Happy belated New Year

Happy New Year everybody! Even though it’s a little late, well at least it’s just a little late. Let’s all hope 2009 will be a great year for everyone in terms of health and wealth. Did you get smashed and made a fool of yourselves on New Year’s Eve? I know I didn’t because I stayed home and didn’t get invited to any party. *sobs* We had to watch the countdown to the New Year and the fireworks on TV. However one of our neighbors did had a great party that night. They were playing their music so loud all night long but being New Year we let them have their fun…until beh tahan liao!

After midnight we though the party would die down soon and the music would stop. I was so tired I went to bed after midnight despite the loud music. Terese couldn’t stand the loud music so she stayed up waiting for the music to stop. I fell asleep half an hour later, I can sleep through World War 3.

I found out later from Terese that she waited till 2 am but the music still didn’t stop and she was getting pretty agitated by then. She was so tired but couldn’t sleep with the loud music so she rang the local police! Yes she called and complained to the police and was greeted by a very well mannered but tired police officer who took down her complaint about the noisy neighbor and said they’ll take care of the problem but to be patient because it was a rather busy night for them. I can understand that. Half an hour later the music stopped. The police must have showed up at the neighbor’s and told them to stop the party. Trust me when I say this is the first time we’ve ever complained to the police about our neighbors, we usually just let them do what they wanted but this time Terese just couldn’t stand it anymore. Happy New Year!

Merry belated Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone..even though I’m a few days late. I’ve been very busy with work this month so didn’t have time to blog. It’s the busiest time of the year for my industry so I have to take advantage of it before it dies down later on down the track.

Anyway so did you all have a good Christmas? I had a good one too even though I was busy; I spent Christmas eve at my sister-in-law’s party, Christmas lunch at a friend’s house, Christmas dinner at another sister-in-law’s house and Boxing Day’s lunch at a brother-in-law’s house. Ate too much and rolling around like a beached whale, I think I’ve put on a few kilos!

I didn’t get to do much Christmas shopping though because of the heavy load of work. Even with the global economic crisis retailers are doing very well still; there were serious bargain hunters queuing to get into the department stores at 3 am in the morning for the Boxing Day sale! Seriously, there has to be better things to do than shopping.

Having said so I didn’t exactly stay clear away from the shops. After all I do have good eyes for bargains and I spotted something I like; a tripod selling for $9.95 at Tandy! It’s cheaper than the secondhand one I bought from the Salvation Army store years ago..and has more features too.

The first thing that caught my eyes beside the price was the bubble level indicator so you can be sure your camera is level before you take the shot. It also has a quick release mount and 360 degrees swivel panhead with adjustable tilt and pan controls.

The old one I had didn’t even have these functions and not as sturdy either. Though my camera is just a pocket size camera this tripod can take an SLR camera too. Comes with 3 years warranty so I best keep my receipt.

It also comes with a bonus carry case so now I can pretend to be a professional photographer with that hanging over my shoulder except my crappy camera will give me away. Time to get a DSLR lor..

Blogging on the radio

Nowadays just about everywhere you go you can see people wearing an mp3 player or an iPod in their ears as they carry on with their daily routines especially the younger generations. Mp3 players and iPods are great for commuters on their daily grind to work and back but they also make people less social; they tend to keep to themselves in their own little private world oblivious to the outside world.

Having said so even Terese and I have iPod in our household, in fact we have 2 iPod shuffles. I tried using it a while but then I prefer to listen to the radio, talk back radio to be exact. With mp3 players and iPods you just listen to your favorite songs over and over again but the radio is different; the songs played are randomly chosen so you never know what you’ll be listening next. Still I’d rather listen to the talk back radio whereby the host will talk about a certain topic, any topic at all and then the listeners can phone in to comment, argue or give feedbacks about the particular topic. It’s like blogging but on the radio!

