PM likes the LAB

I like the aircond in lab.
I like the serenity in lab.
I love my PC in lab.

I like sitting in the lab doing my own work. I can really be in the lab the entire day... reading, doing assignments, watching movies, playing games. It has the ideal working condition. (But I realise that I'm not as productive... maybe because of the HD movies I've been enjoying.)

It's very late already. I'll be walking back to my room now.
I'll be back in the lab again later today, after I get my good night sleep.

No cool factor.

You know... how I wish that in real life, the excuse "My dog bit my homework" can be used. Then I'll gladly go get a dog, just to make it bite my homework for me. Hahaha...Yes... I know I'm not a damn cool person. I only felt damn cold sitting in lab trying to finish up my personal work. (Ahaha... that was a very lame starting line.)

I'm officially done with my portfolio assignment after duelling with it the entire night, and I don't find it too nice. The usual me will start tinkering more and more since it's due only next week. Simplicity is everything in the portfolio. I don't have the time to create eye candies or make elaborate designs since there are too many other assignments which are more important. I've uploaded it for a review. So please be kind and give some comments. Thanks.

The best thing about the entire Flash is the puzzle idea that I had. I manage to implement it nicely within a day. There are a few things which must be taken into consideration which ate up loads of time to code including the change of layer levels, puzzle pieces must not be out of box, then to accept the piece when it is placed close enough, meaning it doesn't have to be exactly on the spot. I've experimented so much within a short time span. I'd say that all that from me within a week is already quite good. Flash is surely interesting and will be more interesting once I actually know how to use more and more features.

School has been pretty boring lately. Still with the usual qualms of too-much-assignment... this semester is a short one yet, work load is almost the same as any other. During the previous class for research, an announcement was made that there will be a seminar style presentation for our research paper in a hotel, just like any other real seminar. This is going to be exciting. Somehow the excitement was overshadowed by the fear of not being able to do well. Our research supervisor only gave 2 words in reply for the full report we submitted to her. Either she thinks that we did really well there's nothing to comment on... OR... it isn't too good, but she's still being encouraging. Well, let's see it from the bright side.

I'm really liking sitting in lab doing my work. Internet is really good here. As promised, here's what the lab computers and cubicles look like.

Ya, bad condition. By the way, those two are my team mates for my final year project and few other related projects and competitions. They aren't poor tortured souls, they are just pretending to be over worked horses for the sake of my camera. I was the one who was supposed to be over worked when I practically stayed in the lab the whole night doing my Flash, took a nap at dawn sitting on the hard chair with my head falling off the back rest, then continued with their discussion the next morning. So yes, us computer science students are trained to work long hours, through the night, with minimum sleep.

It's not all just work you know. We had intervals where we browsed the net, watch some movie trailers. Also had the time to intro cute guys and cute girls in our Facebook friend lists. WN kept introducing her girl friends to MC, but she didn't intro any cute guys to me. *sobs* But heck, from everything she has told me, her supervisor is damn cute lar... *cough*ラズさん～*coughs* Suddenly, he has an extra fan, wahahaha... Too bad he already has a girlfriend =P.

Okay, back to reality.

The product of ideas

Side note: Wishing the entire PSS Phase 2 team a good luck in their system cutover today. May the force be with everyone of you. =P

Create a Flash movie in a flash... how?

I myself don't know. As a person who likes arts, design with a combination of thinking, Flash should be a fun thing like any other project of creating applications with a superb interface. I've played with Flash back during Flash MX and Swish time. Then I didn't continue. It was way before I understood what was programming, scripts and all. Now it's already Flash CS4 and SwishMax3, and I don't even remember the basics for making a Flash movie! I don't even know how I actually created a Flash intro to my old website.

I'm having a big headache on whether I can really finish my portfolio within 2 weeks. Photoshop skills... I have 40%, Flash skills, I'm not too sure even if it's 5%. But here's something after 1 day of experimenting with loads of stuffs. Only inserted pictures of the bars and drew that lousy box. Still a lot more to learn. Scripting for flash is not really an easy task though. Understanding those terms already took some time. But lucky that the scripts are somewhat similiar to C++.


