Mandarin And Me

To be frank, I was from a Chinese primary school. And at that time, my Mandarin was quite good. yeah yeah yeah, so I did score an A in my UPSR, but that was like wot, 7 years ago? Fast forward to secondary school. Ended up in some newly formed smart school, which wasn't remotely smart. (Was referring to the students, not the school), and knowing more people from English educated backgrounds. This changed me a lot. Back in primary school, it was 99% Mandarin, 1% English/BM. Here, in secondary school, its the total opposite. Well, not really, more like 90% English, 2% BM, 8% Mandarin. Darn. And due to that, I mingled more with those from SK backgrounds that those who are Chinese educated. Well, I still can mix well with the Chinese educated ones, as I still can speak some Mandarin. So I take it as my advantage. LOL. Anyway, my parents kinda forced me to relearn Mandarin in secondary school, claiming that they did not want my 6 years of Chinese education to be wasted. Yeah right. Reluctantly, I took up Mandarin, from Form 1 all the way till form 5. Results? None too satisfying. Did not fail, but gosh was it boring. Tell me to write an essay or read a Chinese newspaper, chances are, I might have some difficulties. Heck, even using XunLei is kinda hard. Should I or should I not learn Mandarin? I guess I might need to. The Chinese market is growing at a very fast rate, and if my Mandarin continues to suck, there goes my future. Yeah. Looks like I need to read some more Mandarin words. Last week, my sister SMS-ed me in Mandarin. Took me ages to decipher what those words were saying. I can see where is this going...

Win7. Ain't that great?

After weeks of using Win7, here are some more in depth problems.

1) Plug And Play service kinda buggy. I don't know if it's just my side, but every time after using a USB drive (pendrive or external HDD), and I want to eject my drive by clicking on the "Safely remove hardware" icon, it takes a very long time (around 15 seconds) before the pop up message appears. At first I thought it was my USB drives problem, but using it on my friend's laptop, which is also Win7, there was no problem. I noticed that svchost.exe will take up a lot of CPU time when i try to eject the drive. (around 45-50%). I've ran Windows Update to see if there was any problem, but there were no updates as yet)

2) When I launch Media Player Classic to play any video file, the mplayerc.exe process will also shoot up consuming CPU time. I've downloaded the latest the version of KLM, but the problem persists.

3) DCOM launcher occasionally eats up tons of CPU time again, and yes, via svchost.exe again.

4) Is it actually possible for a video to make the video card driver stop responding? cuz I have a video that causes the ATi Catalyst driver to crash everytime i play it. It seems that KLM has a problem, as when I used WMP to play it, it works perfectly fine.

5) While opening folders in Win7, the explorer.exe process again consumes a lot of CPU time.

Kampar has affected me

Ever since coming to Kampar, my body clock has gone haywire. Back in KL, i usually sleep by 12am. But ever since coming to Kampar, my sleeping habits has changed dramatically. Now? The earliest I sleep is 2am. Latest? 8am. Bloody hell yeah, 8am. That does suck. Penning this down at exactly 5:30am didn't help either. I had assignments yesterday, which lasted till 7am. Got home, bathed, spammed /k/ a while and slept at 8am. yeah, then i woke up at 4pm. Damn. Talk about body clock gone wrong. Well, unless I'm working a night shift at McDonald's or 7 Eleven, having my day turned into night is just so wrong. I can't imagine what would it be like 3 years later. Would I be dead by then (literally), or would I have changed all my habits? My mind tells me that is this not good at all, and in which, well, I could be dead before next year. LOL

Introduction : Microsoft Office 2010 Beta

Managed to get my hands on the beta version of Office 2010. Let's see how much improved is it. Alright, here it is when downloading. Love the speed. Managed to download the whole installation under 1 hour 30minutes.

Extracting the files. Took me almost 10 minutes on my laptop running a Core Duo T2450 processor.

EULA. Just click "Accept" to continue..

Options for you to Upgrade, Keep All Previous Versions or Remove other application.

Installation progress. This took me almost an hour to install on my crappy laptop.

Installation completed. A restart is necessary.

Now MS gives you the option to send a ":)" or a ":(" based on ur feedback.

Here's the "new" Power Point. Only minor changes to the menu bar.

Most changes are here. File save menu, printing etc can be found here. Since Power Point's color is orange, it can be found around the file menu.

The "new" Excel. Like Power Point, most obvious changes are to the menu bar.

File menu options for Excel. Notice the green theme.

Lastly, the most used Office component, Word. Users from Office2007 will feel right at home. For those from 2003, things are a little harder.

Blue is used in the file menu this time.

I suppose this is all for now. Will continue using Office 2010 and provide more feedback. Do let me know if there's anything you all wanna see from Office 2010.

Blog...

Darn, has been quite some time since I last updated..

seems like sudah berkarat..

will update when something happens..

LOL

PPStreaming

Yup. It had to happen. I'll happily rant about anything I want.

PPS, or otherwise known as PPstreaming, is a chinese developed software meant to stream videos. Streaming is a process of rapidly getting data and playing back, almost instantaneously. Data only flows through the computer, and does not occupy any disk space.

