New Years

First and Foremost, Happy Birthday Natalie Hilary Lim!! Finally, your sweet 16th.

And also, to everyone out there, Happy New Year 2007!!!

New Blogger Schema

EDIT: (30th March 2007) Full Schema is now posted on my new tech blog: http://tech-no-borders.blogspot.com/

I know this post is going to bore those non-coders. But Oh well.. here goes...

I guess by now, since Blogger has gone out of beta, many would know that the templating system has been slightly changed. The most notable one would be the use of XML and the addition of the xmlns:b, xmlns:data and xmlns:expr namespaces...

Well, for those who use Eclipse IDE, XmlSpy or any other web development tools that accepts custom Schema, I've generated an inferred XML Schema file for the xmlns:b namespace...

Its definitely not complete. I use my current layout as the base to generate the inferred XML Schema... Maybe someone could improve on it. It would be even better if Blogger were to release a schema file to add template developers...

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xs:schema xmlns:tns="http://www.google.com/2005/gml/b" attributeFormDefault="unqualified" elementFormDefault="qualified" targetNamespace="http://www.google.com/2005/gml/b" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <xs:element name="include">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:attribute name="data" type="xs:string" use="optional" />
      <xs:attribute name="name" type="xs:string" use="required" />
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="skin" type="xs:string" />
  <xs:element name="section">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence minOccurs="0">
        <xs:element maxOccurs="unbounded" name="widget">
          <xs:complexType>
            <xs:sequence>
              <xs:element maxOccurs="unbounded" name="includable">
                <xs:complexType>
                  <xs:sequence>
                    <xs:element minOccurs="0" name="loop">
                      <xs:complexType>
                        <xs:sequence>
                          <xs:element xmlns:q1="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q1:ul" />
                        </xs:sequence>
                        <xs:attribute name="values" type="xs:string" use="required" />
                        <xs:attribute name="var" type="xs:string" use="required" />
                      </xs:complexType>
                    </xs:element>
                    <xs:element minOccurs="0" xmlns:q2="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q2:select" />
                    <xs:element minOccurs="0" xmlns:q3="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q3:ul" />
                    <xs:element minOccurs="0" xmlns:q4="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q4:a" />
                    <xs:element minOccurs="0" xmlns:q5="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q5:h4" />
                    <xs:element minOccurs="0" xmlns:q6="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q6:span" />
                    <xs:element minOccurs="0" name="if">
                      <xs:complexType>
                        <xs:sequence>
                          <xs:element minOccurs="0" xmlns:q7="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q7:h2" />
                          <xs:element minOccurs="0" name="if">
                            <xs:complexType>
                              <xs:sequence>
                                <xs:choice maxOccurs="unbounded">
                                  <xs:element xmlns:q8="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q8:a" />
                                  <xs:element name="else" />
                                  <xs:element xmlns:q9="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q9:div" />
                                </xs:choice>
                              </xs:sequence>
                              <xs:attribute name="cond" type="xs:string" use="required" />
                            </xs:complexType>
                          </xs:element>
                          <xs:element minOccurs="0" name="else" />
                          <xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" xmlns:q10="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q10:div" />
                          <xs:element minOccurs="0" xmlns:q11="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q11:dl" />
                          <xs:element minOccurs="0" xmlns:q12="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q12:span" />
                        </xs:sequence>
                        <xs:attribute name="cond" type="xs:string" use="required" />
                      </xs:complexType>
                    </xs:element>
                    <xs:element minOccurs="0" xmlns:q13="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q13:p" />
                    <xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" xmlns:q14="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q14:div" />
                    <xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" name="include">
                      <xs:complexType>
                        <xs:attribute name="name" type="xs:string" use="required" />
                      </xs:complexType>
                    </xs:element>
                  </xs:sequence>
                  <xs:attribute name="id" type="xs:string" use="required" />
                  <xs:attribute name="var" type="xs:string" use="optional" />
                </xs:complexType>
              </xs:element>
            </xs:sequence>
            <xs:attribute name="id" type="xs:string" use="required" />
            <xs:attribute name="locked" type="xs:boolean" use="required" />
            <xs:attribute name="title" type="xs:string" use="required" />
            <xs:attribute name="type" type="xs:string" use="required" />
          </xs:complexType>
        </xs:element>
      </xs:sequence>
      <xs:attribute name="class" type="xs:string" use="required" />
      <xs:attribute name="id" type="xs:string" use="required" />
      <xs:attribute name="maxwidgets" type="xs:unsignedByte" use="optional" />
      <xs:attribute name="showaddelement" type="xs:string" use="optional" />
      <xs:attribute name="preferred" type="xs:string" use="optional" />
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="if">
    <xs:complexType mixed="true">
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:choice maxOccurs="unbounded">
          <xs:element xmlns:q15="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q15:span" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q16="http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data" ref="q16:title" />
          <xs:element name="else" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q17="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q17:a" />
          <xs:element name="if">
            <xs:complexType>
              <xs:sequence>
                <xs:element xmlns:q18="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q18:a" />
                <xs:element minOccurs="0" name="else" />
                <xs:element minOccurs="0" xmlns:q19="http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data" ref="q19:post.title" />
              </xs:sequence>
              <xs:attribute name="cond" type="xs:string" use="required" />
            </xs:complexType>
          </xs:element>
          <xs:element xmlns:q20="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q20:h3" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q21="http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data" ref="q21:top.authorLabel" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q22="http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data" ref="q22:post.author" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q23="http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data" ref="q23:top.timestampLabel" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q24="http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data" ref="q24:top.commentLabel" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q25="http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data" ref="q25:post.numComments" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q26="http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data" ref="q26:top.commentLabelPlural" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q27="http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data" ref="q27:postLabelsLabel" />
          <xs:element name="loop">
            <xs:complexType>
              <xs:sequence>
                <xs:element xmlns:q28="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q28:a" />
                <xs:element name="if">
                  <xs:complexType>
                    <xs:simpleContent>
                      <xs:extension base="xs:string">
                        <xs:attribute name="cond" type="xs:string" use="required" />
                      </xs:extension>
                    </xs:simpleContent>
                  </xs:complexType>
                </xs:element>
              </xs:sequence>
              <xs:attribute name="values" type="xs:string" use="required" />
              <xs:attribute name="var" type="xs:string" use="required" />
            </xs:complexType>
          </xs:element>
          <xs:element xmlns:q29="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q29:h4" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q30="http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data" ref="q30:commentLabel" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q31="http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data" ref="q31:commentLabelPlural" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q32="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q32:dl" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q33="http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data" ref="q33:comment.author" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q34="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q34:p" />
          <xs:element name="include">
            <xs:complexType>
              <xs:attribute name="data" type="xs:string" use="required" />
              <xs:attribute name="name" type="xs:string" use="required" />
            </xs:complexType>
          </xs:element>
          <xs:element xmlns:q35="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q35:ul" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q36="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q36:dd" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q37="http://www.google.com/2005/gml/data" ref="q37:label.name" />
        </xs:choice>
      </xs:sequence>
      <xs:attribute name="cond" type="xs:string" use="required" />
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="loop">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:choice maxOccurs="unbounded">
          <xs:element name="if">
            <xs:complexType>
              <xs:sequence>
                <xs:element minOccurs="0" name="if">
                  <xs:complexType>
                    <xs:sequence>
                      <xs:element name="include">
                        <xs:complexType>
                          <xs:attribute name="data" type="xs:string" use="required" />
                          <xs:attribute name="name" type="xs:string" use="required" />
                        </xs:complexType>
                      </xs:element>
                    </xs:sequence>
                    <xs:attribute name="cond" type="xs:string" use="required" />
                  </xs:complexType>
                </xs:element>
                <xs:element minOccurs="0" name="include">
                  <xs:complexType>
                    <xs:attribute name="data" type="xs:string" use="required" />
                    <xs:attribute name="name" type="xs:string" use="required" />
                  </xs:complexType>
                </xs:element>
                <xs:element minOccurs="0" xmlns:q38="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q38:h2" />
              </xs:sequence>
              <xs:attribute name="cond" type="xs:string" use="required" />
            </xs:complexType>
          </xs:element>
          <xs:element name="include">
            <xs:complexType>
              <xs:attribute name="data" type="xs:string" use="required" />
              <xs:attribute name="name" type="xs:string" use="required" />
            </xs:complexType>
          </xs:element>
          <xs:element xmlns:q39="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q39:dt" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q40="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q40:dd" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q41="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q41:div" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q42="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q42:a" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q43="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q43:li" />
          <xs:element xmlns:q44="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" ref="q44:option" />
        </xs:choice>
      </xs:sequence>
      <xs:attribute name="values" type="xs:string" use="required" />
      <xs:attribute name="var" type="xs:string" use="required" />
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
</xs:schema>

Christmas

Its Christmas.. But is still raining.

