Monthly Archive for December, 2005

Interview with OIC

Published
by
Zz85
on December 15, 2005
in Memories and NS
. 0 Comments

This is the most exciting time in the ATT course. It doesn’t take long, but can make you sweat, nervous, pump of adrenaline level. Its the awaiting of posting results by our OIC, the boss.

Contrary to what others might say, I think OIC actually is not that bad a person. He has even tone down, sober, maybe (my speculation) after some advice given and the departure of a sergeant. Should have gave him a card. Wish I could had communicated wif him more.

The hows the conversation and situation goes::

Legend:
O: == OIC
I: == ME
[] == MY Thinking
{} == My thoughts after rethinking about it.
() == narration

(knock..knock.. enters room)

I: Good morning, Sir!

O: I thought u are a 2nd lieutenant

I: …

O: So outstanding. So I thought you are a 2nd lieutenant

I: …
[So outstanding? Is he joking?]
{Maybe he was trying to be funny.. Maybe how I looked then, the way I folded my uniform and my metal rimmed glasses}

I:…
[Should I be reporting my rank/name?]
{Well that’s what I should be doing, but I was too blur to do that}

O: You studied diploma of..

I: Diploma of Business Informatics, Sir.

O: Business Informatics…
(looking down his sheet of paper)

O: Business Informatics…
(repeats)

O: Business Informatics…
[ Should I say yes, "Business and IT"? ]
{I should have really explained what my course really is. OIC does not seem to know that this is a IT course. I most likely have another result if I said that, maybe SOA, or UAF. He seems to be in need of some programmers but its weird he didnt ask me. Well my mistake I never told him I’m one).

(OIC thinks hard)

O: You go to Tengah

I: …
(stunned)
[ huh? Where is there? Should I ask a question? ]

I:…
[Should I ask for another place? ]
(more questions filled my mind)
[Maybe its not bad after all, I know some people from there..
Seems a relax place..
Might be far, but maybe still nearer than SOA?]
[Don't think so much.. Just follow the guide/unwritten rule book and wont go wrong.. just say thank him..]
{ I later learn that distance could be a problem. The location is near Lim Chu Kang (nearest MRT). Even though SOA takes some travelling time, I really have to experience it on Monday to compare the time for travelling. So then I heard from a couple of sources, it should be slack }

I: Thank you, Sir!
(exits the room)

In closing, in my subconsciousness, I have expected, the result was mine (and others - most thought i will get back to school) unexpected just like my 1 posting. Could this be an example that Israel didn’t get into promised land but wandered in the wilderness for 40 years? May God still be with me wherever I go.

These Last Few Weeks

Published
by
Zz85
on December 14, 2005
in Updates
. 0 Comments

from the time i think last updated myself.

Health:
Not that too great, although thankfully (or not) I started to fall sick at the end of my course, and taking zero MCs and MAs. Just like in BMT, times of my recuperation for my illness happen over the weekend and my block leaves.

Perhaps I first sign of falling sick was last Friday eating some lemon puffs biscuits. The saying that the mouth, throat, nose, ears are connected seems to apply well for me. Sore throat, leads to cough, then flu, blocked nose, slight blockage of ears, to feverish. Combined with irregular meal and sleep times (i slept just a little a night before, and last night i slept at least 18 hours straight skipping the meals), me and my body is feeling weird.

Army:
Thank God I reached these last few weeks at school. Things are toning down as the course is ending. A couple more interesting visits (and 2 camps were near my place) and projects and tests ended soon. Except one of my project didnt make it, so last week’s time at home was spent touching up the project (one of the reason i didnt went over for the messages at night).

Spiritual:
Was really great that Dr Hubert Spence and Dr Robert Wilson were able to come to Singapore. I am blessed to be able to listen to Spence’s messages during revival meeting last week of November and his Sunday sermons.

At the close of my course, this passage I read in the Bible seems to relate a little maybe at David close of life. This song seems to be place in Psalms 18 too.

Music:
Lots of music sessions this time! I learn a great deal from Dr Robert Wilson’s Piano Masterclass. Then a Christmas pipe organ by Carlo Curley at the esplanade. There I learn great deal about organs, esplanade’s organ, the colours, techniques of the organs and its pieces, while all on the theme of Christmas. Then in 3 days time, went for this “A Chopard Christmas with the SSO” at Victoria Concert Hall which I was really not pleased with the music programme. in 3 days again, was the first NYPSE concert at TFA which well wasn’t that bad.

