Monthly Archive
Browsing entries posted on January 2008
RIP Kipley
My mouse Kipley died on Tuesday morning at around 3.15am, following surgery to remove a tumour.
This was her 3rd time going under, I guess this time she just didn’t wake up from the anaesthetic.
I just got back from the vet’s clinic, where I settled the bill for her surgery and cremation. It amused me slightly to see the itemised charge for the cremation as ‘exotic’. Perhaps she was considered an exotic pet, but to me she was just a mouse. Although it was pretty fun to see the people at the vet going wide-eyed at the sight of a pet mouse.
Tomorrow I’m going to get another mouse to keep Darcy company. Female mice don’t do the solitary life very well. In Kip’s absence, Darcy piled up her bedding in one corner and slept there, since there’s no more Kip to snuggle up to. No more Kip to snatch food from.
Kipley was my first mouse, and she had to come home in a small box while Darcy had a shoebox. Kip had to put up with getting jostled around in said box while I shopped for her new home. She loved the run-about wheel because she could go sniffing around my room, but she never went into it again after I negligently let her roll off the bed. -_-;;;
She was surprisingly tolerant of Darcy’s food-snatching habits, and she was adventurous while Darcy is timid. She routinely climbed up my hands and even made the summit of Mount Shoulder several times, as well as a few ticklish expeditions down my leg.
She lived to be slightly over a year old - a short life even by mouse standards. The 5 months I spent with her started with a lot of trial and error on everything from bedding to food, and it ended with me a lot sadder, and wiser.
Goodbye Kip. You will be missed.
In Loving Memory
Kipley
2006-29th January 2008
Art Aboard
Besides the traditional stocks and hedge funds, art pieces can also be a form of investment. For those looking to start a collection, Park West Gallery is a good place to begin as it houses the largest fine art collection in the world. They hold art auctions throughout the United States and Canada, which is sure to interest those looking for a pretty picture by a famous painter.
The rest of the world is not left out either, as Park West at Sea, an affiliate company, conducts cruise ship art auctions worldwide. Now instead of heading to the casinos, wealthy travellers can admire and perhaps purchase a piece of art.
The Kip and Darcy Comedy Troupe
moar funny pictures
A link if you want to share this with others, here.
Pretty Web Polls
*Paid Post*
Lots of websites have polls to gauge readers’ opinions on a variety of issues. If you’re into social networking, you could even have myspace polls and see if your hundreds of fans/friends liked your new hairstyle/clothes/musical experiment.
Easy-Poll provides free polls and other website components, and they look good as well. They guarantee stability and 24-hour access to your own account. All it takes is a very simple sign-up process.
You don’t need to know any back-end architecture as Easy-Poll will handle everything and even host the poll data on their servers.
A haiku from the Dreaming
If your faith is based on a belief in the Endless, and your prophet is Neil Gaiman, then you will know what I mean when I say I brought back a little poem from the Dreaming, realm where those things-that-are-not are.
If you don’t believe in the Endless, no matter. They are not gods, and do not live or die by your unbelief. Now for a little context on the matter:
If you imagine the ghost of a knight, rising from his grave to have a look at his new resting place, only to be disappointed at the lack of care it receives, you might hear this:
“Ah, me! The trollop
Never waters the dead grass.
What a bother, eh?”
More hot air over the Macbook Air
I just can’t let this topic go, can I.
Pictures from ASUS and Apple Singapore respectively.
While I would compare the Macbook Air to a Sony VAIO, since I only intend to use one laptop at a time, others are comparing it to the ASUS Eee PC, which also fills the small-and-useful niche of mobile computing, not to mention that they can both be secondary laptops. (Although as a previous commenter said, what would I do with a S$5000 secondary laptop.) Don’t laugh at the idea of secondary laptops - there are quite a number of people out there who use multiple computers and are considering the Eee to be their travel buddy while their workhorse stays at home.
Anyway, Mr Tony Smith of Register Hardware already made a comparison table pitting the tiny Eee against its bigger aluminium counterpart here. So I’ll be using that as the basis for my own in-depth comparison, from the user point of view. To make it a fair comparison, let’s assume that the Eee is also going to be the primary machine, but for casual users (i.e. no image processing, sound engineering etc.).