When we’re working at home I like to listen to my talk back radio all day long but unfortunately Terese doesn’t share my enthusiasm for talk back radio, she’d prefer listening to music. So to keep her happy I had to get myself a personal radio so I can listen to my talk back radio while she listens to her music. All’s well except the talk back radio is on the AM band. If it was on the FM band then I have a few personal FM radios at home all given free from everywhere like one I got from buying Nescafe and another some shopkeeper who gave it to me when I was in Singapore trying to entice me to buy something in his shop. Of course being the kiamsiap foochow that I am I didn’t buy lah.

Anyway I had to find a personal radio that will receive AM stations as well. Been looking all over town and finally I found one from Tandy Electronics selling for $40. It’s a cool little personal radio with earpieces and when I’m wearing it on me people who see me think I’m wearing an mp3 player. Little did they know Old Uncle Wuching is just listening to his talk back radio on his $40 personal radio that impersonates an mp3 player! But it’s a good little gadget and I’m happy with it. It’s the best $40 I’ve spent so far. Talk back radio on 3AW on 693 on the AM band is the most successful radio station in town but the listeners are mainly more matured listeners like myself. The younger generations don’t want to listen to it saying it’s old folks station, they rather listen to their hip hop, R&B, techno and pop stations. But for the rest of us 3AW is the station for us. I like it coz it’s like blogging on the radio!

 

It pays to get multiple quotes

Summer in Melbourne can be a scorcher some days. We have endured over 40C days for almost 10 years since we moved into our house and we’d always said that we’d get air conditioning for the lounge room next summer, then next, then next and so forth and so forth.

But now that we are working from home it is imperative that we get the air conditioning done or else we’d not be very productive in the sweltering heat. Besides, we can depreciate the unit under business expenses. *yeah yeah*

I decided to get 3 quotations from 3 retailers; Fujitsu’s dealer NCG Airconditioning because we have a Fujitsu in the bedroom and we’re happy with it. Coldflow who’s been advertising heavily in the local papers and finally Camberwell Electrics because they are one of the well known electrics retailers in town..also my friend’s been singing songs of praise about them so must include them too.

I made appointments for all 3 to come to my house for measure and quote to cool down my lounge which is where our workplace is. We have an open living area with about 60 square metres floor space that includes the lounge, kitchen and the rumpers area so I suspected we’d have to get a big ass air conditioner to be able to cope with 40C days.

On the days of the appointments NCG Airconditioning never show up and didn’t even bother to call either. Camberwell Electrics gave me a quotations for 3 different brands namely Panasonic, Mitsubishi and Daikin prices ranging from $2940 for the Panasonic’s 7.4 kw to $3452 Daikin’s 8 kw.

Coldflow actually gave me cheaper quotations than Camberwell Electrics; they gave me a quote for a Daikin’s 9 kw at $4120 fully installed(I’d rather be too cold than not cold enough). I rang Camberwell Electrics back asking for another quote for their Daikin 9 kw which came up to be $4420 which made a big difference in price. However my gut’s telling me to go with Camberwell Electrics mainly because I know of them longer, I’ve never heard of Coldflow till recently. Also my friend has used them before and is happy with their service and we were also pleased with the rep’s professionalism when he came for the quote. Which leaves us with just the hurdle of the price.

So I rang up Camberwell Electrics and spoke to the rep again this time asking him if he could match the price given by Coldflow. I’d rather give the job to them than Coldflow because sometimes you have to go with your gut feeling that they’re better in terms of workmanship and service. The rep did some calculation and was happy to do the same job for the same price as Coldflow and the deal was done. It always pays to get multiple quotes.

The air conditioner has been installed over a month ago but we’ve yet to use it. The weather hasn’t been hot enough to try it out. I’m waiting for the over 40C days to see if the unit can cope. If it doesn’t perform I’ll throw them back at the retailer!

If I had a crystal ball

If I had a crystal ball and knew in advance how bad the economy was going to be then I might have thought twice before taking that bold step and bought the business to run it myself. I might have just looked for another job and will not have the worry I have now wondering why people are not spending money. The only worry I would have would be wondering what to have for dinner on the way home from work everyday.

