Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Can you believe that the old design has been around for almost 4 years?!

Of course it has seen many many iterations, with the last major change coming in on 27/10/2013. The remaining revisions are just attempts to improve legibility and make it easier on the eyes for the readers.

I've been doing quite a lot of geeky stuffs and I'll find time to share about all the productivity stuffs I'm tinkering around with, ranging from simple text expander applications to easy OpenVPN setup on the Raspberry Pi 3, to simple Alfred 2 workflows to streamline my working habits.

those were the days

Even though it works well and loads really fast, it's definitely time for a new paint job. This current template is still very much unfinished and I will update it here and there whenever I have the time. Also, the Archives button at the bottom doesn't work right now, though I doubt there's anyone who'll dig through all the old posts.

For those who knows me IRL and saw the before and after, I'll like to know what you think of the redesign.

School is starting.

In a couple of weeks I'll be back to school and hopefully the self-studying I've been doing will pay off and it'll be easy to kick ass in class. Or it'll really be a waste of my holidays.

I've recently bought a few interesting gadgets, like the Jaybird X2, blank PBT keycaps which is a lot more durable than normal ABS types, as well as a really cheap phone for me to develop Android apps on. Probably need to control my spending this month but man I have not regretted a single purchase yet.

Well, look forward to all the geeky happiness that I'll be sharing soon.

Homage to the old design.

Labels: design, featured, lordofgeeks, update

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Saturday, October 24, 2015

Random shot of clark quay to start off the post

It has only been 4 months since I've ORD, the memories remain but it felt like it never happened; it's almost like a broken relationship. The people I'm used to seeing from the moment I woke up, until the second before I close my eyes have all moved on with their own lives.

That is good. But it's also a little sad.

Well people say that change is inevitable and it's usually for the better, as much as I agree with that saying, the change of lifestyle between a man in uniform and a man in plain clothes is pretty drastic. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy that my 2 years is over, but when it's over, what's left of it? I'm pretty sure this feeling will pass faster than I can say "whut?", hence I'm taking this chance to pen it down before it's lost.

School has been pretty interesting thus far, it's a change of lifestyle, change of scenery and a change of social circles. I regretted setting my time table the way I had, I also regretted not exempting some modules (but it may have been a blessing in disguise).

example of the things I spend my time on

Spending a lot of my time coding, but most of it really goes to math as it's the hardest module for me at the moment. I try not to bash on people much but my math prof is utterly shit at teaching. Don't get me wrong, she's really good at what she does, I just don't think her concept of teaching works for most of us here.

100101011011010101

view of my math class

Couple weeks back, by the lousiest of luck I managed to get a fucking splinter lodged in my right thumb inside a small wound. I tried removing it using needles and strong tape but after 1.5 weeks, it remained stubbornly stuck inside the flesh. Causing it to be infected over and over again.

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Labels: life, school, update

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Sunday, March 02, 2014

Well, the last post was on Valentine's. It's not that there isn't anything to write about, but the stuff I want to write about, takes up the time I have for writting.  I keep saying that I want to write more, but I give up. I'll just try to do this whenever I have the time to.

For the past 2 weeks, I pretty much gorged myself with good food. But I'm not just going to let all those excess calories take up additional mass inside of me, have to at least put them to some use.

At MJC

Play some table tennis in camp and attempted to train for my pull-ups, but it turned out to be a one-time thing. Really need to put more dedication into that. Well, let's not sweat about the sweat, and move on to the food.

Domino's | Finger to show size of pizza!

Met up with the gang and we were supposed to go out and eat something better, but after we met up at C's place and played a game or two of Dota2, we thought, "Ah, screw this, let's just order pizza." Or maybe it was just a couple of us who thought that; but this is the perfect example of how lazy guys can get once they bunch up together.

10pc KFC because we indulge in fats

A bowl of cucumber to make us feel better about ourselves

Went out with Y on a Saturday where she redeemed her one set of free lunch (a 2-3month late birthday lunch). Bacon is always awesome, not as awesome when stuffed with a buttload of vegetables, but I think that I should really make a conscious effort to eat more healthily.

Toby's Estate | @ Robertson Quay

French Toast | Really sweet and awesome

Some cheese grilled burger

Cross section

Caught The Lego Movie after this!


Definitely the happiest thing that I've watched this year. Got really hooked onto Everything is Awesome. The movie is made to look like stop-motion but it isn't as much of a turn off as I thought it would be. It actually some sort of meaning to the story though I'm not quite sure what it is.

Regardless, it's a good movie and I recommend everyone to give it a shot!
Got some sushi after that at Itacho's; clearing my cravings one at a time! Met some old faces while I was shopping for some clothes (tally: 2 jeans 1 jacket). They wore a suspicious look throughout the entire conversation, and I probably wouldn't blame them for that...







