Kenneth Chu - A Programmer In Training

Jeremiah Owyang - Streaming Live from Web 2.0

2007-04-15T12:20:00.001-04:00

Jeremiah Owyang, a web strategist and also Director of Corporate Media Strategy at PodTech.net is streaming live from the web 2.0 expo in San Francisco, California.

Its amazing how this can be done with minimal infrastructure. Here is the equipment Jeremiah is using to stream live,

1) Webcam (we’re using a 100 dollar logitech)

2) Hat, and put some duct tape on it so it can clip on

3) Laptop (you can change power settings so when you close the laptop it does not hibernate) and power cables and batteries as needed

4) Wireless signal (we’re using EVDO, or 3G)

5) Ustream account (free)

This is a very interesting concept and i predict it will be a phenomenon very soon. To view the live broadcast by Jeremiah, visit his blog.

Best Of Web Roundup

2007-03-02T19:00:00.000-05:00

10 Tips to Help Keep Your Desk Clean

Keep nothing on your desk unless you absolutely need them
Sort your mail and toss junk as it arrives
Get rid of sticky notes and scraps of paper.

Yedda - Questions and Answer about a wide range of topics, answered by the community. Preety neat.

How to Leave Work at Work

Change your route
Get up earlier
The boss at work does not equal the boss at home

Turn Gmail Into Your Personal Nerve Center

Using Gmail as a Massive Database
How to get real-time news updates in Gmail
How to automatically store your bookmarks in Gmail
How to blog from Gmail

Create a Perfect Picture for your Profile Using MyPictr

Empowering Links: Week of 25th February - Bunch of great personal development articles.

Best Of Web Roundup

2007-02-23T23:09:00.000-05:00

Comeeko - Many of you probably have a dream of becoming a cartoonist and this web application will definitely help you reach that goal. It allows u to create comic strips using your own pictures, has multiple layouts and also allow you to add comments using bubbles and text box.

How to Burn Youtube Videos to DVD - ".. create a DVD movie of video downloaded from Google Video, Youtube or Myspace so that these videos can be watched on the TV screen"

Declutter Your Desk - Who doesn't like extra space?

Top 10 Worst Company URLs - Its hilarious, just check them out.

Seven steps to remarkable customer service - Great article written by Joel Spolsky on how to give great customer service. Some of the suggested ways is to :

Fix everything
Blowing off dust
Accept blame
Dont be greedy among others.

All About Hard Drive : From Backup To Extending Its Life

2007-02-20T07:00:00.000-05:00

Automatically back up your hard drive - "When was the last time you backed up the important files on your computer? Last year when your best friend called in tears after the Blue Screen of Death ate her thesis?"

A detailed guide to Mac backup - ".. details the entire process of backing up a Mac, from planning a backup strategy to getting things back to normal after disaster strikes your primary drive."

The self-repairing hard drive - "..a batch script that takes disk maintenance to the next level by checking all your hard drives for errors, repairing any it finds, and then defragmenting."

How To Maximize Hard Drive Life - Defrag, use UPS and also make sure you have a backup of all your important stuffs.

How to recover lost files after you accidentally wipe your hard drive

Recover the files to a separate hard drive.
Recover the files to a networked storage drive.
Recover the files to a separate partition on the same hard drive.
Image the hard drive using a tool like ddrescue and recover files using only one partition.

Rescue files with a boot CD - "Few moments in computing are as heartbreaking as when you turn on your trusty PC only to receive that bone-chilling message: "Boot sector corrupt. Config.sys missing. Disk cannot be read. In other words, "You're screwed."" Dont worry, here's a solution to that problem.

Note: The above picture of the hard drive is courtesy of enricopalombaro.

All About PC Power Supply

2007-02-19T07:00:00.000-05:00

How PC Power Supplies Work - "The power supply converts the alternating current (AC) line from your home to the direct current (DC) needed by the personal computer."

Power Consumption and Noise Level of Contemporary Graphics Cards - "Power consumption and the level of generated noise very often become other important criteria besides performance and image quality when one is shopping for a graphics accelerator."

Power Supply Calculator - Helps you estimate what size power supply you should purchase. "when it comes to power, having excess wattage on a power supply is never a bad thing!"

The cost of leaving your PC on - "Have you ever wondered how much it's costing you to leave a computer on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?" Save a few hundred dollars a year and in the process you help protect the environment.

Why estimate when you can measure? - "Estimating is only necessary when you can't easily measure. When you meet people like this, gently urge them to stop estimating and start measuring."

Improve your Life

2007-02-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

A Lesson from Earth’s Most Powerful Mammal - Teaches you to go past your fear and out of your comfort zone. This is what limits a person from reaching their full potential.

I think of the thousands of people whom I meet every day who are similary trapped by their limiting beliefs and habits that they can easily change but do not even attempt to.

Three Choices that Make You Who You Are

The People You Choose to Spend Time With
What You Choose to Put into Your Mind
The Dreams You Choose to Have

Wake Up Feeling Great With These 22 Tips for High Self-Esteem

Stop comparing yourself with other people.
Stop the critic inside of you.
Associate with positive, supportive people.
Get involved in work and activities you love.
Get some exercise.

P.S. Image above courtesy of juicystyle.

Best of Web Roundup

2007-02-16T16:00:00.000-05:00

How To Give a Good Compliment - Be specific, back up your compliment and ask a question with your compliment. Something like, “that necklace looks really good on you because it matches your eyes. Where did you find it?”.

Decrease Brain Age - Improve Mental Fitness - Playing games, meditation, eating well and reading.

Top Web Tools for College Students - How to save on books, keep track of homework and deadlines, creating powerpoint slides without using powerpoint and much much more. Great list of tools.

5 cool ways to use Yahoo! Pipes - Playlist images, Related stories, news in English.

Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder - Helps retrieve windows installation key.

Top 5 ways to hustle free drinks - Perfect timing considering its Friday.

Hope u have a great weekend.

Note: Image above courtesy of CDrewing.

Wireless Router - Static and Dynamic IP Rev. 2

2007-02-09T13:02:00.000-05:00

Note: This is a revision of an article that i have written before. It seems to be a pretty popular article. I would really like for people to comment on whether they liked it or didn't like it. Any recommendations on how to make it better.

So i am pretty sure many of you have encountered this problem before. You have multiple computers in your house and you want all the computers to be able to access the internet at the same time without signing up for additional internet service. The answer to this problem is to get a router.

A router basically takes one ip address and then it lets you share that one address among multiple computers.

This way instead of just one computer been able to connect to the internet, multiple computers can share that one internet connection. To help you understand what a router is, let's say that the one ip address given to you by your provider is similar to your university mailing address. But the university has different building within it. So once a mail arrives at the university, the mail sorter has to sort out the mail by the building name and then deliver it to the proper recipient. This is exactly what the router does, it sorts the traffic for the different computers and delivers them to the correct computer.

This setup works fine for a regular user. But you might encounter a problem if you want to run a server or if you wanna be able to use bit torrent. The reason you would encounter a problem is because these services(such as webserver) works by an outside user trying to access your system without specifying who they are trying to communicate with. This would relate to the case where someone sends a letter which does not contain the building name. This would make it impossible for the mail sorter to decide who this mail is addressed to. The way to work around this problem is by specifically asking the router to forward any requests that comes from X to a particular computer. In the analogy case, it means you would tell the mail sorter that any mail from this person should always be delivered to me even when its missing the building name.

The only problem with the above case is that with most routers, the addresses are handed out dynamically.What this means is whenever a computer is turned on, it requests for a new address from the router. So whats wrong with that? Well, the computers on the network would not be guaranteed to have the same address each and every time. Imagine the university changing the name of the buildings on campus each day, this would make it impossible for the mail sorter to know which building to deliver the mail.

