For those that are interested my KML file is located here. besides the locations of the places, I have also added some comments about the place. Hopefully it's useful.

You can use Google Earth to read the file. Currently I am looking into how to embed the map in Blogger, but so far no success.

Do I need to say more ? Every guys friday dream!

Video on how someone did a group photo in a dark auditorium that can seat 800 people. Shows how challenging it is to do it and this guy did it well.

Found the video from Strobist, which they got from Squeeze the Lime, which I think all photographers be it amateur/pros should have an RSS feed to it :)

Hi all I am back from Taiwan, will be posting pictures and fiddling around with Google Earth to create a KML file showing the places where I have been.

Going to be leaving for Taiwan in a few hours. So for those who are looking for me.... please don't. Unless it is life or death haha.

I will be trying out Twitter on a mobile phone and bringing along my GPS to record where i have been. You can just use the URL http://twitter.com/stephenleejm to see my tweet or come to my blog and see the Twitter side bar on the right hand side. Hopefully my mobile phone auto roaming works and I don't come back with a big bill :).

Update:
Just found out smsing from Taiwan cost 72cents... Wa big amount maybe just a once or twice a day update ba.

Till I am back

Nicely produced video, nice story and graphics.

Synopsis

A strange man builds a world using holographic tools for the woman he loves.

This award winning short was created by filmmaker Bruce Branit, widely known as the co-creator of '405'. World Builder was shot in a single day followed by about 2 years of post production. Branit is the owner of Branit VFX based in Kansas City.


World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Got this from the Presentation Zen site.

Interesting video just using scrolling text and narration.

For all those out there ! I am on twitter, my address is http://twitter.com/stephenleejm.

Saw this on Flickr, this guy named balakov did reproductions of famous pictures in Lego style!

Winston Churchill

Afghan Girl - Steve McCurry

Whao look at this kid play, he is good. Hopefully i become as good as him some day.

The idea is that by "sliding" from the top to bottom, you will know the following

1. How many books do you read (on average)?
2. Which books did you read lately?
3. Why did you choose to read those books?
4. What is your (brief) opinion of those books?
5. What book are you reading now?
6. What is your opinion of that book so far?
7. Which books are you planning to read?
8. Why do you intend to read those books?

2008
Software Project Secrets: Why Software Projects Fail (Expert's Voice) : George Stepanek
Quite detailed on why software is different from other projects and the problems. But the part where he talks about a sample scenario and agile solving the project problems seems a bit contrived. But overall a good all round book that you should give your non software train business manager to read and understand what difficulties are in software developement.

Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite : Paul Arden
Interesting book by Paul Arden, where he talks about taking chances and how doing things differently might be the right thing. Filled with nice pictures and thought provoking statements that make you think about you life and the way you approach things.

The Mind Map Book: How to Use Radiant Thinking to Maximize Your Brain's Untapped Potential
: Tony Buzan
Need to know how to organize my thoughts and keep nicer notes. And finally learn what a real mind map looks like.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
: David Allen
Learned about how to organize things better, and how to achieve more with less time. Everyone should read this book to get some ideas.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Interesting book, covers everything from relativity to the theory of evolution. Learn about the stories behind the discoveries.

2009
Feb
It's Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be: The World's Best Selling Book
: Paul Arden
Another thought provoking book by Paul Arden, I seemed to like his books for some reason :)

Current reading
Software Requirements, Second Edition (Pro-Best Practices)
Reading this to learn how to do Software Requirements for my project. Although i think i am taking way too long with it.

Winning with People: Discover the People Principles that Work for You Every Time: John C Maxwell
Most if not all software projects revolve around working with people. reading this to be a better team member.

Harmonica For Dummies
Heard this was a good book to learn the harmonica from, the book is not bad and covers lots of material. Current Level : Able to play Mary had a little lamb

Yeap that's right that's what I have trying to learn, the Harmonica. Or more specifically I have been trying to learn a diatonic harmonica.

I have always wanted to learn the piano since young, but unfortunately my grades weren't too good and so my parents didn't allow me to learn. During secondary school, I think it was towards the end of it. I watched a teacher playing the harmonica on stage and that me interested in it. So when I went to my 3 month JC after my 'O' levels, I signed up for the harmonica club, but then because of the timing (I think i had a big break before the club activities in the afternoon) so I didn't turn up for the training.

Fast forward to now almost abt 10+ years, I figure why not make learning the harmonica my new year's goal. So i began googling around for some courses in Singapore to learn (not much, think I only found 2) and where to buy, not much also I went to Yamaha and they have a limited selection. I found a book Harmonica for Dummies, that seem to have great reviews so I bought the book, I found a great guy who sells harmonica's near my house (yes, he sells harmonicas from his house, apparently he is a distributor who supplies to Yamaha also, I'll put his contact at the end of the post). I bought a Suzuki Harpmaster (yes Suzuki but not the car manufacturer), for 30 SGD from him.

Been using youtube and google to look for techniques to note down and learn.

So what can i do now? Well for about 3 Saturday's of practices, I can more or less play Mary had a little lamb more or less correctly and can do a bit of simple slow train chugging (Not at the speed the guy in the video is doing) at this point :)


Here's the contact for the harmonica seller.
REEDS CREATION
Patrick
BLOCK 108
RIVERVALE WALK #08-110
SINGAPORE 540108
phone: 65 98168148
e-mail: reedscreationsg@yahoo.com.sg

Morning woke up decided to surf some net before work today, turned on my eeepc and tried to surf. No connection, can't even find my network. Tried to go to the router's admin page and logged in. My password didn't work, siao liao. On my desktop also tried to go into the admin page also didn't work.

No choice gotta go to work (haha today's work is called chinese new year shopping). Came back from chinese new year shopping, tried to reset it (hold the reset button for 30s). Pop in the cd and voila can go to the admin page. After fiddling around for 45 mins manage to get my internet up again.

For those using the Linksys modems on Singnet hopefully the below steps will help you.

To reset, push down reset button for 30s.

If you have the cd pop into the cd rom drive and go through the installation procedure. When it reaches the part about your DSL User and password. Remember to type @singnet for User and your password. If not you might just find that you connection don't work if you just type the part, remember to add the @singnet after your user name. I spent quite sometime trying to figure out what combination to use, and it didn't help that the modem didn't quite react the same way each time.

If you don't have the cd and need to configure manually, hopefully the settings below will help you.

Singnet Settings for Linksys modems

These are the steps in tried to get mplayer to play 3gp files with Audio in Ubuntu 8.04 (Under VirtualBox) and Ubuntu eee 8.04 on an Asus EEE 1000H.

First install the following lib
zlib1g-dev
libx11-dev
libxv-dev
libgtk2.0-dev

Search for these in the package manager and install them.

Next follow the instructions on this site.

A MPlayer icon should appear in your "Applications"->"Sound and Video". Click on that to run. If not you can start the player using the command "gmplayer" in your terminal.



When I run in Virtual Box it complains about "Error opening/initializing the selected video_out device".


Change it to X11 under Preferences->Video and you should be fine.

Found this new show available on-line from Make Magazine, haven watched the first episode yet. The show should interesting judging from the only copy of Make that I have ever read and the stuff that is on their website.

Introducing Make: television

Presenting a new national series from MAKE magazine, Twin Cities Public Television, and American Public Television.

http://www.makezine.tv/

"Making" TV and web history, Make: television has debuted in all of the following places - Viewed or downloaded DRM-free, in HD on makezine.tv - available on Vimeo, YouTube, blip.tviTunes... and now on LegalTorrents. That's right you can use any BitTorrenting p2p client to download the first episode of Make: televison. The more folks who download the show, the faster the downloads get. and

Found a video at this sitethat shows an Arleigh-Burke class destroyer conducting some Combat System trials. They used high speed cameras for the missile and gun firings so you can actually see the projectiles leaving the canister or barrel. There are EO camera video of the rounds flying/hitting the target. The guy that posted the video is a Fire control man (not a fireman) on board USS STERRET DDG-104 the US Navy's latest destroyer.

Would you dare to take pictures like that in Singapore? Haha I surely won't at least not now. I may get wack by some auntie with an umbrella. Maybe that why he belongs to Magum and not me.



Links
Wync-Street Shots website
Wikipedia Entry on Bruce

Lately I have been having a fountain pen fetish. I keep looking at fountain pens in shops and on the internet. So it is with great surprise that I found the Hero 336 available at Mustafa Centre's stationary department for $1.20 SGD from this site. Who can resist this price! I promptly went and got one. When i got to Mustafa I looked around for the stationary department which was on the 4th floor. I headed up and wondered where was I going to find a $1.20 fountain pen? Was it going to be displayed along side the expensive stuff in the display cases or was it just displayed outside like any cheap pen? I was told there there were not too many pens left and the next time it would come in was in 10 to 15 days time.

This pen is made by the Shanghai Hero pen company, from what I can find out this pen was released during 1968 (2 years after the Cultural Revolution when Mao Ze Dong took power) a good 40 years ago and it's still being produced today. It was a low cost pen for the masses in China.

The pen was reviewed using the guidelines found at the Fountain Pen Network

Hero 336 - Cheap cheap

The Cap

Hero 336 with cap posted

The Nib

1. First Impressions (7/10) – It's a bit heavier than what I imagined it would weigh as the whole pen looks very plasticky. But what caught my eye was the gold cap and the price of $1.20 SGD/Singapore Dollar for a fountain pen.
2. Appearance & Design (7/10) – The Hero 336 follows a Parker 51 kind of design. The pen cap is gold in color and the pen body is in plastic. The filling sac inside is made of semi transparent plastic and is covered with a metal body. The nib itself is hooded like the Parker 51.
3. Weight & Dimensions (7/10) – The pen is about 12cm and with the cap posted 15cm. The pen feels more balanced if the cap was posted while writing. The pen does feels abit light for me when i write and i do tend to prefer a heavier pen.
4. Nib & Performance (6/10) – This pen writes with a fine/extra fine tip. It is not stated anywhere what size the tip is other than it's made of iridium. Filled it with Pelikan Black and Noodler's Eel Blue. The nib is quite scratchy and very hard. There were some postings on the internet that they used it as a dart in school!. It writes dryly, tried it ion normal printing paper and in my journal (A journal bought from Ikea) dosen't soak through at all. The nib size is small enough for me to do my morning paper's sudoku on my way to work.
5. Filling System (7/10) - It uses a non removable Aerometric filling system that means you can't use carts with it. It takes probably about 10 squeezes to fill the pen. And with the sac being transparent, you can see how much ink is left in the pen. Nothing wrong of it as it gets the job done.
6. Cost & Value (8/10) – I brought it from Mustafa Centre in Singapore when I bought it there weren't that many left but when i visited about a week later they seem to have refilled the stock. So i guess that the supply is quite constant. The price is $1.20 SGD or about 0.83 USD.
7. Conclusion (Final score, 5/6) - For 1.20 SGD it's great value for money and great as a knock about pen for use in daily work. They nib is abit scratchy, although i do hope some constant use would make it smoother in the long run.
   

Found this interesting blog about life in Singapore during the 60s to the 80s period while doing some research, but that's a topic for a separate blog post. There are posts about movie tickets, SBC, old school conditions and so on. A interesting read overall.

http://timesofmylife.wordpress.com/