Photos and TELEPORT!

whee! photos! from the trip to pungol some time… last last week?

haha, using this wonderful app called Teleport that lets me control two macs from the same mouse/keyboard, (the screens are still separate though, so you'll have to place the other comp within view) and lets you copy files from one comp to the other with ease! Its completely free (donations are more than welcome as usual, go check out the developer site) so if you have more than 1 mac in your house, do try it out… its quite fun XD

What it does is basically add in an option in your system preference pane…

basically you can attach the screen of the other comp(s) next to your computer… like this (both computers must have the activate teleport option turned on):

so when you mouse over to the edge of your screen where the other comp is attached… bravo! your keyboard and mouse are now controlling the other comp! you can drag files from one screen over to the other… works very well… seems to be faster than airdrop imo o.o didn’t do a speed test tho… well i can… but i'm feeling a little lazy now XD but its much more convenient than using airdrop if you've got both comps side by side and want to select a bunch of files/pics to xfer over. You can xfer multiple files at once too… when i tried out airdrop the last time, if one file is already being sent, you can't send another… so that was how i transferred the following pics from my dad's iPhoto over to my desktop… (i still had to ask iPhoto to reveal the file in finder before i dragged the pictures i wanted over to my desktop)

oh yeah… the settings available in Teleport...

 

 

ok… photo spam time! XD

enjoy! oh yeah… pics taken by my sis n my dad… either with the canon camera or my dad's nikon

the weather that day was superb! ok…actually it was on the verge of rainy… but it was sooooo cooling and windy…. the weather was so cold… as if we were in Genting highlands! absolutely wonderful! (well its partly cos we were at the seaside, so the sea breeze was just… superb!)

 

ok, that's all for now! XD

shd be going msia tmr… to the new johor premium outlet… dad finally got himself a garmin car navi today (for use tmr)… but he aint too happy act it… screen resolution is poor… software is very user friendly… and the map doesn’t display the blocks and buildings! something which his old htc handphone version of the app has… :S ew… :(

hurray for procrastination, and marsedit

Heh… 3 months after my hero lvled up, i'm finally posting my lvl up SSes to my blog (the OTHER one of cos)

hmm… actually, i've got nothing much to say actually… ah… let me elaborate on just how much i'm loving MarsEdit...

Its really really easy for my to post all the SSes now… i'm even motivated to post all the screens from my iPhone that have been sitting in iPhoto for the longest time… if you post a lot of pics to your blog, mars edit is really the way to go IMO. WAY better than the slow and untrustworthy API of blogger… instead of uploading each picture one by one as in blogger, marsedit lets you put in all the pics you want 1st, than bulk upload it later (when you hit the send to blog button) so that you won't get interrupted in your blogging. The media page stays open too so you don't have to click loads of buttons to add in the photos. Bad thing is that you can't mass insert photos, and you can't say like… set a max width default for ALL the photos so you have to remember to change every photo size manually before hitting the insert button. Still, this is a great improvement over blogger already IMO. ah… i'm dreading the day that my trial version of the marsedit ends :( NNNNOOOOOO T.T

 

posting to blogger is a breeze, but posting the LJ isn't really good… i'd rather directly post using the web version or an LJ specific blogging tool like xJournal… since i'll still have to go to the web version and do the tags… but that's cos my posts on LJ now are all fairly simple, no pics, not formatting, no nothing… if i'm posting loads of pics, i'll probably still use marsedit and take the trouble of going to the web to add in the tags later….

A new Fan!

Went out with my family yesterday… went to pungol, had breakfast at change village… went to courts at tampines… and yeah, we got 2 new standing fans from courts. On sale at 60bucks a piece… and this one has remote too, very worth it IMO. One for my parent's room and one for my room… actually, this one is the exact same model as what my sis is using… very quiet and the wind is good… my old mistral brand fan is still working, but very pathetically. Very noisy, and the wind at medium speed is even worst than the Sona fan's lowest speed… already had like 2 mistral fans dying out before, and this one doesn’t look like it'll last much longer… so got a replacement yesterday. Enjoying the client fan and the cool breeze now :)

MarsEdit

Hohoho… now i'm back in full force to blog! Actually, its cos i downloaded this MarsEdit blogging tool… the trial version at least… Its free for 30 days… and so far its been working just fine… save for a few quirks which i will mention in a while. The really terrible thing about MarsEdit is that it costs a heft 40USD! You can download the free trial from their website here: http://www.red-sweater.com/marsedit/ The full version is sold both on the website, and on the Apple App Store. Good thing is that i've yet to see any of those irritating messages bugging you to buy the app...

This app supports a variety of blogs… but the ones i'm concerned with are basically blogger and live journal (recently got an lj account).

Pros:

Has both WISIWYG and html mode - well… this is quite standard i guess.

