Computer Blues
Lunch at Tiong Bahru Plaza, since there's little to eat at my two downstairs coffeeshops. Vegetable rice, the priciest I've had: $5 for two meats and two veg, $4 for Lian's one meat and three veg.
Archive
Founder of lesterchan.net, a Singapore tech and gadgets blog running since 2002. An engineering leader by day and a WordPress plugin developer since 2003, with a soft spot for gadgets, smart home, and a good deal.
Exactly 1 Month To Christmas
Spent two hours this morning trying to install the USB 2 drivers, but no luck; every attempt threw 'Data Is Invalid', whether their driver or Microsoft's. I'll pass the PCI-to-USB card to my uncle tonight instead.
My Phone
Took my phone to Nokia Care Centre at Cineleisure for repair, lunch at food court on the way. Told to collect it in two hours, thankfully no overnight stay. Did shopping at Takashimaya and Wisma Atria.
GhostShip
Famous Crayfish Ipoh Hor Fun at Hock Hai Market, delicious, and short queue when we arrived, long after we left. Out with Lian and our newest couple, Zhi Wei and Jean, for GhostShip at Bugis Junction.
2002/2003 Semester 1 Modules Grades
Got my results fresh from SPEED, same as last semester, one distinction and the rest Bs. Not too bad. A distinction for Web Programming, with Bs in Entrepreneurship, Computer Animation, Design for User Interaction, and others.
Modules Results Very Soon
Lunch at my downstairs coffeeshop with Lian: chicken shredded noodles. Came home to finish my mom's site, with five products missing item codes or prices to check. Saw my secondary school friends near Tiong Bahru Plaza.
Amara Hotel’s Food Court
Lunch at the Amara Hotel food court; the Thai and Korean food is delicious, though pricier than most food courts, probably the rent. I followed my mom to the bank and other places, getting home by 3.30pm.
2002/2003 Semester 1 Modules Results
Passed all my modules, one with a distinction, and Lian passed all hers too. The notice read: congratulations, promoted to the next stage of your course, with a distinction awarded for ST2201 Web Programming. A relief.
Korea vs Brazil
Kenny Rogers at Great World City for lunch, after fetching my brother from Tiong Bahru Plaza; he came back three-quarters dead from his chalet. Feeling a fever coming, restless, so I took two Panadol to sweat.
Sick Week
Lunch at Tiong Bahru Plaza with Lian: sliced fish porridge, something light since I'm sick. Reading my classmates' blogs, plenty of them are ill too; it's been a sickening week. My mom's products are selling well.
Unbeatables III
More of the usual: updating my mom's company website, almost done, should finish this week. The site's slow; not sure if the fault's with WebVisions, the host, or the page's file size. Played Unreal Tournament 2003.
Flu Virus
Slept till 12.30pm; meant to follow my mom to SpotLight at Orchard Point for curtain cloth, but couldn't wake. After a few rounds of Yahoo Literati and Starcraft: Brood War, it was 6pm. Napped till 7pm.
Yahoo Going Towards PHP
Old news from 25 October but interesting: Yahoo! is switching its scripting language to PHP, from a proprietary server-side page language written in C/C++. Some facts: 201 million unique users, 93 million page views a day.
Tiong Bahru Plaza
From now on, I'll call my girlfriend Lian here; it sounds nicer and more personal. Lunch at Tiong Bahru Plaza with Lian and my brother, the usual Spicy Beef Vegetable Soup set from the Korean stall.
ShoutBox Updates
Decided to move the ShoutBox onto the main page only, so the rest load faster. It'll appear as a shout module rather than standing alone; it's been practically empty for months anyway. Humans are born lazy.
GIRO For EZ-Link Card
At my mom's office to photograph the products, a struggle to find a good spot, the place too dark. Ended near a window for sunlight, but the photos still came out dimmer than I'd hoped; usable.
It Is A Rainy Day
It's a rainy day and the sun wouldn't shine, an old techno tune by Ice MC. It rained all day. Slept till 1.30pm, the weather perfect for it. Lunch at Tiong Bahru Plaza with my brother.
Study BTT
Woke at 8am to fetch Lian from the bus-stop to my place, my mom took her to work. Went back to sleep. Studied for my BTT afternoon, reading the book, expecting easy, but there's so much.
It Is A Monday
Stayed home all day, out only for lunch. Mondays are usually dull; most stalls at my coffeeshop are shut, so fishball noodles by default. Played a few rounds of Starcraft: Brood War with Lian till evening.
Billy’s Farewell Party
Watched The Guru at Marina Square before Billy's farewell party at Union Square. Didn't know Billy could rap so well; trance and dance from DJ Ash plus rap, rocked. Shame a good CANI lecturer is leaving.
109-bit Encryption Broken
I came across a headline, '109-bit Encryption Broken', and found it interesting enough to share. 109-bit Elliptic Curve Cryptography was knocked over with brute force; academics scooped a $10,000 prize after a massive distributed computing effort.
Resting Day
Stayed in, leaving only for lunch and dinner. Spent the whole afternoon organising the chalet photos for online viewing: resizing, compressing, the lot. It ate the afternoon; before I knew it, night had fallen. Time flies.