3 AM

I can’t sleep well right now. Mosquitos are biting me everywhere. I just tried OneNote 2007 last night on our PC last night (and I liked it!), but I can’t install it on my portable. And thoughts of making my own personal note taking program is lingering in my mind. Before I knew it, I’m already planning my way to make one. Now maybe I’ll finish this up and go back to bed. Time to get the mosquito repellant.

Brownout

Well today is brownout day — two power failures in a row! I’m just typing this entry on my laptop. I have a candle here for the lights, a portable radio to keep me from going insane and my phone in case the electric company calls us back for updates. That’s it.

Yeah they did called us back and said they’ll fix it by around 4 hours(!), so we better stay tuned.

(not so) bored

Just opened my computer to play around with Python. I got a few topics in my head including file I/O, basic GUI with Tcl/Tk and bits of graphics with Pygame. Yeah! I’m beginning to enjoy learning a new programming language once again.

I got to play a few rounds of the Golden Compass game on PSP. I heard it was based around a movie or novel or something.. but I haven’t read or watched about it yet. ^^ okay at least the game seems interesting… if only the save points in the game weren’t that scarce…

I want to go out of the house sometime during this Christmas break and unwind for a bit.. While i’m not really that bored (just a bit), i don’t want to be stuck around indoors until next week! Gotta have some other sources of stimulation, you know..

I almost got sick yesterday… I caught a cold because i was too busy tinkering with my stuff that I forgot to have a good night’s sleep. Now my immune defenses have kicked in, telling me to take it easy and actually take a break.. hahaha. But i feel better now. Just a little sleepy.

My Thoughts Are Fleeting

My thoughts are going… going… gone.

Wasting plastic coasters

I think my DVD writer is broken. >:(

Crap.

iPod classic 120GB

Just bought an iPod classic 120GB last week, and I’m lovin’ every minute of it! Nothing beats having your entire media library with me everywhere I go. SUre, it’s bigger and heavier than my old iPod nano, but that’s because it has a hard drive for storage, meaning it’s more fragile so I really got to take care of it. ^_^;

I’ve been using it to watch movies and currently, anime episodes of Beck, Rockman EXE and Trigun. The screen’s sized enough to let you squint without your eyes getting tired too much. It’s got great battery life, too, enough to last me about three days listening to music and about half day if I went for a video watching marathon.

The all-metal enclosure is pretty tough to withstand everyday handling, so keeping it inside a casing while carrying is not necessary, unless you’re really serious on protecting it. However, the shiny back plate is really prone to scratches just by rubbing it on any surface, even clothing. Oh well, at least the front side is made of anodized aluminum and the screen is made of glass, so it still looks good.

I’m syncing my whole My Pictures folder into it right now, which is about 4 gigabytes in size. Now I have a backup of my photos and such.

Shutting Down Windows Automatically

I found out about this a while ago from a friend. You can actually shut down your computer within a specified duration using the command line. Just go to Start -> Run and type the following command:

shutdown -s -t <seconds>

where <seconds> is equal to the time period you want your computer to shut down. For example, if I want to shut down after 5 minutes (300 seconds), I may enter the following command:

shutdown -s -t 300

You may also cancel the command by entering the following:

shutdown -a

To abort the shutdown procedure.

Nice huh?

Brand new PSP!

I got myself a spankin’ new PSP Slim! At first I really was torn between buying an
Asus Eee PC or a PSP, but since my spending funds are kind of limited, I got the PSP instead for a low, low price of 9,500 pesos from Go Gadgets at Gilmore. Yes….. it was so worth it. The store owners even offered me to mod it with a customized firmware. Alright! Now I can run emulators and homebrew apps from my PSP!

I think I’ll be posting PSP-related stuff in this space in the future. For now

Windows Vista

I’m having my very first brief flirt with Windows Vista, which is currently installed on my VMWare virtual machine, and I’m liking what I’m seeing so far. Yes, the UAC (User Account Protection) thing hits me right on my face from time to time, and the lack of proper icons on the Start menu is a little confusing, but I think it’ll get a little time to get used to. On the bright side, MS Paint did get a facelift, and that’s good! hehehe.

If I find Vista to be stable and compatible enough for our needs, I might consider installing it on our main machine, someday…

On the Job Experience

I just spend my first week of OJT and what can I say? It’s great! Yeah, there were problems here and there, but I think everything’s gonna be okay. Hopefully.

Anyways, I’m now working in the Republic of Makati, west of Ayala in Salcedo street, in a company called 3Logix, which is residing in the 9th floor of Legaspi Suites building. Yup, I wake up at 3 in the morning, commute to Ayala, and ride in the elevator nine floors above ground level. That’s how my on-the-job training is and will be until the next 5 months (or 800 working hours) of my life. And oh, did I mention that I have to wear long sleeves and a necktie? Oh yeah. Corporate stuff.

So what do I do at work? I program some of the world’s coolest gadgets on Earth…. GPS navigation! I’m currently handling a small device capable of tracking me of my wherebouts and transmitting it to the company’s main server…. something like that. Sounds like military-grade stuff, but it’s just like that. Except only I get to debug the device’s software and such. Actually, I’m now working on making the software run more stable, as well as studying the code. *nosebleed*

The allowance? I’m still waiting for it to come. My boss said we’ll get 75% of the minimum wage. I don’t know how much that is, but I hope it’s a nice amount. Heehee.

That’s it, I guess. The council of elders in our team also informed me that a new recruit will be joining us on Monday, and I will be the one to do the orientation stuff. Talk about responsibility! I just hope I’ll get along well with the new guy… something like that. And gosh, do I ever need help with the explaining stuff… Hay….

Wish me luck in the coming weeks.