[RAMChYLD]

Bad luck streak record.

Monday:
- Stepped into office, got an earfull from a client.
- MS buys Skype. It's probably the end of Malaysians using Skype to call landlines since MS is anal towards Malaysia.
- Large format printer request shot down.

Tuesday:
- Worked on data entry (not my line, but we have a budget problem) 90% just to discover I made an anal mistake and needed to go back and correct the error.
- Read on Facebook that people are claiming that the world will end May 21 2011 instead of December 23 2012.

Wednesday:
- 20% pay cut for this month and next month announced.
- Plug for servers I'm supposed to be in charge of in server room caught fire.

Thursday:
- Received an earful along with other staff over the server room fire incident
- Found out that my data entry contains more errors and needed to be corrected again.

Friday:
- Late for work
- Got an earful for not being able to set up teleconferencing system correctly.
- WGBH announces interest in flagging Arthur videos on Youtube. That's one less source for Arthur.

*sigh* it's weeks like these that make me wish May 21 is truly D.Day.

[cpd2009]

Bad luck streak record.

Monday:
- Stepped into office, got an earfull from a client.
- MS buys Skype. It's probably the end of Malaysians using Skype to call landlines since MS is anal towards Malaysia.
- Large format printer request shot down.

Tuesday:
- Worked on data entry (not my line, but we have a budget problem) 90% just to discover I made an anal mistake and needed to go back and correct the error.
- Read on Facebook that people are claiming that the world will end May 21 2011 instead of December 23 2012.

Wednesday:
- 20% pay cut for this month and next month announced.
- Plug for servers I'm supposed to be in charge of in server room caught fire.

Thursday:
- Received an earful along with other staff over the server room fire incident
- Found out that my data entry contains more errors and needed to be corrected again.

Friday:
- Late for work
- Got an earful for not being able to set up teleconferencing system correctly.
- WGBH announces interest in flagging Arthur videos on Youtube. That's one less source for Arthur.

*sigh* it's weeks like these that make me wish May 21 is truly D.Day.

Well, I doubt that MS would kill off Skype's ability to call landline phones. That would be too much of a risk as not everyone in Malaysia (or the world) can't afford a cell phone or a laptop with a webcam.

As for your bad week, well, that happens. I can't really remember the last time I had a bad week, and if I wanted to, I would have to think long and hard. Some of these things, like the server room fire and WGBH flagging Arthur videos on YouTube are things beyond our control. Life sadly isn't fair to us every single day, but we all have to deal with these things the best way we can without becoming too emotional.

[RAMChYLD]

Well, I doubt that MS would kill off Skype's ability to call landline phones. That would be too much of a risk as not everyone in Malaysia (or the world) can't afford a cell phone or a laptop with a webcam.

As for your bad week, well, that happens. I can't really remember the last time I had a bad week, and if I wanted to, I would have to think long and hard. Some of these things, like the server room fire and WGBH flagging Arthur videos on YouTube are things beyond our control. Life sadly isn't fair to us every single day, but we all have to deal with these things the best way we can without becoming too emotional.

Well, says you. Cellphones and cell plans are especially prominent and cheap over here thanks to the fact that there's 4 GSM/3G telcos duking it out and one WiMAX telco just introduced a special SIP-based cellphone that connects to WiMAX networks instead of GSM just so they can get in on the action as well. Also, no brand "Chinaphones" - China-made low-grade GSM phones, the kind banned in the US and American ally countries like India because they lack UL and FCC certifications and have strange invalid IMEI serial numbers - are so cheap and prevalent over here that any grade schooler can buy one by saving up his lunch money for just a month. Case in point: I've seen those cheapo phones go for as low as RM70, or somewhere around US$22. Likewise we have something called prepaid plans- you buy credit coupons with denominations as low as RM10 and as high as RM100 and "load" it into your phone, and then use it until the credit runs out, which you then just buy another coupon and load the new coupon. So yeah. Internet here sucks due to monopoly, but our cellphone infrastructure is thriving due to healthy competition.

As for the WGBH issue, i just put in a plead on their facebook page (see? I am desperate for Arthur!). I hope they rethink their action. The only reason I stopped using the Yumurcak app is because it appears to randomly block access, and the only reason I haven't resorted to DXing Singaporean TV is because we don't have a big enough lawn- actually, we hardly have any lawn- they've been paved over to allow for parking our cars. The downside of living in a row house.

[cpd2009]

Well, says you. Cellphones and cell plans are especially prominent and cheap over here thanks to the fact that there's 4 GSM/3G telcos duking it out and one WiMAX telco just introduced a special SIP-based cellphone that connects to WiMAX networks instead of GSM just so they can get in on the action as well. Also, no brand "Chinaphones" - China-made low-grade GSM phones, the kind banned in the US and American ally countries like India because they lack UL and FCC certifications and have strange invalid IMEI serial numbers - are so cheap and prevalent over here that any grade schooler can buy one by saving up his lunch money for just a month. Case in point: I've seen those cheapo phones go for as low as RM70, or somewhere around US$22. Likewise we have something called prepaid plans- you buy credit coupons with denominations as low as RM10 and as high as RM100 and "load" it into your phone, and then use it until the credit runs out, which you then just buy another coupon and load the new coupon. So yeah. Internet here sucks due to monopoly, but our cellphone infrastructure is thriving due to healthy competition.

Still, not every single person can afford either a laptop or cellphone, and MS cutting off landline support for Skype would be a very bad decision for those who don't have cellphones or laptops. Cheaper cellphones are making them more accessible to people who couldn't previously afford them, but there are bound to be those who still are unable to afford them.

[Stella Grapes]

Laptop is back, if with a completely new hard drive. I'm having to download almost everything back on it, and I downloaded Firefox in Spanish by mistake! As for any entertainment, for me it's all about personalities of characters.

Making signatures by quoting songs that play on repeat in your head is very useful, I say with sarcasm.

Oh. I just remembered Sandy used to do exactly that. It's lovely when he does it! :lol:

[cpd2009]

Laptop is back, if with a completely new hard drive. I'm having to download almost everything back on it, and I downloaded Firefox in Spanish by mistake! As for any entertainment, for me it's all about personalities of characters.

Making signatures by quoting songs that play on repeat in your head is very useful, I say with sarcasm.

Good to hear about your laptop being fixed! Was the Apple Repair Store able to recover the photos and documents off the old hard drive?

[Stella Grapes]

Good to hear about your laptop being fixed! Was the Apple Repair Store able to recover the photos and documents off the old hard drive?

Not at all. Nothing was saved that wasn't already saved to my flash drives. It's as though the computer's body is alive again while its soul is gone.

[cpd2009]

Today, I found a SoundBlaster Audigy SE sound card at RadioShack for $49.95. I couldn't resist picking it up. Placed it in Jasper, and, I'm thinking to myself, why have I been using the cheap bargain basement sound cards for the past two or three years?

The difference in audio quality is amazing. His previous card was a cheap no-name one that used a CMedia 8738 audio chipset, which is also used as onboard sound on some motherboards. It's really nice listening to my music at 96khz and 24bits.

As for the Retron3 Famiclone game system, well, it's a very good Famiclone, and probably the best one I have ever used. The system is able to play nearly all my Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis games without any issues in gameplay, or graphics. The sound quality varies for each system. For Nintendo games, the sound is slightly off from a real Nintendo, but it still sounds great and it doesn't affect the gameplay. The audio from the Super Nintendo side though is a little loud, causing distortion. With most of my games it's no big deal, but three (D-Force, UN Squadron, and Tetris & Dr Mario) are very distorted. Im thinking of getting a RetroDuo clone for such games, as well as for making YouTube "Let's Play" style videos. As for the Sega Genesis portion...the sound is excellent.

The biggest thing about the Retron3 is the ability to play import games, such as Super Famicom or Japanese/European MegaDrive games. I like!

[Blackberry Bun]

[nonsense]
Omg, what's happening?! I can feel it... I definitely can feel it! My presence... is fading! I'm going to disappear! Waaahhhh I'm scared! What should I do?!
[/nonsense]

Now I really know what it feels to be unemployed for an extended period. Ah well, if everything fails I have to resort to my only fail-safe.

[RAMChYLD]

One more middle finger received. I'm just going to cut and paste from Facebook because I'm really tired now.

Hmmm, maybe the inability to continue using the GeForce4 440MX is a blessing in disguise. Either that or the higher powers have shown me another middle finger. I moved Clementine's HDD into Maxwell (<sarcasm> reinstall OpenBSD! Yay! </sarcasm> ) and in the process noticed that the mobo has some bloated caps, which is not good (WTH ASUS!). Surely the thing would've gone off with a bang had I continued using it for another week or two.

Although, this means that the plan to have Helen's mobo swapped into Clem's body is not only an option, but is THE only option now. This also means that I'll need another sensor-enabled fan and a hard disk for Clementine (sorry CCTV DVR, but Clementine need this WD 160GB more than you do), and that Helen's revival now relies on me finding an M4N78 PRO and an ENGT520 silent. It also means that I'll need a new AthlonII CPU and more RAM to go along with it, and another IDE DVD-RW drive.

And oh, Maxwell is getting CentOS this time. I'm tired of OpenBSD not supporting everything, including the S3 ProSavage DDR video.

On another side note, Dongwa suddenly won't boot into X again. Something about liblto_plugin.so not being found this time. This is stupid, I don't have a uber-expensive tape drive on Dongwa!

I eventually went with FreeBSD instead :twisted: . Just managed to get the darn thing back to full capacity 10 minutes ago, but Dongwa was being oncurrently fixed as soon as Maxwell was capable of functioning as a basic web proxy in the afternoon. I was able to fix the liblto plugin issue by forcing a GCC update on YaST2.