Went to catch Disney On Ice at Singapore Indoor Stadium last Saturday (8th March 2008). We caught the last slot for the day which is at 7.30pm.

We met up for dinner at Bao Luo Wan Xiang located at Plaza Singpura’s basement 2 together with Wayne. According to Li Xiang they also have a branch at Lao Pa Sat but she said that the branch at Plaza Singapura taste much better. Not forgetting the price is very affordable, a bowl of noodle is about SGD$5.00 and the tim sum is about SGD$2.50 for each basket.

We also did try a Taiwan street snack which is exactly like the Japanese Sushi but much bigger, they called it QQ Rice. They use brown rice and ingredients like egg, cheese, turkey and beef. But the pricing is quite expensive, it cost about SGD$4.50 each.

Took bus number 16 and we reached Singapore Indoor Stadium. While waiting for Terry and his girlfriend, we took a walk at Kallang Leisure Park. It has been more than 10 years since I last went there and last time there is a ice skating ring there, now the only one left is at Jurong Entertainment Center.

We did not walk around much but there is a food court and a movie operator there which is not under GV, Cathay or Shaw. I hate the toilet the most, for gents, they use violet lights and for ladies they use some red lights. The lighting makes the toilet so dull and dim. I think there is something wrong with the toilet architect eyes.

Not much Disney’s merchandise is displayed outside and there are very expensive and does not look nice. The show starts exactly at 7.30pm which I like. There are total of 5 sections, I can’t really remember the order of the section but there was Lion King, Little Mermaid, Lilo & Stitch, 101 Dalmations and Peter Pan. After 30 minutes into the show (2 sections later), there is a 15 minutes interval and after that the remaining 3 sections follows. The whole show lasted only 1 hour and 45 minutes even though SISTIC website put 2 hours and 15 minutes (including 15 minutes interval).

Overall the show is nothing special, I would not want to see it again as I nearly fall asleep halfway through the show. And accordingly to Wayne, he told me that the show last time was much better. I am also being irritated by those parents and curators walking around non-stop throughout the whole show.

The Ending

After the show we wanted to walk to Suntec City, but after walking for 45 minutes, we lost our way and have no choice but to take a taxi. We took a cab from Rhu Close to Suntec City and it cost us SGD$6.00. Taxi nowadays is indeed expensive.

We chill out at Starbucks and we talk about housing and how expensive it is to just own a house. Basically in Singapore, you will be paying for your house till you die or grow old and that is what we peasants in Singapore will be doing, while the others just get a few million in salary per year by just talking.

I also explain web development terms to Terry like different between each web programming languages, servers, OSes, AJAX, client side programming. I think his company should offer me a consultant job when I graduate =D

FRRO will undergo a scheduled maintenance on this coming Friday, 14th March 2008.

Maintenance Timing
Date: Friday, 14th March 2008 to Saturday, 15th March 2008
Time: 2200 - 0400 (GMT+8)
Duration: Estimated at 6 hours

Reason For Maintenance
Migration of our servers to REACH Datacenter.

Impact Of Maintenance
All services under lesterchan.net (forums, files, expenses, etc), wordpress.sg, lc.sg and all sites hosted by FRRO will not be accessible during this period.

Contact FRRO
If you have any queries, please contact us at team [at] frro.net.

Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

San Alfonso del Mar is a resort located in the central coast of Chile, frequently noted because of its 1,000-meter long, 19-acre outdoor pool, which holds a Guinness world record. The resort’s large pool utilizes a technology developed by the Chilean company Crystal Lagoons, which uses water pumped from the Pacific Ocean, that is then filtered and treated for supply to the pool.

More pictures and pictures courtesy of KIWIPULSE.

Wikipedia: San Alfonso del Mar

Official Website: San Alfonso del Mar

I got woken up by a call at 4.34am this morning. It is a guy over at the end of the line and here is the brief conversation we had:

He: Is that Lester? Are you from Chatline?
Me: Yes, I am Lester, but I am not from Chatline
He: Are you from Chatline? (he ask again)
Me: No
He: Ok Thanks, I think you friend had sabotage you by putting your name and number on chatline
Me: I see, Ok, Bye (I hang up after that)

I went back to bed and 5 minutes later, calls and SMSes keep coming. All the numbers point to mobile phone numbers and none of them is private. I did not pick up any calls, but I took a look at the SMSes and they all mean this “Hi, are you from chatline? Care to do a intro?”

