I got only 2 papers this semester despite taking 4 modules (20 MCs). Out of these 2 papers, 1 of them is open book and partially it is based on common sense (CS3253) and hence I did not spend much time studying it.

I spent exactly 1 week studying CS2105 because the fucking workload is so heavy, fuck loads of stuffs to memorize, closed book exams and not even a single fucking help sheet is allowed (last semester, help sheet is allowed). CS2105 is a computer network module and of course it covers the 5 layers of network. I am fine with that, but I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA WHY THE FUCK DO WE NEED TO KNOW signal calculations/details, WE ARE COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS AND NOT ENGINEERS. Please wake up your idea.

My exams is tomorrow at 5pm and on the brighter side, it is my last paper for the semester.

I have ordered my copy of WordPress for Dummies over at Amazon (including shipping) instead of getting it at my local bookstores because it is cheaper!

Amazon.com
Book: USD$16.49
Shipping: USD$9.98
Total: USD$26.47
Total: SGD$38.38 (USD$26.47 x 1.45)

Local Bookstore: Popular/PageOne
Book: SGD$39.90
Tax: 7%
Total: SGD$42.69

Local Bookstore: Kinokuniya
Book: SGD$42.00

I made a saving of SGD$3.62, even though it is quite insignificant, it is still money. And the time taken for the book to get delivered to me (Amazon)/waiting for the book to arrive (Local Bookstore) is about the same.

Go: WordPress for Dummies @ Amazon.com

1. In the 1400’s a law was set forth in England that a man was allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb.. Hence we have “the rule of thumb”
2. Many years ago in Scotland , a new game was invented. It was ruled “Gentlemen Only…Ladies Forbidden”…and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.
3. The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
4. Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the U.S . Treasury.
5. Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.
6. Coca-Cola was originally green.
7. It is impossible to lick your elbow.
8. The State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska
9. The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%
10. The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%
11. The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $ 16,400
12. The average number of people airborne over the U.S. in any given hour: 61,000
13. Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
14. The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
15. The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
16. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:
    Spades - King David
    Hearts - Charlemagne
    Clubs -Alexander, the Great
    Diamonds - Julius Caesar
17. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
18. If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
19. Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn’t added until 5 years later.
20. Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
    A. Their birthplace
21. Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name requested?
    A. Obsession
22. Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter “A”?
    A. One thousand
23. Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?
    A. All were invented by women.
24. Q. What is the only food that doesn’t spoil?
    A. Honey
25. Q. Which day are there more collect calls than any other day of the year?
    A. Father’s Day
26. In Shakespeare’s time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes.
    When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase……… “goodnight, sleep tight.”
27. It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride’s father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month, which we know today as the honeymoon.
28. In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts… So in old England , when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them “Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down.”
    It’s where we get the phrase “mind your P’s and Q’s”
29. Many years ago in England , pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. “Wet your whistle” is the phrase inspired by this practice.
30. Don’t delete this just because it looks weird. Believe it or not, you can read it.
    I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

Lidija from BlogWell, interviewed Lisa Sabin-Wilson, author of WordPress for Dummies. Lisa mentioned my name in the interview and I feel very honored. Thank you Lisa if you are reading this.

Lester Chan. He is a student, and he uses his WordPress plugins to put forward as he is going through school. People make donations to him because his work is fabulous. Hes got a couple of plugins that are just fabulous and one is called

- Read the full transcript of the interview

CS3214
Phew, just submitted my CS3214 on Friday at 3pm after camping 2 days in school rushing for it due to some hiccups the last week. I think the hopes for at least an A- is dashed for it, hopefully I still can get B+ for it. I made the right choice by doing CS3214 this semester as my teammates are all damn good in their own areas, web, documentation and business logic, kudos to you guys and girls. I will be going back to school tomorrow for rehearsal for my presentation will be on Wednesday.

NUS Facebook Course (CS3216)
I posted an entry entitled, NUS Offering Facebook Programming and someone posted that article on tomorrow.sg and after that I got an interview from The New Paper (TNP). And apparently this causes quite an amount of attention to be given to my school as The Sunday Times, TNP and Channel 8 & U has asked for a story on the new Facebook course. They are going to hold a press briefing next Wednesday and so happen on that day is my CS3214 presentation, if the postpone it to other days, I will be going down to help.

Singapore PHP Group
I will be giving a presentation on “Wordpress Plugin Development with PHP” next month at the monthly Singapore PHP User Group Meetup on the 12th December 2007. It will be about 45 minutes presentation including Q&A. I am so nervous as I can’t do public speaking =(

Stardust, Saw IV, Bee Movie, The Kingdom
I watched 4 movies within this week, Stardust on Monday, Saw IV on Friday, Bee Movie and The Kingdom yesterday. All the movies are good. I can’t wait for Saw V and Saw VI.