In order to avoid any confusion, we will configure it so that each computer will always get the same address. This can be achieved by configuring the router so that some of them have static addresses while other computers have dynamic address(different address each time it requests for one). I am pretty sure you are asking yourself, so what is static ip?

Static ip means that a particular computer will always get the same ip address. In the case of static ip, whenever you turn on the computer, the computer will inform the router what its address is.

So how would you go about achieving it?

For my explanation, i will be using the Linksys BEFW11S4 router. Most other routers should work in a similar manner. But the important thing is the idea behind it.

First, you must login to your router(for mine i enter 192.168.1.1 in my webbrowser address bar) and then a dialog box should pop up asking for your password.
After this is done, you will see a window similar to this.
Then click on the DHCP tab, which would bring up a screen that looks something like this.
The addresses handed out by the linksys router usually starts at 192.168.1.100. But if you want to manually set the addresses for some of the computers, you will want to change the starting ip address in order to avoid any conflicts. If we use the university analogy, once we name a building and that building name cannot be changed(static ip), that name should be off limits to others. In order to do that, we need to set the "Starting IP Address" so that the router does not hand out those addresses that have already been taken. Depending on how many static ip u have setup, the "Starting IP Address" should be set accordingly. So if u have 3 computers and 2 of them have static ip, you can put in 192.168.1.102 under the "Starting Ip Address" field(or higher if you want but i am assuming you have as static ip 192.168.1.100 and 192.168.1.101 for those 2 computers). So when the other computers dynamically asks for an ip from the router, it will only hand out ip address that is 192.168.1.102 or higher. It should look something like this.

In general, if u have setup X static ip then the "Starting IP Address" should be 192.168.1.(100+X).

This achieves our goal of having both static and dynamic ip addresses.

More Resources:

Difference between Static and Dynamic IP.
If you wanna know how to setup static ip, microsoft has an article on it.

Life in Seoul Korea

2007-02-09T01:08:00.000-05:00

A new podcast called SeoulGlow which shows us what life in Seoul Korea is like. Personally i think this is a fascinating podcast and its very interesting to know and learn about other cultures. This podcast is very well done. I really enjoyed it.

In the first episode, they go out on to the streets for new year and film a bunch of people who are telling us their new year resolutions.

In the second episode, they visit a street vendor and talk about the food. Now i gotta go get something to eat...

Firefox - Tab Switching Using Your Keyboard

2007-02-04T10:00:00.000-05:00

If you would like to decrease the amount of clicking you perform using your mouse, here's a tip that works in firefox. Isn't it annoying to switch between tabs in firefox by using the mouse constantly. Fear not, coz there is a way to do it using just your keyboard. This tip only works for the first 9 tabs.

To switch between tabs, just press Ctrl + # where # should be between 1 and 9 and + means press Ctrl and # at the same time. So if you wanna switch to the first tab, press Ctrl + 1. Preety neat tip.

Stay tuned for more firefox tips in the future.

How to Be as Productive as a CEO

2007-02-04T01:11:00.000-05:00

Photo courtesy of Desiree's

It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health,wealth, and wisdom.- Aristotle

Hmmm, doesn't the thought of sleeping in give you that feeling of joy, happiness? But in order to be a more productive person and to increase your chances of success in life, you must start early.

From Steve Pavlina's article,

In my case it was definitely made. In my early 20s, I rarely went to bed before midnight, and I’d almost always sleep in late. I usually didn’t start hitting my stride each day until late afternoon. But after a while I couldn't ignore the high correlation between success and rising early, even in my own life.

To help you become an early riser, Steve Pavlina has written two articles on what worked for him.

But to further illustrate this point, Jim Citrin from Yahoo Finance contacted 20 Ceo's about their daily routine, and surprisingly got reply from 17 out of 20. There are some similarities between all these Ceo's and i am gonna highlight some of those.

Start early
Exercise every morning
Make family time
Be creative with your morning routine

To read the entire article, click here.

More Resources:
Personal Development Books - List of personal development books recommended by Steve Pavlina.

Productivity Boost: How to start your day at 5:00 AM

John Chow - Google’s #1 Dot Com Mogul.

2007-02-01T22:28:00.000-05:00

Update: Welcome John Chow Readers. I hope you would visit my main page and read some other interesting posts that i have there. Thanks for visiting.

Note: Ok before i go any further, let me make it clear at the top of this post. The following review is done in exchange for a link from John Chow. He put out an offer in this post.

Here's John Chow describing who he is,

John Chow, a damn fine person, friend of the community, Ultimate Fighting Championship contestant, member of the Save the Whales Foundation, the man who controls the black market on baby seal pelts and member of the “probably yo’ daddy” foundation.
Google’s #1 Dot Com Mogul. Master of The TechZone and TTZ Media Network. Creator of some of the fastest computers the world have ever seen.

On his blog he does reviews of cool tech stuffs and also knows his food. His style of writing is very easy to read and understand, and his blog contains a treasure trove of good articles. In order to give you a flavor of some of the interesting stuffs you might find in his blog, i will list some of the posts that i found to be very interesting.

Personally, i think you do become smarter after reading his blog. Not all the content on his site is of interest to me, but the good thing is his blog covers many different areas. If i were to give you an analogy to a real world example, his blog is like a buffet and the the variety of choices will satisfy anyone's taste. He gives you advice/tips on how to make money. Some of his tips are pretty creative. My recommendation is for you to bookmark or better yet add his blog to your favorite rss reader.

Smart Shopper and Academic Success

2007-02-01T10:00:00.000-05:00

10 Shopping Tricks That Stores Hate

Buying Loss Leaders and Leaving
Saying NO to the Extended Warranty
Shopping in the Store But Buying Online

13 Things I Wish I Learned In College

Making Proper Presentations
Working on a Team
Networking

Two Weeks to Academic Success

"Whether you’re currently in school, thinking of going back to school, or thinking of completing some industry-specific learning courses to help advance your career, it will be necessary for you to get your mindset back into “learning mode."

Link Mania

2007-01-31T19:37:00.000-05:00

MacInstruct - The place to learn about mac. They have a tutorial contest going on for the best mac tutorial submitted by its user.

How to Get Hired, What CS Students Need to Know -

Employers look for people who are Smart and Get Things Done
Employers look for people who Have Already Done Things

Pro guide to Google searches - It will turn you into a google power user.

Top 10 Magic Trick Tutorial Videos - From card tricks to tearing a phone book in half, its got all the amazing magic tricks.

Travel like a pro: 8 tips to make your journey easier -

Fly through the airport
Upgrade your airline seat
Get a free hotel room upgrade

Free Devon Note

2007-01-29T01:15:00.000-05:00

Complete this survey and at the end of the survey, you can request for a free copy of Devon Note.
From Devon Technologies blog,

Alexander Reppel, a German student, is conducting a online survey evaluating the two products announced at Macworld San Francisco this January. Every visitor who completes the survey gets a free copy of DEVONnote.

Devon Note only works for the Macinstosh. Sorry Windows user.

Firefox 2.0

2007-01-19T13:24:00.000-05:00

Firefox 2.0 has been out for a while. With it comes a number of improvements and new features.
Some of the new features are:
1) Built in phishing protection - Warns user about sites that are possibly not safe.
2) Resuming your browsing session - "The Session Restore feature restores windows, tabs, text typed in forms, and in-progress downloads from the last user session. "By default, it only asks you if you want to restore session if firefox crashed.
To make it restore the previous session everytime you start Firefox,

click on Tools
Then click on Options
and then under the Main tab , you should see When Firefox starts: pick from the drop down box, Show my Windows and Tabs from Last Time.

3) Inline spell checking - "A new built-in spell checker enables users to quickly check the spelling of text entered into Web forms.."
These are just some of the new features. If you wanna read all about it, check out Firefox Release Notes.

