Posts

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The Tarutaru Times Online

This is what my so called "secret project" was.

The Tarutaru Times Online 

Basically, it’s a blog directory. I’m trying to build a FFXI blogging community here.

I couldn’t come up with a good name so I used the name of a place in Vana’diel, Tarutaru Times. Even the picture above was taken there! 

Registered blogs with RSS feeds will have latest entries from their blogs showing up on the main page of the site. There, with one glance, we can all see which blogs have new content to read.

I’ve also allowed blogs with no RSS feeds to be added. It is a "blog directory" anyway.

For bloggers, it’s a one-time setup. After you’ve added your RSS feed, everything is automatic. When you make a new post on your blog, give it about 20~60 minutes (configurable) and when TTTO picks up the new entry, it will be displayed on the main page. However, bloggers will have to get a registration key first from me or any other existing bloggers.

For blog readers, you can register an account and subscribe to your favourite blogs. There’s a "My Subscriptions" page where you will only be shown the latest entries from the blogs you’ve subscribed to.

I welcome any suggestions/comments. You can leave a comment here or email me!

I wonder if anyone has noticed that I don’t have an RSS feed for my own blog. Ironic eh? lol. I’ll work on it soon. ( >_<)

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LG GSA-H62L

My previous combo cdwriter/dvdrom drive runs fine, except it leaves some sticky substance when it reads a disc. My original CnC3 Kane Edition DVD is now damaged because of this. That sticky substance is hard to remove. :(

So time to buy a new drive. These things are so cheap now. Years ago, cd writers sell at around SG$200 (US$130). My new one costs only SG$79 (US$50).

A lot of people gave good comments on this drive in the local hardware forums, which is why I chose this without much consideration. Max write speed: 18X, and it doesn’t run on those old fat IDE cables but the thin SATA cables.

This drive also has the lightscribe function. Which means your drive can "print" onto your DVD. But your DVD too, must be made for lightscribing.

Here’s a picture I downloaded from the lightscribe site above, and I added a few lines of text of what the disc contains.

Here’s the result:

My first 3 burns on the new drive failed. I think the bundled Nero Express software is buggy. I had to use a full version of Nero and burns were successful.

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Problems problems

Bought a new SATA DVD writer that supports lightscribe, but it seems to be having problems and I’ve wasted 3 DVDRs.

UPDATE MySQL SET version=’5′ WHERE version=’4′;
SQL Query executed successfully.

In layman terms, I’ve upgraded my MySQL database server from version 4 to version 5 successfully. The MySQL Administrator tool helped a lot in the backing up and restoring of databases.

Next, I upgraded PHP from version 4 to 5, and a lot of things broke. Particularly the mbstring support, that makes the input/output of Japanese text possible. I may revert back to version 4 or upgrade to the latest version 4 releases.

I’ll post some pics up of my new DVD writer over the weekend after I’ve sorted out all these problems!

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Australia

Boss told me he may send me to Australia to give training on the CRM project I’m developing at work, to our clients over there.

I’m not trained, no experience, and don’t like to give trainings/presentations. :(

However, I don’t mind going to Sydney, Australia.

But… I don’t like to give training….

But…….. I want to go to Australia……

blargh!

I’ll see how it goes. 

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Dissector


A gathering at night for tea.

Did KS30 BC, Double Dragonian for a Subduer. Out of 6 runs, we got 3 dissectors and 3 heart snatchers. orz

We had a few deaths in our first 3 runs. But zero deaths on our last 3 when we got used to it.

PT Setup: PLD/NIN, MNK/NIN, DRK/THF, RDM/WHM, BLM/RDM, SMN/WHM.

BLM kites while the other 5 attack the WAR dragon. Goes down easily. Only irritating thing is Chaos Blade, which gives strong curse effect. Sometimes reduces my HP from 1400 -> 700, sometimes down to 300. BRD dragon is a little harder but still defeatable.

After this, helped an LS friend with Soboro Sukehiro NM. We didn’t have a lot of people. About 8.

PT Setup: PLD RDM BLU BLM BLM THF MNK SMN.

First run, tank(me!) fell at 3~5% but we managed to kill it because our SMN used astral flow. We got the drop. Second and third run we wiped. If we had 2~3 more mages, I’m sure we would be fine.

Levelled NIN with my weekly static PT. Got it to 50! I still suck at utsusemi timing. :(
Friends tell me to cast Ichi when my Ni has 1 shadow left, and when I do this, there’s somehow a high chance I evade/parry the attack rendering my Ichi cast useless.

While working on my project, I decided to seek on DRK just for fun. Since I’m coding on my second computer and FFXI is running on my first one. Surprisingly, I got an invite. Unfortunately, it was 12am.

The PLD sucked. He would go AFK without saying anything. Provokes slowly. But seem to play better when we pull one of those huge wyverns (forgot the name) outside Mamool Ja Staging Point.

I think it ended at 4am with me being very very sleepy.

And with a few more besieged battles, I now have 8 merits ready to be spent after SE increases the combat skill maximum with the upcoming June update. I intend to increase Scythe from 4 to 8, and then shield from 0 to 4.

Until then…