L33T photoshop skills allow me to create the nice nice bars. I'm a person who likes nice simple designs, powerful bright colours, compact meaningful information. I've tried uploaded it to test the percentage preloader that I've coded, it actually works so neatly. This is going to be great! More to come on that personal portfolio. It is currently left without any content. I've yet to decide on what to include in it. This is a product of my ideas. Anyhow, I really hope to learn more. Especially on the part to include on accessibility. I know that to code for keyboard would be really tough. If I can do all those great stuff with the additional goodness, it'll be a plus in marketability.

Finished the horrible research paper last Thursday. It never was interesting since it was made known at the end of year 2. Terrible 4 days of approximately 2 to 3 sessions of 4-hour meetings+discussions a day. Manage to finish up slightly after our own targeted time, still ahead of submission due date. This subject is something which I should really pray hard for. I don't think it's easy to fail, but I don't think it's easy to score either. The grading would be very subjective since different groups get different titles. I have to say that it's unfair for those who got crazily difficult titles. There's still a presentation on findings for the paper next week. I now doubt that the other students would even understand the things that my group is going to present. All seems too technical and specific to be understood by the general audience without the basic understanding of parallel computing. I know I've been talking about this for many times, but can't help re-complaining about it since it's really that bad.

Back home, in KL... cleaning up my Baby Dino to be brought back to Penang. Will be left in the LAB, declared as my second room. It feels like it's back to life in cubicles and ancient computers (after I've left my 20-week life in cubicle with ancient PC). PCs in the labs are from year 2003, but it feels like they are from the 80s. It takes about 3 minutes just to open IE and the keyboard seriously needs a 1 week dip in concentrated detergent. I'll show you how the place looks like next time.

As for now, I'm poisoned... contemplating whether I should get a 1TB hard drive. It's so cheap! The last time I saw, the price was less than RM300. Thinking that I've been living with just 80GB for the past 2 years... with the need to delete old games when wanting to play new games... I might really go for it. On average, I think I spend about RM2k per year on tech stuffs like this. Am still thinking about the DSLR every now and then. Now target changed again to a Nikon D5000, of a better specs which obviously has a higher price.

Just manage to get Windows 7 installed. Took less than an hour to get it done, with more time spent on installing all my important softwares. Windows 7 is really nice to play with. A little more added eye candy. I'm really glad for MSDNAA actually provides such good stuff, Windows 7 Professional for free! Though it's not the ultimate, but it's that close.

One thing that needs getting used to would be the taskbar. It's neat without the labels, but it groups everything together. Well, there are options to show the labels... so it's really up to the user. The other neat feature is about the wallpaper. I like changing my wallpaper that I used to use a program called wallpaper master to auto change them for me. Now, it's built into Win7.  As for paying to upgrade from Vista, I'd say... save your money. It's about the same. If you're jumping from XP to Win7, then it should be okay. So far, all drivers used for Vista worked for Win7 too, no worries about it. About Win7 being faster than Vista, I'm not too sure about that. They're probably about the same, with a slight decrease of RAM usage.

I actually haven't slept, not that I woke up way early. I'm not sure why these few days, I can't sleep, at least till dawn before I'm able to doze off. That also after rolling around in bed for long. Going to roll in bed now.

Research... oh research...

Woohoo… I’ll be going back to KL next week. Will be bringing more stuff to Penang. I’ve been living a very simple life, with nothing more than the basic stuffs. I need another pair of shoes, at least, for more variety. I currently wear the same pair everyday. Crazy Penang weather (random rain anytime even when the sun shines) doesn’t give a good weekend to wash my shoes even. Also bringing my desktop computer back. Then there can be some gaming in between the heavy project we have on our shoulders. DDR and SDO… anyone?

Project proposal got the nod and go ahead. If possible, there may be more ideas coming in. But what we really need now is the support and more brains in producing the best stuff like what we all visualised in our brains. Have to settle the project buyoff tomorrow with our ‘client’, then we’re done, at least for one part. =)

Now focusing fully on research full report, which I can frankly say that, I don’t like doing research. So far, been trying too hard to understand things way above my level. Then part of the requirement is to criticise their works. Now how can I criticise when I can’t even grab the entire concept of their research? I think the title given was too deep to begin with. Okay, after many re-reads, I can understand the 5 papers which I reviewed on, so I think I’ll just ask my group mates about their papers. Should be easier and faster that way.

