XP is probably turning into an old school OS. But hey, if you're on one which unfortunately i'm on, you gotta love this.
Thanks to youtube and wogboy818181 for sharing this :)
Actually i use AML registry cleaner (freeware) for many of these stuff. But it just doesn't work with my company laptop... Bad lappie.
Enjoy the cool classic 'how-to ad' style background music as well.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
Exercising: to a better health or just don't want to get fat?
It's been almost 3 weeks since i reached Dallas and after settling in, the thought of American sized meals is quite disturbing to me. Everytime I have a meal out, i'm forced to takeaway half of the plate/food. So i guess, it's time to hit the gym naturally to even out the calories intake.
I'm not looking for a hardcore gym session or going into those technology latched sessions. Just simple sessions to keep my weight in check. No strapons to track how much is my heart rate, no funky gadgets.
My simple routine off-gym exercise is as below:
a) 2 sets of 10x push ups daily (really easy, don't want to drain myself up)
b) 2 sets of 30x sit ups daily
Gym routines are also simple:
a) 10 minutes + 5 minutes of treadmill
b) 10 minutes intense, on elliptical trainer or up till 1000 steps whichever finish last.
Performance dashboard
For running, i start off with 30 seconds of slow jog, going to max for first 5 minutes. Slow down for 1-2 minutes and try to push at max speed again till end of 1st 10 minutes. Then speed down for last 5 minutes warm down..after 2nd minute of rest, go all out till 1 minute left and gradual warm down.
Treadmill in Homewood Suites, Wong MT is right..its quite small
On the elliptical trainer its really simple, do 2 minutes of forward stepping as fast as i can and switch to reverse pedal for 2 minutes as fast as i can. My motto is time is money, so no slacking up, just the golden 10 minutes here :p
If you notice, i tend to go all out for most last cycles of my workouts. Kinda picked this up as a habit after getting a pointer from a a weight-lifting maniac friend, Nic who gave a few pointers in this area.
Elliptical trainer
Using music during workout is quite a nice addition. I don't really go into those beats-per-minute stuff but i do go for faster musics especially linkin park and some fast paced remixs that I had on my Nokia Xpressmusic which finally shines here.
In the end of the day, do we exercise just because we want better health? Or is it just because we don't want to get fat? Or are we already overweight?
We do need a balanced combinations and a good health starts from the plate, how we eat and how much extra calories we gobble down without realizing after our major meals of the day.
Easier said than done, I myself am guilty of succumbing to the sin of gluttony from time to time. But well, its good to be aware of it and remind myself from taking in much more than is just right.
source: xkcd.com
Well, sometimes 'just not wanting to get any fatter or to put it in a better way', 'staying in shape' or 'get back in shape' is also a good motivation to hit the gym as long as we remember that we need to work it out to get in shape and maintain to stay there, not continuous cycle of gaining and losing weight. Hope i get out of this crazy cycle soon haha.
This applies to most working class people as what they call as 'growing horizontally' -yea, the body, not the career :p
For me, it's feels great to wrap the day off with a workout and sweat it out. Unfortunately, this will not last long since working KL doesn't give me
a) short commute time from work
b) free gym service (guess this is important factor too :p)
c) good work-life balance - we are asians duh!
Even right now, workload is getting heavier and i'm leaving work later nowadays.
Damn, only Malaysians get dual role. Not fair!
Probably need to figure out something about this, else growing horizontally and working long hours in zombie mode will eventually snuff the life out of me =(
For those sifus out there, that can give pointers, please do shout out, i really welcome any advice on what i'm doing wrong or what i could do better. What to watch for ? Calories? Mets?
Or is what i'm doing even effective?
Sorry folks, no nice photos from Dallas yet as of now :p
I'm not looking for a hardcore gym session or going into those technology latched sessions. Just simple sessions to keep my weight in check. No strapons to track how much is my heart rate, no funky gadgets.
My simple routine off-gym exercise is as below:
a) 2 sets of 10x push ups daily (really easy, don't want to drain myself up)
b) 2 sets of 30x sit ups daily
Gym routines are also simple:
a) 10 minutes + 5 minutes of treadmill
b) 10 minutes intense, on elliptical trainer or up till 1000 steps whichever finish last.
