Some interesting sites...

Time and Date

2012-01-11T22:16:00.000+08:00

So long. I have not been updating this blog. Wanted to share this website since months ago. Finally, I found the mood to do this now. :P

Found this web site from my current company's internal site. I was fascinated by the capability of this site. Of course, it's due to nothing but the list of public holidays. :P

You can select the previous year, or current year, or even future year for any country (I didn't go through the list of countries), and get the calendar with public holidays information! I am not sure if it is really accurate, as I just checked out the CNY for 2014, it happened that the first day of CNY falls on 31th Jan, but the second day is 3rd Feb. :P Probably it's the replacement holiday! (Wow! It comes with AI feature?!) Other than that, you can select options, the design of the generated calendar. And it's free!

It has not only calendars, but also the time information around the world, time zones, and also weather around the world. You can get free clock and free count down plugin for your website here too. I can't believe that, they also providing api for developers! They have a few free api services. I haven't spend any time for that yet. In fact, I just got to know about it. :P

If you are interested in this, go check it out!

http://www.timeanddate.com

妮可的999封情书 - Nicole's 999 love letters

2011-11-23T22:19:00.002+08:00

Weibo (微博）is something like Twitter, Chinese version. This is the second Weibo introduced here.

The author of this Weibo put this as the introduction : 但愿每一句深情的表白，可以拨动你寂寞的心弦！

真的不大願意用英文來介紹這微博，不會翻譯那一句簡介。Google translate說是：I hope every one soulful confession, you can toggle your lonely hearts!要怎麼翻譯嘛～

Anyway, I found this Weibo very interesting. I think writing love letter is something very sweet. The writer must be in a very happy mood while writing it, whether or not the recipient like it. :P 開心就好嘛～

I never thought such romantic thing would really happen... Until someone in my office have a bottle of chicken essence on her table with a little note yesterday morning, "當你覺得累的時候喝。。。。“ From anonymous. This is so sweet! No one claimed to be the happy person. Just in case if "you" reading this, it's not me who put the chicken essence. I would like to know who too! :D

OK, back to this love letters page. It is not exactly love letters, but beautiful wording related to l.o.v.e. It can be sweet, sad, happy, some thoughts to ponder, hopes, disappointment, waiting, goodbyes...

http://www.weibo.com/nkdqs

yowa yowa camera woman diary

2011-08-14T23:20:00.001+08:00

I have another photoblog to introduce here. I read about this special photographer that she takes her own levitation photographs. From levitation photos, you’ll see people (or object) are in the air, floating in the air.

In her website, she mentioned, she is using Canon EOS 5D Mk2 camera. (I only know this as Canon DSLR camera.) This allows her can get to places as far as 10 seconds distance away from the camera. If she would need to be further away from the camera, she’ll ask someone to help to take the photos.
To take these levitation photos, the shutter speed must be high, or else the object (person) will be blurred. I love this! :D

Check out her website at http://yowayowacamera.com/

lomofu (lomo風) from PCHome Online

2011-06-12T15:43:00.000+08:00

I got an email introducing this feature of pchome.com.tw few months ago. I saved the link somewhere so I can share it later. However, I can’t find it, and I have to dig the email from 1K ++ emails in my Yahoo mailbox to look for it again! So, this website kept in my mind for quite sometimes.

And yes, finally I have time to do some clean up on my Yahoo mailbox and found the email. (Luckily I didn’t delete the email. :D)

I didn’t try to upload my photos to check it out, but I did try the default photo in this web application to check out the lomo effects.

Frankly, I still can’t tell what exactly lomography is, but I do have my own preferred definition. :P I read some articles online, some said digital lomo cameras are not the “real” lomography, they are “done” by software, not by the physical feature of the camera or lens. Some use software (the real software in your PC) to edit the pictures taken, to make it lomo-feel-like. Some didn’t explicitly spell out, but I think (at least this is my interpretation, my preferred definition) lomography means, just snap it, follow your instinct or feel or heart. That’s the lomography spirits. Those owned a lomo-camera might not agree with me, they might say only with a lomo-camera… Alas, whatever lar. :P

Let’s get back to topic. This web application provides 3 settings to be configured, the colour, the darken effects (at the corners), and a special effect, which I would say it’s like a orangey noise effect.

Check it out! 

http://photo.pchome.com.tw/PStylist.html

From me to you

2011-05-28T21:26:00.000+08:00

Ever since YH introduce the creative photos from this blogger, I have been following closely to her blog. Jamie is a photographer from NYC. She updates her blog almost every day with stunning photos!

Something very special about her photo is, it’s “moving”. Yes! She has some “dynamic” photos. I know about gif file, and I have seen people using gif file to showcase some part from movie, but I never thought of using this feature in photography!

In my very tight and do or die schedule, her blog is something that I am looking forward, every morning, after I turn on my laptop before I start my work. Is she going to have those gif files again? Is this a gif file? These questions pop up in my head every time when I open my rss reader.

Check it out. She also occasionally has some giveaways too!

http://fromme-toyou.tumblr.com/

Example of her work :

Cheers (magazine)

2011-05-01T21:18:00.000+08:00

I saw this magazine in one of the Popular sales, months or couple of years ago, I can’t recall. It’s quite eye-catchy because of the name “Cheers”. My idol’s name is Cheer. :P

It’s mainly about work life, tips, success stories, and they even have power point slides available to download (for members only). Membership is free, in addition, they have VIP membership as well.

They also offer courses and seminars as well. Couple of weeks ago, they have 方文山, a famous lyrics writer and also a poet in house. How I wish I can attend it…
Anyway, the articles posted here give a lot of advices. For example, how to manage your boss (shh…. Yes, I did read this.), 5 typical losers, how to say NO, and etc.

I personally really like the magazine (hard copy) and also this website. :)

http://www.cheers.com.tw/

Groceries 365 day (雜貨365day)

2011-05-01T20:30:00.000+08:00

I remember read her book before, at least wanted to buy her book, or at least saw her book on the bookshelf. Thus, this website appeared quite familiar to me. Probably I have been checking out this kind of books for quite some times. It’s something about anything. Pardon me, I am not really sure what I am mumbling here. :)

I like the concept of this project (yes, I don’t call it website). It’s a daily record of things that she sees, or experiences, or to spell out her ideas. I believe she did the template for this project, and post new page every day. Hint? The html files. The files are in html, and if you click on the day 83, you’ll see the links for day 1 – day 83, but if you click on day 75, it’s showing the link for day 1 to day 75. It can be with photos, or drawings, or text only. A simple and relax to read them. I like this very much.

It’s a 365 day project, every day in a week with a theme. I followed her fan page on facebook since weeks ago. I have something to look for everyday, that she would post her daily update on her fan page.

Go and check it out yourself.

http://www.emilly.idv.tw/

歌&漫

2011-03-26T17:56:00.000+08:00

Found a special blog as I facebooking recently. The blog owner promoted his blog in one of the fan page that I followed. I like his idea of doing this. (I think it’s he, not she, just my guts feel.)

He draws pictures, or I would rather say the story board for the songs that he chose. He does attach the actual MTV from YouTube and then his art work with the lyrics. These pictures are very nicely put matching the lyrics.

Check it out! 歌&漫, by Zinc.

http://zinc-sketching.blogspot.com/

I tried to mimic his work using MS Paint. Hehehe… Probably this is a good hobby to do during free time, or busy but bored time. :) My sketch...

Coldplay : LeftRightLeftRightLeft (free album)

2011-03-21T20:31:00.000+08:00

I am not sure since when I started listening to Coldplay. This name is cool, that’s my first impression. And their songs? Even better!

I heard of Coldplay, but didn’t actually “make effort” to listen to their song. Until one day, Tanya Chua, a Singaporean singer is having “Yellow” in her album… Or maybe it’s because of “Viva La Vida”? I also get to know his other songs from YouTube. “The Scientist” and “Clocks” are some other songs that I love.

