Chimera Navigational Technologies

 
Chimera Navigational Technologies.
Brand spanking new logo.
The brand name starts here.

Tired of looking at financial planning, tossed to whole thing to my find and she even said that the plan is too clean. It's a rather strange planning... starting off financed 100% on assets and equity, with no clear liability. Then it's difficult in the sense that I have to plan way too much for a small company. Trying to shoot a 3-year-old company with a mere 30 employees to be public listed... that's like erm... trying too hard to get fundings eventhough it seems to be doing well without any loans.

Rather start doing some designs, play around with photoshop instead of not doing anything. So... yes... a very simple logo. A chimera head, a half compass acting as 'C' for the word chimera, also symbolizes navigation. 2 colours - bright red with black - just because they stand out.

So what's next?

Papadom

When my friends asked me to go watch movie in cinema, they'll either go for movies which are all hyped up, or movies with good looking actors and actresses. It doesn't have to be all that great to attract me. Here's one which I like...

Papadom.
Made in Malaysia.
Thumbs up from me.

I like Malaysian movies, and Papadom is one of them. Well... Malaysian movies only if the genre is family/drama/indie... or any others which are meaningful (Those over comical/stupid/try-to-hard comedy is a no-no). If you want to know why I gave thumbs up for this movie, it is best you watch it for yourself. It is a touching one (not in the entire movie though).

Some tiny bits in the movie actually reflected the same thing I went through. Makes me sorry for thinking that way. How that girl from Penang wants to go studying in KL to stay away from her over protective father. (How I'm from KL and wanted to come to Penang to be away from my family). Neither the girl, or me have any family related problems... we just felt over-protected and want some freedom. But no matter what, we both still love our families.

Crazy week is over!

So far, we've really been pushing real hard to the extend that we work till 3 or 4 in the morning then continue early in the morning. It has been a tiring week with a research presentation, then the FYP documentation and presentation of status update/review. Too much documentations for the project.

Some pictures of what happened the entire week. Firstly, some which I took while walking back to hostel at 3.30am in the morning. The warm feeling you get from the lights although it was cold when the wind was blowing.

Tuesday...research presentation day at Eastin Hotel Penang. The one thing that made people happy was the free meals including a buffet lunch, hahahaha! And guess what we did during lunch...

We bent a fork! LOL. Just for fun, kay... The fork is initially curved that way, its design.
Some pics of our program coordinator and some other groups presenting.

A lousy picture of my group's presentation. I wonder what was I frowning about... hmm...

Since my team was sitting at the first row that day, we were sort of like an unofficial time keeper. We had this ugly A4 papers with the time remaining written on them and I don't know whether it is good or not... it seemed to cause some groups a little disruption.

Then as the time passed with more boring presentation subjects, boredom ensues =P It's camwhore time!!

 And the one thing we learnt from Guru Pitka by watching The Love Guru... LOL.

 

Our FYP team must be #1. Hahaha... how much more lame can we be?
And last but not least... cuteness picture for the day. =P *runs*

That ends the part about the research presentation.

So once the presentation was over, we immediately moved on to FYP documentation. Sad case isn't it? We didn't even have time for a proper rest. Wednesday morning... whole day, continue till 4 am, same for Thursday... ugh, already felt like a zombie. Presentation on Friday, 10 in the morning. Everything completed at 3am in the morning. Materials being printed at 6am in the morning. Problem arised... The cover page was too thick and got stuck! Die... so early in the morning... any shops open to print? Whoa... chaotic morning I tell you.

Glad we weren't screwed upside down during the status review/update. In fact, the manager and our client were happy with what we've presented. With the word "good idea" coming from our manager which many other student said she's a very picky and particular type, I think everything went very well. All the hard work was well worth it. Good job everyone! Well... I quite regret that we didn't take picture with the gantt chart of our project and already submitted them. Anyways... a small pizza lunch for a happy day.

Now that I'm free for a day, I felt empty.

"If You're Free and You Know It, Think Again."

I've watched Mike Myers' The Love Guru and I particularly love Guru Pitka's book entitled "If you're happy and you know it, think again."

Being a computer science student in USM I should write a book, "If you're free and you know it, think again."

Been quite free for the past few days, play some games, watched drama, catch up with some forums which I've missed for ages. That because the whole FYP team thought that our 'client' only wants the presentation for the 1st review. Mana tau... it turns out that we have to be submitting 2 separate reports just for the presentation itself. Bah~ So now... 2 reports within a week. Lucky one of them is a group report.

All the status updates, documentations... I see the stress of a project manager. In this project, the ‘project manager’ doesn’t have to do anything yet the person gets to rate the ‘employees’. We as the workhorses do all the reports. We’ve been doing reports nonstop for the project while the progress of the real project has been stagnant. How I wish that all the ‘employees’ of PSH will stand up and have a protest over all these unnecessary documentations. That’s one thing. Another thing is, I really hope that the ‘project manager’ won’t try to screw us for more documentation because up till now, we have been following the client’s requirement which focuses more on research for the project. Otherwise, the horror will never end.

On an upcoming presentation, there was a hype on the presentation venue. Rumours started spreading when our lecturer said there may be a change in venue. Then some started saying that we might be going to Park Royal at Batu Ferringhi. It turned out that there's no change at all, still at Eastin. To me, it doesn't matter much as long as there's free buffet lunch. =P Completed the slides for the presentation. Super leet one indeed. Now the only task left for the most useless subject of all my university courses, (yes... the research subject) is the presentation itself. Let's hope for the best!

Anyways… enough of complains here. Why I’m blogging again? Yea… because I’m not happy with all the documentations and this is my rant sink. Though unhappy, still have to work on them. Back to facing the reports.

Let it go...

I knew I would edit my portfolio again and again until it's due. It's some problem because of my itchy hands and pushy brain. The little problem of not being satisfied with finished work... is that work will never finish. Should just let things go... perfection lies within the imperfection.

I have so much else to do, but I took the time to edit my portfolio. It's like an urge which kept saying, "Do more... do more..." because designing and writing script codes are fun. Well, although at the time I do the editing for my portfolio, I've completed another important task. Unfortunately, the task is also another editing, for an almost completed work. Glad that it's also done for now. I'm talking about the business idea that my group has to submit. I have a test later today, yet, I have been editing works.Then later I'll regret for not starting studying earlier. (See how I can predict the future... because it happens again and again)

I didn't get much sleep because of my itchy hands. I totally crashed when I reached my room yesterday night.  I've had a planned sleep, 8.30pm to 12am, so that I wake up with lack of sleep... then I'll become hyperactive for some time before I crash again.

I've been back in Uni for 6 weeks and for this semester, I felt like I've been writing too many reports (extra long reports which I think no one will read, it doesn't even make much sense because even if my group trying so hard to make the report more realistic, there are surely those who don't give a damn and crapped all the way). On average, it's like 10 pages of report per week. Where are all the needs for programming? Even for the final year project, it has been all reports up to now. The excitment and stress due to non working codes and bugs hasn't arise. Only stress on writing reports that will actually make people read. Mundane...

Okay, let's get off from school topics. The dullness is killing me.

I broke my glass. It slipped off my hands when I was washing it in the sink. Now I'll have to buy a new one. Sad case of losing such a nice glass. Lucky the monkeys on the glass are stickers, so any new glass I buy can still have the monkeys. Or let's take this as an excuse for me to find a glass with monkeys printed on it. =D

Random picture for today:

RingMonkey

-noun
a Monkey holding a ring who possesses the power to control nothing.
Monkey of the Ring

(LOL)

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. Here's another link if the first doesn't work. 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.