Initially, the software is used in china (duh!). The internet speed there is actually way faster than what we have here, and so, by streaming, it is a logical idea too, since not many people likes to download movies. And from what I can tell, chinese can stream movies without affecting their download speeds, as they have a much better bandwidth.

Now here lies the problem. Some smart ass chinese who came here to study, tried to PPstream in Malaysia, but failed, as the speeds were atrocious. I bet he/she told some Malaysian that streaming is the future and bla bla bla.

Thing is though, streaming is good, but please do it in the confines of your own house, not in a shared house, or a hostel. The whole house's net will crawl, and people will hate you, your children, grandchilden and 3 generations after that. It is downright selfish to stream in a shared house, as PPstream can really suck the bandwidth. I've seen, in a house equipped with a 2MB/s Streamyx line, PPstream can use up to 1.8MB/s. That is what we all call a leeching program, and not even torrents can achieve such speeds. Sure, you benefit by enjoying your movie, and not wasting any hard drive space, but at what cost?

Conclusion? Stop streaming and get a life. I don't mind people downloading torrents, but PPstream is just way too stingy. To all PPstreamers, you know who you are.

Why I hate Facebook

- Fukken apps that clogs up the whole wall. And you can't see the proper posts by HUMANS !
- Every reply I get, an email comes in. I have to cleat >500 Facebook emails weekly. Ya, I can deactivate it, but how the hell am I going to know when there's an update? Facebook, if you're seeing this, LEARN TO FUKKEN CONTROL IT !!
- Damn Web2.0 coding that screws up in Chrome.
- Flash games that makes systems hang ( Restaurant City, Pet Society etc)

Will add more when "the mood" comes

Why???

Why is life so damn unfair?

Look at this. Me and a few of my friends are carfags. Yes, we do love cars. And like some of them, I don't own a car. Look around at Westlake. All the non-carfags are happily driving their godforsaken MeeVees all over the place. Those are people who drive from point A to point B. But for a carfag, we don't mind driving from point A to point B to point C and back to point A just to enjoy the car. Yes, driving for us is where we release our stress. But what happens if we don't have one? How to release our stress? Fap? Online? Cycle?

And then another one of my friend mentioned that, to be a good driver, tons of experience is needed. And practice as much as you when while you're here. Fine by me, but then, where's my so-called car for me to practice?? Flaws everywhere..

I'm not the only one, I know. my friend, who was promised a car, and now can't get it till next year, is feeling the same as me right now. what the heck, he has a higher chance of getting a ride when compared to me.

but then, life is unfair after all. so from that conclusion, i think my chances of getting a car here is pretty slim.. or maybe i should just give up.. sometimes i just couldnt be fukken bothered.. but at times like this..ranting out is my only way..but for how long can i rant on like this before i go insane??

How to be an a$$ behind the wheel pt2

4. Know your car. There's no point of you shifting early in hopes of 1. overtaking and 2. saving petrol. For 1, you need to see ur car's specification sheet to see where the maximum power comes in. There's no point in shifting early before the power kicks in, nor is there a point in shifting AFTER the power kicks in. If and when possible, just press the accelerator when you feel like overtaking. Don't bother about FC or what not. No one really does bother about that anyway. And if you want to save petrol, call a cab, or take a bus. Don't drive lah ! For what you want to drive AND save petrol? It just won't work.

5. Driving a big car, let's say AT LEAST a Waja sized sedan, should allow you to flash other drivers out of your way. Let's say you're driving on the highway in the center lane, then there's this b@$t@rd in front of you that is going so damn slow. Flash your Highbeam to push him out of the way. No need to overtake from the left or right. Just flash him. Chances are, he will move aside. If not, tailgate him. Be very careful as you tailgate him, as he might floor the brakes and you can guess what will happen. I take no responsibilities whatsoever.

Part 1-3

http://my-life-starts-here.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-be-a-behind-wheel.html

How to be an a$$ behind the wheel

First and foremost, I do not condone being an ass behind the wheel. You are responsible for all of your own actions, not me. And here goes.

1. See the damn Kancil/Kelisa/Saga in front of you hogging the right hand lane? Tailgate it as close as possible. Keep your revs up, and maintain your distance with the nut in front. Flash your lights if possible to get him/her out of your way. Do note however, that this works better if you drive at least a 3-Series or a C-Class. Anything lower means you will need to work much harder.

2. Constantly shift your gears at 5000-6000rpm. Well, if you drive a diesel, max out at 4000rpm. For autos, just press the accelerator. Don't complain to me about wasting petrol, because, if you want to save, you can take the bus/taxi. Do more in small residential areas, just for the heck of it. Those with 3 cylinder engines (Kancil/Viva) need not apply. The noise is horrible. Those with silky smooth straight six or straight 4 should fare better.

3. Defeat the guy next to you at the traffic light. It doesn't matter what he/she drives, just press the accelerator hard when the light turns green. Watch his face, if not, be prepared to get smoked. Would be better if you can smoke those darn Wiralutions or Wajalutions.

Will add more if I can think of more.