I got their update in my Facebook wall, so I clicked to their page to check out if I missed out anything. There I saw one of the entry saying this, “If you don’t have it yet, you can still download Coldplay’s terrific free live album, LeftRightLeftRightLeft…”!

I got my first free album from them. What about you? :)

Like them on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/coldplay
To download the free album : http://www.coldplay.com/lrlrl/lr.html

Shape Collage

2011-02-13T11:29:00.000+08:00

I was looking for movie making software. Somehow, I was unable to install Movie Maker 2011 in my laptop. I gave up, and search for other alternative.

In one of the search result, and somehow, this website attracted me, Shape Collage. I saw my friends posted photos similar to this using Picasa, however, I really do feel Picasa is not so user friendly, thus I gave up using that apps.

I do found this Shape Collage very easy to use, it automatically generate the pictures based on your selections and settings. You can even specify how the picture collages looked like! If you would like to edit the picture, you can save it in PSD format, and edit using Photoshop or GIMP. (If you would like to use freeware all the way, GIMP is your choice!)

One thing that confused me while I am using Shape Collage is, the review button is to view the shape of the picture collages, not to view the end result. You’ll have to save the file first before you can check it out.

And one great thing is, it support Chinese character as the picture collages shape! I tried 南 character and selected all the photos of my 10th post of my Aus/NZ trip articles, here’s the end result.

Check it out! :)

http://www.shapecollage.com/

StreetDB

2011-01-18T23:15:00.000+08:00

I was looking for direction to go to Max Pavilion last year. Then I found this website, and find it quite useful.

I tried to search for some places in Penang. Penang Island is so small, yet the website divided Penang Island into 2 sections, timur laut (Northeast) and barat daya (Southwest). What about Northwest and Southeast?
I search for Young Hearts from Penang timur laut. No luck. Guess it’s not a significant spot in Penang. Later I tried Straits Quay, no luck as well. However, I do find Island Plaza there.

Finally, I can think of another big spot, that is Queensbay Mall! It’s with the barat daya region. Why?

Anyway, overall, if you are looking for big-named places (for Malaysia map), you can use this web site. I would prefer the selection to have by state, instead of all, or select a region in a state.

http://my.streetdb.com/

(Would it be using Google map better? I am having 2nd thought, though I got this website from Google.  )

teaser-trailer.com

2011-01-13T21:05:00.000+08:00

I am tired of all kind of write ups, I just want to blog.

I was looking for 2010 movie list from GSC web site, somehow, I was unable to find any movie database there. So I googled for it and found this website.

http://teaser-trailer.com/

It has not only the list of the movie in 2010, but also some details on the movie, for example movie trailers and soundtrack details. It also has the best movie list. I intend to go through the list to check out the movies that I wanted to watch. :D

Scholarships-Links : International Scholarships & Fellowships

2011-01-03T17:35:00.000+08:00

I wanted to blog about this site for quite sometimes. It was introduced by my dear friend. She plans to go to Europe or US to further her study. My plan? I don’t have a firm plan. I used to dream of studying in Japan. Alright, I was just dreaming of staying in Japan for a year or two, have a taste of being study abroad, or stay abroad for some times.

I am thinking of taking this more "seriously", so I start to look for scholarship. Probably just by doing some observations, not taking any action. I am not that daring to make changes in life, despite I have been changing job for 4 times within 10 years.

Starting from the Seed Hunter, then this scholarship listing page, I recall the very first idol I have when I was very young, Madame Curie (居裡夫人). Thanks to 人文與環境 subject. I am not sure because she is a widow continue the research that she and her husband were working on, or was awarded Nobel Prize (I just recently realized that she got 2 of the Nobel Prizes, both from different fields!), or because of her contributions in Science, that’s the things I can recall as I grow up. So, I am checking now on rather not so realistic subjects for me, that the scholarships that are offering. :P

If you have a dream to study, and somehow limited by $$ constraints, go check this out.

http://www.scholarships-links.com/

楊，雅晴。

2010-12-12T01:13:00.003+08:00

I’d like to introduce a blog today. The blogger, 雅晴, is from Taiwan, and just released books on 100 kisses in Paris. I didn’t have a chance to read those books, but I admire her for dare to dream, and dare to work it out.

Before the books were released, there are people who admire her, and of course there are people who criticize her. It became a place of argument in her blog whenever she has a new post. She closed down the comments for a short period.

Recently, this blog mostly write about her activities, and also her dog, and some of her thought. She seldom talked about her boyfriend now. Today her blog is about some happenings that she’ll give a public talk. If you just happened to visit to Taiwan during that period, you may want to consider meeting her there. :)

http://www.wretch.cc/blog/angelduck777

Oh yeah… I forgot to mention, she is a pianist! :)

Kickit

2010-12-07T23:15:00.002+08:00

I was doing cleaning, and make my study room to be ready. It is about 90% completed, and I can blog in my study room already!

I found some papers, which I got from my previous company. It was about the line dance steps that we practice for the Wild Wild West annual dinner in... I guess in 2006 or 2007. I can’t remember. So, today I would like to introduce the website where the seniors got the line dance “scripts” from, Kickit.

Just found out today, it also has the Youth Soccer section, but I am not interested in. :P

I found the bounce clip in my external hdd. Frankly, I almost totally forgot how to dance it! It was fun to have a group of people in the company doing things that we enjoy. This is what I really called, GPTW.

This is one of the dances we did.

Ah... I start to miss this “exercise”, but my sifus are not here....

http://www.kickit.to

Seed Hunter

2010-11-24T23:08:00.004+08:00

Into my boredom, I turn on TV1 when I got home after my dinner. Yeap, as usual, it’s just TV1 and TV2 program are “watchable”. Thank god TV1 broadcast this National Geographic 1 hour documentary show with the least and shortest commercial breaks at that time.

I am amazed by this Science exploration, with limited budget and under bad circumstances, Dr. Ken was persist in his hunting for wild chick pea, and of course to collect any varieties of wheat and barley along their expedition for the seed library/collection. The storyline was about this expedition and also the problems faced by the farmers in Australia and how the Scientists have helped to improve the plant genetic to overcome the problems.

In the show, Dr. Ken calls these seeds as green gold. They are the basic and most valuable “gold” to human. I just found the website to this documentary and would like to share it here.

http://www.seedhunter.com/

At the end of the show, I wish I am a genetic engineer, or a farmer. Or I wish I can think of idea to avoid the electronic industry not to design for the dump, but design to last. (OK, I guess I watched too much on the environmental related show recently.)

Billboard.com

2010-10-31T16:47:00.003+08:00

I was in the mood of “Drops of Jupiter” again. The actual meaning of the song, compare to what I used to comprehend quite different. You can go YouTube and check it out. This is not the web page that I would like to introduce in this post. :P

From the YouTube clip of this song, I travelled to Billboard website. I was amazed that this song was in some of the charts for more than a year! I continue browsed the pages, and go to the chart page on that particular week, and I found another song that I loved so much, was on the chart for about 1 ½ year, and more than 2 years in some other chart! “If you’re gone”, by Matchbox Tweenty.

OK, I was browsing this at work, so I can’t dig much further. For music lovers out there, I guess this is a great place for you to visit, to get to know latest songs, and also old songs. It’s coming with the video clip as well. You can listen to the song while checking out the album. You can also leave comments, and view review/comments on the same page. I think it’s great that it has the song writer information as well!

I think it would be better if the lyrics and other song information, probably scores, are made available on the same page. ;)

http://www.billboard.com/

Country Codes for International Calling & Area Codes

2010-10-31T16:36:00.003+08:00

Friends said that I have travelled to a lot of places. Frankly, my journey started only last year, to AU/NZ. My friend, ET, was in NZ in holiday making visa. She gave me her phone number, and I would call her, occasionally, to keep in touch with her, or when I am in the right mood.