After that, can go back to what I like best, doing things by hook or by crook, to come out with a product of great usefulness with all the value added features. I know my team mates well. All of us can do crazy things when under stress. And the stress for the final year project is beginning to surface. Beginning by not getting the necessary hardware we need to do the most important part of the project. But I do believe that if we strive, we’ll do well. We always do.

I actually have some sudden enthusiasm to start on my personal portfolio... which is another assignment due in 2 weeks time. My lecturer doesn’t want anything less than interesting, so it puts me in a situation of “I-don’t-know-what-to-do-yet”. Wee Nee already thought of making a flash presentation. I’ve thought of that... a complete greatness of flash in 2 weeks, I'm not too optimistic about my learning skills now. It's a very steep learning curve. Website is even more boring since I’ve already decided to destroy my personal site about 1 year ago. It served no purpose being there, like garbage in cyberspace. I’ve thought of making it something like a photo book. The one weakness of this idea is that I don’t have a large collection of pictures on my works, presentations and sorts. I don’t wanna be making a presentation slide... also. So what is actually interesting? To write my portfolio in morse code? To write in Braille? Binary? Nevermind, I think I’ll dream of the solution as I head to bed now.

P/S: A side note, reminder for myself. Do not argue with idiots. Can you believe that there are so many people trying to defend themselves shamelessly saying that piracy for personal use is ethical? If it’s unethical, just admit it god damn it. We all know that we still do unethical things even if we know them well. So what the heck?

Dreamcatcher for Everyday Daydreaming.

I don’t know, but lately, I love to blog. Especially those which mentions about my school activities and projects. Highly ambitious project that we all want to see be successful. Maybe I should start another blog to keep track of my team’s project. Should I, should I? Well... maybe not. Then it would be another responsibility. My team's supervisor, I can take it 2 ways - 1. is that she already tried her best in helping and nothing can be done or 2. she has short term memory loss, and forgot to pull the strings in her hands.

The entire week was brain week, attended lectures as usual, having fun leaving a mark on what I think the future would be like, solving 3D puzzles... (Other than learning to brush my teeth with my non-dominant hand) and... submitted a business idea. That my group’s first step to really getting into business. =D And a great motivation for that is one day, we’re all gonna drive the Volkswagen Touareg. Alrite, those all sounded like we were daydreaming again.

For me, I think my dreams are like an early visual of what will be. It's like a prophecy if you say I can see the future in my dreams but, I think it works more like I dreamt of this happenning, and I really want it to happen, so I'll be woking hard for it to happen. I don't think there's anything as seeing the future. Exception... when tomorrow is already well planned out. Hahaha...

Anyhows, the Touareg is one heck of an expensive 4WD. Not only the OTR price, even the breakdown - roadtax, insurance - and fuel consumption scared the hell out of me. All the price to pay for a 3.6 litre engine. Not worth it in Malaysia. You don’t even need that much power as if you’re gonna drive up mountains or go jungle trailing with it. More like for show off I guess. Nevertheless, if you have the money and nowhere to spend, then maybe it’ll be worth for the show off. I mean it. I'll stick with what my brain has told me that all cars are used to travel from one point to another.

So far, I’ve been the free-est creature, doing things as I wish, writing my reports and review 3 days before due, read books before bedtime (I’ve never got to read for ages) and enjoying my continuous supply of movies. I’ve lost count on how many movies I’ve watched within the week. Before I end this post, let me summarize on which DVD title to buy for keeps and rewatch (based on the movies that I remembered watching). Here’s my damn short movie review:

Love Guru. I particularly love this movie. Mike Myers never failed to make me laugh. A certified must watch from me.

The Pursuit of Happiness. This is one very touching and motivational movie. I love this.

I am Sam. I love this much as I love The Pursuit of Happiness. Shows so much that parents will do everything for their children.