With the release of Firefox 2.0, i figured a lot of new users would like to know what are some of the great extensions that can significantly enhance your firefox experience. According to wikipedia, "Extensions are installable enhancements to the Mozilla Foundation's projects (and compatible variants such as Portable Firefox), and add features to the application or allow existing features to be modified."

My Favorite Extensions

FireFTP - "It is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers."
AdBlock - " Adblock is a content filtering plug-in for the Mozilla and Firebird browsers." It allows you to block ads based on rules set by you. So u could ask it to block all gif images or all banners. Your choices are endless. So give it a try.
GooglePedia - "Shows you a relevant Wikipedia article along with your search results." When you perform a google search, it shows the google search results and the wikipedia article for the same term side by side. I love this extension
Fast Video Download - This extension allows you to download videos from youtube, google video and much much more.

Hamachi - Best and Easiest VPN Solution

2007-01-06T02:10:00.000-05:00

So What is VPN?

According to wikipedia, "A virtual private network (VPN) is a private communications network often used within a company, or by several companies or organizations, to communicate confidentially over a non-private network. VPN traffic can be carried over a public networking infrastructure (e.g. the Internet) on top of standard protocols, or over a service provider's private network with a defined Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the VPN customer and the VPN service provider."

How can i create a VPN?
One of the easiest solution today is to use a software called Hamachi.

So What is Hamachi?
According to Hamachi's website, "Hamachi is a zero-configuration virtual private networking (VPN) application. ...Hamachi is a program that allows you to arrange multiple computers into their own secure network just as if they were connected by a physical network cable. "

To learn how to configure Hamachi, read the step by step tutorial from Lifehacker.
The basic (free version) of Hamachi does not allow you to run it as a service, but there is a way to get around this limitation. Here's how.
There is a gui version of Hamachi for the mac, which is called HamachiX.
If you are interested in remote desktop using VNC (for example, accessing your home computer from school, work etc), here is a step by step tutorial.

Update[Jan 8th,2007]: Guide on how to install Hamachi on the Mac.

Update[Jan 20th, 2007]: Lifehacker's Gina Trapani has written an article on Running VNC securely using Hamachi.

P.S The above screenshot of Hamachi was obtained from Hamachi's website.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T03:30:00.000-05:00

Happy new year everyone. Lets raise our glasses for an absolutely fantastic 2007. Hope this new year will lead you to make decisions that will help you achieve all your life goals.

What is the Meaning of Life? - Is Life like a bagel, grapefruit, banana, cooking or a jigsaw Puzzle?
Ways to Distinguish Yourself - " Not distinguishing yourself is to subject yourself to the risk of eroding your market value almost on a daily basis."
How to Find what You Love to do? - ".. the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
Seven Ways to Start Your New Job Right - ".. getting off to a strong start establishes the foundation upon which long-term success is built."
Six easy Steps for beating Procrastination - ".. people avoid doing things that hurt."

A Very Sad Day

2006-12-06T21:46:00.000-05:00

I am really sad to hear that James Kim did not make it. Rest in Peace James. My deepest Condolences to James and Kati's Family. To contribute, you can visit the website setup by his friends and family.
.

Never Underestimate the Power of Duct Tape

2006-11-29T21:48:00.000-05:00

Found it from Digital Journal

Funny Facial Expression of Patrick Norton

2006-11-24T22:10:00.000-05:00

Static And Dynamic Using Linksys Router

2006-10-26T20:07:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: A rewrite of this guide is up. The new guide explains it in more detail.

So i am pretty sure many of you have encountered this problem before. You are using a router to share internet connection amongst the various computers in your home/office and you want to configure it such that some of them have static ip while other computers have dynamic ip address. You might need static ip because you want to run a bit torrent client or a server application(vnc server, webserver etc). So how would you go about achieving it. For my explanation, i will be using the Linksys BEFW11S4. Most other routers should work in a similar manner. But the important thing is the idea behind it.

First, you must login to your router(for mine i enter 192.168.1.1 in my webbrowser address bar) and then a dialog box should pop up asking for your password. After this is done, you will see a window similar to this
Then click on the DHCP tab, which would bring up a screen that looks something like this
Since local ip address usually starts at 100(i.e it starts at 192.168.1.100 for mine), you will change the starting ip address depending on how many static ip u have setup. So if u have 3 computers and 2 of them have static ip, you can put in 192.168.1.102 under the "Starting Ip Address" field(or higher if you want but i am assuming you have as static ip 192.168.1.100 and 192.168.1.101 for those 2 computers). So when the other computers dynamically asks for an ip from the router, it will only hand out ip address that is 192.168.1.102 or higher. This achieves our goal of having both static and dynamic ip addresses.

Note:

Difference between Static and Dynamic IP.
If you wanna know how to setup static ip, microsoft has an article on it.

Mac News RoundUp

2006-10-26T19:03:00.000-04:00

Apple updates the Macbook Pro to Core 2 Duo - Along with a new processor they have added more memory(1 gb on the low end and 2 gb on the higher end with max ram bumped up to 3 gb), bigger hard drive and firewire 800. Apple claims that it runs 39% faster than its previous core duo
version.

MacBook SMC Firmware Update 1.1 - " The SMC Update improves the MacBook’s internal monitoring system and addresses issues with unexpected shutdowns." Hopefully this will resolve the random shutdown syndrome(rss).

Optimized Firefox 2.0 for G4, G5 and intel mac

PicLens - "PicLens delivers an immersive full-screen experience for viewing photos on the Web." Some sites it works with are

Flickr
Photobucket
Facebook
Google Image Search
Yahoo Image Search
Ask.com Image Search

Skype For Mac 2.0 - Skype version 2 just came out of beta and it has added video calls capability.

Cool Outage Message

2006-10-26T02:38:00.000-04:00

Spaceless Email!

2006-10-16T17:00:00.000-04:00

Apparently it seems all my email does not occupy any space in Google's vast/limitless webserver. I logged onto my gmail account to see if there are any emails in there, and this is what i see

You are currently using 0 MB (0%) of your 2774 MB.

And you would think that my inbox is empty, but this is not the case, i have just over a hundred email messages. Huh. Thats exactly my reaction. I am in no way complaining, just curious.

Free Phone Call?

2006-10-15T15:55:00.000-04:00

Definition of Talent

2006-10-09T19:07:00.000-04:00

She was a contestant on Xperimental entertainment search for the next Asian American Superstar. Her name is Jeanie Cha and her version of "Angel" is better than the original. Just listen to it.

Dr Hard Drive

2006-10-09T01:56:00.000-04:00

Noises that indicate a defective drive
The Story of Hard Drive Failure and Data Recovery

P.S. The hard drive picture is courtesy of Wikipedia.

Call For Help Cartoon

2006-10-08T01:18:00.000-04:00

Ok let me fill you in on what Call For Help is? Call For Help is a technology show broadcast on g4techtv in Canada that talks about software, hardware and everything that has a chip in it(according to Professor Laporte). The show's host is the king of tech Mr Leo Laporte and his cohost used to be Amber Macarthur(she's move on to CityTV). If you have never watched the show before, i highly recomend u watch it. It makes learning fun. You can purchase the show on Google Video for about $0.99.
The comic below was taken from Mike Lazzazzzzera's blog.

If you are inspired to create your own comic, you can make use of this tool to help you put comic style caption on your pictures and then join those pictures to make a comic strip. Not sure what Sean Carruther's used to do this?

How To become Rich!!

2006-10-07T12:26:00.000-04:00

Didn't the title make u wanna read whats this is all about. If only i could charge people such exorbitant fees for so little work, i could be a bazillionaire(ok not a bazillionaire but little bit more than i have). So next time someone provides you with computer help, just think how much money they saved you.
Top 10 Ways Best Buy Will Fix a PC

QuickSilver - Is it as good as it is made out to be?