I only know the country code for Malaysia is 60, not sure about other country. So, I tried google to check it out. This is the page where Google landed me to, http://www.countrycodes.com.

You can select what is the country calling from, then select the country you would like to calling to. It will show you the number to call before the country code, followed by the country code. You can also select the city, which will give you the area code of the city. Normally you’ll dial a plus sign (+), followed by the country code, then area code, lastly the phone number, if you are using cell phone. I am not sure if line phone does give you the plus sign (+) key on the key pad.

I guess this page won’t be used very frequent, it’s rather expensive to make international call. Anyway, if you need to travel, probably this would be quite handy. :)

XMind - Mind mapping and storming

2010-10-15T23:30:00.002+08:00

If I recall correctly, I attended the forum last week. My peer chaired the forum, and he used this tool to collect the inputs from the forum. It’s called XMind.

He said it is very handy to be used when doing brainstorming session. It is related to mind mapping and etc, etc, etc. I did go and check it out, and tried to use it. It is not bad, it helps to organize your thoughts into a more systematic and graphical way. I used it in today’s class.

I haven’t really gone through it thoroughly. This type of applications does help a lot, but not necessary work for me, as I am a super not-organized person. I saw my colleague put his data and research information in MS Office OneNote in a very organized way. I tried, it just won’t work. :P

Hope you find this application useful, and do help you in organizing your thoughts. :)

http://www.xmind.net/

JpopAsia

2010-10-10T11:21:00.005+08:00

Found this website when I was looking for Mr. Children’s lyrics with translation. I read from magazine, there’s a Japanese model love Mr. Children for their poem. She said they inspired her a lot. My Idol also likes them. And I know Mr. Children since I was in uni time, he sang this song : Not found. This is the only song from them I know that I am aware of. :D

This site provides not only the lyrics and translation, but also the romaji lyrics and YouTube video clip! So, I can sing along with them! Ha!

I also browse the C-Pop category just now. It also has similar features, and auto scrolling for the lyrics! The romaji lyrics happened to be in 漢語拼音 (han yu pin yin) with the 陰陽上去 (the “tone”)! That impressed me a lot. Normally you’ll see the “pin yin” only. I think this would help people who want to learn Mandarin on his own. :)

http://www.jpopasia.com/

TranslatorCafe.com

2010-10-09T15:50:00.002+08:00

Another long time I have not updating this blog. I was on vacation, and then idle for sometimes, and busy for other time and finally found some time today to write about this page I found few weeks ago.

I was checking on a photo competition submission rules and regulations. It requires participant to submit 10.5cm X 15cm size of photo. I have been using Microsoft Office Picture Manager to do resize, and it’s in pixels measurement, how do I resize my photos to fulfill the requirement?

As usual, I use Google to find solutions. It brings me to this site, TranslatorCafe.com. I can directly key in the values, and it will do the conversion right away! It is very impressive to me. Besides length, there are a lot more converters available, such as energy, mass, velocity and etc.
Go and check it out!

As for my problem, hmm... I doubt it can be direct convert like that. Think there’s dpi dependency in the calculations. :(

http://www.translatorscafe.com/

bazi （八字）

2010-09-26T14:59:00.002+08:00

Couple of months ago, my friend, q.a.d asked me if I can get her a website to check out the weight of one’s birth date. Hence, I googled, and found this.

To calculate the weight of your birthday, you need to know, of course your birth date, and also your born time. I remember long long time ago, I tried using 通勝to calculate mine. 通勝 is a book that has a lot of information there. You can check out when is the right time to move, get married and etc. You can also read stories, learn English, and... and etc. :P

It is published yearly... haha... I feel like laughing as I describe this book. I love this book very much somehow, probably because of the nice Chinese characters.

Well, go and check out your birth date weight and see how it goes. The heavier your birth date is, the better your life is. ;)

http://8word.net/bazi.asp

LifeHacker, tips and downloads for getting things done

2010-08-22T17:58:00.001+08:00

I can’t recall how I found this website, anyway, it was safely kept in my favourite’s folder. I talked about IkeaHacker before, and this is LifeHacker. :)

As I browse through this website again, found this article, “What should I do about my virtual life after death?” Anyone else has the same concern? Or most of us have the same concern?
I myself never thought of that. However, I started to think about this few days ago, when I saw the friend recommendation on Facebook telling me that I might know this person, my friend, who died early this year. It’s a bit freaking me out because of all recommendations that Facebook made so far, he rarely appear on the list. But this recommendation was “stuck” to my Facebook page few days ago, even though I kept refreshing that page. (In case you don’t know or you are not aware of, this month is the 7th month in Chinese Lunar calendar, some call it Hungry Ghost month.)

I am not sure what do I wish to do with my online accounts. I guess it doesn’t really matter to me, how they are handled after my death. I have only one concern, which it doesn’t matter whether I am dead or not, if you would like to reuse my work (article/write up/song/photo), please quote it. :P

This website shares a lot of things, I saw recipes, electronic gadgets related, music related, DIYs, back-to-school tips, and all sorts of guidelines! I felt I am trying to survive in the flood of information here. *gulp*

Hope you find something that interesting you or benefit you from this website. :)

http://lifehacker.com/

qixiyuelao

2010-08-16T22:23:00.002+08:00

I should start working, after watching the drama and also working on today’s photo and post it to my blog and Facebook. It’s been a long while, I really should start to work. But... in case you don’t know, today is 七夕, the 7th day of the 7th month in lunar calendar.

There are quite some stories, or related tradition activities today. My English is not really good to tell the stories, so I’ll try my best to briefly talk about one of them.

This day, is also referred as Chinese Valentine’s Day. We have 2 yearly, I think, one is on the 15th of 1st month in lunar calendar, and the other one is today. Today is the reunion day for 牛郎 (niu lang) and 織女 (zhi nv). 牛郎is a mortal, where 織女is a fairy (Any other term? I got this from Google translate, probably deity? I am not sure.) They were in loved, got married, and have kids. When the 天帝 (Emperor of Heaven) knows about it, He summoned 王母娘娘 (The Queen Mother?!) to bring her back to heaven. 牛郎had a 灰牛大仙 (immortal cow), who helped him to chase after 織女。王母娘娘used her hair pin to draw a 天河 (sky river / galaxy) to separate them. They stood there, watched each other, and cried in grief. The 喜鵲 (magpie) were touched that they built a bridge across the 天河to let the lovers meet each other. 王母娘娘has to agree to let them to meet up only on this day, the 7th day of the 7th month. Oppss.. I skipped the part where the 灰牛大仙 is the one who taught 牛郎how to go after 織女。:P

Somehow, I am not sure how, and when, the 月老 (joking??!! I can’t believe Google translate giving me this result! :D) takes part in today’s event. 月老supposed to be an old man, taking care of the mortal’s love fate. He would tie a red string between 2 lovers as the “love connection” or “love network”. He should be considered as a deity too.

Check this out. It’s a Chinese version of Twitter, called 微博 (mini blog). 月老has registered an account there. He is doing online match making! Is he running out of red string? I would think the relationship knot won’t be strongly bound compare to red string. 月老, some meant to be follow tradition, though it’s going to be an e-world out there.

http://t.sina.com.cn/qixiyuelao

Design Patterns

2010-08-15T23:47:00.002+08:00

I attended a one-week Design Pattern class couple of weeks ago. I remembered boss asked me, “Do you know what design pattern is? Please go and find out before you want to sign up.” Frankly, I didn’t know what Design Pattern is, if you ask me now, I can’t really tell you what it is, still.

I briefly read some introductions from Google search result, and told him my justification to sign up for the class. I think it is useful not only for software design, but also hardware design. SystemVerilog does support object oriented, thus it should be applicable in my work related area. I told my some friends about this, people think this is my excuse to go for the class. I hope my boss didn’t, because I really do think it works that way.

