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 ...