Roads at Orchard was closed to the traffic. Shopping centers are packed.

Car parks are filled and all other things u get during a holiday.

Anyway, to All, Merry Christmas!!

Training.....

Thumb got cut during training because of the uncut badminton tape in the thumb hole of the bowling ball.... Such a weird suggestion from one of the coaches...

Legs aching from 50 crunches, 50 push-ups and 5 rounds of 20 lane length slides....

Excessive Lactic Acid buildup...

Haiz

Markup Languages, Blogger , the Web and Beyond

Ok.. This post is gonna sound like a big rant and most would probably be turned off by the web jargon. Oh well... here goes...

As the title suggested, its about markup languages. Well we don't seem to get enough of it. Although mostly based on eXtensible Markup Language (XML) which made things slightly easier. In fact, HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and the reformulated HTML base on XML rules: the XHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language) is like a subset to XML.

Blogger

With the introduction of the new Blogger beta, is the introduction of a complete set of template-ing tags. It now takes XML tags instead of the classic HTML tags. Not that the support of the old tags have broken, you can choose classic if you want to, but then whats the point of upgrading if you don't use it?

Have you noticed that the you no longer need to wait to republish the entire site or the "Publish Index Only" etcetera? Well, I heard that Blogger works differently now. Instead of having published static files, the files are brought together dynamically before serving up to the browser. When a file is requested, information about the widgets and post and headers are gathered and then a HTML file is generated. It reminds me of PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor), Adobe / Macromedia ColdFusion and evem the newer Adobe / Macromedia Flex Data services.

Well judging from the namespaces given, it seems that it may be named Google Markup Language (GML).. But then again, GML also stands for Geography Markup Language for those who are familiar with mapping tools.

And by the way, namespaces refers to the xmlns section. In an attempt to explain: "XML namespaces provide a simple method for qualifying element and attribute names used in Extensible Markup Language documents by associating them with namespaces identified by URI references." (Source: W3C) But really namespaces are more useful than that and frankly, I don't know much about it myself.

Its going to take sometime again before I can come up with any new layout that conforms to w3c standards. However, for the quick and easy way of customizations, there is actually a website which already does some hacking into the new blogger beta templates. Hackosphere has some excellent methods and hacks. I use their label widget hack too..

With a 3 new namespaces, I really hope Blogger would release the schema for the namespaces. Doing so is going to make development of the templates even easier. With tools like XML Spy and the excellent Open-Source Eclipse Integrated Development Envrionment (IDE) where it is possible to customize it to use custom schemas (.xsd files).

XSD by the way "is a library that provides an API for manipulating the components of an XML Schema as described by the W3C XML Schema specifications, as well as an API for manipulating the DOM-accessible representation of XML Schema as a series of XML documents, and for keeping these representations in agreement as schema are modified." (Source: Eclipse Community)

And well API stands for Application programming interface. I shan't attempt to go into it and act like I know it well.. because I don't...

Adobe/Macromedia Flex

Well this is something that I am looking into now, ever since the release of version 2 of Flex, and the release of the free Flex 2 SDK. It uses a customized version of XML too. Known as MXML. Again, knowing XML is useful here.It is to be a framework for RIA (Rich Internet Application) development. Flex generates Flash (.swf) files as the front-end.

There isn't much I can say here since I just started looking into it.
However, for the curious, you can look at the Flex website at http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/.

Its quite free in a sense as you can develop Flex Applications with just the SDKs and a editor of your choice. My favorite is Eclipse, but even Notepad will do.

ColdFusion

Its been in the market for sometime. Can't say much about it though... Never really taken to it since ColdFusion pages require a coldfusion support to be installed on the server.

However, like the rest mentioned here, ColdFusion also has its own Markup Language called the CFML (ColdFusion Markup Language)....

And??... (Web 2.0, Web 3.0 and Beyond)

The list goes on and on and on... There are definitely more out there which other may know and I have not heard of. But the list is definitely growing. The only good thing that comes out of this is that it increases a person's employability to have these skills in the age of Web 2.0. In fact, Web 3.0 is already being disussed.

Web 2.0 is "a phrase coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004, refers to a perceived or proposed second generation of Internet-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users. O'Reilly Media, in collaboration with MediaLive International, used the phrase as a title for a series of conferences, and since 2004 certain technical and marketing communities have adopted and loosely adapted the phrase." (Source: Wikipedia

Information about the percieved Web 3.0 is still dispersed. But according to ZDnet, Web 3.0 is divided into few secions, namely: API services, Aggregation services, Application services, Serviced clients. There is much that I haven't read about Web 3.0, but for more information, the article on the topic at A List Apart may help shed more light to it.

For now, I guess we'll have to be adaptable to the various languages and look as the web proceeds beyond into semantics, user experiences and controls.

Jap Ice-cream

Currently, it seems that the Japanese Ice-cream is all the rage now... with stalls popping out in quite a few places...

I am referring to the Japanese Ice-cream chain: Uzumaki.

Should try it one day. From what I remember, they have green tea (Their specialty) chocolate and chip, wasabi, blueberry and black seasame... I don't know if I remember correctly, but pardon me if I don't...

Here is a pic of the stall at Harbourfront Mall:





Those two gave quite a shock to some kids... because they stand quite still till someone comes by and they "jump out".. I mean they just start moving.. haha

Megastore openings

Recently went to two places: 1. Vivocity and 2.IKEA, Courts

Went to Ikea, Courts today, but had dropped by Vivocity a few days ago...

1.Vivocity

Dropped by at vivocity a few days ago. And what luck. It was the day when the Singapore Premiere Curse of the Golden Flower (满城尽带黄金). And the guest is none other than the movie's main actor, Chow Yun Fat (周润发).

For a moment, I wished I was on attachment to SPH.. so I could stand on the less crowded platform. You should see how crazy some people are... shoving and elbowing so they could get a better picture... Not that I was a fan, but how often do you get to see a movie star in town? I wasn't the crazy few in front, but I did get a good look... Manage to get a picture...Not that clear though...





(I see many phones... lets leave for the movie!)

Anyway, took a nice walk around the place.. Its huge.. though abit of a bore.. However, the place would do fine for some one-stop shopping... The roof of the place have this pond/pool or whatever you call... I guess they can just take away the "No Swimming sign... it just isn't working. 2 days I went there and I can safely say there has been an increase in the number in the water...I found it incredulous that some even come prepared!! A change of clothes and swimming trunks!!

I know this is abit random, but the entire place on the outside doesn't look very interesting either.. felt that the off-white color of the building was made the whole building look so old and boring with a grey background. A brighter color of white would have been better.. Oh well...

and oh another pic:





(Let's Play HangMan)

2. IKEA and Courts

Can't believe that I actually gone to a megastore's grand opening in Tampines... That partly because wanted to go to Ikea which was situated next door.