Well how would we have known that just 2 months after buying my business Wall Street took a dive for the worse, followed by the US recession, then Europe followed, Japan and now it looks like Australia isn’t far behind. It’s a global domino effect; stock market in Australia is also falling, companies are closing, people are loosing jobs and suddenly running my own business isn’t such a good idea anymore.

But what’s the alternative? Cut my losses and work for someone else? Then I’ll still be worried, this time about my job security and hoping the business I work for doesn’t go under also and I’ll be in an even worse situation.

So tough times demand tough actions; prepare for the worse, batten down the hatchet, tighten up my belts, I’ve been through bad times before and survived them so this time is no different. We will get through this.

I’ve been sleeping

I’ve been sleeping..for almost a month! OMGawd, that’s how long I haven’t updated this blog. It was nice, sleeping I mean..until someone woke me up. At least some people miss me, what about the rest of you? No leave comment giving me a nudge to wake up, no email tempting me with sexciting story, not a whimper. Some friends you are.

But jokes aside, I have been rather lazy lately. Blogging isn’t what it was like when I just started and I was very motivated to blog about just about anything I could get my hands on. Blogging was like a full time job for me; I would get up early early in the morning to go find that story for my post, now I just say to myself “Been there, done that..no one’s interested so why bother.”

I thought I’d just blog about the interesting things that happen in my life but then I realized that my life is very boring! Almost nothing ever happened in my daily life, same old same old. Who wants to read about that? Today it rains a bit, yesterday no rain. Sexciting onot? OKay, updated liao. Next post I’ll post about my dirty underwear.

Webhosting guide

Like many of my fellow blogger friends, I started blogging on a free blogging platform. It’s good for people just starting out blogging and not sure how far they want to take their blogs to. You also get to learn all you can about this ever popular past time. Eventually after months of blogging and finding that I was really into blogging I felt it was time to move to another level and that’s getting my own domain name and webhosting.

There are so many companies wanting to host your blogs that they are willing to offer all kinds of great deals. Some even offer http://webhostinggeeks.com/freedomainnames.html that come with their webhosting so it always pays to look around for the best deal to suit your needs. A good place to start is at WebHostingGeeks.com where they have already rated for you all the top webhosting sites on the internet saving you the hassle of trolling through the internet looking for your web host. All you need to do is pick the one that you think can provide you with the best service you deserve so you don’t have to worry about it and concentrate on what you do best and that’s writing for your blogs!

In case of emergency, break glass.

Today Terese and I were invited to a concert in which her niece is playing in. The concert is held at ArtPlay at Birrarung Marr in the city and it’s a free concert so it’s open to all members of the cast’s families. We got there early so as not to miss the show and waited for the door to open.

Where we were waiting there is a donation box where people can donate any monies they like to help fund the ArtPlay projects for children. I got a bit bored waiting after a few minutes and decided to have a little fun so I wrote on a piece of paper  “IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS”.

And I stuck the paper on top of the donation box. Hehe..

Teaching Dragon to spell

The problem with speech recognition software is that it may not recognize some of the more recent words and spelling we use in our everyday living. Thank goodness someone has come up with a way of training Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 software to recognize different spelling words like SuperZ. Check out the original blog article at AskSuperZ.com after viewing the video below to learn more;

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Standard

Press Release:

The video above was created by a blogger that goes by the name, SuperZ.

I couldn’t write that name before using Dragon NaturallySpeaking until I trained Dragon NaturallySpeaking to recognize the name SuperZ. I mention that because I’m using Dragon NaturallySpeaking right now to write this article (notice Dragon new when I said the words right now that I meant the word right and not the word to write).

I’ve been writing articles and reviews about Dragon NaturallySpeaking for close to two years. I’ve had a lot of experience with the software, and I wanted to reach out to other bloggers and see what they thought of the software.

