Google Extras

Because of the new tab menu screen for Google Chrome, I decided to see what this Google App Store was about. My initial guess was that it was just a online store for apps that you can buy for your web browser. And it is. But much more!

They've actually bundled it all together with additional software, extensions and themes, which is really smart. One of the hardest things about using Chrome was figuring out how to put 'add-ons' or 'extensions'. It took me ages to find out how to do it, so I could have my mouse gestures (which incidentally is really useful: hold down right mouse button, make a shape/gesture and it does a function, such as go back a page, close a tab, refresh etc.). But now it's all in the AppStore, and you just need to click install and it does it all for you.

There are some really useful ones, like currency converters on the fly, games in browsers (Angry Birds), Google App tie ins (Calender, Reader, Gmal) and different themes that can be applied so easy. There isn't a huge range, as compared with Android or Itune stores, but I guess it's pretty early.

The only thing is, once the excitement and wonder had died down, I realised that I didn't quite like the whole idea. The one thing going for Google Chrome is that it's light (software wise). It's one of the, if not the most, fastest browsers on the market. It's simple and elegant. Adding all these extensions don't come without consequences, and the consequence is processing power. Obviously, some of these apps need to run in the background (e.g Gmail icon needs to constantly check if you have mail), so it's running even when you're not doing anything. Have a couple of these, and Chrome is suddenly slowing down not only itself, but your computer in general.

So I installed a few...and then uninstalled them when I saw them eating up my processing power. Maybe when I have settled down, and I have a monster PC, I will use them. But for the humble laptop, I can't afford it.

Still nice advancements. Also, using pictures on blogger is SO much easier now, thank god.

teoh,

P.S Good luck to everyone for exams.

many many bytes..

from whatsabyte.com:

Exabyte: An Exabyte is approximately 1,000 Petabytes. Another way to look at it is that an Exabyte is approximately one quintillion bytes or one billion Gigabytes. There is not much to compare an Exabyte to. It has been said that 5 Exabytes would be equal to all of the words ever spoken by mankind.

Yottabyte: A Yottabyte is approximately 1,000 Zettabytes. It would take approximately 11 trillion years to download a Yottabyte file from the Internet using high-power broadband. You can compare it to the World Wide Web as the entire Internet almost takes up about a Yottabyte.

hahaha, 11 trillion years to download a yottabyte! amusing.

teoh,

Mobile post

And there you go. Blogger app :)

So I'm using my new Google nexus phone to write this post.

After finally taking the plunge, I have a new phone! I got it on $29 cap with vodafone, for 2 years unfortunately. I'm not thrilled to be locked into such a disreputable company but there it is. So far, 3 has tried to overcharge my last bill and I'm expecting something to go wrong with my first bill. Telephone providers. What can you do?

But the phone itself is great. It's one of the newer phones and comes stock with the latest software to boot. Over the past week, I can say I am enjoying the phone immensely. No real faults with it so far and I am fast becoming comfortable with the style of integration of multiple services. The phone is very smooth despite being only one core lol, and android is very nice, once you get used to it. I have yet to root it (another form of jailbreak) but not sure I want to yet. I can't be bothered.

I think the feature I love the most is communication centralization. It allows me to have constant access to my multiple email accounts, which I am finding in these modern times, a crucial communication tool, especially at the moment with grad apps and project announcements at uni. It works great and easy to set up. I haven't noticed a huge drain in my data usage yet. Apps like WhatsApp, facebook, vodafone usage and dropbox all help keeping all the important things I constantly check on the one device. I think I've definitely noticed a drop in computer use, cause I no longer need to turn it on just to check things and then get distracted with other things!

If there was one thing I would share from this new phone experience, is this advice to new phone shoppers: don't over-research. You can constantly read reviews, get people opinions, test a phone for a few minutes and repeat over and over, but nothing will compare to actually getting the phone. There are features you're not going to like that you won't find out about until you actually use it, and vice versa. As long as the phone roughly fits your basic needs, just get the phone after a week or two of research.

teoh,

wireless resolved.

hey all,

man it's getting busy. Good thing I set myself up to have a less stress time at uni with subjects this semester. So many birthday parties as well. And so many career events to do. And so much work. I'm losing sleep over a few things as well, like final year projects and nightmares of unemployment next year.

One good piece of news, I've finally taken the bullet and bought a wireless USB dongle to see if it would help my terrible wireless capabilities of my laptop. So far, success! I have now have internet in extremities of my house.

This is excellent, as my brother has moved back home, but I love having my PC next to the router, cause I get super speeds =] So now I can leave it in there for leisure, and use the laptop for work when the PC isn't available. Although the 21 inch screen is so nice to work on.

The final test will be of course, at uni, but I have high hopes. I bought a TP-Link TL821N in case anyone was interested, $24 at MSY. Not a bad investment.

Stupid Toshiba and their lies. I disabled my wireless card on my laptop and tested it, and vice versa. It's clearly the card. ALSO, Toshiba has crap algorithms for their wireless status. It will read FULL bars when connected, but in reality it's like 2/5 (not to mention it'll drop out as well). TP-Link's connects with 2 bars and smooth surfing all the way.

Disappointed in Toshiba =[

teoh,

new phone

It's about time I upgraded my phone. Not because I don't like it anymore..I don't think I'll be sick of the awesome black/gold combination! But unfortunately one drop too many has caused the speaker to become filled with static sometimes, making it hard to call my many many girlfriends (har har).

I have a few choices to make. The first thing I decided: I do not want an iphone. Yes you apple lovers, don't even bother! I actually do like the iphone itself; it has nice apps, runs okay, but it's everywhere and I hate that. Plus, Android is open source, making it more customizable than iphones (without jailbreaking it). Therefore, no iphone.

A few weeks ago, my workmate Steven told me about the Motorola Atrix (above). I was a bit skeptical, as Motorola isn't generally well known for good phones. However, the reviews look good and the hardware is impressive. It's the next generation phone, dual core (which means it's faster and will help battery usage decrease), graphics card/chip, nice resolution screen, next G enabled etc. It's basically a mini-computer. It ships in early March, but costs $900 outright as it won't be available here for awhile.

Another alternative, but by no means cheaper, is the Google Nexus S (above). Pretty much the Samsung Galaxy (it's also made by Samsung hardware), but with a few slight difference in software. It gets constant updates from Google, and it starts off with the new Andrew OS, Gingerbread. It's around $800.

But while looking at these two, I'm not sure if I want to spend so much on a phone. I have the funds, but will it really make a difference? I don't want to come off as one of those people who NEED the best (though I do like it =]) and often when I have given into that feeling, I've often regretted it.

So I might look into some other cheaper options. And I need to start looking for a better plan too.

Suggestions are welcomed.

teoh,

banned!

These are dark days. The coming month looks very bleak at the moment. Mid-semester break was a joke.

We were talking about banned companies or brands the other day. Here is mine:

Sony VIAO - expensive, nothing more. First-hand experience.

HP / compaq - generally crap, terrible customer service.

Western Digital - passport harddrive cables seem to be a large problem nowadays

Apple - just kidding

Pets Paradise - horrible customer service

Telstra - nothing else needed to be said.

KFC - it's not worth it

I swear I had more, but I forget. I'll come back and edit when I remember.

teoh,

now that's service.

Remember that wireless problem I was having with my new laptop? Well it was starting to really annoy me, especially at university, so I decided to chuck it into the repair shop to see if they could do anything with it. Not only did they fix it, but they did it with perfect customer service!

I've put in my old sony vaio in for service a year or two ago, and it was a horrible experience. My dad had to go drop it off and pick it up from South Bank (?). They did not really resolve my issue and they also made my laptop dirty with stains. They also charged us and had minimal customer service. So when I went to Toshiba, I was expecting pretty much the same treatment. Boy was I wrong.

For one, the Toshiba repair shop is literally 2 minutes away from Monash University, Clayton. On the corner of Blackburn road and Ferntree gully, really easy to get to for me. And even if you don't live close, they offer free pick up and delivery services too!

The lady I spoke to was really polite and cheerful, listened to all my complaints and what I had done, and did not treat me like an IT dumbnut (it happens often in the IT industry, I would know lol). She even reassured me that it sounded like a simple problem, and would probably be resolved faster than the 7 - 10 working day estimate given to me. At the time I didn't believe her.

I got sms alerts that night, about the status of my laptop e.g waiting on spare parts, which I thought was pretty cool. No wondering what stage they were at, or if they had looked at it yet. Then today, I got a call from the technician himself, who explained what he had done, tested the wireless while on the phone with me (though I had to take his word for it) and asked if there was anything else I was concerned about. Wow! This was within two days of me dropping it off.

Picked it up a few hours later, and tested at home: I now have access downstairs! Which I previously did not, and was pretty upset about. Awesome! The final test will be on Monday at uni though.

But wow, that is the level of service I wish all companies had. I wrote them a nice e-mail about my appreciation, which I hope they actually read. Good on you Toshiba.

I was so happy, I decided to buy a webcam and mouse online for $40 =]

teoh,

you have a virus!

Boy I'm so out of it right now. Struggling to finish off this cover letter and then heading straight to bed.

Just something I forgot to post a week ago. A call for me came the other day, from some indian fellow who is part of some company that is with Microsoft. And he was there today to talk to me about my computer. Interesting. How did he get my name is a bit scary, but I suppose that kind of information is easily found nowadays.

He then proceeded to tell me about a malicious (nice word) virus had infected my PC. Zomg! However, I already knew this was a scam, and he was interrupting a movie I was watching, so I was a bit over aggressive with him. I demanded to know how he knew there was a virus on my PC, how I got it when I 'hadn't touched the computers for days', that I would know if I had a virus cause I'm actually an employee of Microsoft myself. At that point, he actually said I'm not putting up with this and hung up. Which I thought was a bit odd, as he was the scammer.

Anyway, I've researched this before, cause my friend Elisha told me she had the same kind of thing happen to her a few weeks ago. It's a known scam, and they try and instruct you to install some kind of program on your computer.

Sigh. So people, tell your parents, cause this is obviously targeted to people who have no idea about computers. Fact: no anti-virus company, Microsoft etc. will ever contact you directly unless you have first contacted their service desk.

I wish I had controlled my frustration and strung him out a little long for fun.

teoh,

all in a day's work

alright, update finally. today will be a general update, movie review and laptop review, so prepare yourself for a long-ish post.

For some reason, university has been quite light on work so far. Mind you, I'm not complaining, but I'm getting a little paranoid. Everyone else seems to have work, where's ours? It could be that they are giving us time to do our vacation work, but surely they can't be that considerate

I've been putting my free time to good use. I've done a lot of research for my dream job at GHD, and applied to a few other companies. Speaking of vacation work, congrats to Amanda, who secured a internship at KPMG, way to go. Proud of you.

I've also been dabbling in a bit of Starcraft 2 now and then, which has been good fun. I hope to get good enough to do a bit of competitive gaming, if time will allow. It's also a nice workout for my graphics card, which I haven't really used that much. A game review might be in order later on.

A few 21st coming up, September has always been a busy birthday period.

Work lately has become a bit dull, as a lot of the regulars have left, which is disappointing. Not as fun as it used to be, but I'm glad that my friends have moved on to new places. Good for them.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

For starters, this movie is based on comics, which is based on games. So it's obviously a nerdy movie, but oh it was so much fun to watch. The opening Universe logo was displayed in retro 32-bit graphics! How awesome.

The general plot is about a boy who falls in love with this girl, who has 7 evil ex-boyfriends he must defeat if he is to go out with her. There isn't a lot of reality in this movie, with characters suddenly gaining the ability to fight, surviving being thrown into a castle, coming back to life, pulling a sword out of your chest etc. But what reality was taken out, is replaced with sheer nerdy awesomeness. Watch the trailer, and you'll know what I mean.

As movies go, it was very enjoyable to watch and worth my money. The acting was nothing special, although the dialogue was quite entertaining. There were a few special effects that were very cool, but nothing Avatar-like. If you didn't like the trailer, chances are you won't like the movie.

Laptop: Toshiba T130-0E1

So that dead pixel I had awhile ago? The whole laptop was replaced thanks to my Dad, so this is officially my new laptop. Specs: 13", dual core 1.4, 4gb ram, onboard Intel graphics, 320gb harddrive. Nothing that wow, but the laptop itself is quite light (1.7kg I think) and quite portable.

The only faults I have with it are: glossy keys get dirty really fast and not sure if the wireless is slightly worse than normal. Seems to have a hard time picking up wireless signals unless close to the router. Otherwise, it's nice fit for my purposes, mainly doing work at university and work.

teoh,

long and let live

okay, time for an overdue update:

Mum's birthday

It was my mum's birthday last wednesday - happy birthday mum! my brother came home and we bought her a cake, magazine subscription, flowers and hairspray tickets. the cake was a hazelnut flourless cake and was quite nice!

Vacation Work

I've been stressing a bit about vacation work, cause I'm slowly coming to terms about how competitive it is out there. My top preference company (see I won't say due to paranoia that you will go apply - like it'll make a difference) is quite elite and I'm not really sure of my chances with pretty average marks like mine. Fingers crossed for me please! I'm doing quite a bit of preparation, even signing up for mock interviews and such, so I hope it pays off.

Technology

Currently in the market for a new laptop, and almost got one today! Toshiba T130 is quite suitable for my uses and it was on sale at harvey norman for 1000! Unfortunately I found a dead pixel on mine and it was the last one in stock. Ah well. Hunt continues.

Also quick review, I finally replaced my old harddrive with this! I do love my tech toys.

Lacie 500GB rugged, USB 3.0! For those who don't know, everyone is universally using USB 2.0, so this is the next gen stuff. My computer thankfully is next gen, so I already have a USB 3.0 slot. So testing it out, I get rough speeds of around 78MB/s, which is triple the usual speed. Nice! It did, however, cost me a little extra than usual ($210) and are only available online shops so far.

teoh,

going for office

I just watched the most amount of television I've seen than in the holidays. Hurrah for MasterChef, good fun. Very pleased with the outcome.

The only thing the Great Debate gave me was confirmation that politician are so frustrating. Always dancing around the issue, repeating their slogans over and over and generally annoying me. Initially I wasn't going to vote Labor due to take over from Gillard, but Tony Abbott used the word 'fair dinkum' too many damn times, so he's lost my vote. Also, he hasn't got any charisma, do not like him at all.

Therefore we should all vote for me to be Prime Minister instead. I have past experience! Back in Primary school, when we were learning about Parliament, we set up a mock Government, and I was elected Prime Minister, no joke! As leader of our country, I would address the real issues of our country.

Teleportation would be the highest priority and my driving force for my election. With Teleportation, our country would both be more sustainable and boost our economy to make our country not only the strongest in the world, but in the galaxy (beat that Gillard). It will help decrease the cost of living, as there is no need to spend money on fuel, transportation for major companies will cut out, decreasing the price on goods and generally improve our lives. It will resolve the ridiculous Myki system and the coming waste of money on it.

This would also solve the boating problem, as a detention center with minimal space could be easily created within weeks (and in Australia, not in some unstable government place I've never heard of), by throwing people into a teleporter back to where they came from. Easy.

Teleportation will help create more jobs for people and emphasis education in the Mathematics field, which is lacking. I would personally supervise to ensure research is completed by 2020. That is my promise to YOU.

I respect the Australian electorates, and I think they will respect me as a fellow Australian. As a hard working student, I know many of the grits of life and the common problems in our lives. As Prime Minister, you can count on me to know the people of Australia and the important issues.

Vote for Teoh, and help me teleport Australia forward!

teoh,

my gwad gumball!

me eating a 10+ year old giant gumball. My brother got it when we visited some family friends up in queensland who owned a lolly shop and had kept it in this metal container ever since. He wanted the container, so I ate it...for a minute before getting sick. Thankfully it was soft, I can't imagine eating it properly...

so after doing some reading, apparently the 'theory' behind tony's new element is quite plausible. Using his home-built particle accelerator, charging whatever blue particles he had in there to high energy, and then fusing two elements that when combined together would add their atomic numbers together to the desired new element, yes it is quite plausible.

However, if any of my readers are highly qualified scientists (no, you're not marco (neither are you ling)), here are a few questions: what is the triangular case made of to withstand and capture the beams energy to fuse whatever elements are inside? how does the accelerated high energy beam held constantly when it was diverted from the accelerator? I would've thought it'd need to keep it's circular motion in order to sustain itself. And finally, how does Stark make it stable? If you can answer all of these, then please join my team in building an iron man suit, as I don't want radioactive poisoning when I wear mine either.

In other news!
I don't know why, but I've got a craving for watching digimon. ><>teoh,

oh fritter.

ingredients for a week of uni hell: 2 tests, 3 major assignments, 1 report and no motivation. Serve hot.

so my friend Long just got his new phone yesterday, the HTC Desire. It's pretty nice, the touchscreen responsiveness is about on par with iphones, and since smartphones are pretty much mini-computers nowadays, it's got a mini computer processor 1 GHZ which makes it run very smooth.

So tempting to get a new phone as I've been on an open contract for so long, but I'm also at debate with myself that I don't actually need one. But it'd be sooo nice to get one. HTC Evo has a bigger screen and coming out in July, but really expensive =[ But it runs so fast, and so many apps, first 4G phone, HTC aren't that common (among my friends anyway), oh so cool. But then, do I really need mobile internet? Just one more distraction, more time spent looking at a electronic device. But then it could be useful for like looking up things on the spot, GPS etc. But then money...

My friend simon bought an Ipad from eBay over seas. Very nice, so impressed with the touch interface. The screen is really clear and you can actually type notes onto 'Word' app pretty accurately. Wouldn't mind having one for lectures, make things a bit more interesting. But, with any new tech, I will wait for better generations (I remember buying first gen ipod 'nano', big brick compared to the new ones and no colour)

My mum told me a funny story today, how she had used compost and soil in a part of the garden a few weeks ago before she left for the UK/Malaysia. Then a creeper vine had grown around (not uncommon in our garden) so she pulled it all out...and out...and pop comes out:


aha so cool! Home grown rock melon. Well done mum.

And also, made banana/pineapple fritter tonight. Was a partial success, the batter turned out alright, but the fruit inside wasn't sweet. Had it with ice cream and wasn't too bad though. It's fun deep frying stuff =]

teoh,

p.s while looking at myself at my haircut today, i thought to myself: my face is fat. =[

optical illusion

ACDC Vs Iron Man 2

Another clip I know, but this is pretty cool. Advance projectors play some cool features on the Rochester Castle in time with ACDC music. There's not that much Iron Man 2 in there, but seeing the castle crumble is pretty awesome. Take a look.

teoh,

presents from over seas!

love it when family come back from overseas, i love opening up all the bags and boxes, looking for treasures and prizes! above are japanese figures luke and leia, who will now guard my computer for me.

behold the holocron mark II, my new usb 8 gig stick. mark I's plastic shell eventually crumbled to nothing, so this is the high tech replacement! awesome.

my sister loves cupcakes, so she saw this cute cupcake bib and bought it. I put it on mags for some highly amusing entertainment.

and my belated birthday present, flown across two countries to get to me, a stormtrooper jumper! thanks sis =] it's got a cool stormtrooper button on it as well, which I will rip off if I ever grow out of the jumper, cause it's that cool!

teoh,

oh my..

My internet speeds have just kicked in. After years of mediocre internet services...wow.

I watched one movie...when I had finished watching it, I had two new movies. And a game. (all legally of course.)

Up In the Air is a very good movie. 

This was such a bad time to god-like internet. I'm gonna have to remember that with great power, comes great responsibility haha. If I get capped on my first month, shame.

teoh,

say what!?

ON HOLIDAYS, THAT'S WHAT.

Yeah that's right, I'll be taking down the dreaded exam box as soon as I finish posting. Sheesh, what an exam period. Went on for a million years. The exams were pretty tough too, worst than last semester (or did I study less this semester..?). I'll have a cry post on the 4th dec no doubt.

Wish Amanda and Tim the best with their long trips. Miss you both. Amanda's got a blog up, dunno how often she'll update though lol : Inexperienced_blogger

Anyhow, onto the future. Time to address that holiday to do list! First things first, gathering PC parts for my computer. At the same time, I'll be looking for a laptop for my sister.
Once that's all done, I'll move onto formatting and selling off my current laptop, as well as looking into TPG. Now that I'll be staying home next year, 12 gigs between me and my brother is not enough hahaha.

Just bought 700 dollars worth of parts from MSY and CPL. Here's to really hoping the motherboard is ok, otherwise it'll be the fight of my life trying to get it returned to CPL (apparently they're CRAP, but they were the only ones that had it). Here are my specs for any computer geeks reading this (which would be none I'm assuming...for my own benefit then!):

CPU: Intel Core i5 750

MOBO: Gigabyte P55A-UD3P

RAM: G.skills Jawrip 4GB Kit

HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB

GPU: Gigabyte 1GB ATI Radeon HD5850

Case: Lian Li Lancool PC-K62

PSU: Antec True Power 650

ODD: Sony-NEC Optiarc AD-7240S

I'm pretty excited to put it altogether and get it working. I've already gotten Win7 from uni for FREE, so I'm excited to start all over again (just like formatting..)

more to come as I settle in the holidays,

teoh.

excel killed my computer

here's something you don't see everyday:


you know, it's hard to complete a computing project, when it's crashing your computer every 10 minutes. damn this project, it's too CPU intensive for my poor humble sony laptop.

would really like a quad core right now. and a dual screen. and some nice speakers, with the doof doof and the dosh dosh...

teoh,