Sports:
More doze of them this time.. physical training in school usually means soccer and basketball.
Plus more sessions of tennis, squash and badminton over the weekends.

Computers:
Due to all the other stuff during this time, I am surprising spend little time on computers. One update I learnt recently is the Firefox 1.5. So time to update and try the fasterfox extension.

Customising Windows: ICONS

Published
by
Zz85
on December 14, 2005
in Technology and WebLinks
. 0 Comments

Someone asked me about changing icons, for example those on your windows icons, perhaps to match your style or relieve the boredom of your old icons.

Here’s a link where you can find free nice icons to download.

From MSDN,
Creating Windows XP Icons (Windows XP Technical Articles)
Design and create colorful and dynamic icons for Windows XP using a vector program, such as FreeHand, Illustrator, or Photoshop.

Customizing Icons

A quick search at snapfile/webattack to find related software for designing icons.

Snapfiles Freeware for Icon Tools

ActivIcons - a freeware to customize Windows icons

“CHANGING DESKTOP ICONS
Getting tired of the same old icons on your desktop? Pre-made icons are often embedded in the DLL and EXE files that Windows and other programs install on your hard drive. Peek into these files to see whether they contain any icons, and if so, use them on your desktop shortcuts. To change a desktop icon, right-click on the shortcut and choose Properties from the context menu. Click the Shortcut tab and then click the Change Icon button. The filename in which the current icon is found is shown at the top of the dialog box, while a gallery of the icons available in that file is shown below it. To use one of those icons, select it and click OK.

To search for more icons, click the Browse button. Select a DLL, EXE, or ICO file and click Open to display the icons available in that file (if there are no icons, you’ll receive a prompt). To get you started, check out “pifmgr.dll” and “shell32.dll” in the \windows\system folder on your hard drive (where “windows” is the folder in which Windows is installed). These files contain dozens of attractive icons to liven up your desktop.”

To really get some real useful software, (esp. if you pay) see Stardock and other line of products. IconPackager is the software for swapping your icons quickly easily.

T-shirt folding

Published
by
Zz85
on December 9, 2005
in WebLinks
. 0 Comments

Some tricks or “Origami” for T-shirts.

There’s has been a popular Japanese video clip on the net, showing how to fold a t-shirt neatly real quick. This link breaks down the frames and explain each step in English. Here is another illustration from a magazine.

Finding more ways to fold clothes? See “How to Fold Your Navy Uniform.”

I’m sure there are more tricks you can do with clothes. In primary school, some of us experiment putting on our PE t-shirt before taking our uniform off.

I learned how to put on my clothes when its inverted. I did it because its fun, but it saves time if you are lazy to invert your t-shirt. Well then again, it depends on how you usually put on and take off your clothes. (The fast or maybe lazy way of taking off is crossing the hands and pull it off the head and hands at the same time)

My mom use to roll our socks into a ball so we wont have to find for pairs. I heard an uncle roll different styles of balls to differentiate which socks is for which family member. Please share with me if you know these art of folding.

LilyPond, LilyTool

Published
by
Zz85
on December 4, 2005
in Technology
. 0 Comments

I started trying LilyPond in 2002, when it was around version 1.6.8 or less. Thanks to contributors from the mutopia project, and the lilypond community, serveral emails exchange started my venture into the lilypond world.

Interestingly, I got involved in these related projects, lilytool(a plugin in jedit, its really a powerful helper for lilypond) and mutopia, and other of sidetracked stuff like nwc2ly.

As I began to have more things in hand, I cant seem to be keeping up with everything, not to think able to contribute, I dont even read the comments on my blog nowadays.

Even now Lilypond has reached versions of 2.6 and 2.7 with cygwin and native windows versions. If you have no idea what I’m talking yet, lilypond is a free, open source software that can create musical scores and much more. There’s always lots to say, but I’ll touching less than the surface here.

Interesting updates can be found on mailing list, and for example, after my post suggesting the use of flash tutorials, bert the lilytool project leader, followed up, materialize the idea and came up some basic swf/flash tutorials for lilypond and jedit.