2006-10-05T23:23:00.000-04:00

Many a mac folks have professed/confessed/swore by quicksilver! But is it as good as it made out to be hmm? Well sorry, i dont have the answer to it yet. It seems that in order to reap its rewards, there is some work that has to be done. So u ask me, what is it that i need to do to be one of those quicksilver master/fanboy? Hmm, the answer is u need to do some research aka read manual/tutorial etc. It seems that the learning curve is really steep but once u get a hang of it, it will be a breeze. So me been a brave soul that i am, i have taken upon myself to venture into this crazy experiment and prove once and for all(ok just prove it to myself) if its really that good.

Quicksilver: Setup & Troubleshooting - Start here, this article will help u get your feet wet with quicksilver.
Merlin on MacBreak: Intro to Quicksilver - Leo and Alex were kind enough to ask me to drop by MacBreak to talk a little bit about Quicksilver.
Six cool Quicksilver plugins you might not know - From 43folders, "Just a quickie to bubble up some novel Quicksilver plugins that are new-ish or even a bit esoteric."
5 handy Quicksilver triggers - "Quicksilver triggers might seem like one more enigma inside of a riddle from the mind of our mysterious benefactor,..."
Quicksilver’s Append: An updated appreciation + Robert’s troubleshooter - "The Quicksilver feature that will most dramatically change how you work is probably “Append to…” (or, when you prefer, “Prepend to…”)."
“Send to Quicksilver” returns in 10.4.4 - "For me this means I can type a bunch of crap in any old text file, select it, hit CMD-Escape (thus passing it off to the first pane in QS) and then TAB to “Prepend to... > 5ives_ideas.txt“..."
5 Ways to use Quicksilver - From academhack.

Intermediate Tutorial
More Quicksilver Power Tips
Quicksilver: From A Better OS X To Even More
Another Quicksilver Tutorial: Gold Trigger

Ultimate Goal - Learn To Fly

2006-10-05T18:13:00.000-04:00

I have always been fascinated by airplanes...And hopefully one day when i get the chance, i wouldn't mind getting a private pilot license...Flying is fun :-D. For now, i can just dream about it.

Learn To Fly: Happy Birthday, Kristin! - "When Kristin Henry’s dad bought a Cessna 152, he offered his young daughter the opportunity to learn to fly. Not only did she grab it, but she took flight training further than most people her age even imagine."
StudentPilot
Aviation Forum
Airliners.Net - This site has some spectacular pictures of airplane's performing acrobats. Actually it contains pics of pilots doing something spectacular/stupid.

P.S Photo courtesy of inmagine.

PwdHash

2006-10-02T00:34:00.000-04:00

PwdHash - "PwdHash is an browser extension that transparently converts a user's password into a domain-specific password. Automatically generates per-site passwords if you prefix your password with @@ or press F2 beforehand." This way u can easily use one common password but it generates unique password because it hashes the password using the domain name and the password. It is available for the Mozilla/Firefox/Opera/IE . This extension came out of a research from Stanford University. Brilliant idea.

Shure E2C

2006-09-16T16:57:00.000-04:00

For anyone who reads this blog and lives in the Greater Toronto Area, Bestbuy is having a sale on their Shure E2C earphones. They are on sale for $69.99. These usually retail for $129. I think this is a great deal. This will complement my ipod really well.

Note: The e2c pic was taken from shure's website.

Macbook Update

2006-09-04T01:54:00.000-04:00

It seems that because of my excitement with my new macbook, i failed to see the uneven paintjob on my black macbook. Today while i was turning it on, i realized there was an uneven surface on the top part of my macbook. Its really tiny but since i know it now, its really bothering me. And on closer inspection with a flashlight, i see that there are atleast four spots where there is a little blob of paint. I am planning on taking it back to the apple store for an exchange. Hopefully everything goes well and i get a new macbook. Other than that i am very satisfied with the macbook. It is not without merit, i did a google search and found out that this person had a similar issue.
But i have to make a confession, other than a few times using the emac at schoool, i have never used a mac(never an OSX). I have always used Windows and Linux but my experience with OSX has changed my view. I regret not having used the mac earlier. I have even purchased the Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X to learn to program for the mac. Dont worry my windows friends, i have not given up on using Windows.

P.S.:- The Macbook image is courtesy of Apple.

All Things Mac And MacBook

2006-08-24T12:27:00.000-04:00

I am thinking about picking up a macbook and have been doing some research about it. But it is not an easy decision to make. Rumors of an imminent update to the cpu to the new Merom(core 2 duo) chip is putting me on the fence. Should i buy or should i wait? What color should i get(Black or White)? Is the Black version worth the extra $150? Should i get the Macbook or the Macbook Pro? Those are the million dollar questions. I am using this post as a placeholder for all the goodies i find along the way in the hopes that it would be helpful to other people. If u have anything to add, please leave a comment.

Macbook Reviews

Apple's new MacBook - Macworld's review of the Macbook. According to Macworld, "....the MacBook is as powerful as you — and your bank account — want it to be."

Apple MacBook Review - NotebookReview's verdict, "..the MacBook is definitely superior to any iBook and the 12" Powerbook thanks to the widescreen glossy display, integrated iSight, larger trackpad, and the ability to switch into Windows to run it natively....."

One week with the Macbook

Accessories And Addons
2 sticks of 1 GB of Mushkin 971504A Apple PC5300

STM Small Alley 13-inch Shoulder Bag - Seems like a nice compact bag that can hold the macbook and also the power brick. Have to check it out in person at the apple store.

Keyboard Shield for MacBook - Helps prevent smudges, dirt and also protects the keyboard from spills.

13.3" Black MacBook Laptop Screen Protector

Pimp Your MacBook - top 10 products to help you pimp your MacBook.

How To Use Mac OSX
Taming the Tiger: An Orientation to Mac OS X 10.4

Mac Software
Top Ten Tools For Mac

The best free Mac Apps

10 Mac Apps you may not know of

SideTrack - It is a replacement driver for Apple MacBook, PowerBook and iBook trackpads. With SideTrack installed your standard trackpad becomes a powerful multi-button scrolling mouse.

Tinderbox - It is a personal content management assistant. Replacement for MindManager for Windows.

BBEdit - It is the leading professional HTML and text editor for the Macintosh.

SubEthaEdit - It is a powerful and lean text editor.

TextMate - It brings Apple's approach to operating systems into the world of text editors.

VoodooPad - It is a garden for your thoughts. Type in notes, highlight important words or phrases and create new pages. Drag and drop folders, images, applications, or URLs into VoodooPad — they're linked up just like on the web.

Essential Mac OS X Applications

Ten favourite Mac applications

QuickSilver - A unified, extensible interface for working withapplications, contacts, music, and other data.

My favoritest software of all time

Guides

Quicksilver Screencast: The Setup

QuickSilver Basics(MacBreak)

My mac and some important links

10 tips for new Mac users, switching from Windows…

A Beginner's Guide to Fixing OS X

Adding right-click and a delete button with Boot Camp

How to Make Firefox for Mac More Mac-like

Resources

Site Dedicated to the Black Macbook

123Macbook

Update[August 31, 2006]: I caved into the pressure and bought the 2 ghz Black Macbook. So far i am preety satisfied with it and have not experienced any of the bad symptoms that some people have experienced(cross my fingers). I also found a software that helps u to find any dead pixels. The software is called PixelCheck. Found it via MacOSG. Also found another great guide from TaoOfMac called How To Switch To The Mac.

Back To School

2006-08-16T01:37:00.000-04:00

Tech Tools/Tips for the College Bound
18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work
Waking up early and consistently
How to survive creative burnout
Free educational resources roundup

Learning C++

2006-07-26T20:25:00.000-04:00

This blog entry is here to help me keep track of links that i find/found useful during my learning of the C++ language. I hope that it is helpful to other people as well. Currently i am using C++ How To Program.

