Blog Shmlog

Gadgets in review

Sort of to document all the things I've invested in for this year 2006, I did a write up. It can be found here http://lim.she.googlepages.com/Gadgetsinreview.pdf

In brief, it's just a run through of the specs of my current desktop and my DS lite :)

Enjoy! BTW, if you guys have your own set of specs to share :D I'm all ears! :D I like to learn more about stuff by reading off the experiences of other people.

-------------

Thanks Aids and Jasper for the advice! My PC is working better now in terms of video playback :)

Video playback problems

Hmmm...

I'm really stumped...

Whenever I playback any AVI file (encoded with either xvid or divx), my pc experiences a super lag.

2 minutes into playback of the video, everything slows down. The video stutters and skips terribly. My PC CPU consumption shoots up to 20-50%.

I'm really worried if this is a virus or what. I can't put my hand into the problem.

I haven't installed anything...so I don't get what's going wrong huhuhu.

HELP

Hats Off!

Just to say thanks to my Kris Kringle Mama Joy for giving me a cool blue cap :D I'm posting a pic of all the caps I currently have in my cabinet.

1. England sport cap - donated by brother

2. Adidas light blue sport cap - donated by Joy Carreon

3. Adidas white sport cap - self bought

4. Blue Nike sport cap - donated by Elbert Sy

5. Nike Golf sport cap - donated by Mel Palo

6. Disney Hongkong cap - self bought

7. E.T. cap - self bought

8. Thailand Siam Ocean Park cap - self bought

9. Venezia Italia cap - donated by mom

10. Switzerland cap - donated by mom

11. Planet Hollywood cap - self bought

12. Epson cap - free from Epson

13. Surf Manny Pacquiao Team cap - donated by sister

14. Foresight Inside event cap - donated by sister

15. Jamaican hat - self bought

16. Nike Golf hat - donated by brother

17. Windows Marketplace cap - donated by Mario Jobbe

18. theSpoke cap - donated by Mario Jobbe

19. Castrol GTX cap - donated by Vince Tempongko

20. Military cap - self bought (not in picture)

I admit, I don't have a lot :) But I'd like to think I have more than the average person. I started keeping caps when I was about 3rd year college. I don't exactly know how I got started but I just did :)

When do I use these caps? Usually, when I commute, or when I go to outings, I bring one just in case it rains :)

So much for that :D This post kinda reminds me of the time I posted my LARGE MUGS collection :)) I compared my mugs to a standard 50 CD spool. Suprisingly, some folks over at theSpoke bought that and got into an exchange of pictures with me :D

Off :)

:) I'm off to my first vacation in almost 2 years of working :) Excited! Whoohooo!

Technorati Profile

IE 7 So far so good...

I've installed Internet Explorer 7 RC 1 on my machine, so far haven't experienced major issues except that it took me a hard time to notice where the refresh button was because it looked so small compared to the old version...plus the fact that it got separated from the next/back arrow buttons.

:D I do like the sleek look and feel of the buttons...the tabbed browsing...have yet to explore other new features :D

COOL :)

Highlights of the week...in no particular order

1. Kuya Alan treated Bianca and me. He bought us coffee over at Seattle's Best SM Megamall. To be honest, I am more a Starbucks person but the cookie coffee thing I drank was not half bad.

2. Finished my research paper draft for my CAI class. I thought I was never going to make it. So many readings.So little time.

3. Sent spam mail to the whole company. I am reliant on the outlook autofinish feature when filling up the recipient list. I sorta got carried away this time. I was supposed to type HP-MNL-CCS. I got lazy and just entered HP-, pressed enter immediately and pressed Send. Lo and behold, HP- brought up HP-GDPC. The mailing group with over 700 people. I realized a second too late. I recalled my message but to no avail. What the mail was about? A forward to me by a colleague about why employees should go home early. Sweet huh?

4. All the developers I work with for my project...were out of the office towards the end of the week. One went down due to Salmonella (:O) Another due to Angina (I don'tknow what that is).One went on vacation. I was put to a standstill there.

-----------------------------

I just went for my advisement today and I decided to take CS250. Yes. Computer Architecture. Again.

Just a bit of background, during my second semester as a Masteral student, I was enrolled in 3 classes, HCI, Introduction to Multimedia and Computer Architecture. Then, sometime within that time frame, I got a job offer from HP and I was told that I would be put in permanent night shift. In lieu of that, I dropped one subject since 9 units and full time work equals MAJOR SUICIDE (unless if you are some genius who never needs to study anything). I dropped Computer Architecture because the time for that was 6-9pm and if I were to be night shift (which is 9pm-5am) God knows what will happen to me. I submitted my withdrawal paper right on the day I was suppose to have a long exam (I studied for it actually). Then there you go. 1 subject less.

That was one of the most challenging times for me because I was starting out, adjusting myself to working in the corporate world, and at the same time, I was still had the "Full time student" attitude which meant I had to get good grades all the time. So much so that the very next sem, I filed for a leave of absence of 1 year so I could reorient my priorities.

Fast forward to today, I think I am looking forward to retaking this class. I've met some of my classmates already like Derek and Pipay. :) I do have some of my notes and readings still. And I think it will not be as hard for me since it is just one class now :) Good luck to all of us! Dr.Tagle does have a reputation of being Slide Master (due to overly lengthy lecture slides according to his former students). No offense meant there :D

What all the buzz was finally about...