Night at the Museum 2. Still good, after the first. But some of the jokes are only understandable if the person who watched it knew more about the jokes. Like the one on Darth Vader and Oscar the Grudge.

Speed Racer. I like the colourful art of this movie. I like how it has the sliding by scenes. I’ve always liked the cartoon when I was young. Ahh... how nostalgic.

Knowing. Looks like God wants to wipe out the human race again, instead of causing a flood, he’ll burn off planet Earth.

Angel and Demons. When you watch this after you’ve watched Knowing... you can somehow see some connections. It's slightly of lacking if compared to The Da Vinci Code, not sure how to explain.

The Passion of The Christ. Very gruesome and bloody. It was horrible to see, painful to the heart, but nevertheless, somewhat educational (in a way).

I, Robot. Robots who were created by men will one day try to destroy their creators? This is sad.

Confession of a Shopaholic. Hahahaha... this is really shopping madness. I like how the story is partly true. The common people might be on a smaller scale though.

Yes Man! Say YES!, be positive and be rewarded! YES!

Pink Panther. Never failed in stupidity, thus those stupidity are actually good.

Pink Panther 2. More stupidity at its highest level, some lame stupidity refers back to the first movie.

The Ugly Truth. Half truth and half movie-only-fairytale. Typical girl meets guy and hates the guy with much disgust. Typical ending of guy and girl fell for each other.

Hyundae/Tsunami. Touches the human emotions. But everytime I watch a movie on Earth's destruction, I failed to overlook that it's just a movie and always catches all the cheesy fakeness of things.

The Proposal. Wow... how many of these forced-to-love turned real-love situation we’ve got in movies?

Bedtime Stories. I see a resemblance to Click? You get to control your life through the bedtime stories (and by using the remote control in Click) Good in the sense that these movie themes are quite fresh.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I was curious of the movie at first, but when I watched it, it was as boring as a plain button. (Lousy comparison, I know.)

A Walk to Remember. The typical teen movie. Bad boy with his gang of friends, laughs at other people especially that one girl which is old-fashioned. Boy gets into trouble, gets closer to girl, eventually falls in love with girl.

Evolusi Drift. Lousy acting, bad negative storyline. Drugs, fights, crimes... typical of a racing movie. Like a rip off from F&F, just much lousier.

Antoo Fighter. One weird movie. Something like a localized Ghostbusters? Hahaha... I can't take the boredom and slept through the last part.

Friday the 13th. Another terribly lousy movie of the horror franchise. We don't need lousy horror movies with stupid teens doing stupid things anymore.

Flight plan. A damn boring movie. A lady went hysteric in a plane because her daughter went missing. And because of her “hysteric reactions” nobody believed it to be real. She was on her own to seek the truth.

I don't see the point.

I really don't get why I am forced to take up this course on research when I don't need it. I dislike research because at this point, what I'm doing is being forced to read things that I cannot comprehend from few journal papers and summarize them into a so-called "research paper".

Not everyone needs to know how to do research la... why not make it an elective subject, don’t have to force everyone to do it. And it’s really not fair that some group have way easier titles while some have to squeeze so much juice out of their already dried out brain, no thanks to their supervisors.(Bet they wouldn't even care much later on.)

Hmm... while I write all these things, I'm actually suppose to write my Literature Review on a given title. But my stress level increased way too high due to not being able to understand the papers that I've read and the excessive noise I get in the lab, so I'm here blogging. Those students never respect the others using the lab. (This is the rant of an emo kid, not being able to finish up her work.)

To make things worst, I can't enjoy the serenity of my room because of the damn internet connection. I've now got the whole room to myself, no annoying noises, but the internet just have to be so fucked up. Is this why people will never be satisfied with what they have? Because when one thing is given, the other thing is taken away?

Shhh... calm down PM, calm down. Don't make your own life so difficult wanting perfection in everything. It is the imperfection that make things perfect. I might not see the beauty in not getting proper internet access now, perhaps one day, I'll realise that being "disconnected" brings back the "life" I used to have before the internet days.

