OK.. i admit.. I was bored.. seeing the bring blue sky high up.. i thought to myself.. i want to take some photographs.. but of what?!

then i saw my cute hamster looking at me intently.. AAAH.. yes, my model! How could i have forgotten you?!

So here it is guys..

After shooting all this.. i thought to myself.. these are getting boring.. why not shoot something i never shot before?!

So here it is guys.. my cute hamsters with me tickling it..

I can practically hear it scream ‘not this again? let me go!!’

Thats it for today..

Ok.. here it is.. some photos taken when I was in Sekinchan..

Didn’t manage to get all the green Padi Fields.. But saw some ppl casting their net into the river.. AND got some fish!

And these are what some local people caught from the beach!

Here’s some photo’s taken recently at Midvalley, after watching Avatar in 3D and some photoshoots at Midvalley.

And of course, here I am..

Ok.. basically after upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7, I have some problems with Frozen Throne.

I am unable to run the program, which is easily solved by right clicking on Frozen Throne.exe –> Properties –> Compatibility –> Windows Vista

Next, the game cant seem to go to full screen, and there is no option to change the resolution to wide screen from the video modes, but i managed to do it manually from the registry.

Step 1: Start –> run –> regedit

Step 2: go to the following registry entry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Blizzard Entertainment > Warcraft III > Video

Step 3: Enter the width & height of your choice into reswidth and resheight.

Here’s some sample values. For my 1920 x 1080, i chose 1365 x 768 (which is what i chose when i was using windows vista.

852x480 16:9 Widescreen
1280x720 16:9 Widescreen
1365x768 16:9 Widescreen
1440x900 16:10 Widescreen
1680x1050 16:10 Widescreen
1920x1200 16:10 Widescreen
320x240 4:3 Aspect ratio
2048x1535 4:3 Aspect ratio

In a previous TR Dojo Challenge question, I asked TechRepublic members TR Dojo Challenge: How do you enable the Quick Launch toolbar on Windows 7? And several members were quick to answer the call. Here are the steps.

Right click on an empty space on the Windows 7 taskbar and make sure “Lock the taskbar” is NOT checked. This will allow us to move the Quick Launch bar once we reactivate it.

Right click on an empty space on the Windows 7 taskbar and from the resulting Context Menu, click Toolbars and then New Toolbar.

When the New Toolbar - Choose a folder window appears, paste the following path into the location bar:

%appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

Once you’re certain that the path shows AppData | Roaming | Microsoft | Internet Explorer | Quick Launch, click Select Folder.

The Quick Launch toolbar will now appear on the Windows 7 taskbar, but it will be on the right side of the screen next to the System Tray. Let’s move it back to the left side where the toolbar should be.

Click on the left edge (dotted lines) of the new Quick Launch toolbar, and drag it over to the left as far as it will go.

To remove the text labels shown on the Quick Launch toolbar, right-click on the left edge of the toolbar (dotted lines) and from the resulting Context Menu, uncheck both “Show Text and “Show Title. At this point, the Quick Launch toolbar looks like it did in Windows XP and Vista, but it’s still on the wrong side of the taskbar

.

Click and drag the left edge of the regular Windows taskbar toolbar (dotted lines to the right of the Start button) to the left of the taskbar, over the new Quick Launch toolbar. This will move the main area of the taskbar to the right of your new Quick Launch bar and place the Quick Launch bar next to the Start button. Stop when both toolbars are the size you want.

You can now drag and drop your favorite applications or shortcuts onto the new Quick Launch toolbar and “unpin” the default applications from the regular taskbar.

Once you finished adding things to the Quick Launch toolbar, right-click a blank space on the taskbar and click “Lock the taskbar”.

I also like to enable “Use small icons” under the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties menu.

With the new Quick Launch toolbar in place, no applications “pinned” to the regular taskbar, small icons in use, and the taskbar locked, my Desktop is just the way I like it.