The Grand Opening of the Courts Megastore today got Mega Crowded. Likened to the Ikea Megastore opening.

I can't imagine when the Giant Hypermart opens next door in the not so distant future. The place would seriously get congested... Then all we need is other stores like carefour to open one nearby and the area will resemble a beehive with cars inching along the roads... That is unless there are still space to inch along.

Saw a familiar sight though... now I know where the school got the snake in one of the classrooms from... It was on sale at IKEA...






(Snakes Galore!!)

Blogger Beta

I can effectively throw out all my knowledge on the blogger template requirements. The upgrade is causing me a new headache: templates no longer in plain HTML. making use of widgets now, I need to study their XML coding again. oh gosh...

I guess for the time being, I'll make do with this excellent blog template which they adapted from mezzoblue.

Oh.. and sorry about the links... looks like its all gone, the blogroll... need to slowly add one by one...

in-turns and more

In-Turns... My period as an intern has officially ended... I shan't discuss much about it as the report has yet to be handed up... Like a company's FY status, I shan't reveal it first....

Well as usual, since I've been "working" for sometime and thus didn't update here as much as I could, I shall have a slightly longer post. Categorized of course... So that you may skip parts of no interest...(or probably all.. LOL)....

Lets go GP-style from big to small, starting with: On the News

Well watching the news sometime ago, it was announced that the national museum is now reopened... Like the National Library, it is really revamped and I hope to go there once again... Although I can't remember the last time I've been there already....

Another piece of surprising news was that the gov feedback unit has also revamped itself and officially launch blogs as a means to communicate and gather feedback from the masses... It can be found at http://www.reach.gov.sg/... However, with the attitude and mindset already driven deep into Singaporeans, it remains to be seen whether the blogs will actually gather any momentum.

The lack of momentum can be attributed to few reasons...

1. People have their own blogs already...


2. Going through such an avenue with strong association with the government presents some concern...


3. There is this "hold back and look-see" attitude powering many Singaporeans, driven into our mindsets through generation: "What are the consequences of voicing out?"....


4. Sure... there is a increase number of people voicing out.. but what continues after the thought stated in point 3 would be: "what are the benefits of doing so?"

With such concerns, it would be sometime before the site would actually take off...

Another much awaited news would be the island-wide wifi network that is free for 3 years as well as the workfare bonuses... I am in no position to comment on the workfare bonuses... However, on the issue of wifi, it marvels me, or rather, it failed to marvel me (I can't really decide) that the take-up rate has been so high, when broadband penetration rate in SG is only 58.9%. It goes to show the power of something being "free".

Free? I go "yar sure"... This is something I don't really think is sustainable without some form of revenue... As what I learnt the past few weeks, or you can put it down to plain common sense, company's exist to make money... (with the exception of non-profit charity organizations)... there must be some way to gain back... Either at the end of 3 years, you'll be charged a nominal fee, or you start getting some form of advertisement the moment you connect to the network or while you roam on the network... Oh well.. only time will tell...

On the Technology side

Intel has launched quad-core chips... and definitely a power user's dream. Now there is a jungle of chips out there.... getting very confusing... With AMD and Intel's different naming systems as well as 32-bit and 64-bit versions of processors, and with Intel having the old Celerons, Pentium M, Pentium 4, Pentium 4 HT, to the newer Pentium D, Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme (quad-core), Core Solo... and the list is growing.... Ouch.. my head hurts..

Not to mention Vista has been officially gone into RTM and also released to VLK clients. Likewise for Office 2007 which adopts the OpenDocument format as well as finally has a plugin which supports export to Adobe PDF format.

On the Personal Front

Got a web-development project.. and boy.. my head is throbbing over the implementation... I am venturing into somewhere I've never been... that is adopting the use of a Database (MySQL) and also the use of a preprocessor (PHP)... Ok.. PHP not much of a problem as I am quite strong in the presentation part which uses XHTML and CSS, but there is much to be learnt on the logical layer... And with plugins to a certain system which has to be developed to control the forms and Database, this "one-man-show" seems a bit daunting and a headache... But then again, looking "ahead" at least I got a push to learn what I would otherwise put off: about Database f(x)...

Training has also restarted and we are supposed to have our eyes on the National Schools Tournament. And talking about that, I still haven't get to see the Direct-School-Admission Students... Well... Better start doing the attendance list...

and oh last but not least....Happy Feet!!!

Wow! That shooting star is going up! Thats GST!

GST is going up again... and by GST, I meant Goods and Service Tax, not Greet, Smile and Thank. If the latter was true, it would have been great...

I don't know, but I guess its another cycle of increment. I guess we should be used to it already since that time when it was increased from 3% to 5%. Now it would be increased to 7%.

It seems to be a legal way to "take from rich and give to poor" theory. However, one question would be: "What would happen to the society's middle class". We are neither here nor there. We don't qualify to get the benefits and also not rich at all.... So in my view, it seems that the middle classes are the ones that bare the full brunt of such an increment.

Its a vicious cycle. In the market, consumers would ultimately be the one to suffer. Picture this..... If price of materials increase, manufacturing cost increase, and thus, product cost increase and then this amount would be passed on to consumers.

One point to note. There is a snowball effect along that price pathway. When materials increase in price due to GST, in order to cover cost, manufacturers have to increase the price. And in addition to this price, there is still GST. and this would continue increasing until the final party to get the goods.

It was argued in the radio that hawker stalls may also suffer quite a lost. Although there is an increase in GST, hawker pricing aren't as price inelastic as other goods. A small increase in pricing of the food would turn even the most frequent customers away. Actually especially frequent customers. They may feel that they have been paying that amount for years and an increase is unacceptable.

To conclude, I think that any increase by the Government will generate alot of arguments and views... But ultimately, I guess a persons view is will still be bias towards their own backgrounds in cases such as this.....

News Article: Abolish Homework

This article appeared in today's newspaper (The Sunday Times, November 12,2006, page 24) , about a new call in the US to abolish homework....This age old question never fails to come up after some time....

A group is saying that children are doing more homework but there is no evidence that it adds to the learning experience... It is also said that the correlation between homework and academic achievement is more visible as one get into a higher level of education...

And I guess the education system here in SG is somewhat similar in terms of homework load. Though they are sure moving to a teach less learn more method, which means more work/research to be done at home, which equates to more homework...

I believe that the homework problem can be seen in all countries especially those with a very established education system... Well its been done for so many years and there is nothing against it. There is also nothing that says that it is bad. In fact I guess I must agree there is a certain degree of usefulness in homework. There are some subjects which needs alot of practice.

However, the situation whereby homework is increasing is not new. Compared years ago, homework load has definitely been increasing. I believe that it is now more prevalent that subjects covers more depth and thus, would translate to more work....

It is stated in the article that a study had suggested that the amount of homework be based on a child's age, example would be a first-grader 10 minutes of homework, second-grader 20 minutes. etc. This led me to think about it....

What if it is implemented in SG? well, I guess a few things would come up.

For one, if it is implemented according to age, what about those who are older than the mean age for that level? For example, a 19 year old can be in secondary school...

Second, 10 minutes of homework? Yea right... if each teacher would allocate 20 minutes of homework, and taking an average secondary student who takes 8 subjects, this would add up to about a 160 minutes of homework. And a Secondary 3 student is definitely higher than 2nd grade.. not sure what grade though... I think its 5th or 6th grade... If the time allocated to homework increases , the total amount of time allocated for homework would also increase proportionately.... Wow!.. Huge number...