I think, Design Pattern is an abstract methodology, using object oriented concept, to ... to solve issues, to tell about relationship, how relationship works, in software design, maybe using SystemVerilog in hardware design flow, and in our life.

One funny, but seems so real analogy that we discussed in the class was: If a family starts with bad parents, the kid will inherit the bad from his parents. It will be getting worse and worse from one generation to the next generation. The only way to stop it is, stop the inheritance. (I think I know what they meant, do you?) There it goes with the object oriented concept, base class and child class, and the final class statement.

Anyway, back to our topic. I did Google again for further information, because the notes were too lengthy, and the teacher didn’t give us the soft copy of the presentation slides, thus it’s quite hard for me to follow. Thanks to this website, I got what I want. The teacher’s notes seem similar to what this website offered, so I think this is a very good reference site for Design Pattern.

http://sourcemaking.com/design_patterns

I have done my own summary on the design patterns that I’ve learned from the class. Later, I will share it in my k-db website. :)

Confucius Publishing

2010-08-12T23:26:00.007+08:00

I went to a class of The Analects of Confucius. It was very interesting, indeed. I love literatures. I am not sure why. I do think literatures bored me, sometimes. I hesitated to go for the class, because I am afraid I might fall asleep in the class, secondly is because I am unable to fully attend the class due to some planned events.

I was glad that I went, and found my new idol, the speaker (傅承得老師). Though he was just sitting there, talking and reading through the book, I rarely fell asleep in the class (except the hour after lunch)!

It’s rather sad to see today’s education system, which emphasize on the “technical” or knowledge based, rather than having teaching or helping a student to be a better person. If you try to understand the life of Confucius, how he taught his student, by reading the Analects of Confucius, you’ll know how a great teacher can be. I don’t know how to put these in words, especially in English. In short, he is a great educator, a great philosopher, and a great thinker. Confucius is my idol too, not solely because he is Johnny Kong (孔仲尼). :P

I was wanted to share on a website related to Chinese literature, however, I think this website is more relevant on what my post is discussing.

http://www.confucius.org/

It has the Analects of Confucius explained in multiple languages, including English, Malay and Tamil! Go and check it out. :)

I don’t mind if you would like to share with me on your thoughts on the Analects of Confucius here. :)

Unicode Table

2010-08-08T20:20:00.002+08:00

Unicode is a character encoding standards to support multi-language characters, including Braille. As you know, we normally have Big5 for traditional Chinese, and GB2312 for simplify Chinese, of course there are more, or variations for the Chinese characters. It is very inconvenient when you are browsing between web pages in simplify Chinese and also traditional Chinese.

I have a lot of this problem last time, when I was active in one of the popular Chinese forums in Malaysia. The text that I entered sometime can be “corrupted” (亂碼), probably due to the browser was set to view in GB2312 encoding, but my input is Big5, or vice versa. Sometimes, I need to set to view in HZ, and then the text only can be readable. I am a traditional Chinese character supporter, though I can’t really write it, at least I can type it. :P

So, with Unicode come in place, it eases all these pain. However, probably not all websites are using this encoding, but at least it is a great solution to the web domain, when user wants to browse websites in different languages.

I forgot what I was looking from this page. It is a list of characters supported in Unicode. I can’t tell if ALL Chinese characters are in there, for both simplify and traditional, but it seems there are a lot! I think they are ordered by “部首”.

http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/en/general-info/unicode.html

This website is quite messy, the tables are not in same size. Can be improved by specifying the width size of the table.

Sorting algorithm animations

2010-08-07T19:26:00.002+08:00

Do you still remember bubble sorting? It’s the simplest sorting algorithm, which can sort a small data quickly. When it comes to a large pool of data, this is not the best algorithm to be applied. So, how do we determine which sorting algorithm is the optimum (there’s no best one I guess) for the scenario that we are looking at?

Found this website from Google search result. It has the simulation animation for different sorting methods, and also based on the data distribution. So, if you would like to know more, check this out. Click on the refresh icon on each sorting algorithm to start the simulation to watch the performance on the algorithm on different data distribution, and click on the data distribution refresh icon to view the simulation of different sorting algorithm on that data distribution. By the way, you can even choose the problem size! Enjoy! :)

http://www.sorting-algorithms.com/

My comment on this website : light weighted, simple, clean, and precise. :)

Lee Guitars

2010-08-06T16:48:00.003+08:00

I have been a student member to Lee Guitars right after my birthday this year. I heard his show over the radio, a daily 5 minutes sharing on Music topics.

I added a link to its facebook, thus I am thinking of sharing this website with you today. :)

Jonathan Lee (李宗盛) is a famous musician. He writes songs, he sings, and he makes guitars! This website basically introduces the guitar by Lee and also the radio shows on music classes that he conducted.

He came to Penang last month, and too bad, it was too crowded, though I reached there around 5:30pm, but I left there just in time when he came. I blamed myself for reaching there too early. Else, I would have been in that restaurant watching him sharing in real person! I did blame for the restaurant personnel to bar me from entering the restaurant too. Should have told me there will be a queue numbering to go in for the session and dinner mah. :(

I need to comment something about this web site structure. Firstly, it is using flash, thus it’s rather slow. Secondly, it’s using frame, thus if you want to share something specifically from the website, you can’t do it by directly copy the URL, and paste it to your friend. This is rather not so user friendly. This combination usage is useful only if you want to “encapsulate” your site information. But, it’s an informational website, at least to me, so I would prefer it to be in simple html form.

http://www.leeguitars.com/

FILExt

2010-08-05T21:13:00.005+08:00

I visited this website again today. I use this website look for those unknown file types.

The first time when I landed on this website was due to I wanted to do “clean up” on the files in my PC. Some files are OK to delete, while some files are not. I can’t recall what the file extension I was looking for.

Today, I am looking for the file extension of wll. We were discussed about dll files. I asked the teacher, what a wll file is, he doesn’t know. So, I search for the information. I have been compiling the program that I supported into wll file, but I have no idea what kind of application type that I am looking for. Finally, here it goes! Rupa-rupanya it’s for Word document add-in. :P

Check it out!

http://filext.com/

Mayday : Ashin's blog

2010-08-04T20:27:00.003+08:00

I spent months to go through every post in this blog, just because I was touched by his lyrics, I’d like to know what he’ll put in his blog.

I was surprised to find out his photography touched my heart as well. Mayday is the spokespersons for BenQ. I was tempted to get one BenQ camera when I see this post... (Time tickling and I am still can’t find that post entry...)

OK, I am unable to find out the post that I wanted to share here; it was photos of somewhere out there, not in Asia, but in a neighborhood. But this one is not bad too, don’t you think so?

I love “long” photos, that’s why I love Canon pretty much, it has that setting to choose. However, the photos that he shared here close to square shape. I am not sure if it’s due to the blog settings, or the photos being cropped, or BenQ has this setting. :)

What inspired me most about his blog is this entry :
http://ashinmayday.mysinablog.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=978325

He wrote daily activities of Mayday, and their achievements throughout year 2007! Can I have minor achievement every day? At least, get something done, to keep the record goes. But, too bad, I am bad at consistency and discipline. :(

You might say I am crazy over Ashin or Mayday. But they really inspired a lot of people... err... at least me. If you follow their news closely, or know what they are doing, you’ll know what I mean. :)

Actually, he has 2 official blogs (as far as I know), and now these 2 blogs almost (I said almost) synchronized. :P

http://ashinmayday.mysinablog.com/

Koo Hye Sun's official website

2010-08-04T19:51:00.003+08:00

There was a hit from this Korean drama last year, Boys over Flowers. My friend lends me her VCD, and I watched it day and night except during working and sleeping hours.

I am attracted to this talented girl who is the main actress in this drama, Koo Hye Sun. I googled, and read a lot about her. She was started as an online popular sweetie, then she starts her career as an actress, and story goes on.

I was very surprised, in fact, in real life, she is so talented in music and art! The time when I was reading about her, she is having her illustration exhibition! I am soooooooooo e.n.v.y!