Here it is again.. PC Fair.. Having nothing to do, went there for a few shots..

Found some old photos of which I took for mom for her Sociology Paper on Sekinchan.

Sharing some interesting ones..

Before Sekinchan, dropped by Kuala Selangor to shoot some monkeys..

And yes.. the monkey above that is staring blankly, explains my mood for the past few days..

Next.. Sekinchan.. nothing much to shoot.. This is all i shot..

AND yes, the last 2 shots were taken at the same place, same time, same setting (except white balance). Was playing with White Balance..

• Date: November 23rd, 2009
• Author: Jason Hiner

Source: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=3372&tag=nl.e101

I’ve been running Linux on PCs since 1998, when Red Hat still cared about the desktop and Mandrake was supposed to be the distribution that was going to bring Linux to the masses. That was also about the time that the mainstream media got infatuated with the story of the free operating system from the Finnish hacker that was going to bring down Microsoft Windows.

Spoiler alert: I’m going to give away the ending now. It never happened. In the decade since it was first proclaimed as the “Windows killer,” Linux on the desktop has made virtually no progress in real adoption numbers. According to market share trackers (based on real PC activity and not just sales) such Net Applications, StatCounter,W3Counter, and others, the market share of Linux has been hovering around just 1-2% of total PC operating system installations for a decade.

Even in the past two years since the netbook phenomenon began with Linux as its primary OS, Linux market share has failed to make a major jump. The chart below, based on Internet visitors tracked by Net Applications, shows the trajectory of Linux desktop market share over the past 24 months.

Notice that Linux market share got a little bit of a bounce (mostly from netbook sales) in the first half of 2009 but has been dipping since then. Even so, the top line here is the 1% market share threshold, so the peaks and valleys are pretty insignificant when viewed from the perspective of the larger desktop OS market.

Despite this consistent evidence that Linux desktops were going nowhere, pundits, analysts and Linux enthusiasts have been repeatedly predicting that Linux was on the verge of a breakthrough on the desktop. At the end of nearly every year, some writer or publication has prognosticated that the following year would be “The year of the Linux desktop.” Here’s a quick selection of these Linux prophecies:

• 2009: Year Of The Linux Revolution (FastCompany)
• 2009: Can Ubuntu Linux become a Windows killer? (TechTarget)
• 2008: Linux’s year on the desktop (ZDNet)
• Is 2008 the Year of the Linux Desktop? (Linux Magazine)
• 2007: Forrester Calls Desktop Linux a Credible Threat to Windows (eWEEK)
• 2006: The year of desktop Linux? (GCN)
• 2005 will be the year of the Linux desktop (Express Computer)
• 2004: The Year Linux Grows Up or Blows Up (eWEEK)
• Linus Torvalds Says 2004 is the Year for Desktop Linux (Slashdot)

Desktop Linux: What happened?

Why hasn’t Linux succeeded on the desktop? There are several simple reasons:

1. It’s still too much of a pain - While Ubuntu has made Linux much, much easier, it’s still not quite as easy to hook up a new printer, connect a digital camera, or manage your work calendar, for example, as it is on Windows. Plus, on the other end of the spectrum, Mac is even easier than Windows for most tasks and it has the same Unix underpinnings as Linux. As a result, in the last few years a lot of the hard-core techies who are the primary candidates for Linux have instead jumped to Mac OS X as a Windows alternative.
2. The divide and fail strategy - The energy behind the Linux desktop movement has been divided up between a lot of different players, from Red Hat to SUSE to Ubtuntu to Debian at the software level to hardware players such as IBM and Dell at the PC level. A decade ago, the thought was that the force of Linux attacks from multiple angles would ultimately outflank Microsoft Windows. Instead, it has diffused the force behind Linux and dulled its attack from a marketing perspective.
3. Not enough innovation - The primary value proposition for Linux is that it’s just as good as Windows - or at least “good enough” - and costs a lot less. Occasionally, you’ll hear that Linux is more secure or more stable than Windows - which can be true, but that’s mostly based on its Unix foundation. But, what innovative features has Linux brought to the world of desktop operating systems? The only one I can think of is the desktop manager / virtual desktop (which Mac OS X eventually adopted as its “Spaces” feature). The technology industry (and the consumers and businesses that support it) are still driven primarily by innovation, and the Linux development community has spent too much time trying to copy Windows and not enough time innovating on its own OS.
4. Businesses want someone to blame - As my colleague Bill Detwiler says, IT professionals prefer to have someone to point the finger at when critical systems blow up and it leads to lost revenue or productivity. If you have Windows desktops (or even Mac), you’ve got a big target to point your finger at if you’re having a PC software problems, and someone predictable to call to help figure it out. On the other hand, if your IT department went with Linux desktops then you’d be going out on a limb. If something goes wrong - like users losing productivity from incompatible software - the finger could get pointed back at the IT leader who made the decision to take a non-standard Linux approach, since there’s no big software vendor to blame it on. In other words, Linux can expose IT leaders to more risk.

What about Google Chrome OS?

Now we’ve got Google Chrome OS being hailed as the latest savior of the Linux desktop. Google is taking a very different approach than Ubuntu or SUSE. The search giant is taking its Chrome Web browser and turning it into Web-only OS that will boot instantly, rely solely on Web apps, and drastically minimize local storage.

The Chrome OS will technically have Linux as its foundational software but it will not allow users to install Linux applications or even get to the Linux command line. It will be a non-standard, custom Linux kernel that serves only to boot the Google Chrome Web browser as quickly as possible.

Chrome OS is an intriguing concept and it will be one of the first big tests of the extent to which consumers and businesses are ready to accept the paradigm shift to cloud computing. However, it’s a concept that’s probably still several years ahead of its time and unlikely to make a major impact on the PC market in 2010. It’s also a little spurious to call Chrome OS part of the Linux desktop movement since the only thing it really does for Linux is to strip it down and get it out of the way.

Bottom line

It’s time to stop all of the misguided predictions about Linux becoming a force on the desktop. That ship has sailed. The masses don’t want it. Businesses don’t want it. Even Google can’t change that.

Linux is still building major momentum in servers and mobile devices. In the data center, Linux is replacing lots of Unix servers and is more than holding its own head-to-head against Windows servers. In mobile, Linux quietly serves as the underpinning for both Google Android and Palm webOS, the two platforms that pose the biggest challenge to the incumbents in the smartphone market. However, on the desktop, it’s time to just admit that the market has rejected Linux.

Source: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=3114

• Date: October 19th, 2009
• Author: Jason Hiner

Windows 7 officially launches on October 22, so it’s time for TechRepublic’s review of what Windows 7 does well and where it still misses the mark.

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To say there’s a lot riding on Windows 7 would be the understatement of 2009. The PC industry is counting on Windows 7 to unleash pent-up demand for new computers - among both consumers and businesses. Microsoft needs Windows 7 to restore the tarnished image of its OS after the Windows Vista debacle. And, IT departments need Windows 7 to be faster, more compatible with the latest hardware and software, and more manageable.

So does Windows 7 deliver? That’s a question that we’ll be talking about a lot over the next year, and external factors will influence the ultimate outcome, including economic trends, corporate budgets, and the ever-evolving needs of users.

But, focusing on the software itself, it’s time to make a few judgment calls about Windows 7. Let’s look at where it hits the mark, and where it misses.