Again, moderation is the key... One man's meat is another man's poison... Though some may be against, I think there are some who likes doing homework... Though I aren't one of those, but I find that it helps and thus will still do so... (p.s. Moreover, there are reprecussions if we don't do, and I'm not referring to grades... ok maybe grades too as it counts into our "daily quality of work" marks..)

The concerns that the group is bringing up definitely deserves a second look. However, I really don't think it is wise to totally abolish homework...

궁 (宮)

Been watching the 7pm Korean Drama: 궁 (宮)..

Lolx... didn't want to watch at first.. but it seems like its quite funny... Grew to like the song too...

Belows the song: Perhaps Love

Scene from NEL

Took this picture while I was in the North East (MRT) Line on my way back home

Advertisement nowadays... Crowding the already crowed train....

Free Alternatives

This post is quite random I think....

Well.. Recently, Microsoft has announced that Windows Vista will have even more restrictions.

For one, they will not be allowing it to run in a virtualised environment for the Home and Home Premium Editions which I think would form the majority of the market.

As many know, Microsoft hasWindows Genuine Advantage (WGA) programme which caused some privacy concerns. Now, according to an business technology site, InformationWeek , a new programme called the Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) has been launched. (source)
As published in InformationWeek, and I quote: "Beginning Friday, users of Office XP and 2003 must prove to Microsoft that their software is legitimate to download add-ons from the Office Web site. "OGA only gets invoked then," said Jaidka. To download a template, for instance, requires that the user validate Office."

Though I aren't affected by this ruling since I invested my allowance on their software... $400 bucks for Office XP..., it has nonetheless got me thinking about the future of using such proprietary software...

I've been slowly but surely, migrating to opensource (OSS) and freeware once I feel that my software has become outdated than their respective freeware and OSS competition...

Looking through, I was actually able to sorted some of the more actively used softwares on my computer into a few categories....

Online

Filezilla,
Firefox,
Thunderbird,
Opera,
Internet Explorer 7 (To test my websites and visit sites built with ASP - Active Server Pages )

Compression

Izarc,
Zip Genius,
KGB Archiver

Development and Graphics

Inkscape,
Visual Studio Express,
OpenOffice.org,
GIMP,
Picasa

Server and virtualisation

VMware Player,
VMX wizard,
Apache

Maintenance and Security

Starter,
FreeRamXP pro,
EULA analyzer,
AntiVIR,
ZoneAlarm,
Spybot Serach and Destroy,
Ad-Aware

Media

VideoLan,
Audacity

LOLx... Welcome to the world of OSS and freeware I guess... haha...

STOMP and others

STOMP

After much resistance, I've finally joined STOMP. For the curious, STOMP stands for Straits Times Online Media Portal. I must add, it is quite engaging.

One thing that I felt it could have improved upon is to tie the two forums, that is STink And Spill (the teens forum) and the main STOMP forum, Talkback together. Now it is 2 separate systems...

And this thread lead me to be utterly disgusted. Didn't even want to post a reply... heres a link http://stinkandspill.stomp.com.sg/forums/showthread.php?t=343

Chinese and PW

OH I can't believe the Chinese A level examination is just 2 days away... Really doesn't feel like it lor... And on that day there is also the Insights and Reflection submissions. So glad... After the I and R submission, we are left with the Oral Presentation and we can say goodbye to Project Work... YaY!!

Technology

Windows Vista, Microsoft's long overdue operating system should be coming soon. Release Candidate 1 has been open to the public for sometime now. Release Candidate 2 on the other hand is already available to MSDN Subscribers....

According to neowin.net, the packaging for Windows Vista as well as Office 2007 has been released... Below is a picture posted on neowin.net

The two widely used browsers have also released their next version. Mozilla has released Firefox 2 while over at the Microsoft's front, Internet Explorer 7 has been released. On that note, Microsoft has also released the 11th version of their Windows Media Player software.

Death Note デスノート, Desu Nōto

Yup.... Death Note (デスノート, Desu Nōto).. Finally watched it....

Guess its goodbye AND Dangerous Lorry

Guess its goodbye...

Yup.. its so sad.. Ms Ng gonna leave the school to venture into the "darkside". Came as a surprise to many... Showed no hints of leaving... STill cracking so many jokes...

The whole of the science department came to bid her farewell at her last lecture here... Lectures will never be the same again...

Dangerous Lorry...

Like the heading suggests, it was really dangerous to load the lorry with this much things... I snapped a picture of it but turned out a little blur... He was driving so dangerously and to make matters worse, he was talking on the phone without a handsfree set... Really negligent driving...

Below are photos of it... Couldn't actually take the driver talking on the phone because of two reasons.

1. He was driving with that load, on a phone. I was afraid that if he sees me photographing, he may swerve unexpectantly and it would be a road disaster.

2. I don't know what he will do if he finds out he is being photograph...

Wanted to send the photos to STOMP but decided against it..

A few things

Just for fun, I'll reverse the order of the points my post this time... haha

Random-ness

I know this is totally random, but yea.. I thought it was quite innovative to put the ashtray in a swivel design... haha

Sportsman Appreciation Talk

Today marks the official day that all JC2 PDP heads stepped down. Thus is also marks the new exco official undertaking of their appointment. The rest of us got our certificate of appointment... Sadly.. there there was a glitch somewhere... Won't elaborate further... haha

Haze

The haze isn't getting any better. SG hit a high PSI of 106 and stayed in the unhealthy range for quite sometime. Below is a picture taken in school... The buildings are supposed to be clear...

Classical Gas

Wished I could play that

Below is a guy who play the same song with a little bit of madness...

OH, OP and others

Since I have not blogged for sometime, this would be a longer post.... Let me go backwards, from wide to narrow... GP style.

Global

It seems that situation is still quite unstable with North Korea. They are threatening the global committee by saying that their response on the development of the Nuclear Warheads will be linked to American Action.This is really bad as you can be sure that the United States would definitely not back away.

With the probe still ongoing on whether the nuclear test was real, it no doubt be a matter of grave concern as it may threaten to split the world into two camps again – against and for camps. It really reminds me of the 1955 Warsaw Pact and the 1949 North Alantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) as well as all the appeasements policies during the war era. However, this time, I do not think we will see appeasement being used very much.

With the war on terrorism still ongoing, this is going worsen the feelings of unsafty of the global committee.

The feeling of safety has again plummeted. The recovery from all these problems and war does not seem to be anywhere near the visible horizon.

Home

Global problems are one thing, but closer to home, the indonesian forest fires caused haze does not seem to be slowing down much. Though the situation has certainly improved, the Pollutants Standard Index (PSI) is still fluctuating

It is irritating to note that this happens every year... I shall not comment further already as actions have been taken against it.

OH: Open House

The TJC open house was held today. Oh man.. I spent so much time updating the bowling blog to reflect the open house event, up to the extent where I opened a new blog just for the open house details.

The actual open house was quite uninteresting to me. With all the expected stuff that can happen. Probably because I've past that stage... But oh well... at least the brochures were all given out.

here is my design for the brochure:

OP: Oral Presentation and other exams

The PW oral presentation and other A Level paper – Chinese, is drawing nearer... and with the ending of our promotional exams, it is a mark of the start of another stress period...

The Written Report is due next friday... Chinese A Level is coming at the end of the month....

And just last thursday (i.e. Yesterday), there was a talk... Asking us to think about our Epitaph....

oh what are we going to do....Arrrrgh

The Windows Live Writer Beta

This is just a post to test the Windows Live Writer beta blogging platform.... And I must say, I'm quite impressed... Although the preview feature is still not up to standards.. I think

OH.. and the PSI went down to 140...

Worse and worse... PSI

The haze problem caused by the Indonesian forest fires is getting worse.

