re-embracing an old hobby

As school started, I got back onto my bicycle and frequently biked to school like I have in the past for years. It was a rewarding feeling getting on that bicycle again and actually using my bikes instead of stowing them away in the garage.

Shortly after school started, i found a cycling companion that lived in the same neighborhood - the discovery was unexpected and eventually we got closer together and we meet up daily before and after classes. Eventually the new found friend got curious about the road bikes i rode and decided to get one.

I got back into my bicycle hobby as soon as he was interested in getting a bike, i think we spent about a few weeks researching and going around stores. I shared with him a lot of my experiences and quite a lot of my opinions to persuade him into the right direction. He was very skeptical at first but eventually I got him to avoid spending money in the wrong direction. Right before he was about to spend some of his money on a bike he saw at a local bike shop, we went to our first swap meet together (sports basement).

We found his first bike which was exactly matching what he wanted to spend ~ about $300. It was quite the bargain for a nice entry-level bike. The components / wheels alone on the bike probably made up for the majority of the cost. He wanted a short bike so i guess this was the bike he wanted, especially for the price. The bike was a late model OCR compact in Blue from giant with a lot of modifications towards an ultegra / 600 grouppo mix. The fork was aluminum alloy so it was probably the 2004/2005 model. When i test rode the bike, it was responsive and had all the qualities i would look for in an entry-level bike. I made the decision for my friend to buy the bike right before a family had the opportunity to look at it, and no regrets i hope.

After a few weeks of enjoying his new bike, he then decided the bike was too small for him and he really wanted a bicycle he could be proud of riding. To me, this was the common behavior i see a lot with friends who test ride my racing style bikes. Eventually his mind was clouded with a lot of dream bikes on ebay and eventually he we were researching again. He seemed very interested in a carbon frame and was about to buy one again at a store before the swap meet ironically.

There were about 3 swap meets that day we went on october 2009; i drove from san jose to richmond to walnut creek and back (180miles). I went with my new friend and an old highschool peer. Everyone had their own things to look for except myself - since i really didn't know what i needed. There were a lot of great things going on our first stop in san jose; i got my steel bicycle i always wanted and it was one of the gems of that swapmeet. Being cautious about time, we quickly started moving to the next venue in richmond, east bay.

A lot of high hopes were set on this next location since it seemed to be very publicized. We got to the place about 15 minutes late and started to look. This second swap meet had more "retail" merchants than the previous one so things were more new and less bargain-able. After a few minutes there, i wasn't too interested in their selection - but my friend found his carbon frame that he wanted, a very nice Orbea orca for $500 that came with the fork and a free front derailleur. Shortly after getting the frame we just left towards that last destination in "walnut creek".

We got there earlier than the other two places and saw barely anything. So we went around inside the store that was hosting the event and learned more about the orca frame we just picked up. Some customer shared some nice comments about the frame while we waited for the sellers. After about half an hour we finally saw something useful - a set of mavic krysium wheels. We got the wheelset for under $50 and decided it was time to leave and head back to san jose to look for parts for the new bike we now needed to get parts for.

After the day was over, I probably spent about $300 - but i got my bike that was probably worth every penny. And my friend got his bike built for about $800 and it feels like one of those $2k+ bikes new. We'll be looking forward to the cow palace meet sometime this month and hopefully he will figure out what else he wants for his bike. The only problem i see now is that he got a frame a bit too big, and also a frame too small.

I just finished fixing up my bike last week and am very proud of it, now if i can get my ass off and actually ride it i can really enjoy it.

Education Problems And Solutions 2009

So I have decided to get back into school again 1 year after I've graduated with an Electrical Engineering BS degree and minor in Computer Science.

First off, going back to a government educational institution right now is horrible due to all the budget cuts in California and probably nationwide. I thought only the fees were increased but actually a lot more of surprises came as school started. Our school has more "closed" days than before and also each professor must choose and discard 5 additional days during the semester. With an increase in the fees and reduction in the courses/lectures this seems good for people who want an easy education ... but not for those who actually want quality education.

So it looks like the future students of San Jose State University will have limited knowledge and less skills than previous students... because of the many setbacks and reduction in teach. My lecturers all have reduced their course objectives and have a few topics normally taught in the class. I believe this is only the beginning and a lot of issues will arise later.

It was also very difficult to get into courses because of the limited seating that is now enforced. Before you could get add codes easily if the professor allows it - but everyone now needs to ask permission and codes from the top.

I just started reading a book from this Stanford professor (economics) and it has a very interesting first chapter. The professor always gives this assignment of "if i gave you $5 make as much profit as possible within 2 weeks" and it is similar to the situation right now at SJSU. I think i should give this book to one of those professors at school and maybe they will get some of the ideas that have sparked in my head.

San Jose State should step up to this budget problem and find alternatives to generating income... the first chapter clearly shows that you can generate lots of money without money at all. Organizations should be started around school to create income for the school. The university is full of bright people, they should be able to start projects that eventually brings in some profits. Simple things like the printing shop across the street started by one of the professors probably donate income to the school - there should be student groups that do such things.

I would repair bikes at school for free and just put a donation can in front of myself to help generate income for the school (like an example in the book). Although it does sound weird to offer free services - most things are easily fixed and people end up donating more than they would for a repair. The CS courses I have been taking should offer consulting services to nearby organizations and possible get some sorta donation later. I have signed up to work with cinequest and in return i get some free movie tickets.

Well the ideas are endless and I'm sure SJSU is capable of figuring it out - they just need to stop looking at their problems and look at alternatives.

I LOVE MY T61 LAPTOP! BEST $900 EVER!!

Often times i regret spending over $800 for this laptop i'm using now to write this blog entry but the past few weeks have made me appreciate this little machine much more than before. The picture shown above is the product of my labor for the past few weeks and also the work of many other thinkpad owners around the world! It shows the successful installation of OS X on a lenovo thinkpad T61.

Ever since those Mac and PC advertisements i've grown some hatred towards Mac because of their consistent jokes about PC users. Anyway i finally get to see what the Mac OS X is all about and i have to say it is a unique blend of features for an operating system that places it ahead in some ways. I like the OS X because it makes you feel like Apple Computer is run by perfectionists that spend hours and hours until they are satisfied with their product.

Anyway, the reason why i'm so happy with my laptop is that it is 100% compatible with the x86/OSX operating system that has been always proprietary to Apple Computers. Most laptops out there are far from being 100% compatible with this operating system and will always have something to keep them from fully experiencing the software. The most common things missing are wireless capability and graphics support; without these the experience would be unpleasant and most would revert back.

The reason for installing the OS in the first place was because i decided to take a challenging course in "iPhone Development" which is a new course here at SJSU taught by professor that i'm close with. Because of Apple's common behavior, they would only allow their SDK to run on newer Apple computers that have the latest and greatest. Initially i thought about investing into an older model macintosh computer to setup my environment in, but the search proved to be a challenge. The lowest prices i saw on ebay were $350 for used "Mac Mini"s that should retail for $300 new. Anyway, i have heard about "hackintosh" - the term used to describe a PC running the Mac OS and decided to start. 

The first day I spent most of my time researching forums and starting my downloads - the first disc i installed was a complete failure and it was very discouraging. As i searched more "stable" builds i got to my first checkpoint - installing and running the OS successfully. I was so excited that i went and showed my friend nearby but it ended up showing me how unstable these installs were and ended up wasting time re-installing. Eventually on the second day i was quite confident of my machine and decided to start downloading the SDK - and as i opened the program it informed me that my OS was outdated and needed and update. The update ... trashed my install and my two days worth of work! Anyway, it was clear that the more stable build did not support the SDK and i started back at square one and decided to go for the latest, less tested, builds. At this point i was clear on what must be done and have gone through the install process a few times already. Eventually everything came together and I have gotten everything to work properly with the exception of stable bluetooth detection and CPU speeds reduced by 10%.

When i brought the machine to school many were in awe and gave me props for getting the dev. environment working. Even a few mac owners were envious of what i had - the feeling was great and now i'm looking for a spare machine to play around with and also to replace some parts on this machine.

LONG LIVE THE THINKPAD T61, THE GREATEST LAPTOP I'VE BOUGHT!! Despite the crappier body made by lenovo!

Now i get to program iPhone apps and get a student developer license from school.

my first car, the integra gs 93' 5spd

I have long been a cyclist and have felt very comfortable doing distances of up to 40 miles daily to get to places. However, most people don't think this is a great idea and one of them is my close uncle that is a sports car fan for many years. Since last year, he has urged me to learn how to drive manual - which is something i believe all guys desire to learn in their lifetime. I've been looking to buying a used car from the start based on my simple mechanic experience with bicycles. Also working on a car is something i really would like to know how to do since i'm quite the hands on person.

Initially I was setting my eyes on a 5 speed civic, something proven to be reliable and relatively easy to drive and pay for. But as months pass by i've been sent links to civics around $4-6k and all of these prices were out of my budget and beyond my checking account. So one day (a week past my birthday) my uncle spots an old integra for just $3000 on craigslist and immediately i was interested because i could actually buy it CASH. Price usually is the motivating factor behind a lot of my purchases - but an integra should be better than a civic, i thought. So i agreed quickly and said I was interested and my uncle sent an email.

Afterwards, with a lot of doubt that we would get the car, we got a reply back from the seller and my uncle decided to take some time to come down to sunnyvale to check out the car with me. So it was 7pm and I brought a close friend of mine, who owns a GSR integra, to head towards DeAnza College to meet the seller/car. Both of them saw the posting on craigslist and were pretty excited to check out the car since it looked clean, but i kept them skeptical and alert for any problems that may come with the car.

When the sellers arrived, we took a look at the car and were amazed at how great it looked, they inspected all the obviously places and the interior. When we got into the car for a test drive i sat in the back while my uncle gave it a basic test on the road and freeway. After we test drove it, we had a team meeting, and both of the experts i went with agreed nothing was wrong and i should just GET IT. These two were deep honda fans and should know more about cars than i should so i fully agreed on their judgements and if they say to buy it, i definitely would. At first, i thought the car looked abit outdated and "not my style", but the whole experience of buying this car made me appreciate it more as time went by.

Of course there was a problem right after we agreed that we wanted the car, the owners wanted the money immediately because they had a line of people who agreed to purchase it tomorrow morning if it was not sold. Desperate for cash we only came up with a little over $1000 and had to scramble around for money from family/friends nearby. Well nobody seemed to have that much cash around except my mother who ultimately came in to help. My uncle was willing to drive all the way back to san francisco and back to get the extra money - something that told me this was a great deal. So we told the sellers we had the money and agreed to meet in the morning @ DMV around 8am to cover paperwork.

The next day the original owners transferred the title over to me and gave me their keys and remote. I had no experience with manual beyond just the parking lot about half a year ago so i was really rusty and needed some practice. My neighborhood friend across the street examined the car own his own and agreed that it was a great purchase and sort of helped me re-learn how to drive the 5speed transmission. After the first few turns and stops i was pretty nervous and stalled a few times and annoyed about 2 drivers ... but i made it back to the driveway and was ready to learn how to drive the following weekend with my uncle in the hilly streets of San Francisco.

A friend of mine who claimed to know how to drive manual come over sometime the next week to check out the car and brought one of our friends along. I knew these two for a long time and i knew they would give that predictable habit of theirs to bash on people's stuff. So they came and gave their little lines and i remained cool about it and ushered them into my car and let my friend take the car for a spin. Immediately, as my friend got into the car, he admitted he didn't know how to drive that well and .... i was somewhat not shocked. I guess i knew this guy long enough to expect something like this to happen - so i endured his revving of the engine to start the car on first gear and push the car past 25 on first gear. I do not believe i saw him shift beyond the first gear before we needed to stop again and turn.

Anyway, it was dark and they seemed to have seen enough of the car and the friend that drove the car agreed it was a nice buy while the less interested friend remained a bit skeptical. After the drive we went out for food and stopped by an auto parts dealer to see if an old friend of theirs still worked there. I got to get his phone number and he agreed to check out my car someday when he was free to fix any problems and offer service. And on the days ahead i was researching on car parts to buy and forums on the integra to research more on my car. On the day before the weekend with my uncle - i drove the car around just to make sure i remembered how to change to the first gear and get it moving - and then i went to san francisco to train the next day at 6:30AM on a sunday.

The training was about 2h30min and time flew by pretty quickly and we went all over the city and onto the freeway to less populated areas. One stop we made was to a krispy kreme and I finally got the see one of these for the first time. The entire time, it was me who was driving and i was very surprised to see myself drive so easily and well. My uncle thought i knew how to drive already and had confidence in me enough to give me a grade of B+ after we were all done.

I just took it for a spin yesterday with my sister to get some food at the nearby KFC - since this was something i could not do on the bike. Well getting the chicken wasn't the great highlight of the experience but i finally thought i nailed the first gear down with a technique i figured out taht day - it was to pivot with the heal and use your toe to let go of the clutch slowly and smoothly. I now remain skeptical if that was the proper way to drive and if this was not a good practice.

Harsh economic times... hitting my merchants!

Last week, I was a week of birthdays: my sister's, cousin's and eventually mine. I remember we went shopping for something good to eat on that first birthday - and something i've wanted to have for a long time was a donut.

Sure it would be easy to find a such a treat at a local supermarket, but it seems more genuine from a local shop. So we stopped by one across a safeway supermarket and, to my surprise, it had an open sign on the door. Donut shops were closing all over the city and it was hard to find one open when you actually wanted one; some shops close as early as 1:00PM.

Anyway as i walked in, i noticed no customers and a girl reading a physical science textbook and another girl (probably sister) much older. The older one, though a bit younger than myself, quietly walked behind the counter to take our order - it was very awkward because the place was empty and very quiet. It was like a stage was set and we walked right in - it was very difficult to even walk out of the shop because these guys desperately needed some customers! It was very sad and I think both my sisters later agreed that it was hard to see these donut shops continue. That was probably one of the most "rock-bottom" experiences I've had; i knew donut shops were having it tough but seeing it with your own eyes is a tough sight. After I walked out of the shop I wanted to share some ideas that would probably get the shop more attention, since there was no way they could compete with safeway's dozen donuts at half the price! Maybe make it an internet cafe or place for schoolwork / afterschool tutoring? Well i doubt this shop will live very long and i bet the owners are anxious to sell the business... I just hate how they are making their kids do work ... seems so wrong.

The more recent event was with wolf camera, after it has closed most of their store locations, it has partnered with another company to launch an online store. They had some amazing deals during the past month and didn't charge for shipping or tax! So during the 4th of july sale I ordered a camera and till this day i still have not received it! Actually after 45 days paypal will retract the payment if the merchant has not forfill the order and that was exactly the case. I knew going through wolfcamera was risky based on the 1 star reseller rating (bizrate) but man i did not expect it to be this terrible. A lady with an accent called me the other day requesting i "resubmit" my payment since paypal has retracted it - i just plainly said that i was not interested anymore and actually gave them my sympathy instead of complaining to them because i'm sure they've been treated badly by the american public already. It was probably so awkward for them they didn't even know how to respond to my statements; i told them i know they they were having hard times and wished them luck on recovery...

I canceled the order mainly because some newer cameras had features i wanted and the fact that my sister already got a similar point and shoot camera for her birthday.

Setting up web-apps on IIS 7.0 (Win2K8)

Well it's official, http://www.heycloud.com/ is launched after a few weeks of planning and researching with different service providers. Fortunately, we had some hook-up deal through Microsoft with some free hosting from DiscountASP.com and the initial stuff was covered with no cost.

But as we moved on we needed security options like SSL and probably bandwidth upgrades later on in the future. But for now it's a new experience working with a cloud platform and figuring out how to work with the new IIS 7.0 that comes with windows 2008 server.

I've been reading around the clock to catch up on the technology i've neglected for some time. The windows server platform is much different than the Apache 2.0 i was familiar with; a lot of trouble is solved with user friendly controls but at the same time a lot must be learned. So far, from what i've seen, IIS seems much more manageable than apache and would be much better to implement off of. I'm sure the performance isn't as great as something like Apache but there seems to be a lot of security options readily available with Microsoft.

Anyway the purpose of this blog was to store some knowledge from my first day's experience with IIS 7.0 on the new windows server 2008. In IIS (all versions) architecture isn't as straight forward as like an Apache where the file system after htdocs is your actual website and subfolders. No, in IIS you need to create a website object and progressively add a new virtual directory or application to the website object. Since i am using asp.net applications i needed to use the latter for deployment which took some time to figure out. So with this structure already present i can tell that Microsoft will enforce a more manageable website over the typical Apache you see. This makes things much easier to enable / disable and also change security roles since every subfolder / application inherits the same settings as the root website unless it is changed manually.

After i got the web app working perfectly on my own system, i was glad i figured it out - but i would later find out that it would be more difficult on the discountasp site because of the lack of settings. The main problem I had was that my web application used an external DLL assembly file msidcrl40.dll. This file is responsible for helping a user login via Microsoft passport - something essential to the entire application. To fix the problem was easy - just impersonate a user (admin) that has access rights to the folder and it should work. But if i uploaded the files to the hosted website, there are no options to impersonate - so the assembly file probably gets a permission denial.

And another thing that was safe was to compile everything based on the .NET framework 2.0 rather than 3.5 - i had some problems running with the newest version.

Getting frustrated finding the right bike

This past week i've been working less and tried enjoying my time with others. I think a great deal of time was spent with my friend's short cousin who wanted a quality road bike so he can ride with his friends and not feel ashamed. This was not the first time i met the fellow since he seemed anxious to get a road bike his size probably a half-year ago and settled with a kids bike because he thought it was good enough. But, unsurprising, he hated his first bike which was a really inexpensive GMC Denali Kid's bike.

This bike, when i first saw it, was something i'd never consider buying but he bought it anyway because of his seemingly impatient behavior. If i were in his shoes, the first bike i would buy is a used road bike possibly a women's with decent parts - but this guy doesn't like looking awkward and would probably walk away from a ladies bike. The guy wants a nice race bike so he can show off to his friends but the problem is that these nicer bikes are harder to sell so manufacturers are pretty "cautious" when producing bike sizes since most of their customers aren't short like he was (~5'1"). Being too helpful as i am sometimes, i agreed to help him get the right bike which took quite a lot of more time outta me than i expected.

I agreed to go with him to a local craigslist posting on an old Giant OCR bike that a lady was selling for $650 - which i thought was OK at first. The OCR is a frame with some carbon and some quality parts off a race bike. This bike i was really looking forward to since it was sorta everything the guy wanted so I wanted to go out to his house personally to help check the bike out since he really did not know anything and nobody else was available. So when we arrived, we met the seller and I took the bike out for a spin. The bike was an earlier model OCR which was not what i expected - all aluminum parts. So immediately I knew the bike was going to need to cost less than the posted $650. I offered $500 max and the lady tried to say it was worth $550 when she bought it and that she bought and installed a computer for extra $100... So we just walked off and started to visit some stores.

I remembered we looked at was a Specialized Sequoia which was a "comfort" bike with decent parts, it was selling for $1050. I immediately thought it wasn't worth the money since the frame was probably heavier than a race bike and that the bike was not intended for performance. By the time I had a chance to think about it, he was already giving up and was ready to put a down payment on the bike. He was not patient at all, he wanted the bike, and from this experience i saw a lot about his character. So before he took out his cash i suggested we look elsewhere and stopped that "close" transaction.

My new friend said he visited a lot of stores already and it seemed like none of the stores had anything he wanted to try out and so everything he wanted always needed to be pre-ordered (meaning purchased before testing). I really do not believe this was a good idea so I told him he needed to try the bike first before buying it and that he should not judge a bike by just the parts on it since those can be replaced later.

As i returned home, he called me a few times with his usual anxious tone asking me to help him out and look for bikes his size - I spent that weekend looking at different manufacturers. I dug up a website of a local bike shop near me and saw that it had something his size and price range so i gave him a call and he was already ready to drive over here. I told him they were probably closed and that i should give them a call - and i was right because it was the 4th of july weekend. Anyway on monday he called me a few times and told me he was on his way there - i met him later and he was already on riding the bike on the street and this angered the owner a bit because he didn't even have a helmet.

My friend's cousin, which i still never could remember his name, does not listen very well - which i just remembered now as i'm blogging. I remember my friend repeating the same thing 3 times just because he knew that he doesn't listen very well, which makes quite a lot of sense now. Anyway we went back inside the shop and looked at other bikes - he kept asking the same questions and I stepped in to save the seller some breath. His questions were "does it come in a smaller size?" - no the men's bike does not go lower than size 50. Pointing at a ladies bike "does this bike come in a different color?" - no. Pointing at the same bike "can you get this bike in 'mens'?" - no i told you mens bike doesn't go lower than 50. And it seemed like he at least asked the same questions as if he had short term memory loss.

Eventually, we just ended up buying the bike - a specialized allez triple 2010 with 9 speed sora for $840 total. The bike was not a bad price and i had a good feeling about the bike frame since it was an entry level race bike (not that he would notice right now). Anyway as i thought my day was finally over with him - he called me half an hour later, an hour later, and yet for a 3rd and 4th time... He kept asking me questions and kept me from work that afternoon and I felt like i did not deserve this ...

Twilight, from a dude's prospective

I've probably read less books than the average reader, at least that's how i see myself. I think reading is great during idle times during a long ride on a train or during a personal favorite of mine: a "woot-off".

Twilight, when i first heard about it as a movie, seemed uninteresting to me since the main actress that was interviewed seemed to be daydreaming more about the co-star vampire than the movie - from what i remember seeing. So i did not think this movie would be anything i'd be interested in. I don't think i would have ever considered tediously reading this book less watching the movie. But like i said before, reading is a good pastime especially during train rides so reading was always a favorite option. The book got to me when my sister finished reading it before leaving for her community service to Africa.

I was warned that the book was pretty girly and that it was like a harry potter series book (something i probably won't be reading). So this book, like all the other books i've read, have been just rare opportunities that have crossed my day. I agreed to check the book out and taste the "girly" side of novels and give her feedback when i've completed. Well i just completed the book and wanted to blog about it.

From early on in the book, i hated the main character - she was someone i found more annoying than anything. the character to me was a snob with nothing to back it up - she's clumsy and scared most of the time but acts pretty tough. It's probably a character that the author chose because she thought it might attract more girls to read but i'm a guy and i found it way annoying. I noticed the book spends much more time describing the attractive details of the characters lover to be than anything else in the book. about 50% of the book (imo) was about how attractive the vampire was and how dreamy it was to be with him...

I would probably give this book a 3.9/5 and that's probably because the book was not meant for grown boys to read. I have never watched the movie so i didn't really know what to expect. After reading it, i am not even tempted to watch the movie - i think the book has given me enough to my liking. The book gives a good "alternative" view of the stereotypical vampires and makes a more believable version of the sun-fearing bloodsuckers. Another positive to the book as the author's epilogue which seemed to have a very good ending since the rest of the book was very dark. This book does not deserve an above-average 4 because a regular guy like me would always be tortured reading about girly fantasies half the time.

Poor Man's Gamer Computer

After successfully rebuilding the old machine with spare parts and whatever i could find at the right price, I got to the overclocking stage I've been waiting for. Even though the real limiter is my ECS motherboard, I still used it and tried to crank out as much juice from my $80 CPU as i possibly could. And the result was an increase of 700MHz which is not bad but also not impressive since most with decent boards got to 4.0GHz according to other owners.

There were many hurdles that were in the way. On the first day, the motherboard could not recognize the new CPU and i needed to flash the bios to a newer version. This unexpected problem and the rumors about ECS almost made me throw the board out the window, but luckily the flashing of the bios worked and I was relieved. Since I had a quad core, I really wanted something equivalent in performance the the very least so the only option was overclocking.

The initial overclocking went well until I saw temperatures rise due to the cooling performance of the stock CPU fans. The first aftermarket fan i purchased was very promising but it did not fit the case at all and ended up on my quad-core afterwards. Not surprisingly, the quad core fan lowered temperatures by 3-5C and this gave me more incentive to purchase that newer fan.

I think the most interesting thing about my computer is that it is being upgraded from a 10 year old design. Sure it would have been easy to just go outside and spend $50 on a new case and save the trouble - but I wanted something more. After working with an advanced case like the antec P180, which is an amazing case, I could not settle for anything less performance-wise. The case had superior design and showed me what makes a great case. I applied as much of these new innovations into the case I had neglected for years.

As I worked more and more on the case, I realized what a great case I had and how fortunate i was to have this sturdy steel chassis to work on. Most of the interior was steel like most of the better cases and it had even a removable hard disk cage, something that was unique from cases. I saw potential in this old case and began shopping for parts and drawing up ideas in my mind. The case kept me happily working for about a month, mostly time spent after work or during the weekends. I was very proud in the end and I would say my project exceeded my expectations and I really did a great job modernizing a century old case.

Software Paradigms

It has been a while since I've last heard someone mention web 2.0, but this is probably an old term already with many different meanings. I've started off as a web 2.0 developer about 2-3 years ago at a start up company that is surprisingly not "complete" yet with their projects. Many different skills were acquired and learned through those rougher times. The job gave me hands on experience on cutting edge ideas and gave me the opportunity to work on a project that was supposedly supposed to get a lot of publicity.

Even though i left, I still have some interest in the company but the employee's lack of passion is probably what drove me out. The CEO was probably the most passionate about the project but the people i worked for were just looking for something to pass the time and possibly pay some bills... not exactly the type of people i wanted to work with for long. I decided to leave after convincing myself that staying there was too much stress and probably unhealthy.

But the idea of web 2.0 to me was a way for the next generation of software to be all online and accessible through a simple browser or streamed via the Internet in some form. The idea of having programs online would decrease the need for applications on your own computer saving hard disk space and possibly preventing any software issues with the operating system. This idea surely should be adopted by everyone - but to some it is still new and probably risky for them to endeavour.

So with my current job working for my uncle, who has been consulting with clients with Microsoft marketing software CRM for years, I was assigned to do more crafty work that he literally had no time for. Although he did have a few connections who he often contacted for work opportunities, I was given a few chances to do their task and gain some experience. It has been months now and I got a better feeling about the CRM platform that I would have ever imagined and gained a lot of knowledge with C#, a big change from the java world.

Since most of my work is revolving around microsoft services and they all use the same login information, it would be convenient to utilize the already existing Windows Live account information instead of prompting for the credentials every time my program starts. So this is going to be a big step that i will need to overcome and will change a lot of my future programs - it is the start of something big and I hope i figure it out fast and keep at it. Lately I have been occupied with so many other projects and personal events this programming project has been taking longer than i wanted.

anyway blogging and watching people like steve jobs speak about their passion and their drive gave me a bit of motivation and allowed me to pass a checkpoint today and i would like the complete the next big one by tomorrow. the new sdk is supposed to be very promising and i hope it lives up to my expectations. For now i better get some sleep and keep my mind of all the good toys coming in the next few days - oh boy :D

Computer cooling obsession

Since I now have two computers, a work computer + project computer, I needed to find an adequate case for this new computer since I have been very picky on the interior cable management. Since this new dual core was inferior to my current quad-core at stock settings, it was expected to be overclock so I could milk as much processor power out of it as I can.

After a few days in San Francisco to attend one of my uncle's Microsoft sponsored events, I spent a few nights over staring at an computer I left there for "future ideas". The computer was super old, something like 10 years - but it was clean and had a very sturdy feel to it. Anyway somehow I ended up watching a few clips of youtube videos (mnpctech) on case modification and eventually I ended up disassembling the entire computer before i knew it! Taking almost everything apart down to the steel parts I admired, especially the detachable hard-disk tray - something uncommon these days.

The computer was an old Athlon 2100+ or something like that with some salvageable DDR memory, two faulty hard disks, and a CD drive. The computer parts were actually given to me from a friend who said it was busted which wasn't the case - eventually I just shelved all the parts someplace and began planning on innovations that this 10 year old case needs.

One very cool thing about this old case was that it had a detachable rear panel as you can see me working on in the photo - this was a huge advantage for me to route/hide excess wires from the power supply. Aside from that upgrade, I had ideas to improve the airflow by attaching an attractive 200mm PSU LED fan that I salvaged from a blown PSU through a good friend of mine. Inspired by many modern cases, I started to add 120mm fans to many common places all over: the top, the front and the back. The initial upgrades cost me nothing until I decided my uncle's cordless dremel was not sufficient and I needed more cooling power based on the "cpu stress tests".

So a week later I began spending a lot of money. I purchased my own CORDED dremel for $50 and a 4-pack of 120mm fans and some random parts i found at a neat computer store, weirdstuff.com, that was a 1 hour away, bike wise. This new computer store reminded me of all the good times I had at swap meets digging for cycling parts except it was a now for my new project computer. I spent a few hours here searching for items for my project case - FAN GRILLS FOR 50 CENTS! I have noticed myself wake up extra earlier everyday to see prices of CPU coolers change and stay on top of any deals and this led to my purchase of one of the single most expensive items that I have purchased so far - the XFX Radeon 4870 1GB DDR5 video card @ $141, one of those top tier GPUs. And shortly afterwards I spent some $50 on a promising cpu cooler, the OCZ Vendetta 2, + more fans.

So far, the video card has not come home yet and the $33 CPU cooler i bought didn't even fit into my case! So.... the next day or two I researched on a new fan and it looked like I narrowed it down to the Coolermaster Geminii S fan or the risky Geminii (original) heatsink. Both of these were sold from the coolermaster store for REALLY nice refurbished prices and I wanted to buy two but considering my space issues from the previews fan i just got the newer / less bulky one, the Geminii S. Their online store has a lot of the last little things i needed to completing my case - especially the items you can't find on older cases: audio / firewire / usb jacks!

In the end, all the tools / parts / stuff for case cost me an extra $150... but the entire process was fun and kept me busy for days. =)

Sequoia Century - June 07, 2009

This is the first century I have attended and it was successful and ended with relief and something to reflect on.

100 miles was no small challenge - but I signed up for one since it seemed reasonable for me to try and I believe it was the right choice. The route was very balanced with a lot of climbing and a few descents and plenty of scenic flats. I can't say that the century was easy but it was a great challenge and you should probably do one if you're willing to test your next level from just training rides.

I went with 2 college friends of mine and made it through 100 miles (uncertainty from resetting cyclometers). We stared around 7:50am and finished around 7:15pm taking it easy in the beginning and pushing time towards the end. I think most of our timewas lost in the resting spots and from incidents we had along the way. I was pretty scared from descents so the both of them usually waited for me after a long downhill course. The bigger one of us had a challenge with the uphills and the more experienced rider of us had a nasty "deserved" fall after goofing around.

So from the experience I need to improve my downhill cornering and also figure out a better "grip" on the downhills since I always seem uncomfortable on the drops. My climbing is very persist ant and I oddly enjoy the burn sometimes even when there are indications of near-cramping. On straights I need to learn to catch up with others and take advantage of wind-tunneling with others (peloton) .

After blogging about this I realize how much more i need to train and I will probably focus more on the drops and figure out a good angle on the handlebars.

5.1 sound on audigy 2 FINALLY on a terrible day

Last night, i got home from an overstayed day in san francisco because some careless chinese computer shop didn't bother calling me about my order being delayed. Anyway made me wait till the 7:30 caltrain to get home around 9pm in san jose... while i was going to the train station i spotted my old cannondale that i sold to a friend's friend of mine ... it was a good site that kinda changed my mood. I wanted to stick around and see if the lady i sold it to was around - but i was kinda anxious to get home and decided to just move on instead of looking suspicious.

Riding at night was something i never really like doing since i keep advocating safety when using a bike.... and coincidentally some caucasian driver shouted out his window giving me a lecture about it ....

The day was bad ... and i could have saved myself a lot of time by getting home earlier - it was 9pm and i was hungry - i came home to a pot full (~5lb) of raw chicken with an odor that i was supposed to cook yesterday ... i just threw away the chicken despite my hunger - since food poisoning isn't an option with a bike event coming along. PBJ was my dinner along with some overly flavored "producer's vanilla ice cream" that i regret buying.

anyway I'm starting to enjoy this blogging and it is a good way to put off some stress and rant about others. well the day wasn't over, i still had my project computer there begging for me to try out some new ideas to work around that good for nothing audigy 2 ZS platnium pro.... the most expensive of the audigy 2 series.

Last time i got most of the drivers working with help from nomoregoatsoup.com or whatever their site was... seems like a site dedicated to bashing on creative but also providing support for all those who were affected by creative's lousy drivers.

the workaround was to use an Xi-Fi driver package and unzip it and only install the drivers located within. This was a great solution since the driver package contained drivers for my audigy 2 card ... and it worked 100% with windows 7 (probably vista too). so the program had two options: installing drivers + removing drivers - removing the existing drivers was first step and then installing drivers after a required restart. This program only installed the drivers so no applications provided - if you want applications i'd suggest installing one of creative's software packages and then use this work around right after.

well these drivers alone wasn't enough, so the other tool i used was AC3filter, an application that specializes in dolby digital sound manipulation and has probably tons of other features... i used their S/PDIF direct feature and now my logitech z-5500 gets that "DOLBY DIGITAL" i was hoping for .... AFTER ALL THIS I WAS FINALLY SATISFIED!!! I guess the card actually works... so i'll keep that in mind if i come across some angry owners willing to give it up.

new toys, new plans

Today I am supposed to be returning to San Jose before the evening, but looks like i'm at the mercy of some local computers store in San Francisco who were supposedly supposed to have something i order by the afternoon.

Anyway, after succesfully testing windows 7 and trying out the new computer the other day I spent another 5 hours figuring on how to utilize the suposedly awesome soundblaster audigy 2 ZS platnium pro that i bought a few years back. I have ad problems with it since i last remember with vista issues but now seemed like a good time to use it on the new machine i just built. To cut to the problem, the company that manufactered the card is just after your money and would not really want to help write new drivers for vista till someone like Daniel_K of brazil nearly destroy their reputation by writing drivers better than their own. This brazillian, probably as fed up with the lousy creative drivers like most of us, used his assembly experience to tweak some of the software installs of creative's drivers; it seems that creative intentionally shut off features if it detected the vista OS - so he just enabled them instead. 

Well thanks to him looks like it saved a lot of grief for many others - but for me i just regret every purchasing this $100 pile of shit since it's made by such dumbass thiefs. This experience probably gave me another layer of "mistrust" with new products and technology. With the new drivers people enjoyed a bit more functionality with their vista (and probably windows 7) but, as i am now more fluent working with sound, i discovered that the sound card i got was notorious for not supporting full 5.1 digital signals even though it is very capable of. After the 5 hours of software bashing, I saw a small glimpse of hope with the 5.1 sound via a digital coax cable but as soon as i played a DVD, all i get is some crazy loud crackling sound constantly playing.... so this wasn't cool (on windows 7). I've read on forums that this problem goes away in vista so i'd probably try that next time. But for now I think i will go with the other solution which is this onboard SPD/IF pinout i see on my motherboard - which seems promising because that's similiar to what i use on my other desktop that has fantastic sound. 

So yesturday i went to san francisco to visit my grandpa, who is leaving for taiwan this weekend, to help him setup his iRobot roomba that i "woot"ed for him during a long woot-off some weeks ago. The roomba is some small vacuum cleaner that moves by itself and supposedly clean entire rooms. I never really messed with one untill yesturday and it was quite predictable and pretty impressive at the same time. My grandpa, who is an engineer, wanted to reverse engineer this ultimately and have a look into it more to see if any innovations can be found and probably outsource it to china to be manufactered. It is always a dream for him to design something cool and i guess this was a first step for him even though he's really old and near his 90s - probably will give him a few more years to play around with.

Anyway, after charging for 16 hours, I had to stay overnight to see it in action the next day (today) but yesturday i looked around town for computer shops in search for that blasted SPDIF motherboard accessory which i found after visiting two shops. Coincidently, i have been to this shop many years ago to purchase my first performance sound card and here i am returning to get a "hard to find" sound card piece for a new system that i have high expectations for. The guy said the part will arrive the next day around afternoon and here I am waiting and it's near 5pm.... I hope these assholes know that i need to get out of town and i'm not really a local here.... I would expect some discounts or something because this isn't cool to make me wait like this.

Yesturday i kept myself busy taking apart the computer i left here, a athlon 2100+ that my friend gave me a few years back because he had no need for it. I cleaned up the case and got it ready for another project idea - modifying it and hopefully making it a better case for my new dual-core. Anyway this case will be pretty fun to work with - really heavy duty case made of steel by antec (not sure what model) i bought a few years ago. After disasebling the entire thing the case doesnt' look half bad from what i can see and has some potential with some ideas of mine. I'm probably going to ask for my friend's big fan that i disasembled from his powersupply and use that as the case fan on the sliding panel. I youtubed some videos on how to do this and it seems pretty simple - just need some patience. Other ideas would be to add more ventilation and airflow since most of these old cases weren't really engineered for the new overclocking crowd.

I met up with my uncle today and we had some korean food at brother's restaurant just outside of his aparment complex - which was exactly what me + my mom ate last night. The food was about the same as last night just a little economical during the lunch hour. Anyway he had a dremel rotory saw which is what i needed for my project and that would save me some money / time. So now i am still waiting for my stupid audio adapter from this store and already finished about 2 chapters of this book: "Twilight" that my sister left me before she went to africa. I am so glad there's wireless internet around here provided by my neighbor.

Tinkering away.

A lot of things have happened since last posting, as you can see (and as i suspected) I have trouble keeping up with things. I guess I always find something else to do and usually those things eat up my time.

Right now I'm installing the new Windows 7 RC (release candidate) and the installing seems longer than usual (with a lot of empty screens). But I'd like to go over some of the projects that have happened since the last post.

I have been working with my uncle for a while and have generated some spending money to fund some of my projects / goodies. There were two swap meets that I attended since and I grabbed some used parts to finally build a scrap bike off of an aluminum performance bike frame. The bike was made so that it can be sold to my friend, who is attending UC Davis for his master's degree in civil engineering. Ironically this friend of mine was the one who got me into road cycling and here I am building his bike for school. 

To keep it short, the bike was about $300 total and that's exactly what I charged him excluding any personal labor charges. Parts included a neon green aluminum trek fork, shimano 620x (old ultegra) brakeset w/ dura-ace parts, a Giant? 1" threaded headset, itm aluminum 44cm road bar, 3ttt Quil Stem ($35... because of odd specs), Shimano 5500 Shifters (semi-working right shifter), Shimano 6600 rear hub w/ Mavic xp rims, shimano 5500 39/53t crankset/bb, shimano 5500 12-23t cassette, sram pc-991 chain, shimano 600 rear derailleur w/ 11t pulley set, shimano 5500 front derailleur and generic seatpost w/ super used gippimme (not sure how to spell) seat. All this and it weighed under 20lbs. the front wheel was just the old one that came with the bike (some forte brand).

Next the quad-core machine i built from black friday got a few upgrades, my uncle (being my boss) purchased an additional 4GB of ram and also a 300GB velociraptor hard drive as a company expense. I have yet to see the advantage of the hard disk since i really was hesitant to get that upgrade, but he insisted. The ram is helping me run more applications at once - mostly virtual images of servers that i test / develop on. 

Because of the desktop I used my laptop less and less and I even re-formated it since it had too much Duovu (old employer)  stuff and random files. But i think what really bugged me about my Lenovo T61 was the fact that it had this really annoying fan noise that would start up every time the computer heated up or was running an intense program. SO I got fed up and decided to just take apart the entire thing and get to the fan and figure it out. At first I just dusted it and it didn't seem to help much - that's when i googled around and decided to take it all apart yet again and apply some motor oil to it. Thanks to my dad, who is pretty mechanic savvy, he gave me some oil from japan that seemed to do the trick - no more noise and the machine was super quiet afterwards. 

After fixing the noise issue with the laptop, it gave me a lot of experience working with the laptops and gave me some courage to take apart other laptops. A friend of mine, i remembered replaced his old laptop because it overheated - so i troubleshooted this next which was a big success that i was proud of. The problem was that the Dell XPS M170 used a defective Geforce graphics card (7900GTX) that overheats way too much and eventually the card was fried and didn't work well. So i researched a graphics card and narrowed my choices down to a Radeon X300 that came from a Dell Inspiron 9000 series to replace the defective part. After the replacement, the computer worked fine - but i had my doubts so, halfway, i ported all the better parts (7200rpm HD + wifi) to the Dell 700m. 

The Dell 700m was my first laptop and it was a great machine - it was ultra portable with little or no compromises. The screen was 12.1" and it was a Pentium M 1.6 Ghz that worked fine during my early college days and will also serve as my sister's new laptop. Anyway after a year the speakers went out and this was caused by the design more than the hardware. The speakers were integrated with the LCD panel and wiring comes out through the right side of the LCD's mount/pivot. Because the LCD panel frequently gets closed the wiring gets worn every time you close the LCD panel. So, after a year, the speaker wires actually split - i believe this is a really bad design so I would never buy laptops with integrated speakers into the LCD of a laptop because of the wear/tear potential. Anyway i tried fixing this up before by reconnecting the wires together - this didn't really go so well and didn't last long since the same wires were used and they eventually go messed up again. So after I got my lust for repairing old laptops, I have decided to purchase replacement wires and solder new wires to the speakers - and this was a success.

After fixing 3 major laptop problems I felt like i could handle just about anything and even considered ebaying parts to upgrade my existing machines but prices never seemed great. After cleaning up a laptop of their dust / lint they seemed great and i guess those speed issues just went away. I have since then helped a few others with their issues: upgrading ram for 2 people, and cleaning the laptop for 2 others. I do this for fun / knowledge so nothing was ever charged for my services.  I felt fortunate enough already to have gotten a working Dell XPS laptop for $75 in repairs.

Anyway my windows 7 installation has completed and I had a few minutes to enjoy it - however it was only the 32bit version, so i need to download the 64 bit and try installing that one. The dual core E7400 chip i bought will be my new project computer with windows 7 on its side. Hopefully i can get that old stupid soundblaster card working on it otherwise I'd install windows xp again (64bit). the new CPU was purchased because i had a spare ECS motherboard - it was scary at first because the computer froze after detecting ram. But it was solved after i flashed the bios to a newer version (by using another CPU of mine). The machine is running fine with a 250watt power supply (traded away my 500watt to a friend) - i guess i can use this as proof of how many idiots there are in the world who seem to stand firm on their 1000+ watt investments. 

After replacing my old Athlon XP 3500+ I placed an auction online for my 2GB of DDR400 ram (which seems popular) and hopefully i get some money back for all this spending.

All these experiences have made me realize what a tinkerer i am and how persistent i am if i believe something can be fixed.