For running, i start off with 30 seconds of slow jog, going to max for first 5 minutes. Slow down for 1-2 minutes and try to push at max speed again till end of 1st 10 minutes. Then speed down for last 5 minutes warm down..after 2nd minute of rest, go all out till 1 minute left and gradual warm down.
On the elliptical trainer its really simple, do 2 minutes of forward stepping as fast as i can and switch to reverse pedal for 2 minutes as fast as i can. My motto is time is money, so no slacking up, just the golden 10 minutes here :p
If you notice, i tend to go all out for most last cycles of my workouts. Kinda picked this up as a habit after getting a pointer from a a weight-lifting maniac friend, Nic who gave a few pointers in this area.
Using music during workout is quite a nice addition. I don't really go into those beats-per-minute stuff but i do go for faster musics especially linkin park and some fast paced remixs that I had on my Nokia Xpressmusic which finally shines here.
In the end of the day, do we exercise just because we want better health? Or is it just because we don't want to get fat? Or are we already overweight?
We do need a balanced combinations and a good health starts from the plate, how we eat and how much extra calories we gobble down without realizing after our major meals of the day.
Easier said than done, I myself am guilty of succumbing to the sin of gluttony from time to time. But well, its good to be aware of it and remind myself from taking in much more than is just right.
Well, sometimes 'just not wanting to get any fatter or to put it in a better way', 'staying in shape' or 'get back in shape' is also a good motivation to hit the gym as long as we remember that we need to work it out to get in shape and maintain to stay there, not continuous cycle of gaining and losing weight. Hope i get out of this crazy cycle soon haha.
This applies to most working class people as what they call as 'growing horizontally' -yea, the body, not the career :p
For me, it's feels great to wrap the day off with a workout and sweat it out. Unfortunately, this will not last long since working KL doesn't give me
a) short commute time from work
b) free gym service (guess this is important factor too :p)
c) good work-life balance - we are asians duh!
Even right now, workload is getting heavier and i'm leaving work later nowadays.
Damn, only Malaysians get dual role. Not fair!
Probably need to figure out something about this, else growing horizontally and working long hours in zombie mode will eventually snuff the life out of me =(
For those sifus out there, that can give pointers, please do shout out, i really welcome any advice on what i'm doing wrong or what i could do better. What to watch for ? Calories? Mets?
Or is what i'm doing even effective?
Sorry folks, no nice photos from Dallas yet as of now :p
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Just another day at work in Dallas
This is probably one of my posts with more photos since i'm quite lazy right now.
A cuppa coffe a day keeps the engineer awake. Well i don't actually have to brew them in my room at all, it's all ready for grab at the lobby. im accumulating these empty cups in my office cube now and i wonder if i can get a mountain of them after a while if nobody gives me warning for violating office 5S haha (will pose the picture eventually, so keep your eyes for it later on).
the ass of my rental car, ford focus. Actually i took this so that i can check again which carplate number my car is since the parkings are usually huge and there are so many whites that lookalike =_=
TI boulevard, i guess it's useless to resist the temptation to take a shot of this, even if i'm in the car waiting on red light
I think this is the main gate, but it still doesn't look like it is one. Oh well, it doesn't matter actually
meet me halfway - on the walkway to South Campus.
the other way which i came from, damn long walkway. everything is huge here. even office cube starts at 100x - 5xxx
yo, drop by my cube here in Dallas at J1-1077. That's all i have today folks. See not too many words compared to my usual post :p
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Long haul flight
Finally after picking up rental car from Avis and going around nearby supermarkets, I'm sitting in my room fighting jetlag after a day long trip from KL-US.
Let me recount back see how long is it. The flight route is from KL-HongKong-SanFrancisco-Dallas.
Hmm....connecting flight list already sound long enough eh?
KL-HK total time: 3 hrs 45min + transit time of 55min
There is too little time for transit between these 2 flights and the plane departed 35 minutes late! I basically ran through HK airport and to the next plane after being gathered by a CathayPacific staff, Miss A.
