Last week i bought a new comp from Sim Lim Square these are the specs:

CPU: Intel Core2Duo E8400 3.0GHZ
MOB: Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L
RAM: Kingston 6400/800 CL5 2GB DDR2
GFX: Inno3D 8600GT 256MB
HDD: Western Digital 500GB 16MB
DVD: LG 22x DVD-RW
PSU: Andyson 500 Watt 75% Efficiency
Casing: Black CoolMaster 330

Those parts only cost me around $750. I love the fact that my new comp is SUPER silent, i can hardly even hear the soft humming! The whole process of setting up my comp was quite painful tho, i initially kept encountering white, green and black screen of death. Had to go back Sim Lim to change the mobo, reformat to downgrade from SP3 to SP2, uninstall norton, and some other stuff… now it appears to be quite stable.

At the age of 4, I attended nursery. Following that, I attended kindergarten one & two. At 7, I started primary one and at 12, I completed primary six. At 13, I started secondary one and at 16 I completed ‘O’ levels. At 17, I started poly and at 19, I graduated with a diploma. At 20, I enlisted for national service and at 21, I completed my service. At 22, I obtained my degree through a part time degree program with the University of Wollongong. At 23, I’ve got a degree with slightly over a year of working experience.

Now, compare that route to a JC scenario.

At 16, I complete ‘O’ levels. At 17, I start JC and at 18, I complete ‘A’ Levels. At 19, I enlist for national service and at 20, I complete my service. At 21, I enter NTU or NUS and at 24, I obtain my degree. (4 years since I would most likely take a science/engineering/technology degree) At 25, I’m a fresh grad.

Overseas Degree vs. Local Degree. What is the difference between the two routes? Here are some points to consider. How much time is involved? How much money is involved? How much effort is involved? What is the commercial value of the degree obtained? Everyone has a slightly different situation and neither path “ensures” that you will be ahead of the curve. No matter which route we take, don’t be “average”… actually, it doesn’t even matter if you’re mediocre. What really matters is that you’re happy, and proud of what you have achieved.

When it comes to games, content is more important then look-and-feel. Even after a decade, I would still play Starcraft once in a while. And for games like Dune II, it didn’t take more then a month before I never touched it ever again. AoC, WoW and WAR has to contest in this aspect to come out at the top.

Content Planning > Usability > Aesthetics

As web people, a common pitfall is getting the order mixed up. All the aesthetically pleasing but useless websites strewn across the net stands testimony to the adverse effect of messing up this order. Usability and aestheticism is there to enhance communication and without a solid content plan they lose their purpose.

So really how important is look-and-feel?

I’ve been wondering and doing a lot lately… however blogging about them has been a dragging of feet. Many things happened in the last few months, from a change of job to meet-ups with Christians of other denominations. Besides those stuff, I’ve also re-ignited my engine and got off my lazy procrastinating butt to go for my motorcycle lessons *hurray~!* That’s an attempt to at least fulfill another resolution on my 2008 list.

I’ve been working on a couple of web projects and more are still lining up. Most of these projects are church related, porting the Jurong Youth Ministry blog, setting up another for the Jurong Youth Adults, a microsite for the upcoming youth program, Youth Alive! and working on the website for jurongadventist.org. Working with Faith to revamp the Studio Elpizo website is another task high up on the agenda list. The revamped site will offer excellent podcasting support and a shopping cart. Shievonedu.com, which Seeez and I have been working on, is also in the final tuning stages. I’ve also been reading about the Google Checkout which looks very promising to me. However, it’s only available for US and UK sellers at the moment.

While revisiting this page today, my mind drifted off topic — How I can improve my terrible (both written and spoken) English? Also not to forget my amazing ability to get my spelling messed up. Being a reserved person and having bad English isn’t a very good combination.

Anyway, this is just random rant while I rethink the strategy of my web development future and what i want to blog about. ahhhh…

oh btw, i’m getting a new uberl33t c0mputer! To play WARHAMMERonline WAAaaaag!

Doing what’s right without fear or favour

Lee Wei Ling
Wed, Jul 30, 2008
The Straits Times

I was born and bred in Singapore. This is my home, to which I am tied by family and friends. Yet many Singaporeans find me eccentric, though most are too polite to verbalise it. I only realised how eccentric I am when one friend pointed out to me why I could not use my own yardstick to judge others.

I dislike intensely the elitist attitude of some in our upper socio-economic class. I have been accused of reverse snobbery because I tend to avoid the wealthy who flaunt their wealth ostentatiously or do not help the less fortunate members of our society.

I treat all people I meet as equals, be it a truck driver friend or a patient and friend who belongs to the richest family in Singapore.

I appraise people not by their usefulness to me but by their character. I favour those with integrity, compassion and courage. I feel too many among us place inordinate emphasis on academic performance, job status, appearance and presentation.