Remember that note that Alfred left about http://www.notfornoobs.com ?

Well... Hahahaha.. I now know what it is all about...

All I got to say after I saw it..."Wakonga!"

Dying...

Head throbbing...

I'm so out of flash development already...took me a day to finish drawing and tweaking the Monty Hall simulation I started in class this morning. By a day hehehe I think I should clarify...that my body clock is now permanently destroyed and I have begun counting my working hours starting 3pm. Hehehe...

Right now...I just can't begin to imagine the amount of back log that I have both for work and for school. I don't think I'm going to make it through the week. :((

Whazzabuzz

Okay...talk about losing sense of time...

Yesterday, Chris told me that I should catch The Devil Wears Prada the movie (Meryll Streep, Anne Hathaway).

I didn't know when this was showing so I took a look at www.clickthecity.com and the website said yesterday that this was already showing in Eastwood Cinema 1. So I thought cool, now to look for people to watch with. My friend agreed to watch with me today but when we checked the schedule again...the movie was under Next Attraction.

HUWAT????

Then I passed by a billboard today on the way home..it said showing is August 30. What was yesterday then? A figment of my imagination?

2046

Wow...my spaces blog just hit 1000 this week. Thanks for all your patronage :)

Nabbed...

I got caught for a parking violation today. I was driving home from Greenbelt around an hour ago. I missed the green light on a turn. So I waited for the next one. But the, studying the cycle of the stop light, I noticed it skipped my turn 2x. Thinking this was weird, I decided to just cut the turn and run the stop light. I thought no policeman would be around this late anyway.

I was wrong...I got caught...and ended up paying for my traffic violation ticket on the spot just to avoid getting my license confiscated.

Lesson learned. Never depend on stop light patterns. Acting ignorant for a girl works well in this polluted traffic nabbing system.

Unlucky

I am always unlucky about doing these things in the office:

1. Sending outlook calendar invites for meetings

2. Printing stuff

For the first item, I have track record for always sending meeting invites on the wrong dates and realizing this aday late. God and I sometimes send to like a lot of people. I just can never seem to get this right.

For the second one, everytime I attempt to print something, the printer always breaksdown on me. ALWAYS. NEVER FAILS. To the point that I am so ashamed of having to go to our admin assistant Sally for help. Demet.

Sigh

My sister is indeed back from her company trip.

The minute I stepped into my bathroom, I tossed the Time magazine I was meaning to read (it has an article on Junichiro Koizumi which caught my eye) on the bathroom counter. I had no idea my sister left so much mess...now my magazine is drenched...and unreadable. :(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

If there is one thing about me that I will not be willing to compromise, it is that I must always have a very, very, very clean bathroom. I don't leave mess like water droplets around. I make sure I throw everything out. And I don't like a bathroom that is smelly.

My sister is the complete opposite.

So much for more "quieter" days. I will now have to start scolding her again about keeping our shared bathroom clean.

-----------------------------

Last Wednesday, our team went for our first ever team karaoke night. This was to welcome all of our new hires. :) Well, it was quite fun but short since we had to be home early for work the next day. Some of our karaoke-addicted teammates missed the trip. I hope next time they will be able to join.

-----------------------------

I'm feeling quite sad :(

-----------------------------

I can't seem to get the color accuracy of this new monitor to work...I've tried reading the manuals and following the electronic color tuning wizard that came with the monitor but to no avail. Double sigh.

Welcoming Jesse

The new computer is finally here :D The one that we need to get the home surveillance by dad had setup up and running...

The name...Jesse...after the shop owner who gave us quite some discounts so we could take the machine home today.

Specs:

Intel 805 Pentium D 2.66GHz Dual Core 533MHz Bus

Asus P5PL2 (DDR2 (dual channel support), PCI-Express, SATA, on board sound, on board video, on board ram, i945 chipset)

2GB DDR2 Ram (Generic kasi out of stock branded, peste)

250GB SATA HDD

256MB Inno3D Geforce 7600GT PCI-E video card

Samsung 793V 17" monitor

LG DVD RAM Writer 16x

Genius keyboard and optical mouse

Total price...Php 46,600

Not bad actually...considering I quoted this for 49,500

Need to get the following things in the near future:

1. DV capture card

2. Decent sound card

3. Decent speakers with subwoofers

Snapshots found in my spaces mirror entry:

http://spaces.msn.com/limshe

Back in school

School started this week. My classes are very interesting but I'm going to be honest by saying that I am quite apprehensive about being able to do good in both of them. My teachers this sem, quite an honor actually, to be in Maam Didith's and Maam Estuar's classes. This is my second class under Maam Didith (first one was CS 217 CAI) and my first under Maam Estuar.

On the bright side, I have people to talk to in both classes :) For the Maam Didith class, I am classmates with Jess Sugay, for the Maam Estuar class, I meet with Derek (?! Not sure about the spelling, who was my classmate in my ICT Management Standards elective last 2nd Sem) and with Pat V (Hehe.."Alagad ni Charlene" and my classmate in Information Engineering) again. Jess is also my classmate again for this elective...and so is Chard Vinas (a colleague of mine in HP).

I am actually trying to do my homework now...so I won't have to work on it come next week...but as usual...am distracted again.

_____________

There is nice song called "Afterglow" from Inxs. I just realized, I don't like the video too much ;) I posted the video in my Spaces blog btw :))