Today's PSI (Pollution Standard Index) reading has alot of flactuations, with readings going as high as 150. This is supposed to be a unhealthy level.
I cannot concentrate properly today either... Had alot of eye irritations.... Extremely frustrated now...

The farmers just never learn. This happens again and again, year after year. Put it in economic terms, their action of burning the forest to clear the lane is causing alot of NEGATIVE EXTERNALITIES to their country and the neighbouring countries...

I think time for some concrete actions to be taken to stop this again. If warning and signs don't work, I think they should confiscate the lands. Although this may not be the best alternative, taking into account other factors that may be present, but Hey, I think it is a very good form of deterrence...

For now, I can only hope that the skies will clear up by tomorrow morning

Below is a list of readings until 10pm today, taken from the National Environment Agency website.

For more recent updates, visit http://app.nea.gov.sg/psi/

7am — 89

8am — 101

9am — 119

10am — 130

11am — 128

12pm — 115

1pm — 102

2pm — 91

3pm — 83

4pm — 80

5pm — 86

6pm — 98

7pm — 126

8pm — 143

9pm — 150

10pm — 145

3 Days and countless things more to do

School

Yup.. 3 more days and its the promotional exams. However, there is still a pile of things to be done and revised... ARrgh!!...

Went to school today.. Class was half empty / half full.. Half of the class stayed home today...

For the first time, we had lessons in the Watson and Crick biololgy IT lab...

Oh gosh.. I did not know that sitting in the school were 13 Apple G5 Macs... I aren"t sure whether its G5 or the new macs with Intel Processors, but definitely a Mac... And thats only the Watson lab... I assume that Crick"s lab would have the same facilities which means that we have 26 Apple Macs.

Those labs must have cost a lot.. And oh... I like Apple"s mighy mouse... haha

Net

When I was surfing the net to relief some stress, I was surprised to find that Microsoft made Virtual PC 2004 free.

Wow.. I've been hoping for this to happen. However, it seems that the only supported platforms are Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000 Professional... Windows XP Home aren"t even supported.. But I installed anyway... Shouldn" be a problem since XP Pro is supported..

Blog Layout and Singapore Idol

yup.. changed layout.. so happy with this new one...

For the first time it is a fully fluid layout. Its still standards compliant as usual, although I am still having problems with the blogger inserted codes as they aren't standards compliant rendering my site uncompliant with stricter doctypes..

Couldn't migrate fully from iframes also because browsers have restrictions on cross domain XmlHttpRequest. Thus I have to use back and iframe for the tagbaord...

Any comments welcome... whether its on the improvements of the site or the layout, or the accessiblity... Thanks.

OK.. enough tech stuff.

Singapore Idol!!! Finals!!

Yup Singapore Idol 2 finals result show is now shoing... wonder who will win... This time round its a bit hard to determine...

Oh well... off to watch it...

Wrong Timing

Oh man... first mouth got ulcers, then found out that one of my wisdom teeth is growing. Arrgh...

"Wisdom teeth are third molars that usually appear between the ages of 17 and 24 (although they may appear when older, younger, or may not appear at all). They are commonly removed when they affect other teeth—colloquially known as "coming in sideways."

Wisdom teeth are often described as an example of a "vestigial" trait. Some argue that recent changes to softer diets which cause less wear on the teeth may be causing the third molars to be less useful, and, in fact, problematic in many humans. Alternately, it is possible that wisdom teeth were useful when it was common for humans to lose several teeth to decay by the age when they appear.

Although most people have four wisdom teeth, it is possible to have more or fewer. Absence of one or more wisdom teeth is an example of hypodontia. Any extra teeth are referred to as supernumerary teeth.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Hope it can hold out until after my A Levels when I decide to remove it.

More chaos and something else...

On Thailand

Martial law.. Never thought I will hear the phrase out of the history class context.

For those who are unsure, "Martial law is the system of rules that takes effect (usually after a formal declaration) when a military authority takes control of the normal administration of justice." (source: Wikipedia)

Whats even more surprising.. Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej on Wednesday, 20th Sep 2006, endorsed coup leader to head the new governing council, according to a televised announcement. (Source: International Herald Tribune)

That was something quite unexpected... Endorsement of a coup... I am curious what's going to happen next...

On a SideNote

Quite a remarkable download speed... Didn't believe my eyes... Too bad its a one off thing.. Never happened again since then.

Anyway, for those curious, xampp is a integrated installer for a WAMP setup (i.e. Windows, Apache, MySQL and PHP). I was setting up a development server on my computer to test my websites...

Starting Soon

Promos are starting soon.. I really need to find time to mug...

oh well

-jz out-

IMF Woes

So its been decided that 22 out of 27 banned activists will be allowed into the country, with the remaining 5 subjected too screenings and interviews first...

While there has been outcry, surely there are people out there who agrees with what SG has done (the ban)...

You may argue that I am young, but I believe and agree that security is also a human right. If we were to make an exception just because a world body is coming here, then will the citizens or even other people respect our laws?

I really can't comment... I don't know the entire picture... Neither will we know the actual impact of this event...

Maybe we should have done things differently... We could have relaxed the security... Take the risk... But if something really happens, they will blame us for not increasing our security...

haiz.. such a dilemma.

Going on and on.. and getting no where....

yea right.. life's going on but it seems that I aren't getting anywhere with revision. Promos in 3 weeks and still got hmwk to clear which is taking time away from revision.. sighz...

Today, the area was undergoing fogging. Came back... on the pathway back to my block, I conuted... About 110 cockroaches and 8 were still alive, before I lost counted.. Thats because I got too distracted when I walked past the lift landing of the adjacent block... There were already about 30 died cockroaches in that area..

oh man... should have taken a picture of that gross situation.. too bad I didn't think of it... BUT I aren't too keen on seeing that scene... HAHA.

.......gy.jz out............

Finally the green light for SJI (International)

Just in the news a while ago. Its announced that the Ministry Of Education has approved the application for the opening of the third international school in Singapore.

St. Josephy's Institution (SJI) International is now officially recognised. An announcement will be made to the current students and parents soon... I think recruitment has already started. Even the new principal for SJI(International) has been chosen.

I wonder we will hear from the SJI Old Boys Asscociation (SJIOBA) too... haha

YAY!

Shock the other day, Scare today

On Steve Irwin

The other day, the news of the untimely death of Steve Irwin met with disbelief... I actually got the news early in the afternoon when i chance across a blog post about it. I was skeptical of it until I double checked the authenticity of that claim with Australian News site.

The fact finally sunk it when I saw it on the television.

At home

Got such a scare when my uncle's maid called saying that she couldn't wake my grandma up from her sleep.

Turned out to be a false alarm... It seems she had fainted or something along that line.

We still don't know the cause, but I'm are just thankful that nothing happened.

Back to Normal and IMCB photos

After three days going to IMCB at biopolis from 9-5pm (i.e. working hours).. It seems that everything is back to normal..

Gosh... it feels weird. Kinda miss going back there...

Oh well.. When I have the chance...

Yup.. Some photos...

From the skybridge.

Our ECL Test results

Group photo... five of us from TJC

Group Photo: 29th-31st Aug 2006, GG Lab.

Attaching tomorrow.... and 4 other things

5. Things in total.

1. IMCB

haha... Funny heading. But yar.. tomorrow will be reporting to the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) instead of school. Oh man... Its so far... all the way to biopolis... But I aren't going to complain...

Missing a few tests though... Have to do a make-up for those... (i.e. going back to school during the holidays to do)...

I already cleared my "tests deficit"... I sat for the this wednesday's Chinese test in advance last friday.... Then I sat for the long overdue biology test on eukaryotic and prokaryotic genome today. Going to do the economics test during the holidays... Don't know about the maths test though....