UltraEdit32 - Text Editor that i have been using for the last few days and so far i am loving it.
Borland C++ Compiler
Installing Borland's 5.5 Compiler - This guide is a great resource for installing the C++ compiler.
C++ Resources
C++ Reference
Dr Dobbs Journal(C++)
The C++ Programming Language

2006-07-25T00:52:00.000-04:00

Links For July 25th 2006

I am gonna list a bunch of links which has photography theme to it.

How to Be Photogenic
5 Steps To Being More Photogenic
Camera basics: shutter-speed, aperture and ISO - "..introduce you to the basic elements that you can use to control exposure in your shooting."
Top Ten Digital Photography Tips
Taking Professional Looking Photos Without a Professional
How to Take Great Group Photos
Microsoft Research Group Shot - "MSR Group Shot helps you create a perfect group photo out of a series of group photos"
Adventure Photography Tips
Photography Tips from Our Experts - National Geographic's experts has some photography tips that they dish out for you.

One of the blog that i seem to revisit often for photography tips is Photography School.
Also visit Kodaks resource page where they have good infos about digital photography.

2006-07-23T22:00:00.000-04:00

Links for July 23rd 2006

18 Tricks to Teach Your Body - "Soothe a burn, cure a toothache, clear a stuffed nose..."
Interview tips from an experienced recruiter - "Prepare, Dress well, Mobile phones off, .... , Think before you answer"
Resume Tips From Heather Hamilton - "Name your resume attachment intuitively..."
The Microsoft Interview - One of the question that was asked was "How would you weigh a plane without using scales?"
10 Ways to Tweak Your Tech Resume
Google Interview Questions

Now that we are on the topic of job interviews, here are some links that u should definitely bookmark and read frequently as they give out very good advice.
JobSyntax - A blog run by two former Microsoft recruiters.
One Louder - Blog by a staffing manager at Microsoft.
Jobsblog - Blog maintained by Microsoft recruiters.

2006-07-23T21:54:00.000-04:00

Back

I am back.... Between schoolwork and the nice weather outside, it hasn't really helped in motivating me to make blog posts. But i have been saving up all the interesting stuffs i have found. From now on, i will mostly just place links every few days ;-). And once in a while i might just praise/rant about a product.

2006-03-12T23:27:00.000-05:00

Quick Review For Attensa

Attensa Online is a free online rss reader. It is similar to Newsgator. I will just list what i like/dislike about attensa.
Good
It has a very clean interface.
Easy to use and responsive.
No Ads.

Bad
Does not have export feature for the feeds
When u add feed, it adds to the default category, in order to put it in the right category you have to switch to another window(Manage feeds).

Zdnet has a more complete review of Attensa.

2006-03-07T23:20:00.000-05:00

Couple Of Interesting Videos

The Much Talked about Origami Project - Cnbc did a segment on it. Found via Scoble.
What would the Simpsons intro look like with Real people

2006-01-21T19:26:00.000-05:00

IPod Help - All Things IPod

If you've just received/bought an ipod, and you are struggling with it then go read ipod101. If you still cant find an answer to your problem, the ilounge forum is a great place for seeking help. Hopefully by now you have resolved all your problems and u're ready to enjoy your ipod. Heres a list of 50 Fun Things To do with your IPod. Learn how to rate songs on your ipod and Get the most out of your video iPod. And if you are still craving to read more, check out The Last iPod Video Guide You’ll Ever Need. After getting the music on the ipod, Apple does not make it easy to get the music off the ipod, but dont fret about it. There are quite a few third party software that can help make it possible, but EphPod is just one of them. By now you should be an expert with the ipod, but then you realize that your ipod is all scratched up. Dont worry, follow the instruction on How to restore your ipod using Brasso. And make sure you get yourself a case to prevent it from scratching again. Personally i got the agent18 case which i love.

Update[Feb 17th 2006] - If you wanna make use of the TvOut functionality of the ipod, you dont have to buy the expensive cable from apple. You can just use the regular "eighth-inch- av-to-RCA cable" that u use for the camcorder. Only trick is,
"Plug the red RCA plug into your TV's yellow RCA jack.
Plug the yellow RCA plug into your TV's white RCA jack.
Plug the white RCA plug into your TV's red RCA jack."
The above excerpt was taken from this article. To read the entire article, click here.
I am also trying out various video conversion software and would post an update when i find one that i like.

Update[March 7th 2006] - Ok so i have tried various solutions to convert different formats to the ipod compatible format and so far i love the Videora Ipod Converter . Best of all its free. If u need help in choosing the right bitrate, check out this post over at ilounge. They have posted the bitrate that has been tested by various people and its there for you. Have fun with your Ipod.

2006-01-02T14:47:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone and lets hope i update my blog more frequently this year :-). My christmas holidays is almost over and school will commence in a few days. I hope to update my blog with some interesting links later today. I had a great new year and wish you all a prosperous and happy 2006.

2005-11-25T23:37:00.000-05:00

Evil Steve

Ok, i admit it. I fell under Steve Job's spell today(bad me). So i went to Yorkdale mall today(one of the reasons was i got an email from Apple advertising today as a "Special Apple Day" and wanted to snatch some hot deals but there weren't many). I walk into the apple store and the first thing i look at was the 5G black 30gb ipod, i fell in love with it the moment i saw it. Well, to make my story short, i couldn't resist buying so i bought it and i also bought the incase case which was on sale.
Now to the reason why i am posting. After i got home, i(just like everybody else, i hope so) searched for reviews of ipod accessories, software to convert dvd into ipod compatible video etc etc. One of the site you should bookmark if u have an ipod is "iLounge". Great site and has lots of very informative reviews. They actually have a 106 page free magazine called iLounge Holiday Buyer's Guide 2005-2006 which is "packed with all sorts of amazing iPod goodies, ratings of over 650 products, tables of used iPod prices, and much more."
If you wanna know, what resolutions to use for the different format then you should definitely read this article.

Btw, for anyone out there who's new to linux, you should read TUX which is a free linux magazine(you should know by now, i love free stuffs :-) ).

2005-11-09T22:35:00.000-05:00

Aardvark'd

Sounds funny...Maybe not. So what is aardvark'd? Well, it is a documentary "about the software development process" at FogCreek Software. Dan Bricklin, Paul Graham, the interns and Joel are in the dvd. From what i have seen in the trailer, it seems preety interesting. I have already placed my order for it(sorry had to do it before the crowd moves in :-)) and cant wait to watch it.

2005-10-12T23:41:00.000-04:00

Indispensable Top Blog/Websites

Below i will list a bunch of blogs/websites that i visit regularly, please feel free to add yours in the comment and i will add them to the list as long as they are not explicit/adult content.

News
Robert Scoble's Weblog - Talks about Microsoft(like Homer would say "Duh..", offcourse he would, he works for Microsoft) and other interesting tech happenings. Nevertheless an interesting character.
Dave Winer's Scripting.com - He has links to important tech news of the day.
Digg.com - A website created by Kevin Rose where the user gets to vote on what stories to keep on the front page.
Slashdot - If you are a geek/tech savvy person, you already know about it. And if you are not, the title of the page should explain it, "News for nerds, stuff that matters".
Microsoft-Watch - All things Microsoft.
Engadget - Gadget reviews/news.
Scientific America - Scientific news.
OS News - Title should say it all.

Personal Development and Productivity
43Folders - It is a "site about personal productivity, life hacks, and simple ways to make your life a little better." I love this site, lots of informative tips.
Steve Pavlina - writes about various personal development topics.
Life Hacker - It "recommends the downloads, web sites and shortcuts that actually save time."

