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Weekend Highlights

0 comments By Aimee Filed in Personal November 14th, 2010 @ 8:33 pm

The Bad

  • Lost Headphones
    I was listening to tunes on my wp7 on the way back home from work but then uncle cab driver was feeling a bit chatty so I did the polite thing and took off my headphones and chatted with him. I’m not sure whether I remembered to toss the headphones in my bag. I just realized the next morning when I went out for a run that they were gone. Sadness.
  • Scratches on the iPad
    Well so much for the claims of the iPad being scratch proof. I guess they relied on people treating it like a holy object that they didn’t think it would ever happen. But alas, while I was cleaning up the screen of the oils and dirt from my fingers, I noticed there was a scratch right by the home button. Sadness.
  • 160 Dollar Ugly and Useless Screen Protector
    Happened while the F was buying his Macbook air so I just chucked in the first screen protector I could find. It was from the brand Power Support and it was supposed to be a privacy film guard. I probably wouldn’t have complained if it worked as a privacy film guard but no, it didn’t work as good as those privacy films for laptops in that you could still see the screen from the side angles but it would be a bit blurry and a bit dark. Now I have trouble reading my iPad in bed since it’s more difficult to keep it aligned to the eye. Also, my Boxwave stylus doesn’t work as well anymore. I guess this was my fault for not checking the price but I didn’t realize that a privacy film could be so expensive, AND so crappy. Sadness.
  • Failed Vivo City Shopping
    On Saturday, the F and I ventured out to Vivo City to shop for an extra battery for my phone and some clothes for our trip coming up in December. I guess we should have just gone to Ion or somewhere nearby by knowing the weekend crowd, we wanted to avoid that (only to find out there are enough people in SG to accumulate a crowd in most malls on the weekend. I did a search online for the shops I wanted to go to: Columbia and the LG. I found online they were supposed to be on the second floor of Vivo City, but apparently after searching the whole second floor (because they make it so difficult to figure out what the store numbers are) we found that not one, but BOTH have closed down. How I wish that people keep their online listings up to date. We ended up taking a cab to Ion anyway. Sadness.

The Good

  • New Sennheiser Headphones
    Although the bundled in ear headphones from LG was already okay quality, these ones are really good. You can never go wrong with Sennheisers. I love the earphones and it just makes the music listening experience so much better. Aural Pleasure!
  • Lunch with the Old Bosses
    It’s always nice to meet up with old friends. I got to have lunch and catch up with not one but two of my former bosses, catching up on old times. We’re all in different roles, different companies but it’s good that (at least I think) the friendship is still there. Happiness!
  • Good Sunday Breakfast AND Dinner with the F
    We had breakfast at a new place on recommendation from a friend at a place called Wild Honey where they serve all sorts of breakfasts. For dinner, it was at an old favorite, Spices of India for a nice Indian dinner. Chicken Tikka Masala is the bomb. Fullness!

As a friend always says, “don’t sweat the small stuff”. It seemed like a crappy weekend but I think we’re still okay.

the not so impossible puzzle.

1 comment By Aimee Filed in Personal Tagged with , , October 17th, 2010 @ 7:19 pm

I saw this video going around and obviously it piqued my interest. Also, my left jaw is acting up again so I don’t really feel like going out and about, so I found something else to amuse myself with.

the so called impossible puzzle

I didn’t want to waste paper and my printer was unplugged so I decided to create a silverlight simulation instead. Try it out in fullscreen below:

You’ll discover that when you re-arrange the pieces as in the video, the blue and green pieces go beyond the boundary at the bottom. This is probably why even when you make the paper cut-out version and try out yourself, the illusion holds because you’ll have no reference to the original square.

At least now I have that out of my system. My jaw still hurts though Crying face

Handwritten blogpost

0 comments By Aimee Filed in Personal Tagged with October 14th, 2010 @ 2:15 pm

Fixed Red Light & Low Audio Quality problems in Win7 on my MBP

3 comments By Aimee Filed in Personal March 14th, 2010 @ 3:17 pm

I started out with two problems, the insanely low audio quality + this strange red light emitted from my headphone jack, and not being able to update to Bootcamp 3.1. I’ve been wrestling the internets to find out how to fix both these problems and it turns out, the former can be solved if you get the latter.  I then found the thread on http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2326188&tstart=0 that says the Bootcamp Update has issues when you have remote viewing software. The advice was to remove any additional graphics adapters apart from your actual graphics adapter.

You can do this by going to the start menu, right-clicking on Computer -> Manage.

image

grr.. so print screen button in MBP is Fn+Shift+F11 (thanks F :)

You can right click on the extra display adapter and uninstall for now. You’ll probably need to reinstall your remote viewing software after the update.

After you uninstall, you should be able to install the Bootcamp 3.1 update with the Apple Software Update. I’m not sure whether that alone did the trick to fix the red light problem and the poor audio quality, but I had previously downloaded and installed the latest Realtek drivers for Windows 7 from their site cause I saw folks mentioning this solved their problem though this didn’t fix it for me before the 3.1 update.