Nokia N95 8GB vs Nokia N82
I am stuck between these 2 phones!!! I like N95 8GB but I afraid the slider will be come loose after a while and the camera lens will get scratches! I like Nokia N82 because of the candybar form factor and the xeon flash light. I think I am swaying towards the Nokia N82 side!

Happy 23rd birthday my dear! I have celebrated 5 years of birthday (including this year) with you, may you have more birthdays with me =D

This year I did not do anything or buy anything for you as I am busy with my CS3214, but I promise after my exams, I will make it up to you =).

• 22nd Birthday
• 21st Birthday
• 20th Birthday
• 19th Birthday

Microsoft just enabled the @live.xx signup! Go grab yours now! http://get.live.com/getlive/overview for the local domains (eg @live.co.uk) or use the following link for @live.com - @live.com signup.

So far the list of confirmed available aliases is:

1. Country (Domain)
2. ARGENTINA (LIVE.COM.AR)
3. AUSTRALIA (LIVE.COM.AU)
4. AUSTRIA (LIVE.AT)
5. BELGIUM (LIVE.BE)
6. CANADA (LIVE.CA)
7. CHILE (LIVE.CL)
8. CHINA (LIVE.CN)
9. DENMARK (LIVE.DK)
10. FINLAND (WINDOWSLIVE.COM)
11. FRANCE (LIVE.FR)
12. GERMANY (LIVE.DE)
13. HONG KONG (LIVE.HK)
14. INDONESIA (WINDOWSLIVE.COM)
15. IRELAND (LIVE.IE)
16. ITALY (LIVE.IT)
17. JAPAN (LIVE.JP)
18. KOREA (LIVE.CO.KR)
19. MALAYSIA (LIVE.COM.MY)
20. MEXICO (LIVE.COM.MX)
21. NETHERLANDS (LIVE.NL)
22. NORWAY (LIVE.NO)
23. PAKISTAN (LVE.COM.PK)
24. PERU (LIVE.COM.PE)
25. PORTUGAL (LIVE.COM.PT)
26. RUSSIA (LIVE.RU)
27. SINGAPORE (LIVE.COM.SG)
28. SOUTH AFRICA (LIVE.CO.ZA)
29. SWEDEN (LIVE.SE)
30. SWITZERLAND (WINDOWSLIVE.COM)
31. THAILAND (WINDOWSLIVE.COM)
32. TURKEY (WINDOWSLIVE.COM)
33. UK (LIVE.CO.UK)
34. USA (LIVE.COM)
35. VIETNAM (WINDOWSLIVE.COM)

Signup is still somewhat buggy as it is being rolled out so just bear with it.

Regarding the transition from @hotmail.com to @live.com, a pretty straightforward process is given on the new Windows Live site at http://www.windowslive.com/freshstart. Although you can automatically migrate your Hotmail inbox using TrueSwitch, anything else tied to your Live ID such as your contacts, Space, Xbox Live Gamercard etc cannot be automatically moved across due to legal and privacy issues. You can manually move across your contacts by exporting and importing into Windows Live Messenger, but unfortunately that’s it. There’s some useful tips if you do want to migrate though.

Source: Register your @live.xx email now!

More Details: @Live.com Registration is opened, other @live.* too!

WOOT! I have applied.

The School of Computing will be offering a new 4-MC Facebook Programming module on next Semester (AY2007/2008, Semester 2) - CS3216 : Software Development on Evolving Platforms. This is your chance to be a part of this new global Internet phenomenon, currently valued at some US$15 billion.

This new module is not your traditional software engineering course. Enrollment will be open to students of all faculties and students will work in small inter-disciplinary teams to create their killer Facebook applications. Programming experience for non-SoC students is not a pre-requisite (since work will be done in teams).

As it turns out, Trey Phillips , the winner of Facebook F8 Hackathon, is a philosophy major. This suggests than ANYONE can be a Facebook Developer. The nominal pre-requisite is thus CS1101, but students who do not have formal programming background but who have a keen interest in e-entrepreneurship or a background in design. Students will not be assessed individually, but in groups, so individual programming proficiency will not be assessed. Students need only to be able to contribute substantively to their team projects. The success of social networking applications depend a lot on the concept and execution rather than good programming ability. The students can develop their applications in their language of choice, but will likely use PHP or Ruby with mySQL.

Assessment will be project-based and there will be no examination component. The course will begin with several lectures on the fundamentals of web development. Subsequently, students will work in teams to analyze and critique existing Facebook apps in a series of seminars. There will be three team-based assignments and a final team project of the students’ choice. Students are welcome to use this opportunity to develop applications that have commercial potential or can be used as entries to Startup@Singapore.

