Exam Period

It's going to be the last semester of my university life. There are 5 units which i've taken his semester and so far I've finish two of them through internal work.

What's left now s 3 units which have final examinations. Haven't been concentrating much since I'm now working casually as a web developer in the uni's web development team.

Well, I better get started. I have high hopes for myself to score an honors degree

Don't Like Photoshop? Get Another Free Alternative!

For those who just like to play and deal with photos, you wouldn't want to miss this.

PhotoFiltre is a complete image retouching program. It allows you to do simple or advanced adjustments to an image and apply a vast range of filters on it. It is simple and intuitive to use, and has an easy learning curve. The toolbar, giving you access to the standard filters with just a few clicks, gives PhotoFiltre a robust look.

On top of its basic functions of retouching and arranging photos (hey, they had a lot built in ready to be use), there are even plugins toimprove its functionality.

You can download a copy at http://www.photofiltre.com

Antoher photoshop clone I really like is GIMP. Originally written to be used on Linux, this baby has been ported to Windows and Macs. There are even so called addon programs that are built on top of GIMP. One of these that I would recommend ould be
I hope by telling this, people will get to know the power of free software. They are written by talented people who charge nothing for their effort. They are easy to use and suitable for th rest of us (professionals will still prefer photoshop of course).

Paper Batteries

For applications that need only small amounts of power, flexible paper batteries look promising by offering a viable alternative to current batteries. These batteries use a paper layer containing the electrolyte as the separator between the anode and the cathode. They are easy and cheap to manufacture because they are produced using printing machines and environmentally friendly because of easy disposal. And as they're thin and flexible, they can be tailored for a large variety of applications, including cosmetics, smart cards, sensors, greeting cards or semi-active RFIDs.

Live Mail (Hotmail) Spam Problem, Yahoo Mail and Gmail

I'm not sure if anyone faced the same problem as I do recently.

Since last week or so, after Microsoft actually redirects every Hotmail users to the live mail (www.live.com), there seems to be more spam mail getting through the spam filter into my inbox. And I don't like it.

Yahoo mail seems to be doing a better job in fighting spam currently, with spams REALLY getting filtered. I do use gmail on the other hand, but not so much compared to Live mail (previously hotmail) and Yahoo Mail.

I may have to reconsider my options no, maybe I should make Yahoo mail my primary mail and Gmail my secondary. I'll still keep hotmail just for the sake of using it in MSN messenger.

My Take To Life As A Restaurant Waiter

I got myself into a poor paying job recently, working in a restaurant. The job was tiring, and the boss was ever demanding. You have to serve customers, remember the names and price in the menus, mop the floor, wash dishes, clear tables, cash in and cash out money...

My first day was a total disaster. I had no experience working in a restaurant before this. I had to tell a white lie to the boss that I had worked in a similar position in a winery before, or else she would not had hired me (how I came up with such a lame excuse/story was another story). She was expecting something from me (since I said I had experience), but it turns out to be the opposite.

I had to learn to clean tables, which type of plates, spoon, fork, chopstick, bowls or cups to serve. Remembering the menu was also another problem, nut it turn out that several dishes had the same price, just that they have different charges for different size. Huh, that was easy, and yet it took me 2 days to get it!

It was quite a nice experience working there. I met different people, made good use and planned my time, gained a (or should i say, several) new skill, visited different places (or else I'll only be familiar with my studies area!), bought my girlfriend an ipod nano and myself a 512MBM DDR2 RAM, and got myself some pocket money. Yeah, I have to say that I enjoyed the experience.

Should I quit the job now? Well, not yet. It will still be my part time job while I'm still planning my own business at the moment. So, stay tune.
Cheers~!

Working As A Restaurant Waiter

I got myself into a poor paying job recently, working in a restaurant. The job was tiring, and the boss was ever demanding. You have to serve customers, remember the names and price in the menus, mop the floor, wash dishes, clear tables, cash in and cash out money...

My first day was a total disaster. I had no experience working in a restaurant before this. I had to tell a white lie to the boss that I had worked in a similar position in a winery before, or else she would not had hired me (how I came up with such a lame excuse/story was another story). She was expecting something from me (since I said I had experiece), but it turns out to be the opposite.

I had to learn to clean tables, which type of plates, spoon, fork, chopsticks, bowls or cups to serve. Remembering the menu was also another problem, nut it turn out that several dishes had the same price, just that they have different charges for different size. Huh, that was easy, and yet it took me 2 days to get it!

It was quite a nice experience working there. I met different people, made good use and planned my time, gained a (or should i say, several) new skill, visited different places (or else I'll only be familiar with my studies area!), bought my girlfriend an ipod nano and myself a 512MBM DDR2 RAM, and got myself some pocket money. Yeah, I have to say that I enjoyed the experience.

Cheers~!

Damn Computer Engineering!

It's about two days that I've been messing around karnaugh map. It has 4 bits for the present state and 1 inout signal making up a total of 5 variables. Now, karnaugh maps are known to be inefficient with more than 4 variables. However, using a free software found in sourceforge, I got the simplified input equation. I thought I had got the right logic. It's implemented in logicworks and it was suppose to work. Nope, it didn't. No luck at all.

Maybe I should take a short rest for a while.