SuperZ tried out the software and as you can see from his own video, the results that he’s getting after having used the software for just a week are pretty amazing. His computer is keeping up with just about every word that he says, and typing those words out for him in text.

Well frankly that’s exactly what Dragon NaturallySpeaking is supposed to do these days and it lives up to its claim of achieving 99% accuracy and I’ve clocked it typing faster than its claims of 150 words per minute.

That’s right you can type 150 words a minute with Dragon NaturallySpeaking. You do have to spend a little time editing from time to time, but you type so fast that editing doesn’t take that long. You get the typing done faster and the editing is a breeze because you only have to look at the way that you phrased words. Dragon NaturallySpeaking almost never makes a spelling mistake. It types out the entire word based on the vocabulary that has stored in the machine. So it really can’t misspell a word it’s pulling the word straight out of a dictionary.

The only exception might be the case when you run into a name like SuperZ, which is not in your dictionary yet. When you run across a name like that, all you have to do is add it into your dictionary and train the software to recognize that new word or name. It just takes a second and after that you’ll be able to say SuperZ all you like and Dragon NaturallySpeaking will know exactly what you are talking about.

Sincerely,
Brett Bumeter
Softduit Media
www.softduit.com
PS this article includes about 381 words that I wrote with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10. It took me about 4 minutes to write and 4 minutes to edit this article. The writing time included the short amount of time it took to train dragon to recognize the name SuperZ. Editing took 4 minutes because I’ve been working all night and I’m not reading too fast! J

May the 1/144th Force be with you!

It has been a while since I last bought Star Wars models from Japan. The last one I bought was months ago and I’m still working on it. Then one day I went to check out what’s new in the Star Wars models and I found something that I had to get!

It’s the 1/144 size models of Star Wars vehicles collection from F-Toys and Fine Molds. F-Toys is a Japanese confectionery company that has teamed up with Fine Molds to come up with this excellent collector items.

The whole box set comes with 10 vehicles; X-Wing Fighter, TIE Fighter, Naboo Starfighter, AT-ST, Jedi Starfighters and a mystery vehicle all randomly packed so you get a surprise every time you open each individual pack.

I’m glad I got all 6 available vehicles and I also get 2 sets for 3 of them. All these models only need minimal assembly and only 2 of them also needing decal application which is all too easy.

Moreover because of F-Toys being a confectionery company they also included a bubblegum in each pack! There’s also a leaflet that describes the vehicle and instruction on how to assemble the vehicle.

These are the 2 sets of Naboo Starfighters dog-fighting with Droid Starfighters. Comes with black plastic stands that you can arrange in whatever style you prefer. Fine Molds designed and made these models so you can rest assured the quality is the best.

I got 2 sets of the TIE Fighters which I’m very happy with. You can never have too many TIE Fighters; you need a whole fleet of them! I’m hoping they’ll make the other models of the TIE Fighters series in the next batch.

The Jedi Starfighters came in pairs; Anakin Skywalker’s and Obiwan Kenobi’s as seen in Episode 3. This is the only set that requires a bit more work applying decals of logos on them. And yes I also got 2 sets of these.

The AT-ST or Scout Walker also comes with a Scout Trooper on Speederbike. I took a bit of time putting the AT-ST together because the front gun turret was a bit tight to fit in the hole but it came up good.

The mystery vehicle turned out to be a TIE Crawler which was a big dissapointment for me. This vehicle never existed in the Star Wars movie but Fine Molds decided to just create one from thin air. DUH!

My favorite of the lot would have to be the X-Wing Fighter but too bad it only came in 1 set instead of 2. I wouldn’t mind a few more of this but I guess it’s too popular so they have to spread them a bit thinly.

Here’s a final shot of the whole set; I got 2 sets of TIE Fighters, AT-ST, Jedi Starfighters and just 1 set of X-Wing Fighter and TIE Crawler. Now I’m waiting for the next batch to come on the market. Don’t know what will come with them but I’m sure I will want them all!

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