Whats more, I'll be missing teacher's day celebration... so sad... cannot go back to my secondary school as I'll be dismissed at 5pm from IMCB.

haiz... guess I'll just have to make do with an sms to my teachers...

2. Pluto

Yup. I'm sure many of you have read or heard about it by now. Our solar system has shrunk.. We have 8 planets now as opposed to what we used to believe. This is because of the demotion of pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet.

This demotion arised from the new consensus among astrologist/scientist who agree to a new definition of a planet. Thus although we have 11 objects of masses (inlcuding Xena and another dwarf planet), only 8 are full planets now.

So now, other than the sun, we have Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Urananus, Neptune. Effectively, the common way in which we learnt the planets of the solar system last time (i.e. My Very Excellent Mother Just Serve Us Nine Pies)have to go without the pies.

3. Fun with Firefox

It really marvels me the things you can do in firefox. haha... Was playing around with some plugins.

My google homepage:

My Gmail login page

Those photos are really screenshots of my computer.. and not an edited image... Lolx

Its quite fun playing with user applied stylesheets... Although they are visible only on my computer.. But the results are quite statisfying. You can actually turn certain sites which you find difficult to read, or sites that has layouts which you don't quite like into something visibly pleasing to you.

4 .About YouTube

I heard that youtube has revised its site terms... So its advisable for those who upload there to take a look at the site terms again.

5. Site design

I've been thinking of it for a while but haven't really got to designing it yet. I've got a few concepts currently in mind. Since its been so long already, I've decided that I will give a total overhaul to this blog as well as to my website.

This web will undergo base r-ecoding, which will re-shuffle everything into a hierarchical order, from masthead to navigation to content. All these are really part of semantic web coding. The current layout, has taken a step into CSS, but it hasn't really reached a standard which I like. There were still some workarounds which I employed. Moreover, it definitely has some accessiblity issues which needs to be ironed out. I was also thinking of using some AJAX to spice up the blog interactivity, or even add a portfolio of my past designs.

As for the main site, I'm still learning the ins and outs of a Content Management System (CMS). It the CMS system prove too much, I may just resort to wordpress, a blogging system.

oh well... so much to do, so little time....

求其上，得其中,
求其中，得其次.

Moody

Don't know... didn't switch on the computer the whole day till now.

However, for some reason didn't get much things done.
So bored. Stoning the whole day...

Arrgh.. what am I to do!?

Joined the web standards group. Yup. Wished there is an influx in people using web standards, thus eliminating the dependency on one browser especially Internet

Explorer (IE).

However, I must add that IE 7 is really a major improvement. It has seriously improved support for standards and I applaud the changes made. It is now at Release Candidate 1.

Hoping that blogger will go out of beta soon. Then can make use of the new functions, especially the catergory filing. yup

-Stoned out-

Wi-Fi Free? as well as Food Surprise

Saw something interesting.

I am sure there are people who have seen this sign before...I won't mention where I saw this sign. I even took out the name.

I have been wondering for a while what was wrong with it. Then it finally "hit" me.

I am sure we know what the difference between "free sugar" and "sugar free".

Same thing applies here....

Since the place is boasting a free wireless service, shouldn't the sign read "free wifi access"?"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't the phrase "wi-fi free hotspot" imply that the place has no wi-fi?

On the sidenote, I fell sick again. Can't even swallow the food properly.. My throat is seriously inflamed. Ouch..

Went to the doctor yesterday. Told me to stay at home, and don't even think about going to school. First time he gave such specfic instruction.

Almost swallowed some metal thing when I went for lunch after seeing the doctor.

Below is a picture:

Luckily, a wasn't drowsy enough not to notice it.

Anyway, here I am, confined to the 4 walls of the house. Didn't even go to school today.. Don't know how the presentation went. Luckily, I did the presentation in html instead of powerpoint. At least they could use it through the browser.

Oh well.. drowsy again... 5 different kinds of medicine. Mostly medicine which will cause drowsiness...

-out-

Sick.

I'm sick............

Got "ordered" to rest at home.

oh well.. thats all I can say. Shouold be resting now...

Halt

yup.. trainings will be put on hold soon... Next week will be tha last week of training... There goes another avenue to vent frustrations.

Training

Today's training was relatively ok... I actually felt 2 hours was too little... haha... I guess its gotta do with the last 2 training mindset... Didn't even attend the gamma house function today at 6.30pm. Oh well, look forward to beta house function... Anyway, I'm no longer in gamma since after orientation... HaHa.

School

Today's lessons was actually quite hilarious... Especially since we had two "project" presentations (one for economics, another GP).

GP came first. it was quite a miracle how we managed to come up with something for the presentation... we were supposed to "sell" a specified item, i.e. making a sales pitch. No planning, no prior discussions.... We sort of straggled in and presented something... (by the way, our item was a "3 legged donkey")

Then next was Econs presentation. We were supposed to do during our lunch, seeing that we didn't do it yesterday as too few of us were online. Then, we landed up listening to Mr Brown's Podcast... Didn't start doing anything till 3 minutes before the lessons starts. The only thing we did was to input all the suggested websites to read-up.

Dreading class, we walked in, unprepared, unsure and no idea what to do. Since there were 4 groups, we had to "draw lots" to pick who goes first. So unlucky.. got number 1.

Somehow, we managed to persuade our econs teacher to let the other group go first. haha... Secretly (or rather, not so secretly, because we weren't exactly hiding..) we were making the powerpoint as the other groups presented...

The last bell sounded so sweet... Since we didn't manage to finish with the other 3 groups, our presentation was postponed to Monday.. *phew

But sadly, now, we got alot more work to do. With a deadline on the Econs report on monday, and the virtual deadline of our PW written report set on firday, on top of the lecture test on the whole of Organization and Control of Eukaryotic Genome as well as Prokaryotes (both of which are quite "big" topics) on Tuesday, our schedule gonna be tight.

Other Musings

Looks like I'm gonna exceed this months handphone bill again. it was my first time last month... and looks like the same thing is going to repeat itself this month.

Last month was outgoing calls... This month gonna be sms...

Drats.....

.....Gensephyr, out. =)

Communications.

Regarding communications, it seems that I have some untold words written across my arms which says "pinch" me. And yesterday, I obtained a 7cm long scratch... courtesy of a certain someone who got too excited about something, and put or rather "drilled" 3 fingers into my side/waist area..

Talking about communications.....

An interesting article I read on CNN... can't republish it here because of CNN's website terms.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/08/08/cybercouples.reut/index.html

It really makes people wonder if we are losing our real-life communication skills or it is just another step into our future... Maybe this is the next step in communication? I don't know... This isn't a monopoly.. No one can dictate how we should communicate...

It seems that IM and blogging has came from being a something extra to something that is infused in our lives.

TPJC Invitational

Gen topped everyone and became first in today's TPJC invitational. She was spectacular...

However, there was once during the last game when a pocket shot gave a 7-10 Split...

Qwhee took a photo of her and the pins.

So nice to see her smiling so much today... =)

Not long after, erm... to be precise, straight after that, her partner, yx ,replicated the result... Qwhee took a photo of her and the pins too.

Told yx not to put her arms that way as it didn't really look good... Don't believe... Now that she got to see the photos, she agress... sighz...

Anyway, congratulations to all the winners, including but not limited to the two featured here....

oh well.. now that I'm back home. Have to study for the Organic Chemistry test tomorrow.. Seeing that I didn't get much stuff into my head during the invitational, I better start.

Cya

schedules...

I seriously need a some re-scheduling... promos are coming and there seem to be a lack of time... During the JC1 morning assembly in the audi, the VP said to have at least 2-4 hours of study.. However, it seems to be difficult to do so...

Tried sitting down to do some serious work but nothing seems to go into my head.. Don't know, maybe the mood still hasn't come yet...