Entertainment/Interesting
Variety Music - Music news
Paul Graham - He writes very good essays.
Neat New Stuff - Weekly reviews of websites.
Daring Fireball

2005-10-12T23:08:00.000-04:00

Automated Installation of WindowsXP

Have u ever wanted to automate the installation of Microsoft WindowsXP? Instead of sitting hours in front of your computer entering your name, password and choosing configurations instead of just letting it run on its own. Well(i know i am late), but i found a solution for it. So for any one of you out there wondering if its possible, here's a step by step instruction from msfn.

2005-10-10T20:31:00.000-04:00

Gada Be a Meta-Search

Chris Pirillo has released a new meta-search website called Gada.be . The site was preety slow earlier today(takes a few mins to get your result back), i can understand because of the heavy traffic and hopefully all the kinks can be worked out. Otherwise its a darn good service. The service is described as "......... a metasearch service with a few unique features.......gada.be is for anybody with access to the Web and in need of immediate, impartial results..........Then, there's having to visit several sites just to get the results you want." You can also get the result in OPML. The site seems to be suffering from some sql/database error.

To learn more about Gada.be, you can read about it over at

Chris Pirillo's Blog

Techcrunch has a review about Gada.be

2005-10-09T10:48:00.000-04:00

Links for Sunday, Oct 9th 2005

Interview of GTD guru David Allen by Bill Hammersley
Cnet's Top 100 Blog
Free Online Video from MIT - From MIT's site, "MIT World™ is a free and open site that provides on-demand video of significant public events at MIT."
Kick Procrastination Ass - This is what i need to do :-) .
Interview at Microsoft - Interview process at Microsoft

2005-10-06T01:12:00.000-04:00

The Internet

Let's take a vote. So how many of you actually know the history of the Internet? Thats what i thought and i am actually one of them. In one of my network class, we were asked to read about the history of the internet. And i thought, why not share it with everyone else by posting a link on my blog :-) .
And what about the various protocols that you use to surf the web(http), check your email(smtp), ftp, telnet etc. So how does it work and how is it implemented? And if you learn these, you will fully understand the jibberish that you see when you run Ethereal(software that captures packets, displays and analyzes it). If you are even vaguely interested to know about these, you should definitey pick up a book called
Communication Networks:Fundamental Concepts and Key Architectures or
Read Chapter 2 of Communication Networks for Free(this way if you have any interest, you can purchase the book).

2005-09-25T02:45:00.000-04:00

Opera Vs Firefox

Opera(another browser from among the gazillions out there) used to be ad supported or you can pay and get the ad free version. But the people over at Opera has decided to make it free(free is good). But one might wonder how would they make any money by giving it away for free? Here's the answer to it. So why would you choose Opera over the open source browser Firefox.
So Round 1 of Opera Vs Firefox!
But ultimately you should be the judge of which one is better? There is no reason for you not to try Opera since its free. On a personal note, i find the rendering in Opera to be much much faster and this is my current favorite browser.

2005-09-24T01:47:00.000-04:00

Learning about Algorithms

So i am taking a "Design and Analysis of Algorithm" course in Uni. You might ask "What is an Algorithm?". Well the answer is here. I was doing some google search about different topics and thought it might be useful for me to collect those links and post them to my blog. So here they are,
I was reading notes on Algorithms written by Jeff Edmunds from York University and he says "Part of the goal is to teach the students to think abstractly." So i went in search of the term "abstract thinking" and here's the definition from wikipedia.
This course is actually preety mathematically intensive since it requires you to prove the correctness of the algorithm(which had to be written first).
We started the course by looking at the Galey-Shapley problem which is the stable marriage problem.

Some recommended textbooks are,
Introduction To Algorithms
Algorithm Design - "Algorithm Design introduces algorithms by looking at the real-world problems that motivate them."
Concrete Mathematics - From Amazon, "This book introduces the mathematics that supports advanced computer programming and the analysis of algorithms."

I just copied and pasted the info about the book from Amazon since i just started the course and can't really give an objective review about these books. But out of the two algorithms book, i would get Algorithm Design. From the chapters i have read, its much better than the other book.

Some More Weblinks,
Discrete Math Leture Notes - From Carnegie Mellon University(found it from here).
Bunch Of Algorithm Books For Free - Dont know if its legal books. But this website has a whole bunch of books for comp science and mathematics. (Visit it at your own risk).
Mathematics Virtual Library - Improve your math skills.

If you guys/gals out there have anything to add/recomend, please feel free to leave a comment and i will update my post as needed.

2005-09-22T01:44:00.000-04:00

My New Domain Name

I bought a new domain name. Its http://www.kennethchu.com. I will need your help to get some google juice. So please change the link to kennethchu.com. Thanks for your help.

2005-09-22T01:31:00.000-04:00

Hello World

Its been a long time since i have written on this blog. So what is a blog?(just kidding :-) ). I did go to Montreal as stated in my previous post. No time to write about it(maybe one of these days). Nevertheless it was a fun trip. Anyways, now that i am back in school, posting will be slow. Please bear with me.
The Farm - Tucows Developer Hangout
Operating Systems Resource Center
An introduction to programming with threads
Programmers - Collection of Quick Reference Card

2005-07-20T00:48:00.000-04:00

Montreal Quebec - Here i Come

So i am planning on visiting Montreal next month with some friends. As usual, i am trying to plan out our trip. I did some searching and have found some helpful resources and would like to share it with u all.

Montreal.com - Information about events happening in Montreal and much much more.
VirtualTourist - Treasure trove of information for people travelling to any part of the world. The forum for the city of Montreal is here.
Montreal City Weblog
If my trip goes according to plan and i dont feel lazy typing it up, i will post my itinerary and places i thought was worth visiting.

2005-07-09T12:38:00.000-04:00

Saturday Morning Edition

Google Earth is back - I was able to see car's parked on my driveway. Thats preety impressive. And best of all its free.
Learn Unix in 10 Minutes - found via digg.
NewsGator Online - Read your rss feed's online. I started using it yesterday and so far it has performed flawlessly. You can add individual feed or import feeds using opml file. One advantage of reading rss by using services like newsgator is that there is no need to synchronise what you've read/not read if you are reading from multiple locations using rss reader on your computer/laptop.

2005-07-07T16:24:00.000-04:00

Scoble Junior

Robert Scoble(Microsoft Geek) has made his son Patrick Scoble (who by the way is 11 years old) do a podcast (called "Something Inappropriate") as a punishment. His son downloaded the explicit podcast done by Dawn and Drew. For an 11 year old, patrick seems to be smart and funny. And Robert seems like such a laid back and fun dad. I hope they do it regularly.
NOTE: The picture at the top is of Patrick Scoble and Chris Pirillo that i found on Scoble's old site. This was taken in 2001, so i guess he was 7 at that time.

2005-07-06T00:35:00.000-04:00

Links for July 6th 2005

Niagara Falls Blog - Blog about the city of niagara.
Memory Master - Methods taught by professional on how to make the most out of
your memory. And the best ways to remember stuffs.
Guide For running OSX on X86 - It seems like OSX for x86 platform has been leaked but there
is no gui. So basically its like running darwin.

On a side note, i watched War of The Worlds and it wasn't as impressive as it was hyped to be. It is an ok movie. If i had a rating system out of 5, i will give it 2.5/5. On the other hand, Batman Begins gets 5/5.

2005-07-01T08:58:00.000-04:00

Happy Canada Day

Hope you all have a happy and fun Canada Day.

UPDATE: Happy Independence Day to all my american friends.

2005-06-16T21:44:00.000-04:00

Madagascar - I want my money back

This movie gives a whole new meaning to the word craptacular. I seriously fell asleep while watching the movie at a theatre. Dreamworks - i demand that u guys refund the money that i paid to watch this movie. If u wanna know how bad this movie is, here is a snippet of the review rollingstone did about the movie, "...the movie sadly runs aground on old gags that no amount of eye-popping color and frenzied action can spin into gold."
I give it 1 out of 10.

