can accept that - at least to the extent of accepting that a system that has been in place for several years can still fail. No matter. Provided something suitable was done as recompense for the lost opportunity to fairly ballot for the our FYP choices. I was lucky - after appealing for my 2nd choice project, which was unallocated, and with a 2nd mini-ballot, I got it. Others were not so lucky, as I've found. One of my friends was allocated neither his first 8 nor his appeal choices. OK, so he appealed to one of the heads to allow him to continue his Research Internship Project as an FYP - even his supervisor's all ready to accept him. But no they say, "even if there is a glitch, there are still many students didn't get any of their 8 choices... and you are not exceptional". What? This student has forfeited his chance at balloting for his 8 choices because of YOUR glitch. And you expect him to accept the outcome of somebody else's fumbling? And what's worse is most of the projects indicated as 'Suitable for CPE' were taken by EE students. This despite the fact that we have only a limited number of FYPs to choose from. I was worried initially and emailed the person in charge, who reassured me that yes CPE students will be given a priority. I now realise that was a lie: they refused to tell our year representative when he asked the same question. Module bidding result 2003-07-29T10:31:28+00:00 Following up on this entry</a> earlier today. Seems I got all the modules I bid for: Dear CHEAH CHU YEOW, Please find your bidding result for round 1A as follows:</blockquote> Bidding for modules 2003-07-29T02:53:14+00:00 This is fun! First time the university's having this bidding system</a>, and I'm up monitoring the bidding situation to ensure a place in my modules. Or rather, in 1 particular module, Computer Graphics. It's coming out to be a bidding war - lowest bid is already 503 points which is more than half of the points we are allocated in total (1000). And this for a module I may end up dropping. Oh wait it just increased to 548 points. Should I just show my hand? Timing 2003-07-29T02:27:10+00:00 3.5 km (left): 21.10 min Modules for the next semester 2003-07-20T13:06:00+00:00 It's that time of year again - module registration at university. Here's the plan, if all goes well: Breadth electives: Foundations of AI, or Computer Graphics Depth elective: Real-time Embedded Systems Compulsory modules: Human Resource Management Light load, but that's because it's my final year (Computer Engineering) where I'll be doing a Final Year Project (FYP) or thesis - hopefully (please, please!) on 'Design of evolutionary, intelligent agents for E-commerce'. If I don't get that FYP, I'll have some bitching and complaining to do at the department - it's a long story, probably better for another day. Ensight 2003-07-14T14:37:22+00:00 Ensight</a> is a multi-author blog I've been a part of. It's a tech and biz blog that seems to be doing quite well with a reasonable readership. ensight is a group of business and tech professionals sharing their various thoughts. We affectionately call it "peeking into the minds of nearly geniuses", but you don't have to, just don't laugh at us. </div> </blockquote> We've reached passed the milestone 100 entries (of which I contributed a measly 2). I, too, am a sucker for useless statistics, as you'd have noticed. Move and redesign 2003-06-16T22:17:06+00:00 I've moved my blog from FreeRoller.net</a>. That is an amazing thing for Anthony Eden</a> to do, providing blog hosting for free to the Java community. Thanks Anthony (who'll get an email from me requesting a removal of my account)! I've redesigned the look of the site to achieve a fresher feel - at least I do hope so. Let me know if you hate it! ;) Oh, and MovableType</a> is a wonderful piece of blog software. No wonder it won the Webby Award for Best Practices</a>. SitePoint Community Crier - article 2003-06-04T15:01:18+00:00 The SitePoint Community Crier has made a comeback with issue 42</a>. Great job by the Community Team at SitePoint Forums</a>! They've done an excellent job of revamping a newsletter that had been text-only and previously terminated a few months back. Now time for a little self-promotion ;). The Community Article, "Writing Well-formed, Standards-compliant SQL"</a>, is my 2nd published article on the Crier. Take a look and give me any criticisms or comments - I live to learn from mistakes! Exam results 2003-05-29T14:57:27+00:00 So my examination results were released today. It turned out pretty well. In fact, I couldn't have asked for more. After the debacle the semester before where I failed a project module, my hopes of getting a 1st Class Honours were severely dented. Thankfully, this semester's results were really ideal and I can set my eye on getting a good degree. Not that it counts for much, since it's purely a qualification, but any sort of higher achievement is certainly welcome. I'm wondering, is it egoistic to post your good results in a blog? Well I'm not too sure, but I'm too damn pleased to care too much :p. It is, after all, the very first semester where I've gotten a perfect CAP (Cumulative Average Point) ;). Code block and music 2003-05-26T14:55:51+00:00 Well I had code block today, believe it or not. It's that state of mind where you can't make much (or any) progress in your development - a highly frustrating exercise. To sooth my troubled mind, I got on a bus (I wasn't sure if it'd take me to where I wanted to go, but I just hopped on) and went alone to buy myself the Third Eye Blind album (Out of Vein</a>) that I've been wanting to get for so long (well, at least since it's release last week, it felt like a long time). I'm a big Third Eye Blind fan - still listen to their very first album ever so often, Third Eye Blind</a>. That's a tough album to live up to, but from what I've heard so far of Out of Vein, they're doing fine. I also got No!</a> from They Might Be Giants (they sang the theme song on Malcolm in the Middle, Boss of Me). They make the funniest and weirdest songs. Humble origins 2003-05-24T14:46:55+00:00 Ah this is me finally getting into the blog scene! I'm an aspiring J2ME developer, and an even more aspiring J2EE developer. That aside, I'm your usual geek programmer type who spends more time in front of computers than I should, both in university, at home and at work. This will be a good place to put down my thoughts and discoveries in the world of Open Source, programming, web development, as well as more mundane stuff (like how life sucks, extreme lack of girls in my life, Liverpool FC, and music). Name: Cheah Chu Yeow Pseudonym: redemption Occupation: Student at local university Location: in front of a computer, Singapore Skillset: Java, C, Python, PHP, Perl, SQL Interests: J2EE, J2ME, XUL, UNIX, operating systems, distributed systems, Dragonlance, Football In true geek fashion, I think this situation fairly deserves a 'Hello, World' code listing of some sort. import javax.microedition.midlet.*; import javax.microedition.lcdui.*; public class HelloWorld extends MIDlet implements CommandListener { private Command exitCmd; private TextBox tb; public HelloWorld() { exitCmd = new Command("Exit", Command.EXIT, 1); tb = new TextBox( "Hello World", "Hello, World!", 15, 0 ); tb.addCommand(exitCmd); tb.setCommandListener(this); } protected void startApp() { Display.getDisplay(this).setCurrent(tb); } protected void pauseApp() { } protected void destroyApp(boolean u) { } public void commandAction(Command c, Displayable d) { if ( c == exitCmd ) { destroyApp(false); notifyDestroyed(); } } } </code>