Can use keyboard shortcuts like command+B etc...

Very easy to add and upload pictures --> very very impt to me

Can show and add tag categories for blogger

Cons:

Tags/categories do not work for LJ! (doesn’t have full support for LJ)

Text formatting in a drop down list format - i would prefer a text formatting tool bar (like in msoft word etc kind, easier to use right?)

Cannot use photo caption  - something recently added in blogger posting web version

No Facebook or twitter integration

 

 

Ok, let me elaborate more on the important points (in my POV)...

1st: formatting of text. You can right click and select formatting from the drop down menu too, but i'd rather a text formatting toolbar really… like even posting from the web browser and lj or blogger has that right? This is ok if i'm just making a regular post, where normally there won't be much formatting to talk about… but if somehow there's loads of formatting to do in that post, this could be a bit of a hassle.

2nd: no tags for LJ and no fb/twitter integration. So i'll have to go to the lj page and add the tags from my journal page… and i'll have to visit my blog after posting to post a notification to fb and twitter. The no lj tags is irritating… posting to fb/twitter… i still have to do that if i'm using web edit… plus if it’s a post on my gaming blog i'm post to both my regular and gaming fb acts (which i log in on two diff browsers) so that can't be avoided i guess?

3rd: no photo caption - not much of a problem i guess, even on the blogger web i didn’t use that caption feature till recently. i'd just have a line of text below the photo and that's fine...

 

The most impt draw for me is the ease of photo upload. Most of the time the blogger photo upload gives me problems… the pics won't get uploaded - ok at least some time back it was almost always NOT working. Recently it seems to be better though. But if my photo is in iPhoto… i'll have to 1st export it to photo bucket, than open photo bucket to fetch the link, than insert it into the blog. SUPER TROUBLESOME and really discourages me from posting pictures… where as the media center in MarsEdit is really good… you can select the photos from iPhoto - you can view it sorted out by the diff events, and you can select the photo to put in directly.. MarsEdit will sort out the uploading issue for you.

Here's the media center, you can see the iPhoto pics by event.

 

You can drag folders from finder in there to access as well… and oh, i just tested… upon changing the height or width of the photo, the other is automatically changed as well to keep the aspect ratio. Neat.

 

MarsEdit will auto upload the photos for you… you can go on and make a new post in the mean time (or just do other stuff…) You can save it as drafts too, so you can do offline blogging (and publish the post later when there's internet connection)

 

Here's the post editing interface… no categories for lj tho :( What i like is that all your available categories are shown… so you don't end up making a new category just cos you typed friend instead of friends as your category was called...

 

and finally this is the main window...

 

So far so good on MarsEdit… with the only major downside being the lack of tags on LJ. And the price tag… at 40USD its really hefty for a blogging tool. And its not like i'm a professional blogger or anything of that sort… just blogging as a hobby??? and all… 40USD too let me blog easier? hmpphs…. very tempted but its soooo expensive! Sponsors anyone? :X

That Half Eaten Apple

That’s what my mum always comments abt the logo... she'll go something like ‘那个苹果被人家咬了一口还这么值钱’...

Yeah yeah... my table is UBER messy... but that's not the point... nope, i didn’t change my desktop pic to my dad's bike... yup... that's my dad's new comp XD

well... in the recent IT show... my dad got himself a macbook pro... still the same old macbook pro with the same old look... but its got much improved hardware now... instead of the messily 250GB hard disk space mine has, it now comes with 500GB hard disk space... and free upgrade to 8GB ram too... recently i found out the reason why stuff like my firefox was always hanging up - my ram was FULL. i.e. i overworked my comp... >< ew... but how? Maybe its cos i have too much stuff running in the background... like i have word doc open, 3 browsers running (some times there's a few game windows open too)... yes i use 3 browsers - firefox, chrome, and safari all at once... than there's tracks, and a tweeter app... and iTunes, and adium (like msn), iPhoto is on many a times too... and there's all the menu bar apps like alfred... i used to have quick sliver too but cos of the ram usage problem i've offed it... there's mobile mouse server, evernote, clipboard... lock screen, dropbox... typinator... etc etc... not saying that they each use up loads of ram... but it all adds up right? and gosh my hard disk space! its almost full! after all... 40GB got partitioned to XP... that only leaves me with like 200GB... and i've got LOADS of photos in here which i really should backup to the external hard disk soon so that i can free up some disk space here.... so yeah... the point is that its forever space not enough for me :X

my dad managed to get his iPad at the IT show too... turns out that somehow the organiser didn’t allow iPads to be sold there... (must be cos the telcos want to sell it WITH the data line plans) but they still sneaked it in anyway... but no offer of any sort... my dad totally regret waiting for the IT show to get his iPad... sighz... at least they gave freebies like the 8GB ram for the mac. My dad's super duper unlucky with his stuff... his top priority was actually the iPhone... but in the end he couldn’t get it cos the 16GB one ran out of stock... (and he refused to pay 120bucks more for the 32 GB one)... after that we went to check out the singtel shop several times but it was always out of stock... he finally managed to get the phone on sat... just, in the afternoon of my cousin's wedding...