Anyway, tomorrow theres gonna be a TPJC invitational... Better bring some work there to do... If not, I'll not be able to complete my stuff when I come back as there won't be much time, with a organic chemistry test on Monday.

National Day Theme Song

My Island Home

By Kaira Gong

This is my home

She's everything to me

Grace and beauty

In all that you see

My island home

Wherever I may be

I never will forget her

Nor will she forget me

Chorus ^

And I will sing

A song of home

A land of peace

Where dreams are born everyday

My home

Wherever I may be

I believe

You will always be a part of me ^

My island home

Home of my family

This is my future

Where I want to be

(This is my future

This is my home)

Repeat Chorus x 2

My home

Wherever I may be

I believe

You will always be a part of me

A part of me

Source: http://www.ndp.org.sg

National Day

HAPPY NATIONAL DAY SINGAPORE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes... its 9 August today. The nation will celebrate its 41st year of independence.

However, this years national day will have added significance.... This national day celebration, will be the last event to be held at the National Studium. This event can be said to be the "swan song" for the stadium, as it is due to be demolished, making way for a new stadium and sports hub.

As I am typing now, people should be streaming in to the stadium now to obtain a seat. Sadly, couldn't get any tickets. So I will be watching the LIVE telecast on Television.

Oh well.. back to work now.

no holidays?

This is so frustrating...

Finally National day celebrations has come and we get a short holiday. BUT, a holiday is hardly a holiday. It seems that holidays are meant to be time for mugging and studying.

The conventional wisdom that holidays are meant to be time for a short rest doesn't apply to students...

To start off, I really have to revise on organization of eukaryotic genome.. if not, I'll never make it in the next test which is really coming soon, but no one knows when yet. Then there is still Project Work to do. At least there is a sense of satisfaction upon having passed up the first draft of the 3000 word written report.

Tomorrow I am going to take time off work and go out.... After this I doubt I can. Promos are coming and alot are at stake. Along with our promotion to JC2, there is the Temasek Internship Programme and the taking up of H3 subjects...

Stress, stress... and our Civics Tutor commented that I lost weight... (quite observant because I did lose weight.. although not a very good sign.. ).

Burn Out

Burn out.. really burnt out..

So much work this week... Still got 'A' Level Biology Skills B and C SPA and Economics Test.

Today's PE was also quite a killer... Don't want to go into details of it...

Most probably will write a better post next time.. Too tired to blog anything of content this time.

cya.. got to finish my maths first before I sleep.. Its like 11.20pm already.

tired eyes, sore fingers

My eyes are going to close, and my fingers, more accurately my thumb is about to come off..

So tired... 2.4km trial run today. So boring.. had to run within the school. Wished we could have run outside, round the school.... It always seems shorter running outside the school although the actual distance is more than 2.4km. Finished it in 11.58mins...

The worse part was after the run, we had an almost non-existant break, before heading to the chemistry labs for our 'A' Level Chemistry Science Practiacal Assessment (SPA) Skill D... That reminds me... next week I still have 'A' Level Biology SPA.

So its PE, 2 periods of chem, 2 periods of GP and then 1 period of econs... Don't know how I kept my eyes open... Quite a feat...

Then training... My thumb again suffered the consequences of excessive pressure and friction.... Whats left of the piece of skin still attached to my thumb got 'ripped' off... Ok can say its my fault for going training even though I know my thumb is injured... Oh well.. too late to regret now...

*Site updates

LOLx.. for now, the old layouts are back. Yup... yx, the sister chromatids are back...

I am in the process of recoding.. however, most probably I will bring back this template as an option, re-customising it for the new base code.

cya.

Birthday celebration and blog

Went out today to celebrate my friend's birthday.

Watched Pirates of the Carribean.
Looks like there is going to be the 3rd instalment of the show, judging by the type of ending they had... And the short part after the credits was lame. We sat through the whole credit just to see a dog biting a bone... -_-"

At lunch at around 4pm. LOLx.
The train ride home was crowded as there was disruptions in the North-East Line.
Phew! Long wait too.

Oh man... looks like fileden is down...
The graphics for this blog as well as the bowling blog is out.

Had to create a temporary layout for this blog and take away the other stylesheets for the time being. good also.. Time for me to revamp the whole base coding.
After doing the bowling blog, I figured that my current coding for this site isn't as semantic as i thought it would be. it would do with some further improvements. After trial runs with the style layout changer, I am contemplating whether to take it off in lieu with the current problem of over-dependence on a host for the css layout.
Though there are benefits of having an external stylesheets, I think an internal stylesheet for a blog is more practical.

Drenched soaked

Ok, I was drenched, soaked or what other terms you can think of to describe being wet from walking in the rain. So happy that I almost sung. Sheesh.

Even though I had an excuse from PE from the doctor, I had to walk 4 rounds around the school track. Walked 5 rounds in the end. I don't wanna say why. Later someone complain ...

Had 1 hour 45 minutes of Chem then 1 hour 45 minutes of GP and 55 minutes of econs without any break. It was very hilarious when there was jazz music while we were doing our GP essay. Seems like they were practising for the blacklights (or issit backlights??) event which should have just ended since its close to 11pm now. Too bad they were across the field and cannot ask them to quieten down. And imagine how loud they were if we can hear every note that ensued from their instruments so clearly, taking into account that we were across the field in an air-conditioned class rooms with every hole in the wall closed.

Then came to the part about getting drenched. Waited for a long time b4 I went to get the bowling bags. Supposed to report at 3pm but almost no one was there (ok, maybe only about 5 ppl) came by 2.50pm... Went to the storeroom and it started raining. The key I had was the faulty one and it took quite some time to open the door. Then while walking back, it rained. Moments, just moments after stepping into the shelter, someone called and said they were at the store, standing in the rain. Had to rush back to open. yup, in the rain. Drenched from head to toe. 像落汤鸡似的.

Ok.. I think I will leave out the rest of it. haha

Anyway, training was cool. Although because of the events above, me and the treasurer was like 1 hour late. So happy that I finally got my release correct. Oh and the speed at which my bowling ball travel down the lane doubled (I think). So nice. I lost count of my strikes.. Hope can keep this up.

YaY!!!

its finally up!!

yeah!! the new layout for the TJC bowling blog is launched..
After four days of work, re-coding the entire site and doing up all the graphics, I am glad to say it has finally gone online.

Four days doing this means four days of opportunity costs lost as well as externality incurred, factoring electricity bills.

But anyway, at least it turned out nice ( http://tjcstrikeforce.blogspot.com ).

So many post-mortems for the subjects. Tomorrow there will be another one for Economics, stretching my school hours till 6.30pm.

Its gonna be one long day tomorrow...

TJC PvP and Bowling Team Blog

The first Temasek Junior College Past Vs Present Bowling "Championship" is over. Congratulations to all winners.

An update can be found on the new TJC Bowling Team Blog.

Haven't been doing much for this blog layout... A few layouts have been put on hold. And various not launched... Currently designing a new layout for the TJC Bowling Blog which can be found at http://tjcstrikeforce.blogspot.com
Since no one gave me any concepts, design brief or even graphics, I am now "banging my head against the wall" thinking of what to do, and how to do it.

Anyway, tomorrow still got school... have to finish my carboxylic acid tutorial.

JCT and A levels

OH!!! I actually passed my JCT!! Wow... Thats quite a surprise... The amount of moderation done was substantial! However, though it is an overall pass, the marks for each subject is still atrocious.

Across the level, papers like chemistry have almost as many people failing compared to passing.

Cannot change anything now... Only have to look towards the promos and not repeat such catastrophe..