When I was in this technoprenuership class, my lecturer mentioned about the music industry and how it was killed by technology, partly the internet. So is the internet an evil thing? At least I know I don’t contribute to it. If I really like an artist’s work, I purchase the original CDs (I have a whole collection of CDs). Movies I like, I'll get the DVDs (not the Blueray discs for now, they cost too much). Those people who say they like an artist but only downloads their songs are bullshitting. People who like movies but only download are as bad. Same goes for books. All the illegal ebooks are gonna kill the authors. Continue and download more, one day, there’ll be no more good music, no more good books, no more good movies.

Issac Asimov created the 3 Laws of Robotics.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

What am I trying to convey here?

I've watched "Bicentennial Man", it was good. I've watched "I, Robot", it was good too. Both goodness was from the view of a general viewer, good directing and good CG. When you think deeper, both actually says that one day, the robots will try to take over the world. (Literally!) They become more intelligent than their creators and from there, they develop feelings. Where as humans, being attached to technology, become more stupid and lost feelings.

When robots ended up smarter than human beings, it will be something depressing. The fact that human created technology is to aid us in our tasks. But the current fact already has proved that the ratio of the people who created technology to those who are being "controlled" by technology is scary.

I have to get back to the journals. Loads more to do before Monday. (I'm a robot to myself...)

PM, if you keep slacking off, others will catch up in no time. You won't be able to keep your lead, then you'll lose out in this tough world. Final lap... run run run!

Ultra Cute Bday Card v2

Wanna send a birthday cake in a card?


You’ll need to train a delivery monkey to do it. And it’s no easy feat trying to teach a Monkey to do the “Houdini” act.

So here goes:
A nicely tied box...



Tada! Monkey frees itself,


And successfully gets out of the box.


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Now, preparing the cake to be sent.


Everything packed, throw in a special message.


Let’s see the cuteness again.




Oh noes... monkey took a bite off the cake!
Seems like the monkey is not trained to not eat the cake. Oops, my bad.


*Whacks naughty monkey*

Can you read if you can't see?

So I’m already in my second week back in Uni and nothing much of interest has happened. Been lonely, watching movies, eating snacks instead of real meal, and I’ll never stop complaining about my lousy internet connection in my hostel room. Before that, I was back in Tune Hotel, told ya I’ll be back for the cheap price but good service. Just back in Penang, and already thinking about a meet up with WenJi and Mei Ping at the end of the October. Bought these... friendship gifts.


Remember the Radioactive Neko? Now we have 3 little kitties in gasaphone.


Doodolls are on the expensive side... so they are not quite ideal though they are so adorable. Too bad Mei Ping can’t make it to our last minute outing. It was so much fun even with only WenJi. Had lunch AND tea at Sushi Zanmai, see all the nyummy nyummy food we had... mmm... I love the stamina roll and the soft shell crab.




Played baseball...


And took pictures...


Finished up my Industrial Training final report last Wednesday, in time to be reviewed by my supervisor a day before submission. It was also good lar for the fact that I have to finish it slightly earlier. Otherwise, I would have dragged it till the final day. It was really hard for me writing that report. I got stuck at the acknowledgements part not knowing how to write it not too casually (although I would like to). Brief intro about the company and project? How can I squeeze everything into 3 pages when there is so much to write? I had to summarised 8 pages of organisation history to a paragraph of a quarter page. Write about a mega project in half a page? The 4-page limit industrial training intro and organization background is insufficient.


The department gave us interns (the Unisel trio and me) thank you gifts and here’s what I’ve got – a dual time watch and a leather notebook. (*sniff* Mmm, the smell) They are quite a gift, but somehow, I don't think they'll ever be utilised. I've never put gifts to use.


One thing I know for sure is that Flipper is now lonely.


Oh ya... before I forgot, and because now I can (I’m no longer in proximity where they can “kill” me), I present you my lovely colleagues. Muahahahaha!


Got some chocolates from a choco sale before I left. Hershey Nuggets, dark choco with almond. These are good. Regret I didn’t buy MORE. My addiction to chocolate is always there. To define me and chocolates, I saw a t-shirt while shopping (I didn’t buy it cos it was expensive, only took a pic).