I was like WTF? It is like 4.45am in the morning and I am getting all this nonsense. I got quite pissed off and I woke up and did a google search of my mobile phone number and the phrase “chatline” in Google Singapore.

Guess what? I chanced upon this news article by The Straits Time, “Irritating chatline SMSes invading privacy” and it is dated on 6th March 2008 which is like only 5 days ago.

Apparently the victim is also a M1 subscriber which is same as me. M1 asked the victim to report police which I think is not much of a help as the police can’t do anything besides filling a report.

I am going to terminate my M1 contract once my 2 years contract expire with them in September 2008 and by that time the True Number Portability will be out.

Chatlines are used mainly by guys judging from the calls and SMSes I received. To those guys, please GET A FUCKING LIFE. If you are so desperate into getting friends to talk to you, brush up on your social skills or sign on with the army and you got lots of buddy waiting for you.

Behold Zerg in-game videos from Starcraft 2. Blizzard has not taken update Starcraft 2 Official Site yet.

Source: Hardware Zone Forums

After weeks and weeks of never ending tutorials, assignments and projects, Li Xiang and I decided to take a break and reward ourself with some good food. Tried Shokudo Japanese Food Bazaar which is located at Basement 1 of Raffles City. This $3-million Japanese Style Marche restaurant was opened by Thai Express Concepts, which also runs Thai Express chain, Xin Wang Hong Kong cafes and New York New York restaurants.

We went there at about 5.30pm and there was no queue, but after our dinner, the queue was as long as the TOTO queue for the Chinese New Year Hong Bao draw!

We ate a total of 13 dishes which I think is a lot for 2 persons. But the portion of each dish is much smaller than Marche. Our total bill including 10% service charge and 7% Goods & Services Tax is SGD$85.21. Which is very expensive for 2 person, or perhaps we ordered too many dishes.

By the way, all pictures are taken using my Nokia N82!

*Update* Personally, I feel that both the desserts we ate is not bad, followed by Bacon & Cheese Omelette and perhaps the Teppanyaki Assorted Mushrooms. The rest of the dishes are pretty average. The Shokudo Mushroom Cheese Burger is quite a popular dish among reviews. However, I find it just average, maybe slightly better than Botak Jones’s The Botak Burger as it is juicer (Botak Jones’s burgers are a little dry).

Shokudo Card

Shokudo Reserved Sign

Shokudo Cutleries

Click on the Read More link for pictures with prices of all the dishes that we ate.

Read More (146 More Words, 9 More Images)

Seems that everyone is buying things at the IT Show 008 except my brother and I.

Mom:

1. Western Digital Passport 250GB, SGD$179.99
2. Canon PIXMA MX700, SGD$399

Uncle Raymond:

1. Canon IXUS 860 IS, SGD$599

Cousin Peggy:

1. Asus F8Sn Laptop, SGD$2550
2. Canon IXUS 860 IS, SGD$599

Wayne:

1. Asus Laptop - F8Sn, SGD$2550

For the Canon IXUS 860 IS, the fee gifts include: 1x 4GB SD Card, 2x 2GB SD Card, Digital Kit Bag, Case and 23-in-1 Card Reader.

For the Canon PIXMA MX700, the free gifts include: Targus Backpack, Trolley, USB Cable.

For the Western Digital Passport 250GB, the free gift is only 1 pouch for the harddisk.

For the Asus F8Sn Laptop, the original price is SGD$2598, BUT you have to pay by cash (if I am not wrong) to get the price. If you are using NETS you have to pay 1.8% extra or credit cards 2.0% extra. I think that is deceiving the consumers (IT Show is not Sim Lim Square) as it is NOT written in the brochure at all. They should not pass the surcharge to the consumer at all. But apparently, Wayne and my cousin Peggy bought the 2 laptops together and hence they waive the credit card charges as well as give them additional SGD$48.00 discount.

PC Show 2008
The next IT fair will be PC Show 2008 and it is happening from 12th June 2008 to 15th June 2008 at Suntec City, Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre (Level 3, 4 and 6). Opening hours are from 12pm to 9pm.

That is the time for me to hoot my Dell 2408WFP Monitor, Altec Lansing 2.1 speakers and perhaps a keyboard and mouse set. WOOT.