2005-06-05T23:45:00.000-04:00

Artists , Songs or Albums I Like

OK, i am not gonna list all the artists and albums i listen to but only those that i listen often. Some of my current favorites are:
1) Green Day - American Idiot
2) Mariah Carey - The Emancipation of Mimi
3) Tim Mcgraw - Live Like you are Dying
4) Adam Sandler - Eight Crazy Nights
5) R Kelly - Trapped In The Closet
6) Alan Jackson
Thats all for now. Let me know your choices.

2005-05-30T01:04:00.000-04:00

Links for May 30th 2005

GoogleFight - Enter two keywords and see which one has higher results.
Beginning Mac Development

The next few links have to do with memory,
11 Steps to a Better Brain - "It doesn't matter how brainy you are or how much education you've had - you can still improve and expand your mind ...."
Twelve Ways to Think Differently - "Our minds are like our bodies -- fail to exercise them and they atrophy and break down ...."

2005-05-26T01:46:00.000-04:00

Links For May 26th 2005

How To Secure Your Wifi-Network
Abusing Amazon Images - this guy/gal figured out how amazon creates images on the fly, and he tries out different combination of numbers/letters to get some interesting images.
Google Labs Aptitude Test - Found via Lambda The Ultimate.

2005-05-23T23:02:00.000-04:00

UML Template For Visio

If you are looking for UML stencils or templates for microsoft visio, Pavel Hruby has them for you. He has it for version as far back as Visio 4.1. Its free but he is open to donations via paypal.

2005-05-23T22:42:00.000-04:00

Systm Down

Kevin Rose, known to most techtv fans as the dark tipper has decided to quit G4 and make online content of his own. They are releasing the first episode of their brand new show called Systm. The site seems to be down after being slashdotted. But if u want to download the torrent file. I found these link on slashdot. The files are taking a while to download.

Systm Episode 1 - Warspying Box avi torrent
- Warspying Box wmv torrent

For those of you who aren't familiar with bittorrent, you can learn more about it from wikipedia.

2005-05-19T23:20:00.000-04:00

Revenge of the Netscape

Netscape 8.0 is out. I like the look of it. It is firefox and IE(both in one). From Reuters article, "Netscape 8.0 automatically switches security settings, and the browser it uses, based on whether a site is a known and trusted site or an unknown site."
If a site is on the white list, it opens with IE(since ie isn't very secure) whereas if a site is on the black list, it will display a warning and will require permission from the user to access it. If its not on the white/black list, it opens it using firefox which is much more secure than IE. Try it out. Make sure u dont install any of the additional software(uncheck the option when it asks during installation).

UPDATE: Not so secure. According to the chief of Firefox Ben Goodman, "Users of the Netscape 8 browser can click here to verify that their browser exhibits the Cross Site Scripting flaw that was fixed for Firefox 1.0.4. "

UPDATE2: CNet has a comparison of 6 web browsers(IE, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, Safari and Deepnet Explorer. Netscape came in 2nd behind Firefox. I think thats preety good since they just released it yesterday.

2005-04-23T00:10:00.000-04:00

How Nerdy Are You?

Well, here's my score

2005-04-22T17:17:00.000-04:00

We are unavailable, Please Leave a Message

SAM:- Answering machine for Skype users.

2005-04-12T03:12:00.000-04:00

Interesting Links

Caltech VS Mit - Some Caltech students went to Mit to play pranks on them.
Adsense top paying keywords - Some of them are "domains yahoo", "law lemon wisconsin", "best buy gift card", "dc hair laser removal washington", and much much more.
IpSpoofing - Understanding the Basics.
The Anatomy of a Large Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine - Paper written by Google's owner when they were at Stanford.
Phd with a low GPA - Written by Prof. Jeff Erickson who teaches at University of Illinois.

2005-04-10T19:29:00.000-04:00

Knuth's Interview

Donald Knuth's interview on NPR
Thats all.

2005-04-09T03:14:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone

Sorry for not posting for such a long time. I have been very busy with schoolwork. I am almost done school for this term, just have my final exams to write. I promise to post more once my summer hols begin.
In the meantime, i have found some interesting story/links via diggs.com
How to convert from one video/audio format to another(Great tutorial)
CodeArchive- Treasuretrove of codes
Anyways, hope to be back soon.

2005-02-16T17:32:00.000-05:00

So Little Time

Browser Speed Comparison - Does a thorough comparison between the zillion of browsers we have.
Speaking of speed , i have about 50 GMail invites available.So if you still dont have one, shoot me an email (kentville AT gmail DOT com). I am having my midterms next week, so it may take me a few days to get back to you.

2005-02-13T18:45:00.000-05:00

Google Is Taking Over

Google Maps - Preety darn cool.

2005-02-10T01:53:00.000-05:00

Psychic Is In The House

The Flash Mind Reader - Its not perfect but it seems to have gotten what i think right, quite a few times.

2005-02-08T22:27:00.000-05:00

Happy Chinese New Year

Thats all i have to say.Its gonna be Jan 1st(chinese calendar) starting 12AM Wednesday February 9th.It is the year of the Rooster.Its time for the red packets(hehe).
To learn more about the chines calendar, go here.

2005-02-07T01:55:00.000-05:00

How Nerdy Are You?

Below is my score from the test,

What does this mean? Your nerdiness is:

Mid-Level Nerd. Wow, it takes a lot of hard nerdy practice to reach this level.

So let me know how nerdy you are?

2005-01-29T13:53:00.000-05:00

Google Hack

View Pictures from The Axis Camera - For the voyeur in you.And watch the customers walk in/out of a convenience store.

2005-01-22T23:32:00.000-05:00

C Programming Language Resources

Sorry for the lack of updates.I have been very busy with school but i wanna let you all know that i am still here.Anyways since i am taking a 'C' programming course, i will post some links i found useful.
Dev C++ - Great C/C++ IDE and best of all its free.
Cprogramming.com - They have quite afew interesting article and also has tutorial to learn c++.
Structure and Interpretation Of Computer Programs - Free ebook brought to you by MIT Press.

2005-01-06T01:11:00.000-05:00

Xin nian kuai le! - Happy New Year(in mandarin)

First of all, a belated Happy New Year to you all. Hope you all had a great new year. To learn to say Happy New Year in different languages go here. So my school started on the 3rd. I am taking a C and a database course among others. Seems preety interesting from the first few lectures i have been attending. So lets move on.....
There is some rumors that Micrsoft maybe coming out with MSTECHTV.Here are some places you can visit to find out more.
Techtified - found via Joey The Intern.
Google Search of MSTECHTV
Well, i certainly hope that the rumors are true. I am sick of Techtv. The only reason i am still subscribed to it is because of CallForHelp which is the only show worth dedicating my time to.
You can read the events that took place after G4 acquired Techtv. Please leave a comment. I wanna know whay you all think?

UPDATE: The whole report was fake.To be honest i dont believe his/her story that someone else posted it on his blog. I think he/she did it to get more traffic. This will definitely make me more skeptical of things people say in their blog.

UPDATE2: Apparently my reasoning about the fake story was right, From here,"Later the administrator of this blog was contacted, where he said that he just made the whole thing up for hits."

2004-12-30T18:54:00.000-05:00

Tsunami - A Sad Day Indeed

Trip Journal of Brandon Behle - Interesting story of a guy who worked six months and earned $10000 so he can travel the world for 6 months to a year.But his trip was brought to an abrupt end when disaster struck thailand.He was in Thailand's Ko Phi Phi Island when the Tsunami struck.
Greg Hughes Wants To Donate His Google's Adsense - Kudos to you Mr Hughes.He wrote an email to Google asking them if it can be done and Google's response was, we "are currently investigating the feasibility of such an endeavor."I am open to donating my Google's adsense revenue, i know its too little but i believe every bit of it will help those who are in need.If every blogger donated their revenue, i think it would make a big difference.
And to all those people who were affected by this tragedy, my condolenses to you and your family.