Hits

• A slimmer OS
  The best part of Windows 7 is addition by subtraction. In other words, it’s not the stuff that Microsoft put into the new OS, it’s the stuff they took out. Microsoft developers clearly spent a lot of their energy streamlining the underlying code in Windows 7, because compared to Windows Vista, Windows 7 installs much faster and has a smaller footprint. That’s why Windows 7 can be installed on minimal hardware such as netbooks and nettops, something not possible with Vista. Microsoft has also taken out software such as Windows Mail and Windows Movie Maker in favor of making them free downloads. That’s a very good trend.
• Power sipping
  I’ve reports from the field of IT pros who have installed Windows 7 on laptops and tablets that were previously running Windows XP and they quickly noticed up to 30% better battery life. That was even before Microsoft’s Rob Bernard started publicly talking about the power savings built into Windows 7. This has the potential to be a killer feature for business adoption, because it can save companies a lot of money in aggregate and the battery issue can boost the productivity of road warriors.
• Less UAC pain
  One of the worst features in Windows Vista was User Account Control (UAC). UAC was designed with good intentions as a security enhancement, but in practice it was far too noisy and resulted in users simply clicking it blindly to make it go away. UAC is not nearly as noisy in Windows 7, thankfully.
• More tools for IT
  Windows 7 includes some new tools and enhancements that will be warmly welcomed by IT professionals, including Problem Steps Recorder, enhanced projector compatibility, Biometric device integration, and PowerShell v2. For more, see 10 cool tools in Windows 7 and Five features that will make you love Windows 7.

Misses

• Taskbar changes
  The default installation of Windows 7 includes a drastic change to the behavior of the Windows Taskbar and it’s not a change for the better. While there are ways to tweak the Taskbar’s behavior to make it pretty useful, most users will never change the defaults and they’ll be stuck having to make more clicks and spend more time scanning to find things that were fast and simple in Windows XP. For example, I often have multiple message windows open in Microsoft Outlook, and in XP I could quickly get to the one I needed with a single click because they were all shown on the taskbar. In Windows 7, I have to click the Outlook icon and then make a second click on the item - if I can identify it among the group of useless thumbnails of all the Outlook items I have open. Ultimately, the new default Taskbar feels like a poor knock-off of the Dock in Mac OS X and it feels like it’s skewing the Windows design toward light users who only use a handful of apps, at the expense of heavy users who typically have lots of apps and windows open.
• OS and data still on same partition
  One of the worst things that the default installation of Windows does is to load system files and user data on the same partition. This has always been the case and Windows 7 has perpetuated the problem. I’ve publicly petitioned both Microsoft and Apple to change this with their respective operating systems. At the very least, the default installation of the OS should create two partitions, one for the system files and one for user data. That way if there’s ever a system failure, you can blow away the OS and reinstall it and when you boot back up all of the user files and data will still be there on the data partition.
• Needs more imaging tools
  One of the IT tricks that became very popular during the Windows XP era was system imaging, where IT departments configure one machine, build a software “image” off that configuration, and then use that image to replicate the company’s standard configuration across all of the computers that use similar hardware. While Microsoft still pushes methods like unattended installs, system imaging has largely become the standard method of doing mass installations. Microsoft has done a few things to make imaging easier in Windows 7, but the company could have gone a lot further. The software giant could have built functionality into Windows 7, Windows Server, and System Center that allowed IT pros to create system images in a much more granular and flexible manner in order to better adapt to hardware changes and company policy changes.
• Missing cloud integration
  For all of Microsoft’s ambitious talk about Azure and “Software+Services,” there’s almost no online services integration in Windows 7. This is a huge missed opportunity. Microsoft could have done simple things like providing a Windows Live service for backups to automatically backup a person’s My Documents folder. This would have given Windows 7 a reputation for being well-connected and ahead of the curve. It’s possible that anti-trust concerns may have tempered any of these types of efforts, but whatever the case may be, it’s an opportunity that was squandered.

Final verdict

The best thing I can say about Windows 7 is that it does a better job of simply getting itself out of the way, which is critical in an era where the OS is becoming less important. The fact that the Windows 7 code is leaner and that the new OS can make PCs more power-efficient are factors that will play well with IT departments.

Of course, Windows 7 isn’t all good. Microsoft still hasn’t fixed the problem of system files and data on the same default partition. The new Taskbar changes will confuse a lot of users. And, Microsoft has missed a big opportunity by not showing off the potential of “Software+Services” in Windows 7.

Ultimately, because Windows 7 is more efficient, because so many consumers and businesses have delayed PC purchases, and because Windows 7 takes advantage of the latest hardware (such as the speedy Intel Core i7), over the next 24 months I expect it to methodically displace Windows XP as the world’s most widely-used OS.

Source: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=3348&tag=nl.e101

• Date: November 16th, 2009
• Author: Jason Hiner

Netbooks were hot in 2008 and the first half of 2009, but the trend was actually more of a fad. Learn why it’s over, and why that’s a good thing.

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Netbooks — those underpowered mini laptops with 7-inch screens and unusable little keyboards — are a dying fad. However, the legacy of the netbook will be that inexpensive notebook computers are here to stay, and they are lighter and thinner than ever.

Analysts and pundits will continue to use the term “netbook” but I’m going to argue that the device that we originally called the netbook is being phased out — and thankfully so.

It’s important to remember that the netbook had its origins in the OLPC and the original ASUS Eee PC. Those little computers were designed for school children in the developing world (hence the little keyboards, which weren’t so bad for tiny fingers). These machines cut corners on hardware in order to create super-cheap PCs in the $100-$300 range that could be widely deployed overseas in places that had extremely limited budgets.

But, then a funny thing happened. People in North America and Europe and Japan started ordering these netbooks. The OLPC, and especially the Eee PC, became surprisingly popular among North Americna consumers. Once that happened, the race was on for every PC maker to get a piece of the action by making their own netbook, and all of them did, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acer, and Lenovo.

Some tech enthusiasts bought these netbooks out of curiosity, since they were so cheap there was nothing to lose. Some people bought them as second or third PCs that were good enough for quick Web browsing from a little PC that they could leave at the bedside or in the den. Those kinds of purchases were understandable and fairly harmless.

The problem came when regular consumers looked at netbooks and confused them with real laptops. To these consumers, the term “netbook” meant two things: cheap and portable. What many of them quickly found out was that these PCs had LCDs so small that they didn’t work well with many applications and Web sites, had non-standard keyboards that were not meant for extended use with adult-sized fingers, and had CPU power that was ill-equipped to handle heavy multi-tasking or anything other than standard Web or productivity applications.

As a result, market analyst Biz360 released a report earlier this year that showed consumers had a significantly lower opinion of netbooks than standard notebooks. According to Biz360’s “Net advocacy” rating (based on more than 20,000 online consumer opinions), netbooks scored 40 percentage points lower than regular notebook PCs. A separate study by the NPD Group reported that consumers had a lot of confusion about buying netbooks.

Now, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t some netbook fans out there. There certainly are. Many of them will argue that most computer users don’t need most of the power in today’s PCs and that netbooks are “good enough.” That’s a reasonable argument for people who know what they’re getting themselves into, such as those buying a second or third PC for limited use.

However, for those buying netbooks to be their new primary PC or for road warriors buying one of these machines for portability and productivity during business travel, they will often be very disappointed. Why? Because, in many cases, these machines will be slower and less functional than their old PCs or laptops, especially if those machines are two years old or less. When someone buys a new PC, the person expects it to be faster than their old PC, or at least as fast but a lot more portable. Taking a step backward in performance and functionality is always going to be a disappointment for a PC buyer.

The netbook performance compromise is slowly evaporating though, as netbooks become less and less distinct from regular laptops. Once PC makers caught on to the idea that buyers didn’t like the small screens and condensed keyboards, they started making netbooks larger. The keyboards have gotten more roomy and the LCDs have grown from the standard being about 7-inches to more like 10-inches.

Plus, Intel has also thrown a new curveball into the game with its CULV chips that are enabling PC makers to build ultraportable laptops that have full size keyboards and screens, like standard notebooks, while being super thin and as light as a netbook. Meanwhile, these systems are only a little more expensive than the average netbook, and they offer much better battery life (up to 6-8 hours, in some cases).

Mark Spoonauer, the editor in chief of LAPTOP Magazine, recently wrote about the fact these CULV notebooks are taking away all of the incentives to buy netbooks in his article Are Netbooks Officially Obsolete?

Even Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Dell CEO Michael Dell have spoken out about the poor user experience of netbooks. Ballmer is especially bullish on CULV systems. Of course, it’s important to realize that both Dell and Microsoft make more money from notebooks than netbooks, but we should also keep in mind that they don’t like unhappy customers either and the netbook customer satisfaction numbers are a little disturbing.

While netbook sales are expected to reach 25-30 million units in 2009, much of what is being counted as a netbook is looking much more like a standard notebook. Thus, I’d propose that it’s time to kill the term “netbook” altogether. It only serves to confuse buyers and it was a phenomenon that has clearly run its course.

Hey guys.. not being to resist, i took a few more shots of my hamsters..

OK.. i know windows 7 is out and all.. bt not willing fork out another RM480 for an upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium, I’m just going to stick to my Vista Home Premium 32bit.

There are a couple of things that I find irritating with Windows Media Cetre in Vista.. Lack of support for RMVB and MP4!!

Ok.. first things first.. How i solved support of RMVB files with Windows Media Centre.. This is easily accomplished by installing a simple codec Real Alternative, which can be obtained from here: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm

Next, how to view MP4 files from Windows Media Centre? umm.. first you have to make sure your computer can play mp4 files by trying it out with windows media player. If you are unable to open mp4 files even from Windows media player, you will need to install codecs such as Vista Codecs which can be obtained here: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/vista_codec_package.htm

After doing that, and making sure you can view MP4 files on windows media player, all you have to do next, is go to your regedit.

How to go to Regedit? easy. Press ‘R’ while holding the start button. This will bring up the ‘run’ diagram. Enter ‘regedit’ in the field and hit ‘ok’

Next, expand [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT] and scroll down to [.mp4]

Next, right click on [.mp4] entry and select ‘New String Value’

Next, enter ‘PerceivedType’ as the name.

Then, right click on it, select ‘Modify’

In the value data, just enter ‘video’.

DONE.. its that simple.. HONESTLY.. I can now watch RMVB and MP4 medias on my Windows Media Cetre NOW!

Try it and you’ll love it.

Seeing it is a fine day.. thinking of taking some photographs, a bit lazy to get those professional models.. then I saw my hamsters staring at me.. and so i thought.. HMM.. WHY NOT?!

First few shots were taken using my 50mm F 1.8 lens, which didnt turn out the way i want to.. then i changed to my 55-250mm lens.. MUCH BETTER.. could get close up shots..

Introducing.. THE FATHER..

Introducing.. THE MOTHER!

Introducing.. Batch 1

Introducing.. Batch 1 wanting to see Batch 2

Introducing Batch 2

Introducing.. MAKAN TIME..

Father and 1st Batch..

Mother and 1st Batch..

Mother climbing out of cage, with Batch 1 infront..

Yes.. My hamsters did it again.. another batch of newborn hamsters spotted 27th Oct 2009.

I counted, total of 6 hamsters. And at the time I shot these photos, they are only 5 left (1 died). They are now almost 1 week old.

Here is a photo of the female transporting the baby to a new nest (the other end of the cage) while another infant is trying her best to get some milk.

The infant that was struggling to get milk from the picture above failed and fell down..

Soon the mother came to bring the baby back to the new cage (it is licking the baby clean)

This is how she moves her baby around.. LOOK!! NO HANDS!

But no matter how many times the mother brings the baby to the new nest, they keep crawling back to the old nest..

One of the babies crawled out of the nest and trying to get back..

Struggling to stand up..