I am a doctor and director of the smallest public sector hospital in Singapore, the National Neuroscience Institute (NNI). I have 300 staff, of whom 100 are doctors. I emphasise to my doctors that they must do their best for every patient regardless of paying status. I also appraise my doctors on how well they care for our patients, not by how much money they bring in for NNI.

My doctors know I have friends who are likely to come in as subsidised patients. I warn them that if I find them not treating any subsidised patient well, their appraisal - and hence bonus and annual salary increments - would be negatively affected. My doctors know I will do as I say.

I remind them that the purpose of our existence and the measure of our success is how well we care for all our patients - and that this is the morally correct way to behave and should be the reason why we are doctors. In NNI, almost all patients are given the best possible treatment regardless of their paying status.

My preference for egalitarianism extends to how I interact with my staff. I am director because the organisation needs a reporting structure. But my staff are encouraged to speak out when they disagree with me. This tends to be a rarity in several institutions in Singapore. The fear that one’s career path may be negatively affected is what prevents many people from speaking out.

This reflects poorly on leadership. In many organisations, superiors do not like to be contradicted by those who work under them. Intellectual arrogance is a deplorable attitude.

‘Listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story,’ the Desiderata tells us. It is advice we should all heed - especially leaders, especially doctors.

I speak out when I see something wrong that no one appears to be trying to correct. Not infrequently, I try to right the wrong. In doing so, I have stepped on the sensitive toes of quite a few members of the establishment. As a result, I have been labelled ‘anti-establishment’. Less kind comments include: ‘She dares to do so because she has a godfather’.

I am indifferent to these untrue criticisms; I report to my conscience; and I would not be able to face myself if I knew that there was a wrong that I could have righted but failed to do so.

I have no protective godfather. My father, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, would not interfere with any disciplinary measures that might be meted out to me.

And I am not anti-establishment. I am proud of what Singapore has achieved. But I am not a mouthpiece of the government. I am capable of independent thought and I can view problems or issues from a perspective that others may have overlooked.

A few months ago, I gave a talk on medical ethics to students of our Graduate Medical School. They sent me a thank-you card with a message written by each student. One wrote: ‘You are a maverick, yet you are certainly not anti-establishment. You obey the moral law.’ Another wrote: ‘Thank you for sharing your perspective with us and being the voice that not many dare to take.’

It would be better for Singapore’s medical fraternity if the young can feel this way about all of us in positions of authority.

After the Sars epidemic in 2003, the Government began to transform Singapore into a vibrant city with arts and cultural festivals, and soon, integrated resorts and night F1. But can we claim to be a civilised first world country if we do not treat all members of our society with equal care and dignity?

There are other first world countries where the disparity between the different socio- economic classes is much more extreme and social snobbery is even worse than in Singapore. But that is no excuse for Singaporeans not to try harder to treat each other with dignity and care.

After all, both the Bible and Confucius tell us not to treat others in a way that we ourselves would not want to be treated. That is a moral precept that many societies accept in theory, but do not carry out in practice.

I wish Singapore could be an exception in this as it has been in many other areas where we have surprised others with our success.

The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute. Think-Tank is a weekly column rotated among eight heads of research and tertiary institutions.

Amen to those words.

A friend once told me, “[name] drives a [expensive-car]… you know?” I struggle and managed to hold back the “SO?!” which was at the edge of my tongue. Driving a big car or staying in a huge house is not the slightest bit impressive, more so if one had not even work hard for it in the first place. What is important, rich or poor, is a character of integrity and a compassionate heart.

Took the “IQ Test - Advance Level” on Facebook and got around the same score as the old test! I wonder what’s the formula used to compute the scores.

Internet down = website down = reboot apache webserver

I get this error message… “The page cannot be displayed.”
Well… that’s because the website it down…

Didn’t you get my email about not taking down the webserver?!
*deletes e-mail from mail server*

Web Dude: Dude AOL?! Don’t use AOL it dial-up networking…
Sales Guy: Well, how am I going to get to the internet without AOL?
Web Dude: … it’s broadband.
Sales Guy: but i got like 4000 hours for free!

LOL thanks Nick for sharing… this is awesomely funny…

It’s amazing how first new found inspiration can come! It just feels it electricity surging through my veins. Thanks to so many people who helped set of this chain reaction!

Horror horror horror left column runs in IE6… suspect the evil~ cbox at work… will fix that soon -_-”

It’s like being so detached you start to see yourself from third person. It’s like walking down a road so long that you forget which direction you were walking towards. It’s like seeing everything in two dimension. It’s like seeing everything in grayscale. It’s like having a thousand thoughts and having a blank mind all at the same time. It’s like sitting inside a washing machine, feeling sick at first but getting used to it after awhile. It’s where knowing and feeling doesn’t meet!