First day back in school, we had a Final Year Project (FYP) briefing. So every 3rd year student had to attend class... and... picture of the early people in class.


There was one part Dr. Wan mentioned that the course is like a software company (he is like the Director of the Company? Hahaha) and the students are the developers (employees) for the company. The lecturers (to be supervisors) are the clients who have projects in mind; and the students will bid for the projects of choice. FYP “bidding” went quite well I should say *coughs* with us confirmed getting what we want even before the bidding closed. The wind has been blowing in the right direction as of now.

But is the project possible? To start from zero, with limited time and resources. Time for a mass project planning. Please grant me (and my team) the will to keep my head (our heads) up. I’m more worried of my overambitious thinking. As always, I would have all the massive crazy ideas to be added into a project, which I’m now more afraid of. I, or rather we, might end up not being able to deliver even the simplest of planned. Though it never happened before, I can’t help but to think the other way. I’ve been trying to be positive. Makes me wonder if I’ll ever be a positive person even if I said I will.

So back to the project, it’s not that much of a mega project, more like a backyard/home project, if successful, can be good in many ways. Nothing much can be said about it since it has not been finalised, but I just want it to be good. It must be good. And a plus for the project, we must have accessibility for the less-abled people because we are conscious about it, after a seminar.

Last week, we had the ICT Accessibility Seminar and Workshop and it was a key which opens a door to a wider world. We had blind speakers (from other countries as well) to give us an insight of their world.



Now if you close your eyes and try to read this post... what can you see? Nothing... that’s right, you can see nothing. So how can people who see nothing read this post? So that’s the importance of accessibility. As for websites, personal or corporate, the question asked was, “Are the contents of your website accessible to them?” Being accessible here doesn’t mean that your website is public or private (viewable to all or restricted). But it means whether it is compatible with the assistive tools that the less-abled use. For example, the blind wouldn’t care if the layout and design of your website is the best in the world, all they care is whether they can “see” the contents of the page with the aid of a screen reader. So if your website isn’t well made – no proper headings, poor alternate text descriptions, flash contents, contents which cannot be activated by keyboard – chances are they are not blind-user-friendly. (If anyone from the MAS PSS team reads this, the web check-in was mentioned as inaccessible, and I’m thinking that the self check-in kiosks are too.)

Weekends ended. Luckily no Monday blues, no classes on Mondays. Yays!
For the finale of today’s post, whose birthday is coming?
Woohoo... another ultra cute bday card in the making.


Happy Yummy Birthday v2 to be revealed, soon.

Be positive.

Wow... so I've been missing for a week now. Doing what I do slowest, writing report. Hahaha...

One thing I lack is optimism. So, about the one change I want to see in me, it's to be more positive. I know, I know... sometimes I tend be be so sulky that it shows on the face that things are bad. I actually realised that even my bland facial expression (or that was what I thought) is giving people the wrong perception.

Me being the pessimist all this while caused me to miss out a lot in life. Thinking only about the bad reason for happenings. I also think I took many things for granted and once passed, they never came back. Regrets? I'll take them as a lesson to never let go. Will shamelessly, boldly make moves. Do it and don't regret it.

I think I must learn to see things from a different side. To learn to find the dim light even during the darkest nights. There's always hope, maybe small or hidden, but there's still some.

PM, be positive.

Simple update.

I want to write, but my pounding head don't allow me to. Plus, being emotional when writing just isn't helping.

Currently already in Penang. Cleaned up my hostel room. (Which probably looked worst than a dungeon with all the cobwebs hanging everywhere.) I think the cleaning caused my current fever. To start with, I didn't have enough sleep yesterday, sitting and staring in to my computer wasting time, missing everyone. Then the long road trip caused some stomach ache. What a bad start to returning to Penang.

Report made no progress, or rather I made no progress on the report. Tough... I can't put them in words. Still attached so deely. Report turned emotional ramblings. People commonly say, "I always knew I would look back on my crying and laugh, but I never thought I would look back on my laughter and cry." So did I.

Next up, I'm gonna write about the one change I want to see in myself. The one thing that caused me to look up to a person much. It is going to be a challenge for me. I want to change for the better.

Good night people.