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School Reopens Monday

Shaun
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School Reopens Monday
SP Admin Block

Well, school reopens tomorrow, Monday. You can just sense overall change in aura lately, like rushing to get last minute chores done & such, not to mention the sudden offset of school dismay & bitching you can get off your friends & classmate’s personal messages in MSN.

It’s gonna be the end of semester for those in College, with summer holidays coming at the end of the academic year. For us in Poly, the summer holidays is not very much of a holiday either, spring holidays you may say (a very much shorter one too with the early start of academic year tomorrow). For many I guess, including me, with most of our time caught up at work or at ITP attachments, there is nothing much left to enjoy. But personally its better than spending 25 hours a day in front of the computer gaming or “mapling” like what some of my friends do. & the worst thing is they couldn’t tell the difference between Far East plaza & Far East shopping center!

Well, its 5pm & the sky is so dark it just looks like twister is approaching. Would be picking mum & dad off at Tiong Bahru Plaza after their “Eight Below” movie (& man have I not driven in like months!). Then it will be off again so some special buffet surprise location for dinner, which mum always never cease to always amaze us with.

😉 Next semester, new class new faces again. But this time this will be my class for the next 2 years, so dun play play! Must go through ice-breakers again, not to mention making good impressions I guess, cos this is the class group which will ultimately determine whether you enjoy or suffer the rest of poly years. Why a new class so soon? well as I already did my option at the end of year one DME (contrary to the usual at year 2), now I am in DME – CIE (Creatively Innovation & Enterprise) Option, so you can very much call us “Design Engineers”.

SP T14 Block

Sad to see the parting of my previous class, haha I love that class, 25. But it seems that personal wants outweigh class-hood – with many transferring to DMA (aeronautical engineering) courses because of perceived prestige & higher pay prospects I believe, or maybe just because they made the requirement & were invited over after the result release.

DMA is one of the toughest courses to enter, requiring at least 12- 14pts at ‘O’ Levels. Ultimately I believe in not following the crowd, I mean heck I could enter DMA or any course in SP if I wanted at enrollment, but I will just stick to my guns in this current “dumping ground course” & do what I like to do – The CIE option.

😯 Class starts at 9am for me tomorrow lasting all the way to 5pm with only an hour’s lunch break in between. It will be another challenging semester, my time table had never been so packed before, going home at 5pm at almost every other day except Wednesdays, (which I would be seeing myself staying till then too). I guess long & stressful year-2 stories so wisely told by my seniors are fast becoming reality now.

Not CoreDuo after all

Shaun
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Not CoreDuo after all
Fujitsu T4020 Tablet PC

With CoreDuo laptops slowly making it’s way into the market, apparently some tech-savy consumers like me is fad up in waiting for such new computers to hit mainstream, whether its a new laptop for my sis or a new tablet for me.

It just takes too long for any new processor release to come out, especially when you urgently need a laptop for school.

In that limelight, I guess I would not wait for Fujitsu to launch the new coreduo tablets (aimed around end this year) & get the year-old Sonoma Laptops, mainly due to 4 reasons:

  1. Firstly, its taking computer companies freakin’ forever to release one,
  2. even if it out, it will be freakin’ expensive, (especially for tablet PCs) & moreover,
  3. it will take months before it’s offered to schools at student rates, often being 4) largely scaled down models (in terms of specs) contrary to those offered to direct regular consumers.

But won’t doing so be an insult to all my research? Not to mention time spend into spotting of good hardware which can last a consumer? Personally even if that is so, the bad out weighs the good I believe. I guess when you need a laptop now, the more important thing is to get it when you need it then.

The Laptop I will be getting for Sheena will be a 2Ghz Centrino 760 Laptop with 1GB ram, DVD-RW writer & ATI X600 graphics card. Despite being 1 year old tech, its still quite a powerhouse I can say, more than sufficient to last her a long time for multimedia work, casual gaming & into the Windows Vista operating system with Aeroglass enabled. I won’t mention on the brand & price here, as it meant to be a surprise for her, so as mum wanted.