So now it's all set... my dad got all 3 apple products that he's been eyeing for the longest time... i pretty much half of the time last week helping my dad with his apple products... setting up his email, explaing things to him as best as i can etc etc... i transferred a bunch of songs to his itunes too, so his ipad and phone will have some songs too... it's a real pity that he's so busy with work recently that he barely has time to use his devices... me and my sis did have some fun with a bit of games though... but nothing much... i'm not gonna flood his idevices with games... he's using it for work afterall... i'll just stick to my trusty old iphone... which is atm running out of space... sighz... i need to find apps to delete again...

tsk... when i start working, i'll probably have to invest more $ in an iphone with like 64gb memory :S cos all my rpg games take up so much space :X.... oh wells... i'll probably have to spend a lot of time in the near future answer my dad's endless qns abt the devices... mostly abt how he want things to work like they do on windows and stuff.... sighz... being the engineer that he is... he wants to be in absolute control... i don't mind not having as much control as him so yeah..... i'm find with my mac...

k... running out of stuff to say... guess that's all for now... tata!

In which family matters...

Loads of things has happened in the house recently... let me start with the most recent ones 1st...

yest was my mums bday... i totally forgot about it once more... was sick so i woke up, slept, woke up, slept... when i finally woke it... lo and behold it was 2:30pm already... while slowly munching my lunch... i heard my sis saying that mum got a miss call from my dad... and my mum was saying dad must be asking whether she wanted to go out for dinner... wat else could he ask? it took a while before it finally occurred to me that it was someone's bday... *smacks forehead* stupid me. My sis was so totally annoyed at me... so i decided to go to the library... and my mum somehow figured out that we were gonna get a cake and asked us to buy stuff like fresh milk and sorts...

Went to lot 1... i did managed to borrow two books, pay my fine, buy my correction tape refill, and of cos we bought the fresh milk + medicine + cake... wanted to get a hp cover for my mum but there wasn’t any shop selling them there.... did manage to find a really pretty, rubbery red cover in the market tho... my mum has cracked TWO covers already in the short time since she owned the galaxy S2. This time round the rubbery one shd last her longer. I hope....

Was quite funny when we got back and found that mum had already CLEARED a space in the fridge for the cake. And naturally she took checked out what cake we bought before we ate it... she being the absolute cake lover that she is... tsk tsk... turns out that she suppected we were gonna get cake when my sis went to the fridge, opened it, and closed it w/o taking anything shortly after i said i was going to the library... but my sis said she was looking for a cold drink, but we were out of fresh milk and soya bean milk.............. -.-''' lol... oh wells... either way... at least we did try and do something for my mum's bday... (got her chocolate and piggy erasers too... she loves collecting piggy figurines)

Sat was my cousin's wedding... was really a terrible the last week... went shopping with my sis... and my mum (got dragged out rather) to go shopping for clothes... i bought mine before the exams and i didn’t see anything i like (so impossible anyway) so it was pretty much... a waste of time for me... sighz. Was quite tiring though... my feet were dying from the walking and standing around.

Ah... back to the wedding... morning session was nothing much... we just gathered at my cousin's place and had lunch while waiting for the couple to come over. Turned out that there was a traffic jam causing them to be late (they had to come over from the other side of sg). Tea ceremony... than shortly after that we left... the bride and groom were heading over to the church. Dinner was nice.... the food was good and the portions given by the restaurant was really really generous.... its quite sad that i don't know my cousin well. mostly cos i don't know sign language i guess... so even during family gatherings we just smile at each other. there was once i was looking really bored while the rest of them were playing billiards (family gathering) and she came over and we communicated using our phones... it made me kind of embarrassed since i was the host and not supposed to be showing that kind of bad attitude... that was like the 1st and last time so far that we really talked more extensively to each other. like even if i want to communicate... i'm kind of shy when it comes to ppl whom i don't know well. not like here in this unknown web where i find it easier to type/talk... but meh... the groom is really handsome... wish the both of them will have a wonderful many years to come... and heh... i can't wait for them to have a baby XD

attending the wedding did make me realise that i was getting old... like old enough for ppl to start asking abt me getting married that sort of thing. well i wont be next... but if another cousin of mine gets married... i'll be the one they come to ask 'when's ur turn' instead of her as it was on sat...  meh. don't bother keeping ur hopes up... it wont be soon if at all.

there was a time when i was really interested to learn sign language and braille... and i did attend a short course in sch and i did memorize how to sign a-z... but yeah... forgot almost all the letters now... how pathetic of me >< still its interesting to me to learn those tho... its just learning another language... just like how i'm attempting to learn japanese... its interesting. purely for interests sake....... just as i feel learning should always have been. feed your interest... let it grow in you... be hungry for knowledge... and let it consume you...