Here is the thing about race superiority thing here. There is a group of 4 of us, 3 American/European and me whom have to rush to the next flight. With the crazy queue from next incoming flight overlapping our flight, we don't look like we will make it. Miss A, accompanying us asked us to go through the business class lane. Being the last in the group of 4, the ticket checking staff wouldn't allow me to go through, kept asking me to go to back to economy class queue. I was like 'wtf? just because i'm asian so i get a different treatment?? '. Luckily i found the Miss A and finally she needed to escort me through just because i'm asian.....
HK-San Fran total time: 12 hrs 30 min + 3 hours transit time
I noticed that Cathay Pacific from HK-SanFran have a majority of Indian passengers. When i first entered the plane, i thought i was on the wrong plane.
SanFran - Dallas total time: 3hrs 30min + 2 hours of wait time
Finally after 11 hours of sleepless indian babies cry choirs in the plane and an overdose of movies marathon I reached San Francisco. Another crazy queue through immigration and custom of US. When i reached boarding area, i only managed to get online for 15 minutes before the last flight in my list this time.
Huh, why another 2 hours wait after reaching SanFran?
American Airline messed up my luggage from the international to domestic transfer. I've checked them in but it was put on the next flight after mine, which I found out from the baggage office staff after waiting 30 minutes at the baggage claim area. Luckily, my colleague Dalila arrived 1 hour late and we only had to wait another hour. I went back there after 1hr 30min of waiting to get my luggage and guess what, it's been transferred to a different terminal. Great, that's like a 5+ minute drive away. To make it worse, when i got to the other terminal, i found only one of my luggage and the other is still stuck in San Francisco.
Once i got back to hotel, I called the customer line number the fellow at baggage claim of the other terminal gave me. The call lasted at least 25min. The operator at the other end kept telling me 'Hold on, I'm checking........I'm still here, just hold on' for a duration of 20 min. Finally she put me on hold and after 5 mins of instrumental music which starts,stops and starts again, i'm already drifting to lala-land. Kind of lost track of time but finally she confirmed that I'll get my luggage delivered the next day to my hotel.
Source:
This is quiet a bad case of mismanagement, they could've send both luggages to my hotel instead of making me run around airport searching, wait 2 hours and keep wondering whether they already lost my luggage. Looks like AA is still not really customer satisfaction oriented yet.
Total time spent on this long haul flight: 4h40m + 15h30m + 5h30m = 25hr
Now i'm sitting at my room after finding every excuse to keep awake. Inclusive of unpacking every item i have into the cupboards, setting the kitchen, washing the coffee maker, calling up American airline to locate my 2nd bag which didn't reach on time and ironing my clothes. At the end of all these, I am still falling victim to the jetlag and now 'fishing' in front of the laptop ...
Sorry for the crappy quality post. I blame it on the jetlag :p
Let me recount back see how long is it. The flight route is from KL-HongKong-SanFrancisco-Dallas.
Hmm....connecting flight list already sound long enough eh?
KL-HK total time: 3 hrs 45min + transit time of 55min
There is too little time for transit between these 2 flights and the plane departed 35 minutes late! I basically ran through HK airport and to the next plane after being gathered by a CathayPacific staff, Miss A.
Here is the thing about race superiority thing here. There is a group of 4 of us, 3 American/European and me whom have to rush to the next flight. With the crazy queue from next incoming flight overlapping our flight, we don't look like we will make it. Miss A, accompanying us asked us to go through the business class lane. Being the last in the group of 4, the ticket checking staff wouldn't allow me to go through, kept asking me to go to back to economy class queue. I was like 'wtf? just because i'm asian so i get a different treatment?? '. Luckily i found the Miss A and finally she needed to escort me through just because i'm asian.....
HK-San Fran total time: 12 hrs 30 min + 3 hours transit time
I noticed that Cathay Pacific from HK-SanFran have a majority of Indian passengers. When i first entered the plane, i thought i was on the wrong plane.
SanFran - Dallas total time: 3hrs 30min + 2 hours of wait time
Finally after 11 hours of sleepless indian babies cry choirs in the plane and an overdose of movies marathon I reached San Francisco. Another crazy queue through immigration and custom of US. When i reached boarding area, i only managed to get online for 15 minutes before the last flight in my list this time.