This is her personal official site. I like the layout of the website. However, it’s quite “heavy” in terms on, the page load slower than others. It’s using flash in the web design. For non-critical web system like this, it is fine to use flash. However, I still prefer fast loading web site. I just subscribe to basic package from the internet service provider, so....

If you know Korean, check out her website. Oh... one more thing I don’t really like flash is... I can’t use Google translate. :(

http://www.kuhyesun.com/

14000 recipes to search!

2010-08-04T19:39:00.005+08:00

It has been for quite some time that I never update this blog, I have tons of url that I have kept to share in my laptop, which I wish I can shared all of them here, thus I can clean up my favourites folder. :P

This is a URL sent by an admin from my department. I was so excited when I browse this website. I always have these cooking thoughts run in my mind. As I go through the ingredients and method to cook, it just quickly visualized as though I went shopping for the ingredient, food preparation, and starting to cook. It always stopped at the food almost ready, and I have already gone for the other food preparation. I never had a chance to taste it in my “vision”.

Anyway, apart from the side talk, from this website, you can choose the ingredient of your interest, which kind of cuisine, type of food, whether it’s for dessert, appetizer or main course, and etc, and ta-da, it returns you the recipe results based on your interest! What’s more awesome, it has more than 14K of recipes available here!

One of my favorites from this website is the biscuits. I just love to bake biscuits, but... I rarely bake in real. But this is link to another website: http://www.skybake.com/

I wish the search can be enhanced with cooking method, because I am a steam food lover. (I don’t like frying food specifically because I don’t like my kitchen to be dirty and of course for health concerns too.) Thus I wish the search result can be filtered by cooking methods too. :D
http://www.ytower.com.tw/recipe/recipe.asp

Dictionary.com

2010-04-03T22:12:00.002+08:00

I used this website for several times, not really “fancy” about it until that very day... I was talking about self-centered with P. She said, what I described is not “self-centered”; it’s actually “egocentrism”.

What was I talked about?

I am sad not because my boss scolded me, but I made mistake that leads to my boss to scold me.
I am said not because he left me, but I let him come near me.
I am happy not because you treat me an ice-cream, but I get to eat the ice-cream...

And... These examples are so I, me, and myself, why it’s not “self-centered”?

She sent me this link : http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/egocentrism and told me, it is egocentrism.

Anyway, I tried to check “self-centered” from this website, it’s actually suit what I was saying! I missed that out! Haha!

I also just realized that, it has links to thesaurus and web search, which are quite useful. The translator and web tab somehow doesn’t work as what I expected. Anyway, I like this site. :)

http://dictionary.reference.com

Help guide

2010-03-26T00:17:00.003+08:00

Frankly, I don’t really feel stress. However, the symptoms that appear on my body and my life routine showing I am.

I have hair drops problem, sleep problem, irregular meal time, feel like anti-social and don’t feel like talking to strangers at all.

I googled “stress” keyword, and found this website.

“The body doesn’t distinguish between physical and psychological threats.”

My mind doesn’t distinguish between stress or not stress! What do I do? :(

I checked out the top ten stressful life events on this page, it seems I am not really in one of the category. So, I am not on the chronic stress.

Anyway, if you are a writer, story writer, novel writer, this might be a good reference site for you to get to know about mental health if you are writing something about it. I wanted to, and take part in a novel competition, but... 70K – 120K characters?! Gosh! I used to write “short story” and force myself to make it 1K characters each, I just manage to get less than 20 completed in... I forgot how many years. I must be over-stressing myself if I am to take part. So... forget about it, or start right now, but for another submission? Hmm... I guess I don’t have that much of patience...

Of course, if you need guidance “secretly”, you can browse through the articles here. I guess it would help.

http://www.helpguide.org/

DramaWiki

2010-03-24T21:51:00.003+08:00

I love Japanese drama, and I still do, despite recently I am crazy over a Korean drama...

Found this website as I was looking for the web entry on Night Tenjo (in Zettai Kareshi). I was crazy over fall in love with a robot, and how I wish I’ll have a Naito of my own.

If you go to the main page, you’ll see there are directives for Asian dramas, including Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Chinese and Singaporean. I love this website as I can browse through the details of the drama of my interest.

Today, as I get this link from my bookmark to introduce here, I browse the information about some drama that plays on my mind, Dream Again, Boys over Flowers, Zettai Kareshi... Of course, besides information about drama, the site is also showing information about Artists, songs, lyrics... Very informative site, I would say.

I am bored, I guess, after long day out for work and photo shooting today. Guess I shall stop here. Enjoy~

http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Main_Page

Asian Actors Gallery

2010-03-22T20:00:00.003+08:00

If you are interested to watch leng chai and get to know leng chai, you must not miss this blog! The blogger update this blog irregularly with Asian actor’s basic information and photos!

I can’t remember exactly how I found this website, but... I guess it must have been due to Takeshi Kaneshiro! :D There was once I was googling for his photo... Google must have brought me here. Hehe~

This year, the website only updated with a new blog entry, introducing a Thai actor, Andrew Cronin. I don’t know him, frankly. But, he is kinda cute and cool. Check it out!

http://asian-actor.blogspot.com/

Ajahn Brahm talks

2010-03-21T22:40:00.002+08:00

I wanted to introduce some other websites that is in my “to share” list. However, they load too slowly. I can’t get the snapshot that I want... Thus, let me share this URL instead.

I am crazy over YouTube, how you can find all kinds of information and entertainment clips there. There’s one channel that I really like. It’s BuddhistSocietyWA’s channel, it’s mostly, or all are recording of Ajahn Brahm’s talks.

I am not really religious, and I take all good and kind thoughts as my gurus. Had a few “debates” or “discussions” or “sharing” with my friends recently. It just comes at the right time, where something in the past hurt me so much and hit me again. Sharing of Buddhism, or I always refer it as way of life, helps to remind me again, we do not live in the past. There are long forgotten hatred that I should have leave behind shouldn’t rise up again. Facing everything with smile and calmness, is one of the ways of life that I am looking for, I guess. :)

I only repeatedly watched a few clips. There is so much to listen and understand what Ajahn Brahm is sharing. Patience is the clip that I listen and watch most. Guess I am lacking of patience, A LOT! Haha~

Well, I hope you enjoy the clips like I do to.

http://www.youtube.com/user/BuddhistSocietyWA

hunger hunger

2010-03-20T14:40:00.003+08:00

Wow, I can’t believe I have “abandoned” this site for several months! My favourite’s bookmarks are piling up. Got to “clear” them ASAP. :D

Yesterday, I went to QBM with PY during lunch time. As we “window shop” at Jusco food department, I asked about cheese. I am not fancy about cheese, but... somehow, I like cheese baked rice or spaghetti.

As we went back to work, she sent me this URL on the cheese baked rice recipe! I am so delighted! What’s running on my mind is, I should get part time job, earn some pocket $$, but a table top or something, put my oven there, and forever there, so that I can use the oven more frequent, rather than keeping it in the living room, and put back to the “store room” after use.

I am sooooo tempted to cook myself this dish! Alas! My mum will be here soon. Most likely I’ll have to wait until I got my kitchen back! :D

Most of her blog entry is food and the recipe! Well, I haven’t really gone far in her blog, but the cheese baked rice is definitely caught my eyes, my heart, and my tummy at the very first sight! ^^

http://hungerhunger.blogspot.com

Kid's Dream, Your Dream ;-)

2009-11-21T15:04:00.003+08:00

I wanted to write about this blog for a long long time… (Alright, it’s not that long, she just started this blog not so long ago).

When I got to know her blog URL, I didn’t visit the website, until one of our common friends strongly recommend the blog. You know, kids stuffs, I am not really interested in. :P

Until this friend of mine describe her as a freaking cool lady. She works, married with 2 kids, and she is still able to make bento for her kids, regularly! I ADMIRE her a lot! I mean, A LOT!

