“To let go isn’t to forget, not to think about, or ignore. It doesn’t leave feelings of anger, jealousy, or regret. Letting go isn’t about winning or losing. It’s not about pride and it’s not about how you appear, and it’s not obsessing or dwelling on the past. Letting go isn’t blocking memories or thinking sad thoughts, and doesn’t leave emptiness, hurt, or sadness. It’s not about giving in or giving up. Letting go isn’t about loss and it’s not about defeat. To let go is to cherish the memories, but to overcome and move on. It is having an open mind confidence in the future. Letting go is learning and experiencing and growing. To let go is to be thankful for the experiences that made you laugh, made you cry, and made you grow. It’s about all that you have, all that you had, and all that you will soon gain. Letting go is having the courage to accept change, and the strength to keep moving. Letting go is growing up. It is realizing that the heart can sometimes be the most potent remedy. To let go is to open a door, and to clear a path and set yourself free.”

#include <iostream>
int main ()
{
int count;
for (count=1; count<=2009; count++)
printf (“Happy New Year!”);
return 0;
}

Twice.

More to come.

This also marks my 100th post!

Adios.

So I got my new MacBook battery a couple of weeks ago but then the MagSafe charger went nuts. From how I see it, the charger just cannot cope with the system and application processes – it only charges the battery when it’s sleeping or when the MacBook is idle. Other than that, the charging indication light just shuts off completely. It sucks and I was too annoyed that I managed to put the charger out of its misery. So there it is, my MacBook sitting at the corner, collecting dust, dying on it’s drained battery. Just a few more days and I’ll get you a new MagSafe adaptor, ok?

Hi,

I’m bouncing back over here again after my blog hosting over at snoork.net has been terminated about a month ago. Well, they decided to stop the hosting service altogether so it kinda sucks not just for me, but everyone else too. Nevertheless, it’s been such a great fun working around WordPress themes and plugins – which aren’t available on free WordPress hosting. Now that I’m back at University, I just don’t have the time to exploit my hobbies. Besides, I’m already half-way through my course, there’s no time to slack either. But, there’s one really good news!

Despite my chronic phobia of height, I’ve always wanted to skydive. In fact, it’s always been one of the things on my to-do list since… ever. Like a once-in-a-life-time thing, you know? Yes, I’m going to cross out this one big chunk item off my things to do list real soon. How soon? Let’s say I’m going to take the skydiving course for the whole weekend, this coming week! Heck, I’m living my dream.

Oh my ears are ringing since last night. I went to watch Opeth gig. It was freaking awesome. It was actually the first gig I ever went to since I’m here. Talk about a beginner’s luck, I managed to grab a drum stick thrown by the drummer of Cynic, one of the two opening bands. Then right after the end of Opeth’s performance, the second guitarist of the band gave me his pick that he just used to play. It was awesome. Oh, we were at the very front row. The crowds were awesome and crazy at the back. At the end, I bought myself Opeth’s Europe Tour t-shirt. Oh yeah!

22/11 – Rock City, Nottingham.

Hey folks,

Good news. I’m almost officially moving out of WordPress. My love for WP has rekindled and it’s time to get it stand on its own feet.

Check out my new web log at http://neodexter.snoork.net/blog/ or visit http://neodexter.co.cc/.

Just to back my moon-sighting prediction up in the my previous post, here’s another moon sight map predicted for the 31st August ‘08. As you can see that Brunei is just barely off the sighting grid. But then again this is just calculation-based predictions. We will only know the outcome this Sunday.

http://www.moonsighting.com/1429rmd.html

So I fired up my time machine and set the time to the sunset of this Sunday to witness the sighting of the new moon and I came back negative. So my prediction is that we’ll start fasting on Tuesday next week instead.

Note that this is only based on some calculations.