Huh, why another 2 hours wait after reaching SanFran?
American Airline messed up my luggage from the international to domestic transfer. I've checked them in but it was put on the next flight after mine, which I found out from the baggage office staff after waiting 30 minutes at the baggage claim area. Luckily, my colleague Dalila arrived 1 hour late and we only had to wait another hour. I went back there after 1hr 30min of waiting to get my luggage and guess what, it's been transferred to a different terminal. Great, that's like a 5+ minute drive away. To make it worse, when i got to the other terminal, i found only one of my luggage and the other is still stuck in San Francisco.
Once i got back to hotel, I called the customer line number the fellow at baggage claim of the other terminal gave me. The call lasted at least 25min. The operator at the other end kept telling me 'Hold on, I'm checking........I'm still here, just hold on' for a duration of 20 min. Finally she put me on hold and after 5 mins of instrumental music which starts,stops and starts again, i'm already drifting to lala-land. Kind of lost track of time but finally she confirmed that I'll get my luggage delivered the next day to my hotel.
Source:
http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2010/05/19/the-challenge-loving-your-customers/
This is quiet a bad case of mismanagement, they could've send both luggages to my hotel instead of making me run around airport searching, wait 2 hours and keep wondering whether they already lost my luggage. Looks like AA is still not really customer satisfaction oriented yet.
Total time spent on this long haul flight: 4h40m + 15h30m + 5h30m = 25hr
Now i'm sitting at my room after finding every excuse to keep awake. Inclusive of unpacking every item i have into the cupboards, setting the kitchen, washing the coffee maker, calling up American airline to locate my 2nd bag which didn't reach on time and ironing my clothes. At the end of all these, I am still falling victim to the jetlag and now 'fishing' in front of the laptop ...
Sorry for the crappy quality post. I blame it on the jetlag :p
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
World economy crisis (again?)
The video reminds me of the banana currency we had during Japanese occupation times in Malaysia. Anyway, it's a simple way of explaining the speculated and looming debt crisis we see now at Uncle Sam's.
Thanks to Venissa for sharing this video.
The summary is as below.
Inflation happens either when a country prints more currency making the currency value shrink or food/commodity (food, metal, oil est) price goes up versus consumer's income.
Higher cost in Uncle Sam causes manufactuerers to go to other cheaper counties usually in Asia such as Vietnam, Malaysia,Thailand, China and etc. so that they can pay less for the same product to get manufactured.
This contributes to recession where more peoples in UncleSam losses their jobs.In effect, there is less contributions to tax and more people collecting government benefits meaning less money for UncleSam who is already in huge debt.
Here is something new i learn from this :)
The last portion of the world economy collapse is interesting.
Here is another clip on debt crisis centered around European countries.
Quite fascinating for the not so economy-savvy me :p
But I digress,how would educating one another help in this? Do we spend less using credit cards or do the opposite? Don't keep savings in banks but go the classic buy-gold way like those in the 70s/80s? Prepare/stock or whatever people do and brace for a possibility of worldwide economy tsunami?
Illustrations from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Jjv-MtGpj2U#at=107
Thanks to Venissa for sharing this video.
The summary is as below.
Inflation happens either when a country prints more currency making the currency value shrink or food/commodity (food, metal, oil est) price goes up versus consumer's income.
Higher cost in Uncle Sam causes manufactuerers to go to other cheaper counties usually in Asia such as Vietnam, Malaysia,Thailand, China and etc. so that they can pay less for the same product to get manufactured.
This contributes to recession where more peoples in UncleSam losses their jobs.In effect, there is less contributions to tax and more people collecting government benefits meaning less money for UncleSam who is already in huge debt.
Here is something new i learn from this :)
Stagflation = Inflation + recession
The last portion of the world economy collapse is interesting.
Here is another clip on debt crisis centered around European countries.
Quite fascinating for the not so economy-savvy me :p
But I digress,how would educating one another help in this? Do we spend less using credit cards or do the opposite? Don't keep savings in banks but go the classic buy-gold way like those in the 70s/80s? Prepare/stock or whatever people do and brace for a possibility of worldwide economy tsunami?
Illustrations from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Jjv-MtGpj2U#at=107
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