Check out her website here : http://www.kidsdreamwork.com/

And, one of my favourite bento is… tada~~

NOVA

2009-08-01T17:11:00.004+08:00

I love Science. This website was brought to me by a video clip that PBS posted on Youtube.

It’s a sub-site from PBS, which should be a TV station, or TV programme provider. I am not quite sure but was quite excited to view the clips posted there. Oh ya, I am in the NOVA site.

Sometimes, I am not sure if you share the same experience as me, I am not sure if I should believe the facts, that people tell or not. Sometimes, even facts from a book, newspaper, broadcast medium, I find it seems so real, yet so unreal. So, I am not sure if all of the facts or saying from this site is the real truth. I am not saying that I dislike this site; I am just… feel hesitated; like some people never see God, and doubt the existing of God. :P

I read this from About NOVA page. It’s the highest rated science series on TV. Hmm… Sounds great, huh! I wish our local public TV station in Malaysia broadcast this as well. Just a side note for those Science lover in Malaysia, TV1 does broadcast Science series! :)

Anyway, guess this might be one of the sites that I am going to visit frequently in far future. I am drowning in my both full time, and part time jobs, and blogging now…

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/

Enjoy browsing!

Severus Snape

2009-07-23T20:56:00.004+08:00

I watched Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince last night. It was nice, I would say. Meeting the expectation, not exceed the expectation though. I was rather touched when Snape said, “Yes, I am the half blood prince!” to Harry Potter. I felt the pain in him when he said this to the son of the woman he loves most.

Well, what has it to do with interesting web site? It’s just an opening paragraph that I want to introduce this site.

I am a fans of Severus Snape. Maybe because of years ago, when I did the MBTI test, and happened to be same as Snape. I am getting more obsessed by him as I get to know more of him.

By the way, in this post, I am going to introduce a few websites, related to Severus Snape. :)

The site that I did the MBTI test for Harry Potter characteristic.

http://piratemonkeysinc.com/quiz.php

The site that I visited last time on more detail of Severus Snape

http://whysnape.net/mbti.htm

The site that I found recently, for Snape’s fan!!! :D

http://www.severussnape.org/

More information about Snape

http://www.hplex.info/wizards/snape.html

Photoscaping

2009-05-24T14:45:00.005+08:00

If you notice my recent blog entries in another website (provided if you are aware of it), you’ll find out I put some “enhanced” photos. I don’t really like to edit photos (taking the originality and time consumption into consideration, and of course, the lacking of the skill to photoshopping the photos is another main reason to this...).

However, my blogmates use a tool called PhotoScape to copyright our photos, and add some effects to the photos to keep us “anonymous”... (Oppsss... did I reveal anything here? nope. :D)

This is a great tool, where you can add frame to your photos, resize them, adjust the colours, combining photos, crops the photos and etc.

This is one of the amazing things that shown in the website of what this tool can do.

This is the interface of the tool. I forgot did I downloaded the Chinese version, or it’s due to my PC is set to Chinese language; the function shown in the tool is in Chinese. :P This tool is freeware, and you can download it freely at http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/index.php. Enjoy the fun! Enjoy photoscaping! :D

BBC Weather

2009-05-24T14:26:00.002+08:00

I went to Australia and New Zealand for the first time, self-sponsor, and back-packing and partly of the trip on my own. Some warned me of the weather and climate in these countries. If it is a rainy day during the tour, it might not be a pleasant trip. Or during storm, monsoon, or any other weather terms that I don’t see in Malaysia... Well, most likely I don’t know them. I have booked my tickets, pay for it. There’s no way I would cancel my trip...

Anyway, I googled some weather related websites and found this website. It’s from BBC. Google result brought me to this web page: http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/city_guides/results.shtml?tt=TT003020. It show the temperature, sunlight hour, rainfall, average precipitation, relative humidity etc information of Melbourne, Australia,

This is the URL for the home page for Weather in BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/
Click on the Average Conditions link on the right pane, will bring you to alphabet list. Click on the first alphabet of the city that you would like to know, and there you go. The weather information of the city and general information will be available on the page.

Sau-Leung.com

2009-05-24T14:25:00.002+08:00

My friend, Milky, sent me a link. We are so crazy of Cheer’s songs, and we kinda form a group to play and sing her song together. This website contains the guitar scores for Cheer’s songs!

I have downloaded the zip files, and guess what?! This website owner even has the guitar strumming and guitar plucking quick reference in the zip file! This zip file is also having updates and patches just like a software tool! Currently, there are 61 guitar scores in the zip file.

I have gone through the web page. Currently, there are 91 scores available for download, these excluding Cheer’s songs. They are well documented, and definitely a very good reference for music lovers likes me to learn and practice guitar. :)

I just downloaded Richard Marx’s Now and Forever score. It’s a tab, without the lyrics and chords. Well, I might be “over-rated” the score and tab available here. But... but... aren’t these scores and tabs are fabulous? :D

http://www.sau-leung.com/

Try your text with Wordle!

2008-11-27T22:32:00.006+08:00

I found a very interested website from my company internal blog. :P

I did play around with it, and my friend asks me not to post it until her T-shirt design is completed. :D

I use song lyrics as the input for the text processing. The song I chose is “That I’ll be good”. Yeah, I know, it’s a sad song, but I just can’t help it, especially I still feel hurt, and try to comfort myself on my own, telling myself that I’ll be good.

OK, that’s too out of the topic. Here’s the snapshot of the website, and one of the output that I captured from my “work”... :D

This site or I would say this web application process the text that you provide, and depends on the frequency of the word that resides in the text to decide which word to be included in the “design”. You can change the clouds of word with different layouts and colours. I just click on the “Randomize” button. :P

It’s rather slow, because it’s using java application. However, once it’s up, I think the speed is tolerable.

http://www.wordle.net/

Disney movie guide

2008-10-30T22:18:00.002+08:00

I finally found it, the name of the cartoon that keeps on popping on my mind, Monster Inc! Found this site just now, from Google search, of course. Disney Movie Guide.

I love the little girl in the movie. She is so cute, so pure, and so innocent. I like the way and the story line how Sulley and Boo get closed. The relationship just grows without any planned effort. They have a room in their hearts for each other. It is soooo sweet! ^__^

This site has all the Disney movies listed.

I saw Wall E on the home page too. It was a very romantic movie, my brain retrieved some sweet and happy moments from the database. Hahaha...

OK, back to the list of Disney movie. It was started in 1937! Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Then, it’s Pinocchio! I did have the Pinocchio in cassette when I was kid. All sweet memory is coming back to me... how nice... :)

Go and visit this site, I am sure you’ll find you sweet and unforgettable memory there. Have a nice day!

http://www.disneymovieslist.com/

The Internet movie scripts database

2008-10-29T11:35:00.004+08:00

I have this habit. I am not sure how many people like me out there. I used to watch Japanese drama or Korean drama, then google for the scripts or story line of the drama, even before or after finished watching them.

I find it easier to understand in details by reading, instead of by watching. By watching, it allows you to see the whole picture. By reading, you’ll see something more details inside it.

I was listening to Secret Garden by Bruce Springsteen, with some lines from Jerry Maguire. I can’t find a video clip from youtube on this version. I wanted to know what exactly Renee Zellweger said in the movie, then I found this website. http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Jerry-Maguire.html

I think this website is fantastic. How I wish if it can have Chinese translation, or scripts to movie in other languages!

http://www.imsdb.com/

Animal | Facts about mammals

2008-10-08T21:13:00.004+08:00

One of my father's favourite things is animal. He reared several types of animal… My, I can only barely remember dogs and crocodiles. Can you imagine that, he had crocodiles?! It is so cool!