I’m officially using Linux Ubuntu. Yeah, I already said it in the previous post that I couldn’t wait to try this open source operating system and it only took a day to get my hands on it. Hehe. Well, definitely thanks to my gf for allowing me to use her old small laptop since she already got a new shiny MacBook (although she complains about the weight being much much heavier than the previous laptop =p). So I completely removed Windows XP and installed Ubuntu (I know the name actually sounds quite lame, scrapping the “U” in front, “buntu” in Malay actually means sorta like rotten but especially used for fish gone bad. It can also be applied for stupidity terms. LOL.)

It took a little less than one hour to complete the install and upon booting up, everything ran smoothly and the graphical user interface is pretty sweet. The panel is quite a reminiscence to Windows XP except that there are two; on top displays Applications, Folder and System menus along with app shortcut (like quick links), user, taskbar and date/time. Whereas the bottom shows tabs for opened applications, quick hide windows button, Workspace Switcher (like Spaces in Mac) and recycle bin. These two panels are movable to any edge of the screen, hidable and new panels can be added too. Check out the desktop screenshot below.

Firefox, Open Office (for word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, etc.), Evolution Mail client and some more applications are pre-installed which is good. There are a couple of games too. So far I’m loving it. One thing I realised about Linux is that installing applications is not that straight-forward. Unlike in Windows XP where you have to use the executable file or Mac which involves dragging the app into the Application folder, here in Ubuntu it requires package sources. This actually reminds me of the Installer and Cydia in the iPhone. They kinda work the same way.

Well, it’s only been less than a day since I started using this. For the first time I didn’t use my MacBook at all yesterday. I think I better give it a rest for a coupla days. It’s been a very hard worker for the past three years so it deserves it. In the mean time, I will spend more time on this alien operating system and learn as much as I possibly can.

So far, Ubuntu rocks my socks off.

Alright then, I’m out.

For a couple of days now I’ve been goggling on some UMPCs (Ultra-Mobile PC) on the internet. Lately I figured that I need a secondary laptop for use with my lecture notes, university work and that means a small and very portable one. What caught my eye last few months was the ASUS Eee PC 701, fully equipped with:

• 7″ display
• 0.89kg
• 4GB SSD (Solid State Drive)
• About 3 hours battery life
• Pre-installed Linux Xandros OS (Win XP optional)
• Built-in camera, microphone, speakers, 802.11b/g, ethernet, USB ports, SD card reader

Just look at the specifications. And all this comes with a £169 price tag on Amazon UK. It seems so promising and from the reviews I’ve read, this device is extremely portable and really for the people who’s looking for a second laptop.

Other UMPCs on my list include the HP Mini-note and Dell Inspiron 910 (very soon to be released!).

Now, the HP Mini-note is very sleek and stylish in its own way with durable aluminium case on the outside. The inside features an 8.9″ glossy screen display with 92% full size keyboard. It can hold up to 160GB of HD storage equipped with DriveGuard (preventing HD damages due to motion) and 2GB of RAM. Linux or Windows Vista OS optional. The best part is that it weighs a mere 1.19kg! I think a few inch extra width screen and almost full-size keyboard are quite an advantage compared to the Eee PC but sadly the battery life sucks – about 1 to 2 hours with 3 cell battery. The price tag is almost twice as expensive as the Eee PC i.e. £300 but this UMPC is undeniably sexy.

Now lastly, the new Dell Inspirion 910. It’s been rumoured to be released on 22 August but it seems the day has passed and no news has been mentioned since! This piece comes with three colours; black, white and red and has specifications:

• 8.9″ screen display (1024 x 600 pixels)
• ~1kg
• 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU
• 1GB RAM
• 8GB SSD
• Linux Ubuntu 8.04 or Windows XP OS
• Card Reader, 802.11b/g, ethernet, 3 USB ports, built-in camera,

The best of all, the price tag starts from US$299. That is equivalent to around £165. It is expected to be released late of this month or early September.

Hopefully I’ll be getting one of these on late September or early October. At least I’m not in the rush to decide and this also means I can buy some time to compare the pros and cons and finally see which one will really be perfect for me. I can’t say that I can wait but for most part, I just want to try Linux once for awhile. Not that I’m unhappy with Leopard OS X. Truly, I’m very pleased with it.