For me, I will be going for the very much slower (1.73Ghz) yet funnily, much more expensive Fujitsu T4020 tablet PC. I had been eyeing this model since last September, hoping that Fujitsu releases a successor to it, but I guess even if they do, even with different specs (Current Sonoma, Intel GMA900, compared to the speculated new CoreDuo, Intel GMA950 model, & considering my 4 points listed above) both models still sux ass at 3D gaming, but more than enough for regular school work, lectures & photoshopping/programming so whats the point waiting? Moreover, if I get a tablet now, life will be so much easier for me at school & work. Not to mention able to start on my online webcomic, Ratz!

Shiong Training

Shaun
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Shiong Training
SP water polo @ pool

Training was up yesterday, ran like 10 sets of 400m round the track at no more than 90secs per round, almost peng san at the last few rounds, but managed a 82secs at the last round, (though coach actually intended 25rounds).

The running track will be closed 14th – 20th April, so training for this Friday & next Tuesday will very much be outside, coach hinted a relaxing 5km+ jog round the sunset way canal route, followed by strengthening exercises on easter Friday morning’s training, a very much welcome compared to yesterday’s shiong training.

I guess knowing this many would turn up for Friday’s training I guess. SGrunners will be having their Good Friday Macritchie morning run on Friday, 7.30am guess I wouldn’t be able to make it then.

Chores, work… oh & pizza

Shaun
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Chores, work… oh & pizza
Personal pan pizza takeaway

Life is like a box of takeaway pizza, a single entity in a box of vastness fit for a regular pizza, just like the one I’ve today after lunch. You must be surprised at me eating pizza all of a sudden, well if it won’t for dad & this company providing free pizza hut coupons for personal pan & snack combo redemption, furthermore with them expiring by 15th April, what can I do? In relation, I guess that very much explains some situations I was in these few days, whether its tons of chores to catch up with so little time, yet all couped up so small in a world so big. I had been trying to find time to blog, but didn’t considering having to finish jobs at work & chores before school reopens next week.

Few of the chores left to do includes revamping the dead download section & portfolio page over the week, hopefully before school reopens. On a side note, manage to find my old Unreal Tournament CD for a few hours of “let off steam sessions” with the old enforcer pistol, totally rocks.

My phones’s battery is dying on me, I had been trying to look for a new phone to replacing my aging, Siemens SX1. Considering having it for almost 3 years 24/7, I guess the battery life depreciation is reasonable I guess. The LG P7200 looks nice, but it’s battery life is notorious out of the box, not my kind of phone. I guess its back to waiting then.

Memory Prices drop

Shaun
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Memory Prices drop

Yup, on my last visit to Simlim, here are the latest prices of the Memory cards I am intending to get when the price is right late this month:

  • Transcend 4GB SD Card – $200 SGD (As of 25th March 06, from $499 in June 05)
  • Kingston 2GB CF Card – $97 SGD (As of 25th March 06, from $230 in June 05)

Been monitoring the prices for about a year now. & I am glad I didn’t any purchases then or I will seriously be banging my head on the wall after finding out how much I’ve lost given how fast memory prices drop.

I will purchase the 4GB SD card when the price hits $150-180 & the 2GB CF Card $80 aimed at around end April. Other than that, any more price reduction will be redundant to me & its CHOW TIME BABY! Good things sure come to those who wait!

Swift Run on April Fool’s

Shaun
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Swift Run on April Fool’s
Swift Athletics Association Macritchie X-Country

Today was the last cross country event for the season, being the Swift athletics association Macritchie X-Country. The run saw the standard 4.8km boys trail route though the Macritchie forest & the midway last road stretch to the finish. Generally everybody in the team did good. All got their personal PBs for the route I believe. The trail condition was relatively good today, dry & not as slippery/muddy as the SAA X-Country event last month, though it rained slightly before the event. The fastest runner came in at 14mins+ a very good timing for trail run I say, by Alan Goven.

The track team had dinner at Ang Mo Kio hawker center thereafter with coach where we more or less ate back all the calories with carrot cake, sotong mee, etc. But we had a good chat on training etc with coach. Nevertheless a nice way to wrap up a day’s of competition.

I didn’t expect to beat my previous timings, amazingly I did considering my condition (bloated with curry chicken from lunch, didn’t had enough sleep the night before, didn’t cabro load). With that, time to wrap it up with the timings:

Today’s Runtime: 21mins 39secs
Previous Runtime on February 19, 2006: 23mins 22secs

Improvement!

