Archive for April, 2008
April 30th, 2008 by cybrpunk
For some reason, most of our Asia Pacific offices are closed tomorrow, May 1st. Some offices are closed Friday as well. Well at least our mainland China offices are. This means that I’ll get to sleep in tomorrow! Yay! Although the dogs will notice that I’m not getting up and wake me up because that’s what they do. Or if they don’t do it, the cats will. They like a really inaccurate secondary alarm clock. Unless they’re feeling snuggly. Then they fail in the secondary alarm clock role.
I need to finish up tomorrow’s comic. I’m really behind right now which kind of sucks. OK that’s not true. I’m not really behind as I know I’ll complete tomorrow’s comic in time to be posted. However, I don’t have any others that I’m working on at the moment so my buffer is empty. Well, all except an unrelated comic I drew. I’m holding that one in reserve in case of emergency. But I should make some progress tomorrow and over the weekend.
Today I have edited a few existing comic scripts and wrote a few new ones. I keep all the scripts in a .txt file which is really odd, but it works. I also drew an explosion and a glass of liquid (seperate drawings) in Illustrator while on lunch. The explosion is over there. –>
Otherwise, the weather is still quite mild for Hong Kong. It’s crazy. Winter was so short last year that we were soaked in sweat by this time last year. Now, it’s nice. Not sure what the difference is, but I am certainly not complaining.
People really seemed to like the tech tips that I posted yesterday. If you’re interested, I could easily come up with a tech tip a week at least. Not sure if I can make each one interesting or humorous but I can certainly try. If you, the readers, would be interested in that becoming a regular feature just let me know in the comments.
April 29th, 2008 by cybrpunk
I’ve been running across a lot of little miscellaneous tech tips over the past week that I didn’t know about. I’m a relatively computer savvy kind of guy (it’s my job after all), but I was surprised by some of these that I didn’t know. So I thought I’d share a couple of them with you in case you’re interested.
COMMAND PROMPT (DOS WINDOW)
- If you are working in a DOS window and you need to run a command against a file in a really deep folder, I always thought you had to navigate to that folder or type in the path. Little did I know that in Windows XP (if not older) you could type the command you wanted [for example TYPE ] and then find the file in My Computer and drag the file to the DOS window. It will automatically fill in the path and file name for you. Huge help for me.
- Lost your desktop/interface in Windows XP and need to get to Control Panel but can’t remember those MMC names? Just hit CTRL+ALT+DEL and click on Task Manager. On the Applications tab, click new task and type in CMD for a Command Prompt. In the DOS window just type CONTROL and hit Enter and the Control Panel will popup. Nifty!
- Typing NETSTAT in a DOS window will show you all the open ports on your computer. I had no idea that was built in to Windows.
- I just learned MSCONFIG yesterday as it brings up a nice interface for controlling lots of things in Windows. Especially useful is the StartUp section where you can see what programs are starting up with your PC and easily stop them from running without messing with the registry. Good for checking for malicious programs on startup.
- I haven’t used it yet but there is also a file comparison tool called FC that I’d never heard of and used 3rd party software to perform before.
ILLUSTRATOR/PHOTOSHOP
- The more Fonts you have collected on your computer, the longer it will take to start up Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. If you notice either app getting slower and slower, try removing any old fonts that you don’t use anymore.
- When drawing shapes in either application, you can hold down the Spacebar while dragging the mouse and it will move the shape around the screen for you. Really nice for doing speech bubbles around text. If you’re fingers don’t get cramped easily, try combining this by holding ALT to start drawing from the center instead of one corner.
WINDOWS XP
- There are tons of shortcuts in Windows and pretty much anything can be done about five different ways. To bring up Task Manager to see what programs are hogging up all your resources, try pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ESC. Much faster than the alternatives.
- The Windows (WIN) key has tons of shortcuts associated with it. I’ve known about these for a long time, but thought they would go well here:
- WIN+L locks your desktop
- WIN+M (or WIN+D) minimizes ALL open windows at once
- WIN+E opens up Windows Explorer
- WIN+R opens the Run command window
- WIN+F opens the find files and folders tool
- If you have multiple languages installed on your computer to type with [such as Korean, Chinese and Japanese on mine], you can use CTRL+SPACE to toggle between input languages. Of course if you are working in Photoshop or Illustrator then this is kind of annoying when zooming with keyboard shortcuts. Trust me.
April 28th, 2008 by cybrpunk
Not that it was longer than the standard two days, but this did end up being a nice long weekend. I would tell you all about it, but my wife has already gone through all the trouble of writing it all out, so I will just ask that you go read the details at her site.
On Friday night I spent a little time finishing up the last chapter of American Gods by Neil Gaiman so I could start on a new book on Monday’s commute. I’d heard from a lot of people that American Gods was a good book and it definitely did not dissapoint. I’ve been a big fan of Neil Gaiman since the Sandman comics series first came what seems like forever ago. If you are a fan of his and have not read American Gods, I highly recommend it. I really can’t say much about it because I don’t want to ruin any of the details for anyone. I’ll be checking the used book store for Anansi Boys since it has a few of the same characters although I understand it’s not actually a sequel.
On Saturday, Muse had a nice long nap so I finished playing Bioshock on the XBox360. Considering all the hype and glowing reviews surrounding this game I have to admit that I had pretty high expectations for this game. Especially since the creators were some of the same people that created the classic System Shock and System Shock 2 games many years prior. For a lot of the game I felt kind of disappointed and even a bit bored with the repitition. However the mechanics are decent and the story is somewhat interesting so I kept playing and I’m glad I did.
I’m guessing that the reviewers that gave it the good ratings that they did had completed the game because it just doesn’t work until you’ve finished the game and seen the whole picture and the whole story (or at least as much is available in this game). Some parts of the game are tedious or annoying ( I lost count of how many Little Sisters died on my watch in The Proving Grounds) but the overall look and feel of the game is perfect. It’s not a flawless game though and I encoutered the typical errors that are found in most games in regards to graphics, AI and physics. It’s a good game and well worth playing all the way through but I don’t think it was deserving of all the hype that it received.
It has been mentioned that perhaps I need to take a break from playing video games because I seem to be getting jaded in my opinions of new titles. Which I think is untrue as well as impossible. Untrue because there have been a number of games that I have played recently that I have absolutely loved (or at least really liked). Impossible because video games are a huge part of my life and I can’t imagine life without them. That may change but not today.
April 25th, 2008 by cybrpunk
If you are a fan of cute animals with funny captions sites like LOLCats, you may want to take a look at this site I found today. The FAIL Blog collects pictures of failures on all different levels. And most of them are pretty damn funny.
Here’s an example (for those of you not trusting enough to just click the link for yourselves):
April 24th, 2008 by cybrpunk
I’m still trying to learn Adobe Illustrator and I was goofing around in it earlier. Here’s what happened:
Nothing too fancy, just playing around and I came up with this idea for a goofy little octopus. I suppose it could double as a jellyfish as well but I hate jellyfish so: NO. It’s an octopus. I’m rather happy with it.
For those of you that are interested, don’t forget to check out A Little Scary for the newest comic posted today.
April 23rd, 2008 by cybrpunk
Let’s say you are a hardware manufacturer and you send out samples of the product you are selling for the journalists to review. Obviously you would want to send out the best product you have and make damn sure it’s flawless, stable and sellable. That’s a given. But there are some companies out there that send products out for review that are ‘better’ than the items that they will be selling to the public. These better items skew the review process and the buying decisions of the consumers. Now it seems that legendary motherboard manufacturer ASUS can now join the ranks of those companies that have lost their integrity.
In case you don’t keep up with the cutting edge of the computer industry, UMPCs are the hot thing on the market. UMPC stands for Ultra-Mobile Personal Computer and is basically a PC that is smaller than a standard notebook but just about as functional. ASUS rocked the UMPC market with its release of the EEE PC which reviewers gave favorable to excellent reviews and modders tore apart and enhanced with vigor.
One of the things that appealed to those considering the EEE PC from ASUS was the excellent battery life. When you’re trying to develop a winning UMPC you have to deal with that heavy battery that keeps the unit running. So what did ASUS do? It sent their new device to reviewers with a hefty and long lasting 5800mah battery. [mah is milli-amp hours in case you don't know] So reviewers commented on how great the battery life was.
Then the EEE launched and users started finding that their UMPC wasn’t staying powered as long as the reviews said. People started to notice that they had gotten a 4800mah battery instead of what was advertised. Ooops. So now ASUS has officially admitted that it provided better batteries in reviewer models than would be available to consumers. Of course they claim it was just a mistake and that the reviewers weren’t supposed to get those higher capacity batteries.
At this point, ASUS is fooling no one with their “mistake” story. No one mistakenly sends out ALL their review hardware with batteries that aren’t readily available. Not only is it unlikely, it’s completely unrealistic. When you are ramping up stock of a new product you know exactly where every single part ever made for these new devices is at any given moment. This was a deceitful act towards the consumers and we technical people hold grudges.
Sure you can say “Well at least they admitted it!” Yes they did but what choice did they have? They were caught in the act and nothing can change that. They are supposedly going to offer a replacement program for affected units (which is every single unit ever sold) but offer no timeline or venue to do so. At this point, I’d say they’re probably busy scrambling and trying to figure how to keep up the damage control.
This is not a new practice and is certainly not new to this or any other industry. It’s just that we rarely hear about these kinds of things because they do their best to not get caught. But pissing off someone by swapping the metal parts of a reviewed blender with cheap plastic parts in production is not the same as when it comes to computers. We have lots of choices out there. And as much as I like ASUS’ overpriced products, it will be a while till I buy them again. Like I said… we hold grudges.