2004-12-30T18:38:00.000-05:00

Links To Keep You Busy Until 2005

Can You Return an Opened Software - Maybe.Atleast for those people who bought software but couldn't read the EULA before opening the software.
Popular Agile Software Development Sites
How To Interview A Programmer - Various links from Kleymeyer's blog.
Map of The Web - The website has long been "mapping and analysing the topology and geography of the Internet."
Diary of A Would Be Microsoft Employee - "The day-to-day struggles of a Microsoft applicant trying to make connections, get his foot in the door, and ultimately to find a position that is "the perfect fit."

2004-12-30T13:42:00.000-05:00

Ipod

Got an Ipod, Now what? :- Dont fret, here is an article from Extremeipod that explains the different uses for the ipod.From Extremeipod, "...... you can also easily synchronize your Calendar and Address Book.....".You can use it as an external hard drive, and they also lists the various accessories that you can get for your ipod.

2004-12-27T23:26:00.000-05:00

Tips On Becoming a Good Programmer

How To Be A Programmer - About 58 pages written by Robert L Read.
Advice To Young Programmers - I visited his(Leo's) blog after he left a comment and i found this to be an interesting read.
Fresh Good Programmers VS Experienced Bad One - Found it on Joel Spolsky's forum.
What Makes a Good Programmer - Wanna be one, then go read it.
In a way i use my blog so i can find these articles/discussions later on.Kind of like my bookmarks.

2004-12-24T21:14:00.000-05:00

MERRY XMAS

Search Engine For Jobs - It includes jobs from a number of job sites.
Search Engine Decoder - Diagram showing the relationship between different search engines.
Newspaper FrontPages - Read the news appearing on the frontpages of newspaper.Right now it has 311 front pages from 38 countries.
Top 10 Suprnova Alternatives - Now that suprnova has been shut down, you might find these links helpful.
Two Determined Developer - Story of two developers who sneaked into Apple(one of them fired and the other one left on his own) to complete a project that Apple cancelled.I guess this shows determination does indeed pay off.
Hope you all have a Merry XMas and a Happy New Year.

2004-12-15T21:56:00.000-05:00

Gazillionaire Speaks

Sir Bill : Do you have something you wanna say?
Thats all for now.I am having my finals.Wish me luck.

2004-12-10T01:15:00.000-05:00

ICQ

Dont be shy, feel free to contact me via ICQ.I signed up for a new account.I had one ages ago but i lost my old icq number.But here's my new ICQ number(197983271).Good luck trying to remember that.
In other news, i was watching Survivor, and it is getting very interesting.They voted off Julie.I think Chris should be voted off next week because he's such a manipulator.I bet he will be.My prediction, Eliza, Scout and Twila would join together and vote Chris off.We will see if my prediction is right.

2004-12-08T01:28:00.000-05:00

Dan Huard - TechTV

Dan Huard who use to work at TechTV has a blog entry about how he started at TechTV.Its an interesting story.Dan the Hacker, "I knew that the phone system used 415-355-….The last four digits were the extensions to each and every person at TechTV. Now, the first number of the last four digits would always either be a 4 or a 5. So now I knew 415-355-4/5…From there it was a guessing game, I tried every possible combination."Go read it.

2004-12-07T17:40:00.000-05:00

First Impression Of MSN Spaces

I tried out MSN Spaces and it's not bad.Some noteworthy features
-There are categories for each of your post.
-Very easy to add Modules, just pick from a list.
-Can set permissions for your blog(private, public,messenger(only people on your messenger list))
-You can check the statistics(even shows the referring site).
One thing i dont like about MSN Spaces is the address.You have to type in http://spaces.msn.com/members/kentville (such a long address).
So watch out Blogger.

2004-12-05T14:37:00.000-05:00

Sunday Linking

Exit Frame - Videos Similar to TheBroken, but the d/l server is very slow.I think they should let people d/l through bittorrent.
Corporate Blogging Book - Scoble and Israel will write the entire book on his blog and then auction it off to a publisher on ebay.Scoble's a genius, i am sure he will succeed.Looking forward to reading it.

2004-12-03T01:17:00.000-05:00

In The News

Keep Your Car Looking New - Found via Autoblog(one of my favorite car review/news site).
Msn's Blog Space - They are being slammed.I thought blogger was slow.
ITMS Opens In Canada - From Apple, "Apple launched its revolutionary iTunes® Music Store in Canada, giving music fans in Canada the same innovative features and breakthrough price of $.99 CDN per song."

2004-12-01T01:40:00.000-05:00

Call For Help - My American Friends

Torrents for Call For Help - Since you people in the U.S.A cannot watch the show yet, you can d/l it via bittorrent. I just found the link to this torrent site over at Yoshi's forum.So enjoy.On a side note Leo will be doing a book signing this sunday Dec 5th 2004 over at Chapters in Etobicoke.I wanna meet Mr Laporte but i don't need the books.Ohh well.

2004-11-29T22:42:00.000-05:00

R.I.P TSS

I watched the show today and the show is so lame.The new guy "Kevin Pereira" is so annoying.Chi Lan is hot but maybe less of those annoying laughs.And the worst part is that this will be their best shows(coz they wanted to start off with a bang).And what the hell were tptb thinking.No studio audience.Atleast the audience adds some life to the show.Alex Albrecht hated it.Leo thinks its a sinking ship (Joey the Intern has the audio for that).And here's Becky Worley's thought on this whole thing.What do you all think?

2004-11-26T16:14:00.000-05:00

Streets And Trips With GPS

The urge to get it was so strong that i fell for it.On my way home from school, i purchased Microsoft Streets and Trips that came with a usb gps which can be used with pocketpc/laptop.I am in the process of trying it out.Its so cool.But the only problem is there is no voice navigation feature built in. Thats one of the setback. In order to use it on my trip i will have to have someone with me or stop at some place to check the route. But for every problem, there is a solution or so they say.
I did some google search and found out that if i get Microsoft Mappoint, i will be able to get a plugin that can give voice navigation. But its an expensive solution. I think Microsoft should have built the feature into it by default. I will let you all(i know there is only one reader) know about my experience with this unit.
For PocketPC GPS Links, Click Here.

2004-11-21T18:08:00.000-05:00

Sunday Fiesta

The Rescuer Needs To Be Rescued
Build Your Own G4 - A guide for building your own macintosh computer.

2004-11-12T21:22:00.000-05:00

G4Techtv - TSS Dead Once Again

Just found out that Alex, Dan, Yoshi among others who work on TheScreenSavers have been let go. I didn't see this coming. It seems like tptb at G4Techtv are just like kids who make irrational decisions. I am sad to see talented people let go. Kevin/Alex made good hosts. According to Sarah Lane's blog, TheScreenSavers is being revamped.
To find out more visit Alex, Sarah and Kevin's blog.

2004-11-12T01:27:00.000-05:00

Dear Condy,

Donald Knuth - who wrote The Art Of Computer Programming has written a letter to Condoleeza Rice. "I'm 99.99% sure that my writing this letter will have no effect, but my conscience tells me to write it anyway........ When I knew you at Stanford I had the greatest admiration for your abilities and good sense. (And I was disappointed that we never were able to get together to play four-hands music.) But now I cannot help but express to you my chagrin that the warm feelings I once had have basically evaporated. I hope you can pause to try to understand why this might be the case."

2004-11-11T13:54:00.000-05:00

Blogging != Journalism

Thats what the people at CBS thinks. Maybe its true, maybe its not but its the last thing you would expect from CBS news, since they are the one with great journalistic integrity.

2004-11-11T01:24:00.000-05:00

Source-Code Search

Koders - "Koders is a search engine for source code. It enables developers to easily search and browse source code in thousands of projects hosted at hundreds of open source repositories."