We were talking about dogs. I described one type of dogs that I like, and I wish to have. He told me it’s the German Shepherd Dog. Yeah, I think it was years ago. I wished I had a pure white or pure black one. Things change, people change, my wish changed too. :P

I did a wiki search, browse through the wiki pages, finally got the one that I am fond of. The Siberian Husky. If only I can have one stay with me. But I doubt I really want it. You know why? If it’s not to be meant to be here, it shouldn’t be brought here. It’s like those “imported” animals in zoo; need to be adapted in a place, which is not their habitat.

I have mumbled a lot. The web page that I wanted to share today is something to do with animal. Hahahaha~~

I got to know about these sites when I was reading some weird facts about animals in one of the Chinese web site. It leads to one of the page that is hosted under this domain. I just bookmark the top URL, think of sharing it later when I have time. :P

I don’t take zoology, so, I am not sure how helpful this website can be. I also think that the layout of the site is way too complicated to me. Well, hey, I don’t know much about animal. Who knows, probably this is one of the most convenient ways to organize the data for those who really can utilize the data here?!

http://www.thewebsiteofeverything.com/

Sky Maps by Google

2008-09-26T01:00:00.001+08:00

I come across this URL again on a local newspaper couple of days ago. I have faith in almost all of Google’s applications. (shh… I didn’t try all, but those I tried, I am very satisfied.)

If you click on the planets listed down there, it will bring you to the planet location in the sky. Each planet seems to have its own symbol. I didn’t know about that. I think this should be included in our school syllabus. We would be easily draw and identify the planets. It’s fun to learn about planets this way, personal opinion.

One funny thing happened was, I click on the Earth. I was expected it to bring me to the Earth in the sky. It pops up to the Google Maps instead. Hahahaha~~ I wonder if an alien is using this tool, what would he/she/it think. As a conclusion, I think this tool is not alien-friendly. :P

Anyway, I do wish there will be some enhancement on the zoom in. It stops at the last 5th zoom in scale. :-s

http://sky.google.com/

TechRepublic - A resource for IT professionals

2008-09-24T02:50:00.006+08:00

I can’t really remember how I was introduced to this web site. I recall that I got a one-year free newsletter delivered to my door. It was years ago. During my first job… I think. :D

I consider myself am into IT, not in a very deep knowledge on how-to, but I like it in general, the convenience that IT development brought to our daily life, at least, my daily life.

I am still subscribing online newsletter from Techrepublic, glance through some of the white paper, least of the time. :P Most of the time, I just leave them in my mailbox. Pity them. I guess, I should spend sometime to glance through, at least the highlighted title to get myself updated on IT trend. I am planning to start this while I am switching my job to non-IT related… funny, huh? Probably, this is just one of my dreams to achieve.

I rarely go to this site, actually. Whenever I found a topic posted on the white paper download, it always requires me to login. I always need to go and dig my account information, or click on the forgot password link. It doesn’t sound convenience for me, so… Anyway, I really like the information that I got from the newsletters, though it might be just a very brief introductory of the articles posted. Normally, you won’t dig into the details, unless you need this in your work or your project. That’s the beauty of Internet, don’t you think so?

http://techrepublic.com.com/

Most friendly Malay dictionary

2008-09-17T23:53:00.002+08:00

It's been long time that I have never put any new URL here. I always have problem to remember this simple URL, so I better put this down before I need to google for it again!

I am a Malay-educated, at least for my secondary school education, or even partially of my university life. There are some terms, I know in Malay, but not in English or Mandarin, so I normally visit this site, to get the translation. Anyhow, when I need a word in Malay, but I only know it in Mandarin or English, I'll use this site too. It's quite handy to get the word in other 2 languages using this site.

A lot of time, the words that I am looking for are not there. For example, the word "logamaya" in Malay. I have to use Google to search for "Malay + logamaya" to figure it out. Mirage is the English word for logamaya.

Anyway, even though it's slow, and limited vocabulary offered, but it's a quite handy site when I need to find the right word for my writing. :)

http://search.cari.com.my/dictionary/

Create a site - Using Wordpress

2008-08-13T00:17:00.005+08:00

I went for a volunteering work last weekend. I taught how to use Wordpress to the teachers in Sungai Petani. I thought the purpose of the course is to help the teachers how to create and maintain their school web site. Anyway, I only knew it’s for personal usage (personal blogging) when I got there. Well, that’s not the main point I’d like to talk about here. :P

I have experiences using Mambo, Wordpress, and now Blogspot for blogging purpose. I also used Mypaper @ Pchome.com.tw for blogging. I like the design in Mypaper, however, the pages load too slowly, not to mention now I am unable to get back my account after their upgrade… The other 3 are great, I would say.

Anyway, this post is to introduce the best solution to suit the needs for small company/enterprise website. My friend IM me on the same day I taught Wordpress. I was too moody and tired to explain to her. She wants to create a simple site an online flower shop.

I see a lot of friends doing this by setup a Blogspot site, and having posts to put their products information and pictures. It’s very convenient, and easy to use. One of my online friends who work in SEO (search engine optimization) would strongly recommend Blogspot for the searchability in Google, that’s what I believe. J

Anyway, I would strongly recommend using Wordpress for this purpose, if you would like to have a more professional look of the site. Wordpress support both post and page. My personal point of view, utilizing the page feature in Wordpress make it more organize, and more like a websites, rather than a blogging system.

Probably, you would wonder, what about Mambo? Well, to me, Mambo is more suitable for community or groups. I get to know about Mambo because I helped out another friend of mine, whose web developer quit half way modifying the system for a commercial use, I think. I didn’t help much. To me, it’s a favor for my friend, until she can get a replacement. Too many customizations, I can’t handle that. Later, I setup for my first official blog at my domain. I also re-post all my articles over the forums here. I think I am too long winded.

Here’s the conclusion. If you would like to setup a website easily, have a clean and neat look, and the site to look like a corporate like website rather than personal blog site, you are highly recommended to use Wordpress!

http://wordpress.com/

Quick HTML Reference

2008-08-12T23:43:00.003+08:00

I have a number of peers and friends like to ask me how to do a web page. I learn it from the Internet. Internet is so resourceful, and it’s so convenience and easy to learn how to create a web page! If you like one of your visited pages, and would like to know how the scripts are written, you can just right click on the page, and select view source (for IE browser). You can copy and paste and modify the scripts to be yours.

Here’s a page for a quick reference on html. It’s rather complete, and has everything that you need to create a simple web page, or even a complicated one! I got this from one of the search result from my “routine” work. It’s even including some style sheet details. I think it’s quite helpful.

Anyway, for those don’t know about IT at all, I strongly suggest you to use Word, and then choose to save as html files. The out come source code is definitely too complicated, but it’s definitely super easy for those who know Word. Unless… you don’t know how to use Word... I can’t help on that.

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/reference/article.php/3472851

Google Logos

2008-07-08T22:07:00.003+08:00

I recall my friend was so shocked with my office PC collections, Google logo! I do Google search everyday, on everything. Whenever I see a new logo, a seasonal or festive logo, I'll right click on the logo, and save a copy on my desktop.

This happened for quite a long time. Hmm... A year or two, maybe. Then, my friend sent me a link on that logo archive. Of course, this might not the original link that my friend sent me. I can't really recall. When I browsed through the web pages just now, don't think it has all the logo that I have seen. Oh, probably this page only listed from year 1999 to 2005.

Additional information. These festive logos are designed by Dennis Hwang. They are pretty and eye catchy, isn’t it? ;)

http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html

Chung Hwa Correspondence School

2008-07-01T22:37:00.000+08:00

I am not really sure how I got to know about this site. I believe it is due to years ago, I read this in a local Chinese newspaper on the correspondence courses. I sent my details and requested for the enrollment form. Anyway, I never started any class from this school.