Had my A Level chinese oral today... omg! I actually stuttered and read the last few lines wrongly!! omg omg omg!!! how how?? It was quite bad. The conversation wasn't any better also. The topic was quite unexpected. Worse, I didn't list down a few important points.. on top of that, almost talked out of point....

Tsk tsk... disappointing, disappointing...

Atrocious

Yep.. Atrocious.. Thats the word. It describes the JCT results.

What will we get? The words flunk, flunk and flunk seems to appear quite often. Such atrocity is seldom seen and never should be seen again.

And now, the deadline Evaluation of Materials (EOM) and Written Report (WR) for our Project Work (PW) is creeping up. The drafts are expected to be in by next week. Such a rush. Thankfully surveys and implementation was carried out during the June Holidays.

PDP / CCA today was quite or short, depending from whose point of view. 3 hour training... did 2 step drills for 3 hours. Patches of skin on my thumb were ripped off by the bowling ball.. Ouch... Looks like I can't bowl for a while.

OH well.. its the weekends again... Have to finish up the weekend homework as well as JCT reflection (if not more marks will be deducted from the JCT)... Don't think I can do any today. Guess I'll have to "chiong" (rush) everything (the homework) tomorrow...

Slowly one by one...

Yup... Slowly one-by-one, the teachers are giving back our results...

oh my gosh.. first thing in the morning is mathematics...
She started off: "Let me get the marks down then I throw your papers away...". What a heart stopper.

Well... that reaction was not surprising. On the contrary, I was surprise i passed. Barely.

Its 1 down, 5 more to go. Not much hope for the rest. Seeing the maths scores, which was supposed to be one of the better subjects got me prepared for the worst. And by "worst", I am saying it as an understatement. what can be worse then worst? I really don't know. One thing for sure, I am going to find out....

DNA spiral layout

Yup... new layout again.
This time its titled "Spiral of Life: DNA".

Because of the slight tweak to the javacript, the the layout the user may have selected before is not reflected.

Thus if you like any of the previous layout, you can switch back using the style changer on the right.

Avaliable styles are:
Stepping Stone
Simplicity
Bleach Theme: Zangetsu-Ichigo
Spiral of Life: DNA

Layouts (and ONLY the Layout, i.e. ONLY the positioning of the content and NOT the content itself) are all licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License

Oh and Youth Day coming too!! Its this Monday. Thus, Monday is a School Holiday. Yeah!!!

Is all over!!

Yup its over alright.. if there is even any hope of passing, I don't really see it now. Don't see any silver lining in any clouds when I came back.

I didn't even have the mood to switch on my computer after the whole thing.
The examination itself was filled with drama...

First there was the voices of agony when we all came out from Chemistry JCT.
Then there was a blackout during the Chinese JCT. The invigilator was the highlight...

She said "No need to talk in a blackout. Please continue your work..." (NOT quoted verbatim)
It was a blackout!! According to dictionary.com, a blackout is the lack of illumination caused by an electrical power failure... How are we supposed to do our work in a power failure without any lights??

Then during our make-up listening comprehension, one guy walked in jiggling his keys!
I can't believe that he didn't know that it was "examination-in-progress"!

Anyway, went out for a movie straight after the last paper. The movie "Just my Luck" was hilarious. If "luck" can be converted into money, that kiss really worth alot.
Haha.

Found some videos on Disney's High School Musical. Was so bored with the other shows on other channels that I switched to Disney Channel. Surprisingly, the show was quite good. The songs aren't too bad either.

Get'cha Head In The Game

Breaking Free

Going to relax for a while. My Chinese 'A' Level Oral examination is scheduled to be held the following week. So fast....

JCT Exams

Yup... every minute that pass now brings me and the rest of the JC1s closer to the June Common Tests....

Frantic would be an understatement as I still have not covered my content fully yet. Still have so much to do and only 3 days left.

The frequency at which I blog this few weeks may become abit erratic. Will resume regular postings once exam finishes on 29th June.

I still have a few more layouts which are in development. Just rolled out version 10 (Stepping Stones), 11 (Simplicity) and 12 (Bleach: Zangetsu-Ichigo ) a few days ago.

Anyway, got to head back to the books again soon.

New Skins / Layouts (Bleach, Simplicity and Stepping Stones)

Took my blog a step further...

I've introduced new Skins / layouts.
On top of this current "Stepping Stones" Skin / Layout, I've added "Simp-1-city" and "Bleach (Anime)" Skin / Layout.

The layouts can be accessed via the sidebar. Take a look and pick your favourite. The user's preference will be "saved" so that the next time you visit, the layout will be used.

Check that section often as I will be adding more layouts after my examinations are over. For now, enjoy this 3.

List of Layouts / Skins:
Stepping Stone
Simplicity
Bleach (Anime)

The Picture used in the Stepping Stones layout is taken by me.
As for the Bleach and Simplicity, the pictures were obtained from bleachexile and google search repectively. However, they have been edited and enhanced using GIMP and Photoshop. A few new elements were added to the Bleach picture.

Please feel free to give your comments via the tagboard. If something doesn't work, please inform me also.

Enjoy!

A ring tone meant to fall on deaf ears

Yup... its on the Straits Times today.
Its was a small article though. However, this ringtone (here) has been on international news. New York Times published an article on it on June 12, 2006 (Article).

Handphones are supposed to be switched off in class. However, in these settings where cellphone use is not allowed, these ringtones which the adults supposedly cannot hear is perfect for signalling the arrival of messages. Studies have shown that adults (most) would gradually lose the ability to hear high-pitched sounds

The ringtone that is an the offshoot of an invention called the Mosquito, developed last year by a Welsh security company to annoy teenagers and gratify adults, not the other way around. It is an ear-splitting 17-kilohertz buzzer.

However in face of younger teachers, this method may fall short, only irritating the teacher further. I for one would not try it. I doubt this ringtone would work with our teachers who are only in their 20s.

Memories of SJI 403 (2006)

Memories of SJI 403 (2006)

A video tribute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy9i6LPmyAM

Haha.. Zack! and the chinese teacher... Always at each other's throat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ldXE35D7YI

Yup.. SOOooo memorable. Didn't even know the existence of some of the photos. haha.

National Age Group oiling patterns

The oiling pattern for National Age Group tomorrow. Although the pictures are not very clear.

National Age Group Oiling pattern

Key

PW implementation

Its Saturday again. That leaves 2 weeks till school re-opens, marking the start of out JCTs.

Yeah!! Finally the headache is over. The implementation of out Project work has been carried out and it is now over.

Finally got the pictures on my computer... It took up all my memory in my memory card in my handphone... Left almost no space for any other items.

A day by the beach

EXpensive COmmittee

"Whats that?" you may ask. actually its just a joke we came up with at the Bowling EXCO meeting today. Supposed to represent Executive Committee. But we joked about it. Went to Haagen-Daz.. Haha..

Anyway, back to the issue (and I still haven't type the minutes of meeting...), discussed quite a bit today, especially on the future prospects of the team. Got quite a number of problems already. And we have many things to plan.

For starters, the resuming of training, the time as well as the second DSA trial. The rest of the meeting will be released when the appropriate time comes.

In the morning, was also our implementation of our Project Work. Enfresdezh got quite angry as they were coming in late. However, it was quite fun. Played basketball, captains ball and soccer. Too bad I had to leave for my meeting before I could get a chance to use the gym. Surprisingly, we managed to get the gym key.

Tomorrow will be another hectic day. They are saying that they want to go East Coast Park. Sighz. It is really a huge problem. Don't even know how to go home from there. No bus to any place which I can take another transport home. So troublesome!!!!

Arrrgh!!!!!

So far, there hasn't been time for any study. All the time taken by school and other commitments. Getting abit frantic about JCT. Mext week will be National Age Group. Again no time to study.

No choice. The only other thing I can do is to depend on luck. LOL.