Del's blog
Got myself the WD TV Live HD Media Player on the weekend after hunting through many a JB Hi-Fi and Dick Smith store with no luck. From my quick play around with it I'm quite impressed. Haven't set it up in my room yet though as I need to rearrange my power cables.
I got the device primarily to connect my Mac to my TV, as since I've had the Mac I haven't been able to output to my TV as I don't own the correct cables. Whilst the WD TV Live probably does cost a bit more than just getting cables it is a pretty nifty device as it supports lots of audio and video formats and has a network port so you can access network shares as well.
Might do a more detailed review of the setup once I have it all configured properly... which quite possibly could be next year seeing I'm leaving on a jet plane in 11 days...
So a bit after lunch today one of the guys I work with walked back in with a Magic Mouse in his hand. I heard some of the others oohing and ahhing at it so I joined the convo as I had known they still hadn't arrived as of earlier in the week. And giving or taking 5 mins, quite a few of us crossed over the intersection to the Apple Store (work is directly opposite it) and bought ourselves some nice new shiny Magic Mice.
I have to say I am impressed. It's sleek and the multi touch surface works brilliantly. Though it doesn't have middle click functionality which is a bit of a downer. Still, one can hope Apple releases a software upgrade in the near future that supports it. I'm thinking a two finger click could be a suitable gesture for middle click. Thoughts? Pairing it was a breeze as well, no pushing buttons here, there and everywhere...
Had to update OS X though to 10.6.1 and install the Wireless Mouse Software Update 1.0 for Snow Leopard.
So I've gotten around to writing a plugin to contribute. Real simple plugin, which is only intended for simple usages.
Check it out at http://plugins.jquery.com/project/SimpleLabel
Demo site is at http://delineneo.com/dev/jquery/simpleLabel/simpleLabel.htm
I've been on quite a hiatus the last 2 years with rather sporadic blogging episodes but after taking a look back in time I'm somewhat inspired to get back into the game.
It's funny when I look back at how my blog has transformed over time - starting at Blogger, then porting everything to my WordPress driven site to the current incarnation which kind of happened because of a curiosity in Drupal as a CMS.
I have to say though, whilst Drupal is a brilliant CMS, for running a little personal website whose main feature is a blog, WordPress wins hands down easily. Additionally for those who can't or don't have the tech skills to setup their own WordPress install WordPress also provides service similar to Blogger in getting a free blog at .wordpress.com.
Anyways that's my intro post back into the world of blogging... more soon (maybe tomorrow if we're lucky!).
Till I head of on another adventure to South East Asia. Coming along with me for the Vietnam part of the ride will be my dad, and for the later part of the trip I'll be catching up with my friend Emily in Laos.
I haven't travelled overseas with either of my parents since I was like 4 years old so it should be an interesting experience. I'm sure there will be moments along the way where we'll need to escape each other, but at the same time I reckon it's cool that we're able to do this. It's definitely something I will remember.
I don't know what it is about Asia, but I really love it. Crazy traffic, bus and train journeys not to mention the food!
Being the geek within, I'm going to lug the majority of tech gadgets that I did last year (minus item 3 for obvious reasons). I've also added a Fujifilm J10 to the mix which is basically my cheap digital. The camera cost me basically $99 with a waterproof case so I'm not going to be cut if I lose it into a river.
Our general plans (though I've taken the role of travel planner) is to make our way up from Saigon to Hanoi where we'll make a side trip to Halong Bay and up to Sapa.
So in the coming weeks there'll be all sorts of fun things to do, like making playlists for my iPod (bring on the top 250 hits from the 90's!), research accomo so that we at least have a starting point when we arrive in cities, getting my google docs in order so I can have them offline on my eeepc....
Had a really interesting yet random convo about surnames at lunch today. In my late night travels I've done some wikipediaing and found out that my surname is ranked 20th in the top 100 list of Chinese common surnames as at 2006.
Not really sure how the Teochew 'Neo' of Liang came about, but Chinese surnames are an interesting bunch, as basically depending on the language the spelling and/or pronounciation may be different. E.g. Liang, Leung, Neo etc are all one and the same, which is why my Chinese name doesn't have Neo but Liang instead.
And according to Wikipedia, Liang stands for "a beam", "a bridge", or "an elevation"... which then means if I translate my full Chinese name I get something like: An elevation autumn swallow...
People singing in the correct tune for a song's video clip except changing the words to match what is actually happening in the video clip.
At home today on a day of after my epic week of sleep deprivation. Long story short, worked an overnighter over the weekend with a release and whilst things were smooth there were a few hiccups. And as I'm on out of hours support this week lucky me has had to wake up at like 4:45am three days in a row...
But it's not all bad, learnt all about classloaders in the process which is good. Plus I now know the feeling of Jar Hell!
Other than that I really have to get a roll on my travel googling. Otherwise before I know it it will be 11 weeks from now and I'll be wandering Saigon in a daze...
So I spent some of this weekend helping my aunt book domestic flights in the U.S. for her and my uncles trip in December/January to catch up with my cousin who's over there at the moment. The travel agent had quoted a particular price, but based on my travel research last year for the big trip I was sure we could do a fair bit better.
So after doing some searches on Priceline.com we began the adventure of booking the tickets. Except since we wanted to pick seating too, we went through the airline and not Priceline.com as Priceline doesn't let you specify exact seats.
Now I thought it would be pretty straight forward except for the technology issues we came across. Continental Airlines booking was pretty straight forward, but US Airways and United were a somewhat nightmare effort to get the booking completed. Perhaps coincidental, but maybe not seeing they most likely share the same booking system as they have codesharing agreements.
US Airways has a site where Purchase does not work if you have multiple tabs open to their site. Except they don't tell you before you buy, only after you click and sit there for ages... so not trusting airline sites when their systems fail (had an experience with Singapore Airlines a few years back), it was time for a Skype call to the US. Another failed attempt later, another phone call deciding to do it over the phone for an extra $25 per passenger... Poo to all the US airlines that charge you extra $$$ for everything - bags, baggage etc! Eventually got those tickets sorted... getting names etc right was funny what with American versus Australian accents...
As for the United booking experience... it tanked as well, but at least when I rang they had record of all passengers and payment details etc so it was on hold and all I had to do was verify some info. And since I had like a another 3 sectors to book I did it over the phone, as since they already had the details correct I didn't have to freak that they might get the spelling wrong. On the up note at least they didn't charge any reservation fees like US Airways.
Meh and along the way Verified by Visa... argh I can't stand it. Read Wikipedia article section on criticism. It looks totally fake/phishing style and it's a pain to have to enter details + remember yet another password.
A cool thing though in the whole process is Skype is awesome. Freecall US numbers are free to call... so convenient!