Progress Package

Shaun
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Progress Package
Singapore Progress Package 2006

Tomorrow will be the day the registrations for the Singapore Progress Package will be open. I would expect a heavy flow of traffic on the website the moment that happens, considering almost every Singaporean who sign up for it will get $800 (on average) credited to them by May this year – a definate welcome move to the community as our Prime minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong said: “to share with Singaporeans the surplus of the past year”. I will get an additional $100 having completed national service, so thats $900 total in the bag for me. Goodie.

Progress Package website

On yea, the official exam slip was mailed in yesterday, better get photocopying in application for my scholarship.

10 Annoying Things Women Do

Shaun
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10 Annoying Things Women Do

Caught this on a regular surf by, interesting to share here though.

Men love women. The way they look, smell, walk and talk are just some of the reasons why we consider them a divine species. Yet we can’t live with them, and we certainly can’t live without them…

…for the most part anyway, because perfect, they are not. And upon serious analysis, I’ve discovered the top 10 things women do that drive men to the brink of insanity.

Read more of it here.

Urgent & Important?

Shaun
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Urgent & Important?
Asus R1f Tablet PC

Important but Urgent?
or
Important but not Urgent?

These are the things which came to mind after a short chat with mum over lunch today at BM central, when considering the purchase of my laptop before school reopens. Maybe it wasn’t the calories in the popular Hainanese Chicken rice we were having which sparked my mind going on the matter.

Few months ago, I was seriously considering the Fujitsu T4020 as my primary laptop, till the release GMA950 & dual core laptops, then I started wondering whether I should still put my $3999 on this Fujitsu & be 2 generations old in 6 months time when dual-core 64-bits & Window vista comes around Jan next year.

Any layman given this problem will definately recommend to get a laptop when you need it, because technology always moves on. So as they think but I need to make my purchase worthwhile, not to mention able to last & be “technologically compatible” for generations to come. Considering that laptops are not as upgradable as their desktop counterparts.

On a research front, I am considering the Asus A6J Intel Core Duo laptop with 2Ghz T2500 Yonah processor, Radeon X1600 512MB HyperMemory, 100GB Harddisk, 1GB Ram, 1,3MP Camera for $2700. Another possible candidate is the Acer 8204WLMi (A brand which I usually don’t patronise) having everything the Asus A6J has but a 1680 x 1050 screen, VOIP Bluetooth phone, same carbon fiber body & few more extras for an additional $1299.

But all these are laptops! I had outgrown laptops 3 years ago & am more geared towards PDAs & tablet PCs now, but the 1 year old Toshiba Tecra is still retailing at $4222 & the New Yonah Toshiba Portege m400 is no exception at $4020 too (called Toshiba Singapore to confirm the prices last week). I can choose to get the old Sonoma T4020 now but that would definately be an insult to my research & homework just for impulsive wants. On the forefront there is the unreleased Asus R1F Tablet PC with a Core Duo processor, 13.3″ widescreen but unspecified on board graphics, due to be released in Spring 06, (which I hope won’t be too long for now).

Asus is reputable being an ODM for Sony, Apple, JVC & Dell. Fujitsu however, is notoriously slow to release successors or refreshes to their laptop line. Let be a speculated refresh of the T4020 around August/September this year, judging how long they take to release their Sonoma tablet in August 2005 when the chipset was avaliable in Jan that particular year.

As the saying goes: “Good things come to those who wait”
But next semester will have 2 computer demanding modules, haiz Fujitsu & Asus quickly release your new Tablet PCs… dunno should I still wait or get one now…

Re-capping the PSU failure

Shaun
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Re-capping the PSU failure
PSU down

Mmm didn’t really get much of blogging lately. Anyway here are some worthy highlights of the last week worth noting.

I did mentioned that I got myself an Antec True Power-II 480W Power supply unit (PSU) on my birthday to replace my old Antec 430W supply. The PSU’s fans suddenly burnt out & stopped spinning. I only discovered about the fault after noticing the absence of lights from my computer’s led fans. Diagnosing the problem & shockingly, the PSU part of the case was too hot to touch (comparable to a metal kettle filled with boiling water).

The first thing which came to my mind was, no I didn’t overclock, neither did I power any fans down… Immediately, I powered down the PC after 4 hours up time only to find out that not only all 6 fans in my mid-tower are not spinning, the PSU’s dual fans are dead too. The only fans functioning are my GPU & CPU fans. & man was the air around the case warm…

😯 Fan power are totally burnt, but overall the system is still very functional & stable with the absence of cooling. Voltage to Harddisk, mobo & External Drives are all stable, so there is no damage or current surge which could damage other components. Guess its a “fail safe” feature I have to commend on Antec Quality PSUs. With this I can conclude that antec “fan only” connectors share the same output from the PSU’s only internal fans.