This site has been “enhanced”. You can check out the variety of courses offered, together with the lecturer details, the course outline, and you can even download the course material! I found it is very useful, and convenient for those who wants to “know”, instead of really go through classes and examinations. (Yeah, I am paranoid with exams. Thank god, it’s considered over for now.)

http://chcsdl.open2u.com.tw/full/index.html

Latest Earthquakes in the World - Past 7 days

2008-07-01T22:10:00.001+08:00

Malaysia is one of the countries that reside out of the earthquake area. If you ask me to name another, frankly, I don’t know. :P

Anyway, for the past few years, especially after Tsunami hit north of penisular Malaysia, things seem to change. Whenever there’s earthquake in our neighboring country (Indonesia, I mean), we sometimes can feel it too.

More and more shaking we can feel from the neighboring country, and sometimes cause paranoid among ourselves. I think stay alert is good, anyway.

This site that I usually visit if I suspect earthquake happening is from USGS. The content is almost up-to-date. I am not sure if we can find any forecast in this website. But if you would like to confirm if the dizziness you felt is caused by the earthquake, you can do it from this website.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/

Google Translate

2008-06-30T21:25:00.003+08:00

I think before I continue to introduce some other interesting site or page, I should introduce this online tool.

I visit a lot of sites in Mandarin, thus for those who can't read Chinese, but wish to follow my trail in the Internet world should know this tool. It's a translator tool by Google. I know that Google has a lot of online gadgets and web-based tool that I don't realize.

However, this is one of my most frequently used tools beside Google search engine that helps me a lot.

Alas! I only able to get the snapshot in Mandarin version… hmm.. A highly intelligent tool that can capture my default language in Traditional Chinese...

http://translate.google.com/

Guitar Chords

2008-06-30T21:12:00.004+08:00

Recently, I am into guitar again. Bought a capo today. Get motivated by this song: When I see you smile by Bic Runga, introduced by a friend of mine. Found the guitar chords for this song in C Key. However, the original key of the song is not in C key or G key, so I can’t learn and play along with the song.

Finally I got my capo, but… The chords sound not so right. So I search for another guitar chords for this song, or better still if I can find a tabulate!

Finally, I found something in Dsus2/C#, Bm7 and bla bla bla… :-s I just know a few general and common chords. I can’t do a transpose on these chords… :-s

Then, I found this site! Great job to the site owner! I can easily find any chords with the variations on this site. Anyway, it would be even greater if it includes common A on G, or Dm7 on G or F on C… :D Hehehe… good for people like me don’t really care to (or know how to) count for the number of semitones to get the right “spot”. :P

http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/index.php

U-handbag

2008-06-15T10:18:00.001+08:00

I bought a sewing machine last year. I am not sure what is the main purpose of buying it, but I wanted to make bags (and cloths, of course). I have made at least 1 bag, and 2-3 pencil cases. All are simple design, just a zip, and probably an internal pocket.

Then I start to google online to check out handbag making sites. This is one of the sites I found. My god, I have not been visiting this site for quite a long time. I brought back my sewing machine back to hometown. With my “tight” schedule, I will never able to attend for the sewing class that was free with my purchase. Probably during my “ramp down” time, and get back my machine before go for the class again.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the main purpose of the site is to introduce the interesting web pages/web sites. This is the blog for the u-handbag owner, Lisa. It contains some how-to articles, which is definitely very useful and handy when you want to make a handbag! She also provide the how-to article in pdf format, so that you can refer to it offline.

Check it out at http://u-handbag.typepad.com/
Here’s one of the how-to article: http://u-handbag.typepad.com/uhandblog/2006/12/purse_frames_de.html

Karen Cheng's - Snippets of Life

2008-06-11T21:52:00.002+08:00

This blog was introduced by my friend, my ex-colleague, my junior… well, someone who loves to surf Internet as I do.

Karen Cheng was a web developer and designer. There were some portfolios in her sites. She writes a lot about her kids, fashion, arts, things she does, and last but not least, her own photo shooting!

I like the way she organizes her blog, packed, but tidy and clean. The way she presented the photos is really fantastic. My friend and I was once try to figure out how she did that! She really deserves to earn awards for her site. :)

http://www.karencheng.com.au/

Britney Spears' Guide to Semiconductor Physics

2008-06-11T21:21:00.003+08:00

I decided not to use the URL as my title. It seems much misleading that a reader might think by clicking on the title will bring him to the actual site. And I think is cooler to put the site title (for this case), rather than the URL to catch reader's eyes. :P

I am doing study on semiconductor. Guess what I found from Google? This!
Britney Spears' Guide to Semiconductor Physics!

This site owner must be a super fan of Britney Spears! The site is rather informational, with some distractions from Britney’s pictures. However, overall it’s pleasant to read the articles together with the distractions. :)

http://britneyspears.ac/lasers.htm

http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/

2008-06-11T20:55:00.001+08:00

For those interior design lovers, you must not miss this out.

I found this website by keep clicking on the next blog on blogger/blogspot until I find one interesting site. Oh my! If you go through the site carefully, you’ll find out that this site was nominated for Best Hobby Blog! It is very user friendly, I mean, it has the button ready for multi-language translate.

OK, back to the site contents. The site is like a online catalog, gives you ideas on how to setup your living room, bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, and even for accessories, and outdoor setup!

Here’s the snapshot of the site! ;)

http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/

http://answers.yahoo.com

2008-06-11T20:12:00.000+08:00

I mostly visited the Yahoo China version, to search for information on Chinese culture and celebrations events. 雅虎知識堂 - http://ks.cn.yahoo.com/

It’s a site for you to post any question. If you have answer for the open questions here, you are allowed to answer them. There are ranking system based on your answer with伴读书童 (I don’t know how to translate this, can’t find it from translator either. Basically in the old days, this person would accompany his young master to study), 穷酸秀才 (a scholar), 圣贤 (saint) and etc. These rankings are based on the old time title for Chinese scholar, teacher and etc.

I had a quick glance on answers.yahoo.com, but I can’t find something similar there though. Besides, there’s a point system in雅虎知識堂, which you can accumulate the points and redeem gift from Yahoo! Well, it’s meant for those from China, at least for now. I read the terms and conditions, Yahoo China reserve the rights to charge for the service in the future. Hopefully it remains FOC, and open for all Internet habitants. ;)

http://answers.yahoo.com http://ks.cn.yahoo.com/

http://www.youtube.com

2008-06-11T00:19:00.002+08:00

I guess no one can deny that youtube is one of the most visited sites everyday! I do visit it and search for clips almost everyday!

I usually search for some songs, and the entertainment programmes in youtube. I also use the embedded codes from the site to be included in my other sites for sharing purpose. I think these sites and with the embedded code sharing concept is the best idea for sharing your ideas and your talents, sharing among friends for interesting clips, advertising… and tonnes of informative contents can be found from this site!

What amazed me most is, I am working on photon and semiconductor interactions report, and tried my luck here, guess what I’ve found??!! Lots of clips on electrons, semiconductor, photon emission, and even lectures on this topic! I thought it has only entertainment related clips! How silly I was!

Thanks for those who upload the clips and share for the whole Internet community!

http://www.youtube.com

http://en.wikipedia.org

2008-06-11T00:09:00.003+08:00

What is the second website that amazed me? Yes! It's wikipedia!

It has helped me a lot in doing my master programme assignment, and a lot of my writings (in my some other sites).

Along with the Internet community growth, more and more data are dumped into this space which might be not true, or incorrect. This site provides the trusted contents, at least to me, to be used in my write-ups. I don’t have the figure of confident level for this site from any survey, but it definitely above average and approaching the excellent!

A big kudos to all wikipedia contributors! I really do hope one day, I’ll be part of the community!

http://en.wikipedia.org

http://www.google.com

2008-06-10T23:59:00.002+08:00

The first and foremost site that I'd like to introduce here is Google search engine. This has been the best site that I can find all sorts of information on earth (or even out of earth)!

I work as a web architect currently, but I do not have any educational background on web. Google helps me a lot since day 1 I work as web planner and developer few years back, and it is still my first choice of search engine! