Category: Tech

I came across someone selling a new piece of Audigy2 for just $100. It’s not the ZS version. He stated that the difference without ZS is ZS supports 7.1 and the non-ZS, 6.1.

Going to meet up with this fellow today after work and install my older Audigy onto my machine at work. [XD]

Update:

Well, it turned out to be used once. But it’s okae. The seller told me it was used in the recent World Cyber Games. Anyway, I LOVE THIS NEW CARD!! It’s wonderful… So wonderful… Even when paired with my 6 year old Altec Lansing 2.1pt Speakers, the sound is marvellous.

Looking forward to this weekend so I can play music louder in the afternoon. [X)]

Hahaha, I overheard my boss saying something about a fridge arriving today and later, saw my colleague rearranging the kitchen area in the office to make space for the new appliance. Later, the deliverymen came and brought us a nice 1.5M tall refridgerator. Somehow in my mind, I pictured myself dancing around it dressed like Red Indians and chanting “Hoogachakka hoogachakka!”

So later that day after knocking off, I went down to SimLim Square to get a 160GB harddisk. I needed one with huge storage space in order to reorganize my harddisks and do some tests. I suspect 2 of my harddisks have problems. *touch wood*

I purchased one that’s SATA, Serial-ATA, instead of the traditional PATA, Parallel-ATA. SATA costs about S$23 more than the PATA version. Even though a lot of people say current technology cannot fully utilise the bandwidth provided by PATA, let alone SATA, it doesn’t mean it will stay this way forever. The main reason for getting SATA too is because it uses a thin cable to connect to your motherboard. So much thinner than PATA’s that it makes organizing your computer case more easy, less messy, better air flow.

As of now, I’m copying all the files from my 120GB over to the 160GB and it takes an hour. I still have much more to do before I can drop asleep. My eyelids… are heavy…

Though it is just another web browser, it is by far better than Microsoft’s. I’m using FireFox as my default browser now on 3 of my systems. I still maintain IE6 on my system just for WindowsUpdates and blogging. I’ll summarise my observations from using both browsers, listing their advantages and disadvantages.

I’ll start off with Internet Explorer. Been using this since the day I went online. During this period I tried other browsers but they often take too much time to load. Currently, my blog uses HTMLArea. A piece of javascript that gives me a WYSIWYG interface for writing my blog entries. It works fine when I use IE6 but disappears when using FireFox. Either I analyze my code or find an alternative, I have no time for both so I’ll have to employ IE6 to do my task for now. Here’s a screenshot of how I prefer my IE6 interface configured and the WYSIWYG editor.

FireFox starts up as fast as my IE6. Best thing about FireFox is tabbed browsing, popup blocking, and blocking images(ads) from certain domains by just right clicking. Tabbed browsing is certainly a much neater, easier way of browsing websites without cluttering your taskbar. When browsing a website with a lot of interesting links I want to check, I simply right click and open it in a new tab.

I noticed that while the page is loading in FireFox, links that pop up new windows when clicked on will not work. I have to wait till the page finishes loading. I guess this is how FireFox currently works in blocking popups by blocking any window from opening while the page is still loading. The next improvement of IE6 in WinXP SP2, from what I understand, allows popups that are initiated by the user. Haven’t tried to confirm this yet.

Note that I’m comparing the pre-SP2 version of IE6 and FireFox 0.9.

While re-designing this site in PHP, I made a few changes and one of them is the paging links at the bottom. From my traffic logs, there’s a number of visitors who are used to the old system whereby latest entries are shown on Page 1 and older entries get pushed behind.

I abandoned this system because this means all pages of content keeps changing. Gives inaccurate results for those who came in here via search engines. Therefore, I made it more like a book, reversing the system where newer entries are displayed first from top to bottom for each page. And as each page gets filled, a new page will be created.

I also added permlinks (permanent links) so everyone including me can pass around the link to the exact entry. When I feel like it, I might allow users to customise whether they want to see Tech-only entries, Life-only entries or both~

I have received some feedback regarding my dynamic sig that I use in forums.
It’s more like exploiting the browser bugs (Am I right to say so?). Easily done
by whoever has enough access to a webserver. So in answer to your requests,
here’s a guide on how to make yourself a dynamic sig image.

Most forums, allow you to have signatures to appear after your post. It can
contain images, URLs, text. For images, you are only allowed to use a small set
of file extensions. To name a few, .jpg, .gif and .png.

First off, you need a set of images you want to rotate. I prepared 3, same
design but different color.

wyredsig_anim1.gif
wyredsig_anim2.gif
wyredsig_anim3.gif

Getting dizzy? I cast a spell on them which puts anyone looking at it under
my control unconciously. Now go watch more anime! [XD]

Note the filenames next to the images, giving them a serial number makes it
easier to generate a random number and use it to determine which image to
show.

Now here’s the secret to my dynamic signature, PHP! Yes! In my humble
opinion, the best scripting language since ASP. Like I mentioned, you’ll need
enough access on your webserver to get .png files to be processed by the php
engine.

Next up, in my wyredsig.png file, is a one line code that redirects all
requests for that file, to the image files hosted on the 2MB space given to me
by my ISP.

See the rand() function? Generates a random number from 1 to 3.

So far mapping the .png has not affected my other real png images. I have
tested this on Internet Explorer and Mozilla FireFox. Here’s the image in
action. Refresh the page and see it change.

Update: I did some checking and yea, my
real .png files were scrambled. It’s fine because I don’t use the .png format
often. However if you wish to run dynamic images, remember to create a new
website in IIS (if allowed) and configure a mapping for .png files on that site
only. Then run your file from that site.