Month: January 2005

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SLI

SLI, Scalable Link Interface, from what I’ve read, is not a new technology but an old one. This technology was revisited because of the introduction of PCI-e.


The interesting thing about SLI is using 2 graphic cards on a single machine. Sort of similar to machines with dual CPUs.


For gaming, you can have each graphic card render a portion of the screen. Load is balanced between them from some experiments I’ve seen on the net. Which is they don’t render a fixed 50% of the screen but varies constantly depending on what’s shown on the screen. This means a huge increase in gaming performance.


Another possibility that I’ve read this morning is having 4 monitors hooked up to a single machine, assuming each card has 2 DVI outputs. To me, it means I can now have monitor #1 displaying system info (Samurize, MySQL Administrator), #2 showing mIRC, #3 – Firefox displaying the website I’m working on, #4 – Text editor showing the codes of the website I’m working on.


No need to alt+tab through them, no need to access the task bar for a click. Just simply moving my mouse from one screen to the other.


But this dream will have to wait. 17″ LCDs are still pretty fucking expensive and getting 4 right now would amount to S$1500-2000. 2 capable SLI-enabled graphic cards, S$300-600. A whole new system just because my current motherboard doesn’t have PCI-e slots, $1000-2000.

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Obtained Chaos Cuirass and Chaos Gauntlets

Just a quick and simple blog entry on my FFXI adventures. Wyred has gone lazy. [X|]


The other day I was skilling up and helping 2 friends get their Black Mage Testimony and Monk Testimony at Castle Oztroja. These Testimonies are required for them to fight Maat, and only by winning the fight against Maat can they proceed to level up above level 70.


It didn’t take too long before the 2 testimonies drop. Then we decided to stay longer for my coffer key. And it didn’t take too long before the key dropped and with my Red Mage friend, Puipuipui, we went in search for the Treasure Coffer for my Artifact body armor, Chaos Cuirass. Just 3 minutes into searching for it, we found it. [XD]


Last night, I decided to camp for my gauntlets coffer at Eldieme Necropolis. Hearing that the coffer re-spawns in 30 minutes and that it’s a highly sought after coffer, I decided to camp at a spot where it’s safe and where it’s a spot where the coffer might spawn.


Subbed Ninja for Tonko:Ichi, bought 3 stacks of Silent Oils at 7500gil each [X(], I set off and after an hour of waiting, I gave up. I needed help to access the other coffer-spawning areas and it takes at least another person. So I checked the linkshell and asked Holykau for help. A level 75 WHM who probably has Teleport-Vahzl should I ever need it. There’s one coffer spot which requires access from Beaucedine Glacier by the way.


While waiting for Holykau to meet me at Eldieme, I ran out to explore the nearest coffer spots and I died because I forgot Invisibility (from Tonko:Ichi) wore off and I aggroed Azer. Bomb-type monster. Good thing I contacted Holykau for help because he has Raise 3 and I lost only 100+ exp.


We checked the basement level but no coffers, I wanted to check the North open area of Eldieme for coffer. So I got Holykau to pull the switch as I wait at the door. And there it was, the coffer sitting at the corner of the open space. Too excited to notice my Sneak was wearing, I opened the coffer and ran back aggroing Kas and Utukkus on the way. Needless to say, I died again and trapped in a tunnel unable for Holykau to give me Raise 3.


With no one to help trigger the switch, we gave up and I returned to Home Point, taking a loss of 2000 exp. Which is roughly equivalent to an hour of fighting in an EXP PT. [:(]


Nvermind that. I gathered other linkshell friends and we set off to Castle Zvahl Baileys to kill Dark Spark and finish off the gauntlets quest and acquire my Chaos Gauntlets.


Now I have my AF Helmet armor and AF leg armor left to a complete set.

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Pillows and PHP and here comes Nostalgia again

About 13-14 months ago, as I was struggling with PHP and MySQL, I was
listening to an old album of The Pillows, White Incarnation.


Today, I had to revisit my 1 year old project which started out as
ASP+Access, converted to PHP+MySQL along the way. I’m making changes to that
project and listening to the same album. Somehow if you think about it, you
realize another year has passed.


I don’t think I’ve matured in anyway, physically or mentally. All I’ve
achieved over the past year was newer toys and no more money-worries when
shopping/eating.


Looking back at my blog entries, here’s my top highlights for the year 2004
in chronological order.



  • Jan 9th – Made my first online transaction with my debit card, Golden
    Village movie tickets.

  • Jan 18th – Enjoyed Lineage 2 on the Taiwan Open beta followed by the Japan
    Open beta.

  • Jan 21st – Bought a Radeon 9800Pro. Always wanted a high-end graphics card.

  • Feb 14th – Registered domain name: wyred.nu

  • Mar 7th – Attended my first lan party at Funan IT Mall.

  • Apr 5th – Visited Paris due to work circumstances.

  • Apr 18th – Setup a second machine for hosting this blog and some other sites.

  • Jun 3rd – Began playing FFXI.

  • Jun 21st – Lineage 2 account on Japan Open beta got banned because I supplied a fake Japanese address.

  • July 1st – Sourced myself a new machine. Runs an Athlon 64 3200+. Gaming purposes.

  • Nov 6th – Took a week long vacation from work for the sole purpose of
    playing FFXI.

  • Dec 6th – Flew to Hong Kong due to work circumstances.

  • Dec 30th – Purchased 17″ LCD monitor.

Also, a list of tasks I failed to accomplish in 2004. [:(]



  • Develop my own collaborative blog site.

  • Learn how to administer a Linux machine.

  • Adopt a CVS system at work.

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2005

Hmm… 166 blog entries for the year of 2004. 166 is also the bus I take to
work every morning.


If you check my first blog entry at page 1, you’ll find the reason to why I
am no longer interested in going out for a celebration. And another added reason
would be that it rained almost non-stop for the past few days.


As usual, I enjoyed another long session of Final Fantasy XI.


There was also a little celebration my friends and I did for another friend
who had his birthday on 1st Jan. What we did was ask him out for dinner, and
then we gathered at his void deck of his HDB flat and discussed what to do. Two
of us guys hid at the back of his pickup whereas the other 4 ladies equipped
with a bottle of cherry soda and some eggs hid behind a building nearby.


My friend and I crept into his pickup with a bag of washing detergent powder.
The birthday boy came down, opened the door of his pickup to put his PDA phone,
went to the back of the vehicle to open the flap to find 2 of us inside with
powder. [XD]


So it’s 2005 now. I don’t feel any difference nor feel the new year mood,
which explains why I keep forgetting to greet others “Happy new year”. The
holidays passed just like any other weekend. Is it because I’m getting older? Or
just too much time spent without regret on FFXI.


Anyways, my 2005 plans for this blog.


  • New look! New design! Whatever!

  • 3 more blog categories: Work, Play, RandomThoughts.

New year resolutions?


  • Get more involved in the PHP community and keep myself updated on the latest
    happenings. Perhaps even brush up my C knowledge so I can go deep into the PHP
    source code and try my hand at customizing PHP like removing a few functions I
    have no use of.

  • More efficiency at work. I’m quite confident my position here is secured but
    I would need to put in more effort to turn this wooden rice bowl into an iron
    one (chinese phrase). That is assuming this company does well this year and for
    more decades to come.

By the way, I bought a new LCD monitor last Thursday. A 17 inch Samsung 710T
with DVI. Response time 12ms. Good for gaming purposes. I love the extra viewing
space. My new screen resolution is now 1280*1024, an increase from the
previous 1152*864. Paid S$599 and sold my old CRT monitor to an old friend for
S$100. I also get to enjoy extra space on my computer table, less electricity
consumption, less heat generated.