Moving on, I removed my glass screen protector because it wasn't applied properly and it has this hideous bubble on the top left & right. I was curious about it's anti-shatter properties, so I went ahead to shatter it utterly.



It really held itself together really well. There are some glass dust from the shattering but it kept in one piece no matter how I tried to bend and twist it. Me likey and approve. (have swapped to a better tempered glass protector by Nilkin and it's perfect now)

Attended my childhood friend's 21st Birthday. I'm ashamed not to have gotten him anything better but... ah, it was kind of last minute. Have to make it up to him some other day. We just kind of randomly got him a bottle of Famous Amos Cookies.



There wasn't much I could say about the party as it was small and cozy. With just his close friends and relatives. I've known him for more than half my life, standing at an awesome number of 13 years.




There was one Tuesday when I went for my physiotherapy (nothing serious) and because of some rescheduled event we got the priviledge to stay out that night. I live too damn far to return home but we did grab some pizza from Pizza Hut!




Watched Pompeii after food.



And it sucked.
Really
Really
Badly
I swear this is probably the worst movie that I've ever watched. The story behind why we were watching it is because we missed the best timing for Lone Survivor so we decided to troll this friend by watching something we already knew would suck. Bad choice.

Sunrise.



Woke up to this the next day, and it was freaking amazing. Totally pumped up to go through the day, especially since it was Wednesday and it's nights out day!



Finally met up with S after what seems like forever (POP day). Had a relatively weird experience shopping for some stuffs but then the food and catching up was good! (MOF). Kind of forgot to take picture of the food because we were too busy trying to camp about 4-5months worth of events into what little time we had.

But dessert, everyone always have time for desserts.




I think I should go out and meet people more often. But my computer needs some loving too. I point my finger at the Army for taking away my computer time. If only if I have that back I would be more inclined to go out often.

Speaking of computers, I bought a couple of new stuffs from the IT fair at MBS. Firstly is a new Dell Ultrasharp 24" Monitor (U2414H), and a portable router from TP-LINK MR3020. Got a freebie from purchasing the monitor, Razer Electra Headphones. Not including any pictures now because my room is messy as hell and it wouldn't be good to show off my computing environment like this; of which I finally have a dual-monitor set-up. Something that I have dreamed of for many many years. It is still not ideal yet due to different monitor models but one day, I would make everything look all good and neat.

I kind of messed up the chronological order but the gay gang had dessert on Friday night.

Family Deal | One of everything please!

All in all, the past 2 weeks has been pretty eventful as you can see. Thanks to that, my wallet looks like it has been on a diet. Need to conserve whatever monetary resource I have until my next pay.

As I turn my attention to the future, I'm going to experience something pretty awesome soon. For the next 2 weeks, I'm going on course at the anus of Singapore (Sungei Gedong) to learn driving starting tomorrow.

Drive what you ask?
A motherfucking tank.

Well techincally speaking it isn't exactly a tank as it's meant to fight people, but it sure does look like a tank.



Packed up most of my stuffs and I'm ready to head there to experience what living in an anus feels like. Looking past all the negativity, I am stoked to get a tank driving license. I mean, how often can you say that you have a license to drive a tank?!

Well, that's most of what I wanted to say sans the nitty gritty stuffs, hopefully the next update wouldn't be 2 weeks later...

Labels: army, featured, food, life, update

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Saturday, January 25, 2014

Goodbye trainee, hello unit life

I intended to really spend some time blogging properly and really jolt down what has been happening for the past couple of weeks, but sadly my usual routine of procrastinating had gotten the better of me once again.

First and foremost, I have graduated from OETI at long last after 3 months of training. Honestly it was rather sad leaving that place and being separated from all my new friends. We exchanged our farewells 3 weeks ago and went our own ways, to start a new chapter in our army lives.

Thankfully some admin cockups gave us the opportunity to pick who we wanted to be with in our units*. For one reason or another, I picked the one where most people will be together, 18 in total. Interestingly, 8 of us including myself was from the same bunk in OETI. And... the 8 of us are in the same bunk again. Obviously there are some people I would rather be with, but I wouldn't say that I'm in bad company.
*unit: The place you will be part of until you ORD.

Anyway I have been posted to 41FMP, located at Kranji Camp 2; which... is just beside OETI. I'm not quite sure to be thankful of it's location or not. I had fully prepared my heart to travel to the anus of Singapore, Sungei Gedong. Obviously there are tradeoffs for each location but it has worked out for me thus far.

That said, I have to go outfield, multiple times and even overseas. I think that it could be fun; it could but it probably won't be. Looking on the brighter side of things, it does give me the chance to have experiences worth telling stories about.

I originally planned to write one heck of a long post covering all things that I have forgotten to write about, but army is a really boring place to be honest. That boredom is something that gives me joy; when I have nothing that needs thinking about, that gives me the time to think about other things I normally wouldn't have considered. Looking at my ridiculously long to-do-list gives me good indication of the stuffs that has been going on in my head.

Well, for the sake of it I shall recall a random event that happened last week. I finally lied down on the roller board thingy and slid under the tank for the first time. I mean, I have been under it before but never rolling around, it was a damn amusing first experience and it was more comfy that expected albeit the awkwarrd working angle/position.

This is dedicated to my friend Jeff who undertook the task of draining out the oil from the bottom. And the bolt, oh the bolt. Have you ever tried to open a can of canned food(or ketchup) and no matter how hard you twist you can't get it to open? Imagine the same thing, but underneath a vehicle and only with one hand, times 6.

So anyway, the plate that he was removing was holding back a substantial amount of oil, an amount that he wasn't aware of, nor expected. The moment the last bolt was released from it's holding, there was nothing left to keep that oil in place. And out it goes, gushing from that orifice, splattering all over his face, his clothes and seeping into his tanned skin. By the time he got out of that underworld, his uniform had totally changed it's colour.

No longer are the greens lush with life and vibrance, but dull and completely soaked in brown colour goodness. It is not often you see someone drenched in oil, in fact I have never seen one unless it's a major cooking mishap.
(much of the events are speculated, I mean, I can't be witnessing what happened firsthand, but it should be more or less accurate lah.)

Well, there are many little things like these that happen, but with my hands that seem perpetually oily, it's rather hard to jolt them down.

Now that I've brought my keyboard into camp, I should try to blog more... but I've already said this before in the past so, not gonna make any promises this time. Let's just hope that I'll get the time tomorrow to write all the crap I want.

That's all for now, till the next time.

Labels: army, life, nsd, update

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Sunday, August 25, 2013

I have been so unbelievably busy ever since BMT started, to the point where I haven't posted anything for 10 days, 10 freaking days! (yeah it's like forever by my standards)

So the thing is that ever since the 5 day holiday, I have finally regained some form of social life. You might remember this little diagram.

replace "good grades" with "things I want to do"

So... I kind of stopped doing a lot of things for the past couple weeks? Plainly due to the lack of time. (booking out on Saturdays) I miss tinkering with my computer oh-so-god-damn-much! Thankfully, this week's RT is catered for the people who missed their route march so I regained a couple hours of my life back.

Anyway, the thing is that I am lagging behind by many weeks in my posts; 6 weeks in fact. And in these 6 weeks I have written 20 (double sided) A5 pages of stuff. So I'm a little uncertain of how I'm going to go about doing this.

Moving on, I am currently seriously considering signing on. Yes, the money is good and that is a major reason. However, my motivating factor is that there is a vocation in the Army that fits my interest and skill set. Military Intelligence Expert. I have thought about going into this line of work before I entered the Army, but lacked the details on it. I still don't have enough information to make that decision yet, but there will be someone coming down to have a in-depth talk with us 2-3 weeks later where I can learn more about the life style and restrictions I will face in this kind of job.

The perks are very attractive though.
- Quite a bit of money
- Training provided
- Chance of advancing my studies FOC
- Not wasting the remaining time of my service
- Get a slight head start on my friends

The cons are pretty obvious
- Somewhat regimental
- Less freedom
- Might be boring/repetitive
- Lose out on opportunities outside

Well, there's still quite some time to think about this. No rush to commit 5 years of my life to this. The only thing that is nagging at me is the money they are offering, the money that I can get right now.

Ah... time passed too damn bloody quickly. I shall try and write something up before I book in tomorrow. But for now, time for some gaming before I start yet another tiring week.

On a random note, here's a quote from a video I watched recently.
"Life is like peeing into the snow on a dark winter night. You probably made a difference but it's really hard to tell."

Labels: life, random, update

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Sunday, March 03, 2013

16 months ago, I decided to jump from Wordpress to Blogger. Changing the iconic name at the same time after many years. Truth be told, I do miss Wordpress, I still think it as a superior blogging platform. That said, Blogger allows me to edit the HTML directly and have full control over the website, which is my reason for switching.

Unfortunately, Blogger doesn't have a ton of statistics. There are still some interesting stats however.


It's amusing, and at the same time, a little saddening. It just means that I haven't written any post that's super-amazing for the past 2 months. Regardless, here's something that's really amusing.

Stats for this week

For whatever reason I have been getting views from unexpected countries, like China, Ukraine, UK, etc. It's amusing to see how Internet Explorer shot up by so much, along with random browsers. Chrome used to be the first, followed by Firefox.

It may seem like pointless statistics to most people. But it's rather interesting to geeks like me. Knowing my audience means I can optimize the site better for those browsers. (though I probably won't bother)

I am actually a little proud of myself, that I managed to stuck on for so long, and that there are people actually reading it. The blogging hype has pretty much died down. I don't know many friends who still blog regularly anymore. I don't really visit any popular blogs either, simply because popular blogs are usually owned by pretty girls snapping pictures of things I do not really care for.

Yes, I do not stalk pretty bloggers. That's what Facebook is for. *creepy grin*

I kid, I probably don't read other blogs because my time is filled with reading tech blogs. But a blog would be an understatement to the scale of the website. Like theverge, anandtech, lifehacker, howtogeek, etc. I find it interesting that the definition of Blog has widened to even huge sites like those.

Anyway, most of the views are simply from people searching in Google. Only a miniscule percentage of the visitors are people who come regularly to read, my heartfelt thanks goes out to you guys. I'm not trying to build a popular website (at least not yet), but simply something for people who share similar thoughts as me to read.

Let's see if it'll take another year before I get to 100,000, shall we?

Labels: featured, lordofgeeks, update

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Sunday, December 09, 2012

Honestly, I thought the post will be a lot more interesting than this, but it turns out that I was so eager to build the system that I couldn't be bothered to take the pictures. So..... instead I'll just be rambling on how amazing this is.

Intel Core i7 3770
Intel HD Graphics 4000
ASUS P8B75-V Motherboard
120GB OCZ Vertex 3 (old)
2TB Seagate HDD
8GB of RAM
Cooler Master TX3 CPU Cooler
Thermaltake Commander MS-I Case
520W Modular PSU

Yep, it's just the barebones of a system, good enough to make it work. But with a really really fast CPU in it.


I'm currently running a W7 on VMware with 1.5GB memory assigned to it, which explains the high memory usage. And, I'm not using Windows 8 now because there hasn't been a permanent "hack" for it yet.

Cold boot takes less than 20 seconds. Everything is as snappy as it can be. Though I haven't been utilizing its full potential yet. The whole build took me almost 2hours to assemble. Mostly spent on cable management, trying to make the case neat and tidy, which is kind of pointless since I put it behind a monitor and it can't really be seen anyway.


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Labels: awesome, computers, desktop, featured, geek, historical, life, lordofgeeks, update

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Thursday, December 06, 2012

This may be a bit of a surprise but I'm actually on version 7 of this template! Of course, they have mostly been small tweaks apart from the change in logo.

I started with about 350 lines of code and I'm currently almost at 570 lines. It may be pointless but well, I have taken interest in it again, so it's kind of a hobby for me right now. I used to design my own templates couple years ago, until I got bored of it. Mainly due to the complexity of coding required to achieve fancy looks and transitions.

However, thanks to the arrival of CSS 3.0 and HTML 5, all the crazy scripting has mostly disappeared. And are welcomed by the concise CSS codes instead. I am rather proud to say that everything here is still done using only code! Because I'm still new to this new era, I had to do a lot, and I do mean, a lot of searching And I would love to point out the improvements made, not going by versions.

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Labels: CSS, design, geek, historical, life, lordofgeeks, template, update, website

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Saturday, November 24, 2012

tumblr has such awesome gifs

Hi, I just spent like 2 hours designing and about 5 hours coding from the ground up. It's surprising how long it takes to code such a simple website, it's not as simple as I thought to make everything flow properly.

There's 3 reason why I suddenly decided to change it.

1. I am bored of the previous design.
2. The previous one is really slow and feels bulky.
3. Because I can.

Thanks to the simplicity of the code, the blog is really flying! Gone are all the lags. It might not look as sophisticated, but I guess I prefer it this way. There are still a few things I have to work on but it's mostly functional so I just posted it anyway. The search is still being funky and I really need to figure something out for it. There's also a footer at the bottom for all the links and stuffs, which I obviously haven't added yet.

There's only about 350+ lines of code but it can scale from 25% to  250% zoom level.

staring at this for hours gets tiring

Due to my FYP, I'm starting to have a little more interest towards web design again. It has been quite a long while since I was remotely interested in HTML.

Oh, and I finally made this completely image free. so all the colours and logos and whatever crap is all drawn using code. Of course, this is all the basic shit without relying on HTML 5's canvas functions. That'll be too much of a pain to learn.

Oh well, for better or worse, I hope you'll like this change.

Labels: design, featured, HTML, life, lordofgeeks, minimalist, new layout, update

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Friday, October 07, 2011

I had always wanted to try out the Disqus commenting system, however, due to certain technical difficulties I had failed to implement it in Wordpress. Nevertheless, after coming back to Blogger after many years, I found that it's pretty darn easy to integrate it into the comment system.

I've set it so that only registered users can comment. I would like to point out though, that when I said registered, I meant that you can use ANY of the following accounts to login.

Google, Twitter, Facebook,OopenID accounts, name your pick!

Yeah, I'm pretty happy to finally be able to get this done.

So go on, start commenting! 

Labels: comment, disqus, update

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