Screen size: The Eee has 7 inches, the Macbook Air has 13.3.
Screen resolution: Eee - 800 x 480, Macbook Air - 1280 x 800.
LED backlighting: Both have it.
Graphics: Both use integrated graphics cards that use system RAM. Eee - Intel GMA 900, Macbook Air - Intel X3100.
Visuals verdict: Squish! Obviously people would prefer a full-size screen over a (relatively) tiny 7-inch screen with correspondingly lower resolution. Take heart, Eee fans, for an 8.9-inch version was announced recently. LED backlighting helps a lot, so both machines have this right. The Macbook Air’s video card is the latest integrated solution from Intel, and should be sufficient as long as you’re not going to play first-person shooters on it. Oh, wait, what am I talking about - it’s a Mac.
Processor: Eee - Intel Celeron M @ 630MHz, Macbook Air - Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.6GHz.
Frontside bus: Eee - 400MHz, Macbook Air - 800MHz.
Memory: Eee - 512MB DDR2 @ 667 MHz, Macbook Air - 2GB DDR2 @ 667 MHz.
Processing verdict: The Mac takes the lead, an obvious result given that it costs so much and has custom-made Intel chips for a brain. But the Eee is Windows XP-compatible, and frankly its memory matches that of my Acer, on which I’m typing this. Firefox, a notorious memory-muncher, should be able to run fine on the Eee.
Storage: Eee - 2, 4, or 8GB solid-state drive (SSD); Macbook Air - 80GB hard drive or 64GB SSD.
Optical drive: Neither have one.
Card readers: Eee - accepts MMC, SD, SDHC cards; Macbook Air - none.
Storage and Media verdict: The SSD option on the Macbook Air is a very costly one, while the Eee comes with SSD by default. The storage space on the Eee is very limited, but SD cards are plenty cheap nowadays. And perhaps in the future, if the price of SSDs drops, you can open up the back of your Eee and chuck a new drive in. No such luck with the Macbook Air - the back is sealed. Of course, you could just stick with the 80GB traditional spinning hard-drive option, if you’re a careful person. 80GB is kind of small, though.
Full-size keyboard: Only the Macbook Air has one.
Typist verdict: The Eee’s tiny form factor has a correspondingly small keyboard, best suited for children and those with small hands. You definitely don’t want to consider prolonged typing on the Eee. On the other hand, you could perfect the art of “power computing” and type with one hand while the other holds the Eee in front of you, in a dynamic pose so favoured by the likes of advertisement stylists. But if there’s any typing work to be done, you definitely want a full-size keyboard, so the Mac takes this round.
USB ports: Eee - 3, Macbook Air - 1.
Video ports: Eee - VGA, Macbook Air - mini DVI.
Ethernet: Only the Eee has an Ethernet RJ-45 port.
Analog modem: Only the Eee has one of these.
Headphone socket: Both have one.
Mic socket: Only the Eee has one.
Pluggability verdict: The wafer-thin dimensions of the Macbook Air come with a price that’s negligible to some and terribly costly to others. If you don’t plug in a lot of peripherals (mouse, printer, thumbdrive, external hard drive in my case), one USB port should tide you over. But I think it’s such a lonely number. Even 2 would have been a decent compromise. On the other hand, why would you want to plug a mouse into the Macbook Air when you have multi-touch gestures on the touchpad?
Some people can’t take the loss of the Ethernet port, while others use Wi-Fi almost exclusively. You’d have to know your own usage patterns to decide which is best for you. Ideally I’d lounge on the bed and chat with my friends over IM on the Eee, but if the wireless gives out (which it sometimes does) I appreciate having that extra option so I can continue chatting. The analog modem may seem like a throwback for some people, but there are some households that still use dial-up, and the Eee’s budget price range is perfectly placed to cater to those households. Anyway it might come in useful if you’re trekking in paradise and all you can get is a phone line. This comes from personal experience, yah.
The video ports may not mean much to some people, I use mine maybe twice a year when I have to give presentations. VGA is the common port, so Mac users usually get a converter. I’m not sure if the Macbook Air has an onboard mic, but those things are definitely second-choice to a proper microphone. The Eee touts Skype as one of the included applications, so the mic socket seems to make sense.