This PSU is about 5 years old already, an expected lifespan for a PSU at my given current daily computer up time of about 15 hours daily. Usually power supply failures will result in a full system burn out, i.e the taking the mobo & hard disk with it when the current surges on failure, giving not only a spectacular show of electric hisses, pops but see your system die in a cloud of blue smoke as well, not to mention a fire hazard as well. I definitely won’t want that for a birthday present! Overall I am glad I choose a truepower previously & I guess I have Antec’s experience in the PSU market to back for my new PSU too.

:mrgreen: System up & running with only 1/2 day downtime, glad to see everything up & functional again. After $185 poorer.

Been trying out my new Oregon Scientific Weight GR101, its very niffy maybe I will write a review on it when I have the time.

Happy Birthday to (me!)

Shaun
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Happy Birthday to (me!)
Shaun's Birthday Dinner!

Today is my birthday! A year older, a year wiser (as they always say). What else to but to stuff ourselves silly at an International buffet at Trader’s Hotel, whats more, with Birthday compliments from Singtel, I got 20% off the total bill. The spread was cool, with lotsa my favourite lobsters, sushi & meats. I was like oww.. totally unable to move at the end of dinner…

Got a Perlini’s Silver Pendant as a present from my family, coupled with a little cute personalised birthday card with dolphins jumping all around it. Neato! Well, we are family anyway, so more of less we all know what each other want, which is a good thing.

Other than that, got an Oregon Scientific Digital Weighing Scale (GR101) with digital wireless remote & purchased an Antec Truepower-II 480W power supply on my own expense to replace my old disfunct 430W Truepower (tell ya more on my PSU later).

Thanks all who sent your regards through the various channels, let be through online forums, email, MSN, SMS or GSM. Thank you!

Track & Field Booth

Shaun
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Track & Field Booth
Our track & Field booth!

Yesterday was the second day of the freshmen enrollment day, which goes in hand with the CCA promotion day as well. Interestingly after each freshie is enrolled, they will have to pass through a series of classrooms where student clubs had set up booths to promote their respective CCAs. After going through this sequence & passing through the laptop purchase corner, then they are finally being able to exit, evil!

I was manning my club’s Track & Field booth for the whole day then, & got 10 freshmen to sign up for the day (out of the odd hundred which came through). 10 new members was a number seriously “owned” to the number signed up the day before – “record” 2 people, so as my track member Darius said & who joined me in the promotion booth in the afternoon. Elrick also dropped by for awhile during lunchtime, who relieved my position for lunch.

❓ Dropped by the Student Alumni & Affairs (SAA) department to enquire about the SP scholarships I am dying to apply, if successful, I can get approx $3000 in total for the year, minus about $2000+ for school fees, I will still have about $900 extra spending money for my laptop! Moreover, asked them about a flaw in their Scuba diving course featured in the 27th Student personal development programme. You see, diving manuals are supposed to be included in the course package, but we were told in the course that manuals have to be purchased separately as its not included in the discounted package they offer for Students, contradicting? Sure is, as controversial it will be, I will do what it takes to get the manual under the school’s accord, as the manual is officially stated to be provided black & white on the pre-registration.

😈 The SAA is notorious for red tape, payment & awarding of CCA points, taking up to a year to get anything done. I guess to date the SP Student Alumni & Affairs (SAA) owns each member of the track & field at least $50-$100 for transportation, competition registration & admin fees, since last year. But to date, not a single cent awarded, not to mention great delays in CCA points submission as well.

SP sports award?

There was an interesting thing I got in the mail yesterday, an expected large envelope with an SP SAA stamp on it. Initially I thought its some official letter or cash bonus notification for the few best performing students. Interestingly it turned out to be a Sports Award Cert which I recalled my president nominated few of us in early this year. Personally, I’ve never really seen the real through value of the sports award or even know about its “prestige”, though it looks & sound nice, a nice achievement to add to a portfolio I guess.

Been working quite hard to clear commissions & jobs in time for my birthday tomorrow, then tomorrow, strictly no work! Only play whahaha.

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