I am so pissed off with TNT service, they told me they will be here at my place to collect my Nokia N81 8GB between 3pm and 5pm and now it is 5.45pm and THEY ARE STILL NOT HERE. I gave the driver a call and he ask me to wait for him for another 20 minutes. This is so ridiculous.

I am going to the IT Show 2008 and this stupid thing is delaying me.

EDIT: After some pressurizing, the driver told me he will drop by my place first and save me from waiting the 20 minutes, but nevertheless, he is late for an hour, which I think is totally unacceptable.

Some new features in IE8 Beta 1:

1. Activities - Activities are contextual services that provide quick access to external services from any webpage. Activities typically involve one of two types of actions.
2. WebSlices - Web sites can expose portions of their page as a WebSlice that users can subscribe to and bring that content with them on their links bar wherever they are on the web. Users receive update notifications when the content changes.
3. Choice of layout engine - Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 will ship in standards mode by default. However, three different rendering modes (Quirks mode, Strict mode and IE8 standards mode) that may be set using the X-UA-Compatible header.

Copy + Paste from IE8 Official Site:

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 (Developer Preview)

Welcome to the website for Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1. Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is a developer preview for web designers and developers to help prepare their websites for the launch of Internet Explorer 8. Some of the new features designed for developers include a developer toolbar and improved interoperability and compatibility.

Internet Explorer 8 is designed to work in standard mode out of this box. However, Microsoft provides a way for users to browse the web in a way similar to Internet Explorer 7 by using the emulate Internet Explorer 7 button on the chrome. The web at your service

Internet Explorer 8 will take the web experience beyond the page. Internet Explorer 8 introduces a new way to seamlessly experience the best of the web whether you are a web developer writing to standards or a user discovering a new online service. Be one of the first developers to take advantage of improvements in Internet Explorer 8 for your websites and applications.

Official Site: Internet Explorer 8
Download: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1

First things first, your Nokia Phone must be 802.11 enabled, be it a Nseries or an Eseries phone. I am using S60 3rd edition Symbian OS 9.2 as an example. But in theory it should work with other editions of S60 Symbian OS as well.

We will be using NUS WLAN SSID “NUS” instead of “NUSOPEN”, as “NUS” is protected by PEAP.

Lets begin:
Part 1 - Defining NUS SSID

1. Go to Menu > Tools > Settings > Connection > Access points
2. Click on Options, then New access point
3. Under Connection name, key in NUS
4. Under Data bearer, select Wireless LAN
5. Under WLAN netw. name, key in NUS
6. Under Network status, leave it as Public
7. Under WLAN netw. mode, leave it as Infrastructure
8. Under WLAN security mode, select 802.1x
9. Click on WLAN security settings, and you will get into a new page
10. Under The WPA/WPA2 , leave it as EAP
11. Click on EAP plugin-settings, and you will get into a new page
12. Ensure ONLY EAP-PEAP is ENABLED (check mark will only appear beside EAP-PEAP). You can disable the remaining EAP types by going to Options > Disable
13. Click on EAP-PEAP, and you will get into a new page

Part 2 - Configuring EAP-PEAP

14. Under Personal certificate, leave it as Not defined
15. Under Authority certificate, select Thawte Premium Server
16. Under User name in use, select User defined
17. Under User name, key in your NUSNET UserID (EXCLUDING the domain (NUSSTU, NUSSTF or GUEST) portion)
18. Under Realm in use, select User defined
19. Under Realm, leave it as BLANK
20. Under Allow PEAPv0, select Yes
21. Under Allow PEAPv1, select No
22. Under Allow PEAPv2, select No
23. Move to EAPs tab, by pressing your right arrow key

Part 3 - Configuring EAP-MSCHAPv2

24. Ensure ONLY EAP-MSCHAPv2 is ENABLED (check mark will only appear beside EAP-MSCHAPv2). You can disable the remaining EAP types by going to Options > Disable
25. Click on EAP-MSCHAPv2, and you will get into a new page
26. Under User name, key in your NUSNET UserID (EXCLUDING the domain portion)
27. Under Prompt password, select No
28. Under Password, key in your NUSNET Password
29. Click Back about 10 times or enough times to reach the standby screen

Part 4 - Scanning For NUS SSID

30. Turn On your WLAN scanning and you should be able to detect and connect to NUS wireless network

No screenshots are included as I think it is pretty straightforward.

FULL CREDITS goes to Zit Seng’s Configuring N95 WLAN for NUS Wireless