This factor is one that’s highly idiosyncratic - the number and type of ports you need differ according to your usage pattern. But the Eee has more expansion capability out-of-the-box, without additional converters.
Wi-Fi 802.11g: Both support it.
Wi-Fi 802.11n: Only the Macbook Air supports it.
Bluetooth: Only the Macbook Air supports it.
WiMax: None yet, future Eees will support it.
Webcam: Eee - VGA resolution webcam, Macbook Air - no information on resolution.
3G, GPRS, HSPDA etc.: None.
Invisible Connections verdict: This is where the Air lives up to its name. It supports the latest Wireless-N standard, and has Bluetooth while the Eee doesn’t. On the other hand, WiMax-enabled Eees were also announced. Neither of them have cellular capabilities, so you can’t put in your cellphone SIM card and hitch onto the network when Wi-Fi lets you down. But honestly, I find cellular Internet connection plans to be on the pricey side, so I can live without that connectivity option. The Mac has the edge here, mostly because of Wireless-N and Bluetooth.
Manufacturer-claimed battery life: Eee - 3.5 hours, Macbook Air - 5 hours.
If you believe the claims, the Macbook Air seems to win out here, because of the longer life. On the other hand, it’s stuck with the factory-installed battery. The iPod battery issue crops up again here, and it’s not a pretty sight. I like my devices modular - one part breaking can be repaired without affecting the others. So the question to ponder is, how much do you trust the manufacturer to put together a good product?
In conclusion, I personally have a definite bias towards the Eee, because it’s cheap and hackable. I wouldn’t make it my primary machine because I am a pretty heavy user, but I’d let my cousins use it. How badly can they break it, anyway.
The Macbook Air is positioned as a primary machine, but in my opinion, it’s just lacking too many features to be able to take that post. It’s too incomplete to cost that much. Price is always going to be a sticking point, and it’s where most of the compromise is going to happen. Buyers don’t mind that the Eee isn’t a powerhouse, because the price is low. When you have sticker shock on the scale of S$5000, you’d better have a product to match.
Actually, now the S$4000 VAIO looks like a bargain next to the Macbook Air!
Don’t Fear the Distortion
The humour of overly-cautious, legally-advised cover-our-asses product warnings has already run its course in the US, but China is just starting to get on the bandwagon. Guess what this warning refers to:
“Don’t use with overloading for fear of distortion.”
A guitar? Guitar cable? Guitar pick? Ice pick?
Answer after the jump.
Hot air over the Macbook Air
I read the liveblogging of the Macworld keynote last night, and have stayed off my usual blogs and tech sites since in order to form my own opinion about the latest product. It’s a ridiculously thin ultra-portable 13.3inch notebook called the Macbook Air. The fact that it’s an ultraportable refers to the weight and size, not to be confused with the current crop of UMPCs.
First I’ll get the admission out of the way: Yes, I have Apple envy. The company has some brilliant designers on its team, and were somehow able to convince Intel to custom-shrink their processors so that they could fit inside the skinny aluminium chassis of the Macbook Air. Why can’t other laptop manufacturers do that? *turns green*
But don’t you dare tell me to resolve my Apple envy by simply buying one. Both on principle and for practical purposes, I am sticking to Windows laptops. To make it easier, I’ve compiled a little Q&A.
Why won’t you buy a Mac?
Because I like Windows. I could, of course, buy a Mac and put Windows on it instead. The segment of users who do this are, in my book, the 3rd sector of laptop users and are reviled by both camps for selling out on both sides. But that’s just my opinion. Honestly, I need Windows for some of my applications to run - they’re not Mac-friendly.
That’s for Macs in general. What about the Macbook Air?
It comes without certain features that I deem essential to my computing experience. Steve Jobs already offered some solutions for whatever’s missing on the Macbook Air. Instead of backing up to DVDs, you back up wirelessly to their other new product. Instead of ripping CDs, you buy your songs from the iTunes store. Remote Disk lets you leech off another computer’s optical disk drive. So far so good. But all this means your lovely new Macbook Air isn’t completely independent - you’ll need other peripherals to complete your experience - and not to forget, iTunes isn’t operational in Asia yet. And one more thing: there’s no card reader, which is important to me as an owner of 3 devices using 3 different formats.