Places for the course in this initial offering will be limited and some places will be reserved for non-SoC students. To avoid timetable conflicts for students from other faculties and because we be inviting external experts to give occasional guest lectures, the lectures and seminars will be held on Monday evenings from 6.30 to 8.30 pm.

We expect that we will have more students who are keen to take this course than the available places. To ensure a diversity of talent and students have the necessary background for the course, places will not be assigned by CORS bidding. Instead, interested students are to submit a personal statement (with their matriculation number clearly stated) to cs3216staff@googlegroups.com by 15 December 2007. Students will be informed by 26 December 2007 if they are offered a place in the upcoming offering of the new course (and students will automatically be pre-registered for CS3216 on CORS if their bid to take the class is successful).

The personal statement should address the following questions:

(i) Why do you want to take the course?

(ii) Describe your background and how you think it would enable you to contribute to the diversity and vibrancy of the new course and to the team projects.

(iii) Describe a cool Facebook app that you *really* want to build. Explain why you think your app is really cool.

Students are welcome to throw in a resume or portfolio of sorts if they think it would be helpful in demonstrating that they have what it takes to succeed in this new module.

For more infomation: http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~bleong/cs3216

SERIOUSLY, WTF IS WRONG WITH SINGAPORE, helping to pay fine for someone that has committed a crime and he is not even a Singaporean nor a PR. I seriously don’t give a flying fuck if he is from RJC or scored 2394863280948034 As for his exams, he committed a crime and he should be responsible for his action.

CHINESE undergraduate Zhao Ke, fined $15,000 for hacking into his former school’s computer network, has received “over ten” offers to help pay his fine.

At least two law firms here, including Allen & Gledhill, have also offered to help him appeal the sentence.

The 21-year-old who is doing a double degree in engineering and economics on a National University of Singapore scholarship, met up with lawyers from Allen & Gledhill on Wednesday.

While he has yet to make a final decision, with the fine settled “there was no big need to appeal and I need to catch up on my studies,” he said.

Zhao hacked into Raffles Junior College computers in March to find out his classmates’ A-level scores. He was caught while copying data from a teacher’s computer.

Zhao, who came to Singapore in 2002 to do his O-levels and stayed on since, had just received his results two weeks prior to the incident. He scored four As, two distinctions and a merit for his “S” papers, extra-hard papers reserved for top students.

His request for probation was denied, and Zhao was fined $15,000, payable in $1,000 monthly instalments.

He had initially indicated, through his lawyer, that he would be able to pay the fine from his tuition earnings.

But he later told The Sunday Times that he was unable to pay the full sum and would have to go to jail for five weeks to offset the fine by $5,000.

Following that, several people contacted The Straits Times to offer to pay Zhao’s fines.

So far, there have been “over ten” offers to either pay the entire fine, or part of the fine, Zhao told The Straits Times.

He is currently in discussion with one donor to tutor his children in return for paying off the fine.

Another, a doctor in his 40s who declined to be named, said he wanted to help because what Zhao did was “not a crime”.

“Yes, he made a mistake, but he should not have to go to jail for it,” he said.

Even as offers to help streamed in, online users are taking a harder line.

Many Netizens on sites like HardwareZone, for instance, said that Zhao’s NUS scholarship should be terminated and the money be given to Singaporeans instead.

The NUS has convened a Board of Discipline to look into Zhao’s case.

When news that an anonymous donor had offered to pay Zhao’s fine broke on Wednesday, Netizens also slammed those offering to help him, saying that they should look closer to home if they wanted to help.

Source: Over 10 offers to pay student hacker’s fine

Discussion: Hardware Zone Forums

Today, 24th October 2007 (1024) marks the 3rd year we have been together. We celebrated earlier this time instead of the actual date due to my school commitment (having night class later).

We had a buffer dinner at Carnivore @ CHIJMES last Friday. Wanted to have it at VivoCity instead, but it is fully booked as I booked it in the morning on the same day. And the guy recommend me to book before Tuesday if I want to have dinner on a weekends at Carnivore @ VivoCity. Their business is damn good and the prices are not that cheap either. This shows that Singaporeans are not that poor.

Before the dinner, we are figuring our what CHIJMES stands for, but still could not get it. After checking Wikipedia, it stats that CHIJ stands for Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus, but did not state that what does MES stands for.

As our dinner is at 6pm and we preferred the indoor seating, there is no other table dining besides us and the food just keep coming. Li Xiang only selected meat there there as she is a semi vegetarian, while I on the other hand ate everything, but I don’t really like the lamb there, after taking a bite, it kinda spoil my appetite because of the strong smell.

Nevertheless, we ate till quite full and spend about 2 hours there.

Happy 3rd Anniversary

Happy 3rd Anniversary my penguin, I love you always <3 <3 <3

Looking back:
- 2nd Anniversary
- 1st Anniversary
- 0th Anniversary