April 22nd, 2008 by cybrpunk
Happy Earth Day everyone!
To celebrate Earth Day today, I walked a lot to get to work and I will walk a lot to get home. Of course I do that every day. I’m still taking the bus to the flat though because it’s running anyway, so it doesn’t help if I don’t take it. That’s the spirit!
I had no idea that Earth Day has been around since 1970. Huh.
I suppose I’ll turn the lights off in my office and shut down my PC before I leave today. Every little bit helps, right? Oh I should turn off my speakers too. That little green light is always burning away day and night. I’ll do it right now actually. There I did it. I’m feeling all green already.
If you’ve been planning on buying anything from Deviant Art, then you should check out their Earth Day promotion news. They’re donating 10% of all print sales to The Nature Conservancy. Which is mighty nice of them to do so.
April 21st, 2008 by cybrpunk
Muse and I finally did something on the weekend! Yay for us! It’s a long story. Anyway…
On Saturday it rained and rained and the wind just kept on blowing like crazy. And then we had to clean up. You can read the details of that problem here. Muse already wrote it so why should I? So we went to Tung Chung in typhoon-like weather. We ate (soaking wet) at a local Italian chain restaraunt called The Spaghetti House which has a decidedly Hong Kong influenced menu for an Italian place. They have good baked spaghetti though and that’s all I ever get there. The place was dead because no one wanted to walk outside in the wind and rain.
On Sunday we travelled to Causeway Bay and wandered around a bit. We found a new shopping mall called Delay No Mall. It’s related to the same company that got me into trouble with my office mates before. It’s not a bad place, but the layout is kind of wonky and you could easily miss a few of the stores due to bad locations. All the stores kind of flow from one to the other like someone just started plunking down racks wherever they felt like it. Not the easiest place to navigate, but interesting and worth a look if you are in Hong Kong a lot. It’s not too far from the Sogo area.
Muse got a crepe from a Japanese chain that specializes in them called Marion Crepes. Which I found odd since crepes are French but whatever. After looking for that link it seems that crepes must be very popular in Japan. I had no idea. I had a couple of bites and it was really good. I wish I had one now.
We ate at an American restaraunt called Tony Roma’s at Times Square which always has pretty good food. It’s a bit pricey, but so are most places in the Causeway Bay area.
We looked around some clothes stores and I checked a game shop or two. It was good to get out.
April 18th, 2008 by cybrpunk
It’s been a pretty depressing day so far today. So I’m taking a cop out and delving into the ol’ joke database. Enjoy.
A fire starts inside a chemical plant and the alarm goes out to fire departments for miles around. After crews have been fighting the fire for over an hour, the chemical company president approached the fire chief and said, “All of our secret formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant. They must be saved! I will give $100,000 to the engine company that brings them out safely!”
The crews try, but no one can get through. Then another fire truck, filled with a volunteer fire company of men over 65, comes roaring down the road and drives straight into the middle of the inferno. The other men watch unbelieving as the old timers hop off of their rig and heroically extinguish the fire, saving the secret formulas. The company president walks over to reward the volunteers.
“What do you guys plan to do with the money?” the president asks the group. The firetruck driver looks him right in the eye and answers, “The first thing we’re going to do is fix the brakes on that damn truck.”
April 17th, 2008 by cybrpunk
After a week of flaky things happening, the K2 theme I’ve been using for a very long time now finally had to be removed. I’m not sure what’s going on with that but there are some very serious issues with that theme all of the sudden. Which is odd since nothing had changed on my site when the first problems with the comments first started happening.
About a week ago I was notified that my Comments weren’t working at all and the page was hanging. I checked it out and disabled my plugins and all the normal troubleshooting ideas. But the notion that this was even having a problem didn’t make sense because I hadn’t changed anything or installed anything new or even setup any new plugins. It just broke. I disabled the K2 theme and it magically started working again. So I went out and downloaded the newest version and things were good.
Then a couple of days ago, I got a message saying that my Sidebar was broke. Sure enough, the K2 Sidebar no longer worked and it defaulted to the basic Widget config. Which is really odd because it worked in the morning and then stopped in the afternoon. I hadn’t touched the site. So again I downloaded the newest nightly build and it worked again.
Today Muse sends me an e-mail and says that no one is commenting because they can’t. It’s broke again. Yeah, disabling K2 fixed it again, so it stayed disabled this time. So now, I’m using a new theme that I’m not terribly thrilled with but looks decent enough. Try and find the Categories listing or use the Archives. The Categories are hidden on the page and I didn’t even realize where they were for a long time. The Archives page just doesn’t work.
Well, this will just have to do until I can spend some time looking for a decent theme that support Wordpress 2.5 and has AJAX support and a working Live Archives. Sometimes I really hate computers….
