Isn’t this just the most awesome sight to behold?
The sun’s corona is clearly visible in that photo! Amazing!
One of my life’s goals is to experience a total solar eclipse. This will of course require a lot of planning, but to be able to be there during a total eclipse will definitely be the most hauntingly beautiful sight one can ever hope to see.
See more brilliant photography of the July 22nd eclipse at The Big Picture: The longest solar eclipse of the century.
I have found a new software must-have: Teracopy. I think I may be the only geek in the world who still uses Windows explorer for file copying.
A feature list of Teracopy, lifted word for word:
- Copy files faster. TeraCopy uses dynamically adjusted buffers to reduce seek times. Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives.
- Pause and resume file transfers. Pause copy process at any time to free up system resources and continue with a single click.
- Error recovery. In case of copy error, TeraCopy will try several times and in the worse case just skips the file, not terminating the entire transfer.
- Interactive file list. TeraCopy shows failed file transfers and lets you fix the problem and recopy only problem files.
- Shell integration. TeraCopy can completely replace Explorer copy and move functions, allowing you work with files as usual.
- Full Unicode support.
Teracopy is quite simply a file copy management tool. I like it for its simplicity and ease of use. For small files, drag-and-drop in explorer might be fine. However, if you’re multitasking, you may notice that copying of large files can get interrupted or will simply take longer, even on a dual core. If you copy a file, and then start another copy process, one thing I don’t like is that Windows explorer tries to do both at the same time, making the task seemingly inefficient and resource hoarding (at least, in my eyes. I have no idea how the copying process is worked at a lower level.). The time calculated for the copy process will also shoot up probably for this reason. Teracopy does not spawn another process, but instead, it will add to the list of files to be copied to. Teracopy will also show the speed at which the file is being copied, a feature that I sorely miss on my XP machine.
Teracopy’s shell integration is also good. Upon installation, it will add itself to the context menu of a file and folder options, making it real easy to launch. Just select all the files needed, right click and select Teracopy. Off you go! If teracopy is already running, like I mentioned above, it will not start another instance, but adds the additional files to the copy queue list.
Of course, the best part about Teracopy is its in-built recovery system. In explorer, if a part of the copy process fails, then it will immediately terminate. Any files that are already copied will be in the destination folder, while files that are queued after the error will not be copied. Hence, you are essentially screwed. You have no way of knowing which files are already copied, and which aren’t. And like me, you will probably just copy the whole thing over again, which is redundant. Teracopy provides a handy and visible queue list and status of the files. If there is an error, the file will be marked for you to take action. And if the error occurs while the copying is running, it will skip the erroneous file, and proceed with the rest.
I wondered how I survived Windows explorer before this. I love simple programs like this. There is also a pro version, which does not seem to add much value in my opinion. The free version will do just nicely. Teracopy works on both XP and Vista.
Additional note: just when I finished this draft, XKCD had to pull this one on me:
Brilliant!
I’m quite excited about the upcoming movie District 9. I hope that it shows actual emotion, rather than the basic whizz-bang-kapow alien movies we are so used to. And for once, extra-terrestrial creatures did NOT land in the US.
The movie is apparently to be inspired by this short.
Seems nice! Looking forward to the movie version.
Apparently, this video. Enjoy!
Personally, I would like a little more Singaporean references.
inFamous is a 3rd person platformer shooter. I think. I have no idea how to properly categorize it into a particular genre. It features sandbox-style gameplay (yay!) where you play this loner rough-talking guy who suddenly develops the superhero ability to control electricity after a massive electrical explosion in your town. The protagonist in this particular cliche is Cole MacGrath, some random bike messenger who was tasked with delivering a package which turns out to be a bomb and it…zzz…
OK, inFamous isn’t big on the whole story thing. It starts out by giving you a 5 minute boring lecture on the backstory and how you got your powers. And proceeded to start you off in the middle of the city, where you somehow bunk in with your best (and only?) friend at the top of some building. At least, the action starts out bright and early, and the controls are very easy to get into. Cole’s superpowers gives him some sort of ability to not break bones (how does electrical powers translate to unbreakable bones anyway?) when you jump off high buildings. Couple that with his background hobby of “urban exploration“, you have one badass MF who can parkour his way all over the city. I feel like the game handles this particular aspect of the game real well. You can easily climb pillars, swing from girders, jump from building top to building top, etc. There are some side missions that require you to do this particularly well (spying on enemy couriers) or fast (disabling radar towers, or is it enabling, with timers). Soon you will gain the ability to glide on the air and slide on electrical lines or train tracks which will give you additional options to move about.
However, I’m appalled that with all Cole’s amazing parkour abilities, he is still unable to climb over chain-linked fences. I’m not sure why the designers made it that way. Is it because the city that Cole is in is surrounded by fences, so as a way to limit Cole’s movements, they made fences insurmountable? Ok, I’m fine with the constraints of a game. I understand that a game cannot be truly open-world. There has to be some sort of boundary for the game world, which in this case, happens to be a chain-linked fence. It’s not waist height, but high enough the Cole can’t jump over it. But why can’t I climb over chain-linked fences within the city? This seems to be a huge oversight, and it really kills the mood. Somehow, if the designers want me to go to a particular direction, they use chain-linked fences. I dread seeing them when I’m doing missions within the city. It’s like all the options I had considered for the mission gets ripped out of my head, just because of the presence of the chain-linked fence. You suck!
Cole’s electrical powers also means that he is somehow vulnerable to large bodies of water. Which I don’t really get. Does he get short-circuited or something? Why does his health go down (and subsequently die) when he falls into water, but it’s OK for him to stick both his arms into huge electrical inlets to restore the electrical generator? OK, maybe I’m just nitpicking here, but if he can stick both arms into some sort of giant generator to “complete the circuit”, then isn’t water the same?
The main missions are quite the standard kill-the-bad-guys-save-the-city fare, with some variation. I’m not complaining much, it’s not an RPG anyway. Action games == kill everything that shoots you. These move the plot along. The side missions is just a distraction; for every side mission you complete, you get a portion of the city under control, which means enemies won’t respawn or something. There are a few types of side missions, each with its own level of fun, stupidity and insanity. I love it when a side mission requires you to kill all enemies or deactivate (or reactivate) satelites (which is just a time-limited parkour run, which I love). But other irritating ones are the supposedly follow a courier stealthily and find surveillance equipment to zap (which you can’t zap from afar for some reason). One also requires me to perform certain actions or stunts so some random guy I don’t care about can snap pictures of me. That one’s fine, just mildly irritating. The missions are also based on DIAS (acronym for “Do It Again, Stupid!” invented by Shamus). However, if you die or fail to perform the required action, you just re-spawn at the latest checkpoint in that mission. It’s not like GTA where a death or failure requires you to get back to the mission start and redo it all over again. I can live with this.
There are also moral-specific missions, or sequences within a missions that tells you which action you take will determine your moral compass. The thing is, you can either do an action that says you’re good OR evil, but there’s none of those morally ambiguous choices. You cannot flip-flop doing some good and some evil stuff. This is because the most awesome power unlocks are only available to one or the other end. I started out doing “good” stuff, because it seems like the sensible thing to do at the time (and I’m basically Mr. Nice Guy). It was only then that I realised that the best abilities are locked by your karma. Because of that, I am tied to being Mr Nice Guy all the way! Sigh. Oh look, another person needs rescuing…
Being a PC guy, it took me quite some time before I can get used to aiming with the right-analog stick. I’m getting better, but it’s still very counter-intuitive. Aiming with a mouse is vastly different, totally on a different scale altogether. I can easily imagine the controls to be much better on the PC
But if you can overlook the flaws, inFamous is a very accessible game. If someone whose dexterity and hand-eye coordination is deteriorating by the minute can enjoy it, I’m sure the money you will inevitably splurge for this is well spent.
Tip: it is actually possible to do this in the game. What I usually do is that I will melee a passer-by, knocking him down, but not killing him, and then heal to get 3 XP (good). Repeating it does not net me additional XP, so bummer. I’m not sure if knocking a passer-by will lower your karma though, but I don’t think so, as only if you drain a knocked-down person will you get evil XP.
Ah those 8-bit glory days. How I miss thee. Now re-imagined with Lego.
On a side note, I’ve always wished to have a Lego workspace. I wouldn’t mind dedicating a corner in my new house to Lego. Have a Lego cupboard with multiple drawers where I would store all the different sized Lego pieces. Try out some stop-motion animation. Or get Lego Robotics.
Just another part of my geek dream house.
Imagine my surprise when I saw a brand new Dell Mini 9 advertised for S$350. The itch came and cannot be relieved unless I made an offer.
Specs:
My very first impression: this thing is damn small and light! It’s really just for portability. Of course, the initial boot-up is slow, with all the crappy Dell and trial software that’s in there. The geek in me was screaming to reformat and reinstall Windows XP, but not without trying out other stuff first.
Ubuntu Netbook Remix is a pretty cool OS. It’s a twist of the very popular distro Ubuntu. The UI has been optimized for the limited real estate screen of a netbook. It’s also very snappy and fast on the Dell Mini 9, and the OS boots under a minute. Of course, the only reason I’m not staying with it, is because I’m lazy to get my games to work under Wine.
So it’s back to Windows XP for me. I tried to nLite my copy, but somehow, there always seems to be hiccups after I installed it. Some random service, like the Logical Disk Manager, won’t start, even though all I did was take out the languages. Sigh.
Doing all those, it gave me quite a good impression on the capabilities of this netbook. The Intel Atom processor will certainly not receive any performance crowns. It is a pretty slow CPU, so I will need to be extra patient with it. The solid state drive is relatively fast, especially when booting up, as seek time for a SSD is on a totally different scale altogether than a mechanical hard disk. However, reading and writing data feels a tad slower than usual, so probably it is not as fast as it should be. The amount of storage could also pose a problem. After install XP and drivers, I’m left with about 3.5GB of data. I have expanded it by slotting in my 16GB SD card, but still I am not confident of running programs off an SD card, since it will be much worse. I am seriously considering upgrading the storage, though it will cost an arm and 2 toes.
The touchpad is also somewhat OK for normal usage. It is sensitive enough, and I can tolerate it even if it is small. However, what I don’t like about it is how near the spacebar is to the touchpad, and the fact that there is no barrier between them. Thus, at the beginning, whenever I press the spacebar, I will sometimes hit the touchpad, causing it to unintentionally click somewhere else. Solution: time for me to get a mouse, specifically this portable mouse (Yes, I am a sucker for high end peripherals).
This brings me to the keyboard. Like everything else, the thing is small, but what is good is the letter keys are big enough. However, the extra keys, like Tab, Delete, arrow keys, etc, needs to be diminished in order to accommodate the bigger letter keys. I guess I can’t complain much, since keyboards are relative, and after extended use, I will most probably get used to it, and will be able to touch type as fast as I do on my work laptop and home PC.
Overall, it does get some getting used to. After each use, I find that I am loving it more and more, despite it’s smallness. It’s just too cute. If your computing needs (or in my case, wants) are not terribly high, a netbook could serve your purposes well. Just plug in a monitor and external peripherals for home use, and unplug when you bring it out.
The Dell Mini 9, at 1.2kg, will definitely be in my bag, if I bring one, each time I go out. Heck, it’s small enough to be put into my wife’s handbag (though I don’t think she will want to keep carrying it for me)! I think the most useful feature of a netbook is the fact that it is so light, you wouldn’t even notice the weight.
I guess I’m quite pleased with it. Now I can play my GOG games, old DOS games and emulators on the go! For the price I paid, it is pretty much worth every cent. I am not so sure I’ll feel this way if I had paid retail for it though.
Dear SingTel,
First and foremost, I would like to thank you, SingTel, for the willingness showed to screw with the people who have bought the iPhone 3G with you. As we all know that the date was August 22 2008 when it was first made available here, there is no way that anyone who purchased the original iPhone has finished even the first year of their 2 year contract.
I do not remember the actual penalty that one must pay for breaking the contract, but I do know that it is a pretty large amount for the first year. That is pretty much common knowledge. I have heard and read about many horror stories of people who has to pay hefty penalties for breaking their contract.
Imagine my dismay when I read this particular line in the advertisement for the iPhone 3GS launch:
We know you have an iPhone 3G contract with SingTel and are keen to upgrade to an iPhone 3GS. As you are a valued SingTel customer, we have introduced an early upgrade fee just for this launch at $600 (in addition to the handset prices above) if you take a 24-month contract with the pricing above. This offer is only available at the launch event at Comcentre between 10 – 12 July 09.
How can you even dare call that an offer? To call it that is simply to mock my intelligence. That is the worst piece of marketing I have heard. So much for subtlety. This is simply the same, or similar, price for breaking one’s 2-year contract with SingTel within the first 12 months.
Is this the value that SingTel place on existing iPhone 3G owners? Sure, I have a passion for gadgets. I love getting my hands on any new piece of hardware, and rest assured, I will get the iPhone 3GS, one way or another. However, I am still a rational human being. Asking me to pay $600 as an “early upgrade fee” is horrendous, which sad to say, supersedes my love for gadgetry. I am not one with unlimited resources. And don’t you even dare suggest that the trade-in value of my current iPhone can cover that. I might as well use the credit from a trade-in to cover the cost of the new phone!
Sorry SingTel, I’m sure you will make a sh*tload of money on Friday. Too bad, you won’t get my $600.
Regards,
Mart
PS: All you fanboys of faceless corporations (Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, etc), this is why it is stupid to be one. I always wondered why you love to troll forums with such junk threads and posts when all they want is your money.
Update: I received another promotional email for the iPhone 3GS the next day, saying that SingTel is willing to slash the “fee” to $300. Hahahaha. Sorry, it’s still too high and the damage is done. Besides, I’ve used up part of my savings for a new toy. 
For reasons beyond my control (and laziness), I only managed to update my iPhone to OS 3.0 last weekend. However, I found out that I was still unable to MMS, so I turned to Singtel’s haphazard website to dig around. Although the default setting seems to be correct, I could not send or receive pictures.
I managed to find a PDF guide to configure the iPhone manually when I went to Singtel’s page, clicked on IDEAS, then Configure your phone. The catch here is that the settings are meant for internet access, not MMS, but somehow it seems to work.
The username/password of the default setting was incorrectly set, it seems, to 65ideas for some reason. I removed them, or essentially setting them to blank. The other details should be auto-filled. Now I can finally send/receive pictures!
However, I still feel that Apple do not fully grasp the meaning of MMS, or Multimedia Messaging Service. Not Picture or Image, but Multimedia. Why can’t I send someone video or sound? Maybe the 3GS can send/receive video, but I doubt that. Hopefully, Apple will extend the application.