If you wanted to refute me, you could just point out that ordinary laptops are just as dependent on other peripherals. True, but my card reader and optical drive are built-in, so I’m independent on those counts. And I do use these 2 features quite a bit. I still buy CDs, which may be a staggeringly old-school idea to those of you on the bleeding edge. My laptop also works as my DVD player.
You’re so poor you can’t afford a separate TV and DVD player?
Yes.
You’re bluffing, you just bought new shoes and books when you went shopping on Orchard!
I just had a look at Apple Singapore’s online store. The Solid State Drive (SSD) costs an extra S$1647.80. Increasing the processor speed from 1.6GHz to 1.8GHz will cost you S$452.20. That’s a larger jump than you’d see for the usual processor upgrades, because of the new-and-improved tiny chips Intel made, which naturally cost more. I love me some SSD, but paying that much just to be an early adopter is, to me, stupid. I’m sorry, early adopters, but either you’re all very rich or very, very cutting-edge, because that’s the kind of premium pricing up with which I shall not put. *snicker*
I can’t bear to spend my money that way. At least my shoes only cost $16.90 for 2 pairs. And my books will never go out of style.
Don’t you have anything nice to say about the Macbook Air?!
I already said it up there, but I’ll elaborate here. It’s a feat of engineering and a very pretty product. But it is not the future of computing. It’s what computers should be, in this day and age. LED backlit screens should be standard. Batteries should last 5 hours. SSDs should be available on more machines, but I’ll compromise on that because of price barriers. Sony’s VAIO range already offers this. Steve Jobs said as much when he stated that Apple looked at the VAIOs to see how they could be improved.
The Macbook Air, in the end, is primarily a proof of concept. Intel has proven that their chips can be made tinier. Now Sony, ASUS, Fujitsu, Toshiba and the rest need to get on Intel’s case and demand that these chips be made available to them. Or is Intel so giddy at being allowed in on the Mac party that it would abandon the companies that have been its loyal customers all this time?
So yes, that will be the impact of the Macbook Air on the computing world. It will galvanise the other companies into producing something that will match it. When Sony or ASUS makes something similar, you can bet I’ll be very interested.
It just better have a card reader and optical drive.
Cooking Adventures Ep. 5
Once more with mincemeat, this time in a more Chinese-style cooking method of combining it with egg to make an omelette of sorts. At home, I get small semi-circular pieces of pork and egg that are fried until the edges are slightly crispy. Sadly, that could not be replicated here.
Ingredients:
China Choi Sam (also chye sim, chai xin)
Garlic
Soy sauce
Mincemeat
Eggs
Salt, pepper, seasoning
Rice
Instructions:
Chop up garlic. Fry in oil. Throw in veggies with some water so that the steam cooks them (my co-chef’s idea). Add soy sauce. Stir till the thick stems are cooked through.
I don’t have a lot of experience with China choi sam - usually we use the thinner-stemmed local kind. Cooking this vegetable is more like cooking kai lan, actually.
For the eggs: Cook meat. Push it into a pile in the centre of the pan (although a wok is preferred). Pour in beaten egg. Let the egg cook and bind the mincemeat together.
I really need to learn how to do this as it wasn’t even a passable imitation of the one I get at home.
Wash rice and cook in rice cooker.
The final product:
Rice was a bit dry.
Vegetables were fine.
Egg-meat combo was lacking in flavour, but at least it was thoroughly cooked. 4 eggs and 300g of meat is really a large serving for just 2 people.
Not one of our better efforts taste-wise, but at least it’s a balanced meal. No photos of the cooking process as both of us were busy cooking and cleaning.
Eye-catching Frames
*Paid Post*
Today I present to all your bargain-hunters out there, a Great Discovry: $ 8 Prescription Glasses From Zenni Optical. Yes, that’s a single-digit price-tag for some snazzy-looking glasses.
The above is just one of the hundreds of frames you can choose from on the site. As long as you have your prescription information, you can order the glasses or even sunglasses of your choice and wait for them to arrive in the mail. No worries about getting them lost or damaged, since the courier offers tracking information and the glasses ship in a hard case with a cleaning cloth.
This method of direct marketing that cuts out the middlemen, as well as a selection of their own frames instead of vastly overpriced designer-brand frames, helps to keep prices low without compromising on quality.
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