Welcome to the Family ^^~

It's a joyful, joyful, day! =D

I'm welcoming a new member of my family yesterday, 28th of July 2010 =)

Well, she is why I went back to Jogja over the weekend.. Hehehe...

Really, really, glad for my brother and his wife ^^~

Now for little Stefi, may you keep walking in the truth and have a life full of blessings ahead, and of course, spread that blessings to others! =)

Let there be light!

-Now officially an uncle

Thank You Gemalto =)

It has been 1 year, 1 month and 8 days. Two projects, one team, GREAT experience. It has come to an end, yea, but it was such an experience full of blessing. If you followed my blog since the start, you’ll know that I wanted to do PhD. I took up the job offer in Gemalto was mainly because of, sadly, I did not get the NPGS in my first try. I did, however, want to taste how it works inside the real industry before going on with my research. For me, it was a huge success.

 

Special thanks to all my colleagues, my boss, my boss’s boss and my boss’s boss’s boss for making it such a blessed one year plus. I really liked the working environment there in Gemalto. Loved what I do and cherishes the people I worked with. I pray for all the best to come in all of them, and I gave never-ending thanksgiving to the Lord of all who made it possible. 

In fact, it was a blessing in disguise. I got a handful of lesson working in actual development which I won’t be able to learn in school. I gained a lot of friend, and I also got my PR (which I think will be impossible to get if I got the NPGS in the first try). Oh, and don’t forget the lost passport drama, the compassionate leave segment and forcing Europeans to eat durians. That was priceless. =D 

Thank you Gemalto. It has been such a joyful ride. It’s sad that I have to leave you, but I’m glad I had the chance to know you. 

Let there be light!

Final Fantasy XIV Benchmark

The next Final Fantasy is the Fourteenth. It will be an MMORPG, just like XI, but with higher quality of graphics. They released a 350 MB benchmarking software that shows you how the game looks (and it was AWESOME) and as the demo roll on, it will keep track of your PC's frame rate. It will give a specific score that serves as a indicator whether our system will be ready for the stuff when it comes out - or not. 

So I ran the benchmark test on the highest resolution (1920x1080) and low resolution (1280x720), and was amazed by the graphics. In the end, I got a 1600 (high resolution) and 2700 (low resolution) for my Desktop. I thought that it was decent. I mean, my PC is, of course, outdated with Pentium i7 and ATI HD 5850 sprouting everywhere but I am confident that it is still decent for playing games. I haven't face any difficulty so far... so it should not be much problem right?

WRONG. Totally WRONG.

This is the description for scores between 1500-1999 and 2500-2999:

[2500-2999] Standard Performance (Low Resolution)

Capable of running the game on default settings.

[1500-1999] Low Performance (High Resolution)
Capable of running the game, but will experience considerable slowdown. Adjusting settings is unlikely to improve performance.

...and it was the range of scores right after the last!! @_@

Should I upgrade? Hmmm....

(If you are curious on how good your system is, you can click at this hyperlink to test. it's free.)

RIP - Microsoft Wireless 700 (2008-2010)

So the time finally cometh. The notoriously hard keyboard finally dies. I think the wireless module blew up after hundreds hours of usage. Just came back from office and when I tried to turn on my PC I realized that it isn't working anymore. What a shame.

So with the IT Crisis happening, I rushed my dinner and went to Challenger to find a new one. Thing is, the JP doesn't have the top-of-the-line keyboards unlike when I go to Funan. The choice were limited. Now considering all the hype with SC2 coming, I considered buying Razer. Yea.. the Razer. JP only have Lycosa and Arctosa - Having difficulties in deciding between them, I googled for reviews. and finally made my choice. I choose........

....

Microsoft Digital Media 3000. LOL.

The reviews for both Arctosa and Lycosa is worse than I think. And on top of that, this month sees me spending quite some bucks for one time spending: Air-con service, WC2010, extra flat rental, tickets for HK-Macau-Jogja, hotel and EAGC registration. And on top of that: Starcraft 2. So it will not be wise to pay for an overpriced keyboard. I choose a wired keyboard that is decent enough with economical value.

So far my only concern is that it's somewhat too low even when the stand is up. My fingers are feeling a bit discomfort. Other concern is that the key are smaller than my last keyboards and my arms are not used to it. yet. But I hope it'll get better after I am used to it.

So to close: in memoriam rock-hard keyboard. Welcome cheap alternatives XD

Let there be keyboards!
Eagerly waiting for Starcraft 2.
...well actually I'm waiting for holiday >.<... my mind is filled with stuffs right now..

Thank God for Corporate Price

It was not a secret that office 2007 is a major let down. Sure, the interface become very catchy, but user experiences drops undeniably low. It has been 8 years since 2003 came out and I'm still putting my faith in it.

Then comes Windows 7. Changed to W7 quite some time ago and it was great! unlike Vista, the response was quick, and the interface became nice without sacrificing user experience. With this kind of improvement from Vista, it's not a wish too big if we think that Office 2010 will be better.

But the price is a mass murder! =.='

Well W7 is also pricey, but I got it free (Special thanks to ko Robert). But spending more than $300 when the OS is free is plain strange. haha. I was planning on see-how-it-went stance, but these thing came out on my email yesterday: I can get it for 15 SGD. Cool.

Happy 4th of July!

No, i'm not talking about US Independence day.

Happy B'day Pah =)

On future contemplated

It's not official yet, but as some of you might know, I am going back to school shortly. Praise be to the Lord, NTU offered me the NPGS Scholarship last May, which I accepted immediately. Working as an engineer in Gemalto has been a lot of fun, and I think is far more secure than having Permanent head Damage (PhD). But when it comes to passion, opportunity and prayers that is answered, well, we need to take a leap of faith.

....Even though this leap of faith will be a big one. Haha.

So I went to NTU last Tuesday to meet with my prof and his PhD student. We talked about projects and what I should expect in my 4 years journey in my PhD. Truth be told, I am thankful that I can work with my supervisor, because even though he is busy or sometimes hard to contact, he is willing to spare his time, share his knowledge, gave inputs for improvements and best of all, be honest about what he said. I worked with him in my FYP, and he told me a lot of things to be considered before taking my PhD. He even admit that he may forgot about his students from time to time, but ask us to chase for him whenever it happens. So, yes, he's not the perfect supervisor, but ideal for me.

He gave me three options for my projects:

1. Doing research on activity recognition (again)
Most likely doing what is similar to my FYP, but with different focus and methods. He will be able to give much guidance, but expects me to be better than him in one years time (right..) Catch is, the funding will be less, and the topic have been stagnant for a while (according to him)

2. Switch area to Interactive Media
He said that one former PhD student of his opened a company focusing on this area. What is Interactive Media? well, you can read about it here. Basically if you watch my videos post in this blog previously, those are interactive media (the high tech one). It's quite surprising to find that he's offering me this area of research. The pros is that it's emerging interest, funding will come easily. The cons? nobody knows anything, including my supervisor. haha. I need to start from ground zero. But, Augmented Reality is uber kewl!

3. Propose something to him
Okay, I'll pass on this one. Don't have the time to formulate anything now.

But the hard thing for me is that currently, I'm feeling insecurities all over my life. I don't know why, but it does disturb my life. I'm in melancholic mood by default most of the times >.<. So.. this explains the lack of post to this blog. haha. Please pray for me on two things:
1. That I can choose what I want to do wisely
2. That I can overcome the internal struggles I'm having right now

Let there be light!