Tech & Gear Update

I think everyone's had enough of me lamenting over my burnt house and dead dogs so here's an update on the geeky aspect of my life at the moment.

Thanks to the fire (I can't help mentioning it. It's essential to today's entry!), the only stuff I had left were whatever I was carrying on me that day. If anyone were to ask me what were the first things I'd grab if my house caught fire, I'd say my dog but I would risk being burnt to grab my tech as well. However, as fate would have it, I chose that day to leave not one but both my computers at home. Luckily I had my phone (SE W902) and my PSP with me.

So, since then, I was slow... ok... not so slowly rebuilding my tech lifelines, starting with a computer. I was contemplating getting myself a Sony Vaio Z series but after getting my hands on the display models in stores, I was of the opinion that the screen felt a little too flexible (read: flimsy) for my liking. Also, since I had to spend most of my year-end bonus (My first ever in my 7 years of working experience) on essentials and on paying the contractor for clearing the rubble from my house (again... I had to mention), I opted instead for a Lenovo S10 ideapad.

I had never thought of getting myself a netbook till its price caught my eye while I was looking longingly at the unaffordable Sony Vaios. I was also fascinated by its size. It's not as small as my Vaio UX but being just a little bigger than my outstretched hand, it's small enough for me.

I also got myself a Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 (seen in the pictures) which I was eyeing for months. It's not black (I'm obsessed with black) but it's nice enough. Despite so many years of using laptops, I still do not like using trackpads and me being a neatness freat at times, a bluetooth mouse is ideal in that there are no wires to mess with and it also does not take up any of the 2 precious USB ports.

Anyway, back to the S10... Performance wise, I find that despite running on an Atom processor, it is quite fast starting up (Much faster than my UX) although video playback performance does lag occasionally when I clicked on a different part of the timeline to fast forward or rewind. Still, it's running on Windows XP which (imho) is waaaay better than Vista.

Screen resolution is good with its 10" screen making working with spreadsheets comfortable. The only gripe I have about the screen size is that it is difficult to find nice 1024 x 600 sized desktop wallpapers on the internet. I had to crop some nice images to fit my screen. Thank God I took photoshop classes while I was doing my diploma in Interactive Multimedia (Which I didn't complete cos the bloody school folded. #@%$&!)

The S10 also doesn't come with an optical drive but then again I hardly used my DVD drive on my previous Thinkpad. At the moment, I'm using an external DVD writer which I borrowed from Weng. The ideapad is equipped with the usual bluetooth and wifi, two USB-2 ports, Ethernet port and... AN EXPRESSCARD SLOT!!! Talk about jumping on the new fangled bandwagon! I was excited about the expresscard slot because I saw the SonyEricsson EC400 Expresscard Mobile Broadband device on the website sometime back and was extremely intrigued.

So I set about trying to obtain one but it proved harder than I thought. Every SonyEricsson and Sony shop I went to didn't have it and it was the same at every Telco store. Even worse, some of the SonyEricsson employees had not even heard of this device. So after a fruitless search, I decided to email SonyEricsson, demanding to know where I can get this item. A few days later, I received this reply:

Dear Julian,

Thank you for contacting Sony Ericsson Customer Support (Singapore).

We would like to thank you for your great interest in EC400 Mobile Broadband Expresscard.However, it is with great regret to inform you that it is not available in the Singapore market.Once again, thank you for supporting Sony Ericsson.

If we can be of further assistance, please email to us at questions.sg@support.sonyericsson.com or contact us at our Customer Support hotline. For un-resolved issue, please do quote your cases ID for quick reference purposes.

Thank You and have a nice day.

Best regards,

James Joven

Sony Ericsson Customer Support ( Singapore )

I mean... why didn't it state on the Singapore SonyEricsson website that this device was not available? What a waste of my time and effort.

Ah well... on the other hand, I managed to find another item I was looking for... Now since the fire, I've been kind of paranoid about losing things, especially data and so, this lead to an obsession with storage drives. I had a backup of some documents with me on my thumb drive but everything else I had since I started using computers was lost. With that in mind, I decided that my current 4GB Sandisk Cruzer Titanium was insufficient to store all my essentials.

I know some of you might be thinking... why doesn't this idiot just get a portable hard drive? Well... it all stems from the fact that I now do not have a sanctuary in which to store my valuables permanently. I know it doesn't really make sense to some people but it is like Batman without his Bat cave. So... I started carrying my stuff around with me.... All the time! Furthermore, tmy temporary "home" is being put up for sale and recently, there have been agents bringing people in for viewings and conducting day long "Open House" sessions on weekends when we are not in. Thus it is a lot safer for me to not leave my stuff at "home".

Carrying everything around with me means that it has to be light and/or small enough to lug around all day. Hence the netbook, and as far as storage storage goes... thumb drives are the way to go. (Micro SD and MS cards are smaller but you'll need an adaptor which is about the same size as a thumb drive. Also, I wanted to get something that was rugged enough to withstand being thrown around in my bag all day. To cut a long story short, I got myself a 16GB Sandisk Cruzer Titanium.

In the end, I also broke down and got myself a 500GB Western Digital portable hard drive but that's for my non-essential but want-to-keep stuff.

Now even with all my gadgets miniaturized, I still found it difficult to pack everything into my small Timberland sling bag. This was because I was also packing a change of clothing in case I was spending the night somewhere away from "home" (advantage of being homeless is mobility). So I decided to go back to using a backpack and after combing through all the stores selling bag packs in Queensway Shopping Centre, I got myself a TNF (The North Face) Hot Shot.

It has a padded compartment for laptops which can also be used for a hydration bag instead. It has lots of straps which I like and even a padded one called a back saver which goes around the waist and takes the weight of the bag off the shoulders.

Horizontal straps across the chest on the verticle shoulder strap allows you to secure the bag while scaling mountains (or in my case, running after buses) and what's more, the plastic quick release clip on the front strap has a built-in whistle for emergency signalling (something I don't foresee myself using). More straps on both sides of the bag allows you to tighten the bag to keep it slim and compacted. The front compartment contains loads of pockets in which you can organize your gadgets and nick-knacks. However, the compartment is very deep and with the tightening straps dastened, I find it all but impossible to reach the pockets at the bottom without having to loosen the straps and opening up the zippers fully. This requires you to place the bag down or hold it in front of you with one hand while digging awkardly with the other. Still, I am generally quite satisfied with the bag as it looks great and is quite comfortable to carry around. I also just googled the bag to get the image above and this is the accompanying description of the bag.

"The North Face Hot Shot Backpack functions equally as a book carrying school bag or technical day pack for hikes in the canyon. You'll find you can stuff a lot of equipment into 1850 cu inches, be it computers, books, and other school supplies, or a fleece jacket, lunch, and climbing equipment. The newly designed BackSaver angled front panel lifts the load you're carrying higher up on your back for more efficient carrying. The backpanel is molded and laminated with breathable mesh which lets air circulate between your back and the pack you're carrying. In addition to the two water bottle carriers, you can integrate your own hydration bladder into the pack in a separate sleeve for hands-free drinking. Daisy chain loops, cargo straps and a tool loop put the Hot Shot squarely in the realm of technical daypacks, when not being used by computer nerds."

Yeah... I'm a computer nerd...

Well.. that's it for now... will update when I (have saved up enough to) get anything thing else.

2 Months Post Fire

It's been almost 2 months since my home caught fire. The fire report came back as an accidental fire originating from the main lighting switch in the living room. Here's an update on what has been happening since.

We have moved into a 3-room HDB flat owned by Terence, a friend of my uncle's, who has graciously offered it to us rent-free till our apartment is ready or till the flat gets sold, whichever comes first.

Being back in a HDB estate brings back childhood memories of when we were staying at Bedok South. We moved into our flat in Neptune Court when I was 8 and have been there since. I couldn't get used to sleeping in a small room without air-conditioning initially but luckily for me, the weather (up till now) was quite cooling. Also, being just 2 bus stops down from where we used to stay meant that I didn't really have to make any drastic changes to my transportation route and timings going to work.

Initially, getting a good night's sleep proved to be quite difficult for me. Firstly, having to make do with a fan after being accustomed to sleeping in air-conditioned comfort for the past 10 over years was a major factor.

Secondly, switching from a queen-sized spring mattress to a couch added to the sleepless formula.

Thirdly, sleeping in a room facing a public car park gave me a front row seat to the Singapore Motoring Orchestra. I heard every roar of every motorcycle engine, every beep of every reverse sensor and ever so often, the "melodious" chorus of a car alarm going off in the middle of the night. Throw in the caterwaulings of mating cats and the occassional but much too often for my liking drunken shouts and screams of someone living within earshot made uninterrupted sleep all but impossible.

My first act of overcoming my obstacles to a good night's sleep was to get a new bed. I got a cheap spring bed base from IKEA for just over a hundred bucks and a cheap quilt to use as a mattress pad. I also got myself some nice, sink your head in and die of bliss, pillows as well as some curtains to block out the sounds from the other side of my window.

Now for some statistics.

The bed and pilllows improved my horizontal comfort level by 100%.
The curtains blocked off about 20% of external noise but cut down incoming breeze by 99%.
Overall comfort level was still in the negative range due to a lack of air-conditioning.

In other words, it helped but not enough.

Furthermore, the weather took a drastic turn from "strong gusting winds" to "still as a corpse" with high humidity so the problem of the curtains cutting down incoming breeze was further reduced to almost 0% due to a lack of one of the crucial factors... namely the breeze.

In the end, after weeks of waking up every 2 hours, I had dark rings under my eyes that can put pandas to shame. My concentration level was reduced to... "Huh? Were you talking to me?" and I was relying on C8H10N4O2 to keep me awake... unsuccessfully.

It was at this point in time that I found the key to uninterrupted sleep... pure exhaustion.

For the last week, I slept like a log from the moment my head touched my pillow till the first buzz of my morning alarm. Even the rising humidity was not able to get me up during the night.

As for the status of our poor flat, to date, we have only managed to strip it bare of everything. Repairs have been delayed by, as our Professional Engineer puts it, BCA approval. To think that we agreed to take him as our PE cos we were advised that it would speed things up to use the same PE as the estate management.

We were told that the structural repairs will take close to a month to complete and after that, we can commence with renovation works, which will take us another 2 months and set us back a 5-digit sum of moolah.

On the subject of money, we did not have any fire insurance and most of our funds for the renovations were contributed by friends and family members. I have not had the opportunity to thank everyone individually but we are extremely grateful and touched by the amount of support (spiritually, physically, monetary, etc...) that have poured in from friends, colleagues and family members.

From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU!

*sniff*

In other news, my stress levels have reached a new high since taking over my Lab Information Systems (LIS) Officer's job while he is on medical leave for a fractured hand. Most of the stress stems from the fact that I have a very very very faint grasp on networking on such a scale (I can barely connect 2 computers together without problems) and everyone keeps turning to me when there are network problems.

Some of my colleagues understand the predicament that I am facing and they have been nice enough to either put off whatever problems they are facing if it does not require immediate attention or they at least try to fill me in on the history of the problem since before I took over. Some other colleagues whom I shall not mention *deepcoughpacough* keep interrupting me when I am highly strung and concentrating hard at the computer screen to let them use my pc to access their personal email.

Now we have 2 PCs which are for common use and these are the ones which people use to check their emails and stuff. Since there are multiple users, one can expect the PCs to not operate as optimally as one say which is dedicated for... I donno... THE LAB INFORMATION SYSTEM.

Just because the incumbent LIS officer allows certain people to use the machine doesn't mean that I will be willing to do the same, especially when I am in the middle of my work. Some people are just so low in their emotional quotient that I wonder how them managed to survive till now without having people bonk them in the head everytime they soil our breathing space with their presence.

Another gripe I have is with medical staff. Be it a doctor or a nurse, they seem to think that they are the foundations of the hospital and that all other people working around them are inconveniences that they have to put up with.

I understand that they have a difficult job of maintaining lives but they should spare a thought for others who are trying their best to help them. For instance, these people are mostly computer idiots and so, this being a IT forward country, they have been given new fangled idiot-proof computers to use.

I personally think that all this idiot-proof technology is kicking IT personnel in the face because now, the idiots whom they are designed for think that any idiot can mess around with it. I mean they have absolutely no idea of the amount of back end programming, hardware and software it takes to make whatever they see on their screen "easy to use and understand".

One case I have in mind happened just recently. When I took over as stand-in LIS officer (without any monetary or hierarchical advantage I might add), I noticed among the tons of tasks forwarded to me (most of which were sitting there untouched for months), a request to input a bunch of text to be displayed in the lab results of a particular test. Simple enough I though and I proceeded to do it.

After using my super limited knowledge of programming/htm language, I managed to do it and as thanks, I was called long winded while a doctor proceeded to cancel about 90% of the text which I have painstakingly juxtaposed in the program.

I mean... I was told to insert a specific bunch of text.

I was a big boy and I let the verbal abuse slide around me. I made the changes.

A week later (yesterday), the same doctor suddenly threw a printed report in front of my face and berated me for messing with a test without approval. It turns out that the line of text I put in mentioned a reference range for the test in question and unfortunately, it was in a different unit from that of the result. The recommended range was in "mg/mg" whereas our results (since back before I joined) was in "mg/L".

Now... being a doctor, you would think that they would just do the necessary calculations, considering that they have been using this unit for... let's see... THE PAST FEW YEARS? Add one line of text suggesting a slightly different unit and apparently all hell breaks loose.

So I was told to make changes to the entire test to recalculate the results to mg/mg. I tried explaining that it's not as simple as you'd have to give the program instructions to do a relatively complexed calculation IN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE. However, I could hardly get more than 3 words in the entire conversation as the doctor continued to berate me for not using my head to think, for causing confusion, for not printing out trial test reports before implementing the test code, etc... I mean... I was instructed to insert a bunch of text which I reproduced faithfully. The test itself was not changed and besides, I did print out trial reports of the test to see the appearance of the text which got the approval of the assistant manager (the originator of the email request).

Now in order for me to do a trial run on a code, I'd have to save it in the system first. Ordinarily, we'd set it such that the code cannot be ordered while it is still in the testing phase. Unfortunately for me, this code was created long before my time and was already in use. Disabling it for testing would affect previously ordered test records. Another unfortunate thing for me is that, faced with a rapid fire angry doctor, I am unable to put into speech what I just put into words in this paragraph.

To cut a long story short, I was almost in tears at the end of the conversation. She also insisted that whatever she wants done has to be achieved in 15 minutes as she has limited time in the lab due to her busy schedule. So there I was, hopelessly clicking through page after page of alien text, just to bade my time till she comes out to scold me again after the 15 minutes was up.

Thankfully, she had to rush off for her next appointment and did not even bother glancing in my direction as she left the lab. During this time, I managed to contact the LIS officer who looked through the codes from home via a remote connection during lunchtime and when I came back, helped figure out the corrections to be made.

When the doctor came back, she appeared to be in a better mood and seemed satisfied with the results. She then told me that she did what she did as she wanted me to think about what I was doing instead of just giving me instructions to "do it mindlessly". She then bonked me on my head playfully with the pen she was holding (mine) and then left the lab with it.

I hate my life.