Now I can get back to coding with some good background music. Yey Sunday!

New Year Deserves A New Post

1 comment By Aimee Filed in Personal January 3rd, 2010 @ 8:12 pm

I have a good feeling about 2010. I think this year is going to be a year of change. I just realized that this year I’ll be turning 27 and that to me is just a bit scary. I still have a lot that I want to do and if I don’t start putting my mind to it, it’ll never happen. When I first thought of coming to Singapore, I had a plan in mind: That I would do SG for 1 or 2 years, then AUS, then the US. Somewhere along the way, I got a bit sidetracked :) What can I say, Singapore is definitely a great place to work. Here everything just works AND you feel safe at all times. I realized though that I’m getting a biiit too comfortable with the way things are around here. I’m just scared that before I know it, I might be permanently trapped in this  comfort zone and forget that I should be moving around while I still can. So this year will probably be the year I start exploring again. It was supposed to be last year but I guess we all know the world wasn’t in that great a shape. Hopefully, this year will be different. I’m looking forward to new things in my life. People back home are experiencing lots of new things from a different aspect in life. I can’t have that just yet, but I  would also want something to be excited about. Hopefully this year will be the year. :)

You’re probably wondering where the new year’s resolutions are. Well, there aren’t going to be any this year.  As per experience, they just don’t work. :p But one thing’s for sure, 2010 sounds like a great year. And I’m looking forward to making it so.

Pickupflowers.com Review

13 comments By Aimee Filed in Personal Tagged with , , December 30th, 2009 @ 2:38 am

image 

Doesn’t guarantee mean anything anymore?

I call BS on this as I’ve had a TERRIBLE experience.

I made an order with them on 22nd of December, specifically because they had a statement on their site that they guarantee delivery on or before Christmas. I received a confirmation email with the following note: "Order Before 12/23/09 5:00 AM*CDT time for assured delivery of this gift to your loved one on or before Christmas." And since the deliveries are made through local florists, as stated http://www.pickupflowers.com/info/about-us that’s not hard to believe.

On the 23rd, i went online with their Live Assistance CSR inquiring about the order. I was told that the order was "delivered to the recipient". So I contact my recipient and ask about the delivery and he says he hasn’t received anything.

On the 24th, I send an email to customer service asking for the details of the so called delivery to ask who has signed for it – No response.

On the 25th I call their CSR informing them that I’ve spoken to the intended recipient and that he hasn’t received any packages which they had claimed they delivered and would like to know when and to whom exactly they delivered the package to. He said he would check with their local agent. I mention to him that if this doesn’t get delivered on or before 27th, I would like to cancel the order as the recipient will have left the place of delivery on the 28th (local time). He says he will check with the local agent and get back to me. I ask HOW he will get back to me, and he says he will send me an email.

On the 26th, I send an email to the CSR stating i am still waiting on feedback regarding my order. At this point, I’m assuming the order has gotten delivered to the wrong place or whatever so I tell them i hope i will not be seeing a bill for this.

I finally got a reply from their CSR email address, apologizing for the inconvenience, and that they were still waiting for the reply of the local agent regarding the non delivery of the order and that they would get back to me immediately after receiving the information from them.

On the 29th, i reply to them expressing my dissatisfaction with their service and informing them that the recipient has already left the place of delivery.

Later on in the day, I check my credit card account and notice that I was charged for this service. I send them an email wanting to know why i was charged for an order that was never delivered. – No response

I contact their Live Assistance and explain my situation. They went on about explaining the weather conditions hence the order was not fulfilled in time but that it was going to be delivered “today”. How they will manage, that i have no idea as the recipient had already left. My biggest issue is that I was told it was delivered to the recipient when in fact it was not, and now they’ve delivered it when the recipient is no longer there.

Then he goes on to tell me that as a token of their apology they will refund me 50%. Not 50% plus the order value, but 50% OF the order value.

So in effect, paid the 50% for the stress of having to chase after their customer service people to tell me what was going on, and for not having been able to a gift of Christmas cheer to the intended recipient.

image

In summary, i guess you can say i won’t be joining their "more than 100,000 satisfied customers across 80 countries".

This rant has also been posted on http://bit.ly/6YTzgy for the benefit of everyone who is evaluating delivery companies to entrust with something as sacred as delivering flowers and the like.

First long distance bike ride!

0 comments By Aimee Filed in Personal Tagged with , July 16th, 2009 @ 1:12 am

Last weekend, my team at work had an outing at East Coast Park and thanks to @nenggiin we had an awesome time, going on a pseudo scavenger hunt on bikes.  :) Prior to that, I think the last time I remember being on a bike was when I was 8 years old. Back then, I had pink bike with training wheels. My granddad used to take us out in the afternoon at the plaza beside our house. When I grew older, I didn’t really get into riding bikes and I never went past using them without the training wheels :|

Suffice it to say that last Friday was definitely interesting for me. You know how they say that you never forget how to ride a bike. Well I was a bit ambitious and thinking that applied to folks who had training wheels on. But the good news is I somehow managed :) Well, I did crash into a tree and a few bushes a couple of times but nothing more than a few bruises. It was well worth it though, we definitely had a lot of fun that day. And I have to say, I felt proud of myself for being able to ride a bike, even though I still had to learn how to turn and to stop. :p

I was proudly telling my story to the F when we decided to check out some bikes during the weekend. We both thought it would be fun to be able to just cycle around to the nearer-by places we go to and getting some exercise while we’re at it. We went bike hunting on Sunday. At first aiming for Carrefour, we saw a bike shop somewhere around Tanglin Road and stopped to browse there. Sure enough, we found our bikes in less than an hour and were already excited to ride them home. We were extremely disappointed when after we paid, they told us that they would be delivering it the following day.

That was just as well because on Monday when the bikes arrived and we took it out for a spin, I was back to my old clumsy mode and I could barely get going! In my mind, I was starting to regret buying the bike so impulsively :S With F’s patience, I eventually got going again except for when there were people around. For some reason, the more I try to evade them, the more I seem to be aiming towards them. Eventually we gave up for the day, but there was a spark of hope that I might be able to pull this off eventually.

We decided it would probably be better to cycle at night when there are less cars too so I could at least ride on the road sometimes instead of the narrow sidewalk where I can’t manage to maintain my balance enough to let other people pass. Yesterday, we went out and bought some lights for the bikes and today, on my runner friend Eugene’s suggestion, went for the Park Connector nearby. Surprisingly, the ride was much better today, although I still managed to crash myself into a garbage bin but that’s alright. Judging by the way the oncoming biker laughed, at least I made someone’s day by providing some comic relief.

This was the route we took:

 

and of course, here’ is the bike:

photo

I had an awesome time today, except for the part when we had to ride through a path surrounded with, I would say easily 10-15 barking dogs. :| I like dogs, and I don’t mind barking ones either. But I realized while I was on that path, the number of barking dogs make a difference. So yes, maybe not pass by that part of the route next time.

Housekeeping..

1 comment By Aimee Filed in Personal June 13th, 2009 @ 7:12 pm

I decided to clean up my blog over the weekend. Actually, I was considering for a while there buying yet another domain and starting all over but then I realized, there really wasn’t any point to that. I had just become lazy to maintain this one because I felt it had become a bit messy. So I decided to do a few things: 1. Upgrade my wordpress installation to 2.8 (had been on 2.5 for the longest time :| ) and 2. Delete the twitter integration.

1. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be. This guide details everything, i think the most difficult part was step 0, which I skipped. I thought, well, if this installation messes up then I guess it’s time for a restart :p. Luckily, it didn’t. It was just a matter of copying over the new wordpress files and running the script. Definitely not as painful as I had imagined. The upgrade made me feel good, at least gave me a feeling of some sort of freshness. ;)

2. I realized that my twitter integration thingamajig was making me more lazy to blog. Plus, It made my site look like crap whenever there was silence. I realized, if my friends want to read about my twitter activities, they’d probably go to my twitter page. I delete my aggregated twitter posts. Well I guess not all of it, it was too taxing to delete them all so I just went as far back as I could and gave up. I think there are still more in the archives but at least my front page is cleaner now. :)

I have decided I should put more effort into blogging, maybe set aside some time in a week at least. I know it’s going to be good therapy for me if I do.

Lost!

0 comments By Aimee Filed in Personal Tagged with , May 18th, 2009 @ 10:32 pm

Some things I need to know about life, I learn through running.

Today I was feeling a bit cocky and thought that my usual route here at lavender just wasn’t enough, so off I went trying to discover a new route. At first I was amused at how far I’d strayed off. After a while I got so distracted that I did lose my bearings and got myself lost. Below is how my run ended up looking like :|

I guess what I learned is that if you’re going to be deviant, and want to “stir things up a bit”, you’ll still have to be responsible about maintaining common sense, and always have yourself in check. You should never lose yourself in the moment so much that you just follow where things lead you. You have to keep a straight head about making sure you know where you’re going, and you have to be humble enough to admit you’ve gone astray. At this point, you stop, think, recalibrate and go for it. Mistakes are part of everything. And as long as you know to realize it when it happens, and are able to correct yourself as much as possible, then you’ll be fine.

Home Run

0 comments By Aimee Filed in Personal Tagged with , May 16th, 2009 @ 10:33 pm

Parents left today and there was a cry-fest outside our gate as they loaded their bags into the cab. I didn’t realize how much i missed my parents till they were leaving. This whole day while we were going around, I felt that familiar weight on my chest. I’ve always been amazed how negative emotions can actually manifest itself into physical pain/discomfort (and curious how positive emotions manifest themselves). At the start of the day, I already broke down into tears while we were eating breakfast, and throughout the day i had that heavy feeling. I broke down again when they were getting into the cab. I decided to run it off rather than go for the unhealthy alternatives, and this is how i did today:

I feel a bit better. I don’t feel the heaviness on my chest that much anymore.

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for as long as i can remember, technology has always fascinated me

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