chuyeow.wtf

How my simple iPhone app made it to the top of the App Store

Blog redesigned

I'm still alive, and on FriendFeed and Twitter

RailsConf 2008 Day 1 - pics and a summary

Command history meme

Shokudo Japanese Food Bazaar (in Singapore) - don't bother

My very own X of the Year 2007

Living on the Edge (of Rails) - 1st week of the year edition

self.plug :with => 'Rails Hackfest'

Time.now.obsession = PSP Slim

Harajuku Crepe arrives in Singapore

So apparently I'm a Rails Hackfest winner...

Some of the world's hottest startups - Bezurk on Business 2.0

Bezurk featured on Channel NewsAsia

So I just got back from PLAY! A Video Game Symphony...

Firefox tips sharing session at WebSG meetup

Keyboard shortcuts you should know</h3> Note: Mac users should replace Ctrl with the Cmd key for any of the keystrokes listed below.</p>

Getting rid of the close button on all tabs</h3> I've been told how annoying Firefox 2.0 is when it insists on putting a close button on each tab.</p>

Profile management for productivity</h3> Firefox hides its Profile Manager from you. You can access it by passing the -profilemanager</strong> switch to your Firefox executable. For Windows users, it's actually --profilemanager</strong>.</p>

Finally, Bezurk and news.com.au co-brand is up and running

I brought back an abscess from Tokyo

Tokyo 4th Jan - 13th Jan

Firefox Secrets on Google Book Search

My Linux snob shirt

Moving to Rimuhosting VPS

Moving to DreamHost

Plugging Firefox Secrets

Getting back on track

The ones I read first in my long blogroll

Full disclosure (of useless Web statistics), Dec 2004

My favorite songs of 2004

Firefox NYT ad, some disappointment

Leaving a good company - muvee Technologies

Cone of gayness

An author, I am trying to be

On the prow for World of Warcraft Collector's Edition

Job ads: Product Evangelist and Web Developer/Webmaster

Half-Life 2 is not here

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines ships the same day as Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2: How are you getting it?

Opera 7.60 Preview 3 for Windows

Firefox NYT ad campaign covered in local paper (and I'm in there too)

How "well designed, popular and accessible" is your website?

Made it into Spread Firefox Weekly Roll Call Top 5 Climbers

6 more days to show your support for Firefox!

The Straits Times says Half-Life 2 will be delayed... Right

Portions of Spamx plugin for Geeklog minimally based on MT-Blacklist Updater

My name will be in The New York Times

Why does VPS hosting take so long to setup?

Half Life 2 review in PC Gamer (and Vampire: Bloodlines)

muvee Technologies in Business Times

Dreamhost hosting at $0.77/month

They say getting your site ripped off is the greatest honor

Interesting SMS message from my clinic

Forever Geek, have you read it?

Things I have to do

20 "sponsored" Gmail invites to give away

Line of the month

To Matt Gough

Make your muvee contest

Don't know what to do with Gmail invites

You are being served by Apache2 on Gentoo Linux

Stupid mistake - fix in 9 hours time

The "other" switch: From MovableType to WordPress

Looking for hosting

Loving my iPod mini

Flattered

iWish iHad an iPod mini

Did you think I'd lay down and die?

No time for gExodus - (Python) source released

Critique my employer's website, please

Danes Czeched-out

Gmail invites - so hard to give away

Czech-ed in

Away

Interesting job interview today

Computer problems (er, need help)

Server move imminent

I stand corrected