Hmm... i guess this will be the last thing i'm gonna talk about here... and its gonna be really long... oh wait. i think i should put it in another post... with a new title... ;)

WHEE! School's out, FYP's in

Hohoho. i'm back. yes. loads of updates coming up next, hang on tight. Ok... i'mm try and be more organised and split things into a few posts.... if that helps anything...

SCHOOL

ok, only school stuff in this post.

I stopped myself from posting as exams drew nearer. But its all over now... exams was ok.... that's all i ever say abt them isnt it? Well, i'm quite worried about muscles and omics... esp omics. All that i studied seemed to have gone out of my head. It was a fairly easy paper, but i could remember enough for the essay/short answer qns. Plus the mcqs were multi answer.... no good :(. Mol evo... the mcqs were tricky... and the essays... i totally had no idea what to write for the essays. Its supposed to be like... short answers apparently. But i wrote PAGES and PAGES of text. I'm not even sure if its relevant or anything... i just tried to make up for the lack of quality with quantity... which is so not going to work... the main problem is that i don't even know what the heck his qns where asking for. Mol evo was a really fun subject to study, but studying for the exams was tough work. VERY VERY LONG LECTURES. The lecture webpages were SUPER content FILLED. I took so much longer to go through each lecture than i did with any other course... Its like you just scroll endlessly through the text filled webpages... My friend printed out the lectures. One single lecture took like 16+ pages worth of text... Other mods had at most like... 10+ pages worth of SLIDES. NOT pages crammed with text. Bigg diff! Still, the essay qns were fun to answer. Hard, and i'm not sure if i understood him right, but i always liked these kinds of thinking qns.

Its like the biz law mod that i took too. My 1st ever open book exam, and also the last ever exam I'd be taking in a while - until i continue on with my pHd that is. I totally didn’t study for it at all... like... i couldn’t be bothered anymore cos it’s the last paper... plus i S/U the subject... plus it was open book... I made an absolute mess of my table and the shelf below with my textbook and all the notes... like my qn paper was buried under stacks of notes... and my notes were strewn all over the place i actually wasted a few minutes looking for them... but overall it was fun. always preferred thinking qns more than anything else... and since this was an open book exam, memorising stuff was not required... you just had to think on the spot, something which i really enjoyed.


FYP... hmm... did i talk abt it at all earlier? i forgot. But i must say i was really lucky... cos in the end i found two professors who were more than willing to have me. It was really a last minute kind of thing... one i met him the day before selection ends, while the other i meet on the day selection ends... still i was glad i made it in time. Kind of sad that in the end i didn’t pick the lab/chemistry based one... but its not that i totally dislike computer work... i had a genetics module in sec 4 options and we did n-blast and stuff and it was fun. For the project i'll be working on, i'll mostly be working on p-blast. I think the professors' really fun and hope i can learn a lot from them... gonna be working with belinda for my fyp.. we'll be working on diff genes, but the steps are basically the same so we'll be able to ask each other qns and stuff... which should be good for me... having someone to compete with is really something i've been lacking a lot since jc (jc i kinda gave up competing with anyone...)... and in uni i don't even know where i stand with my results... i know i suck, but i don't know how badly i suck kind of thing... another thing is that, we'll be working on 2 proteins each... if things goes well, the prof's hope is to publish one paper per gene... o.o don't know if things would really work out that way... only after that did i hear my other friends say stuff like how many profs seems to keep making loads of claims abt publishing papers etc as if using those as carrots to attract students... but it certainly didn’t sound that way when my sup said it. watever. that's not impt... what is impt is that i'll have to work my darn hardest... since it’s a computer based work, i can do it anywhere, any time... i can work as fast (or as slow ><) as i want... also, there's the promise that  if we finish the blasting work, we can go on to do labwork... so yeah, that's definitely a motivation for me to work harder. Really must thank belinda for introducing me to this prof. She was meeting another prof, but apparently that project had a lot of students visiting already, so the prof asked her to check out another project by my sup. Turns out that there was some kind of mistake and the project was not listed, no wonder they didn’t get any responses... They were looking for another student, so belinda asked me if i wanted to go meet the prof... which i did. I was genuinely interested in the chemistry project at nus too... it really feels bad having to decline the prof... he was really kind and explained the project in detail to me and all....

gonna meet my sup tmr at 5pm... can't wait for my fyp to start. 9th jan it shall be...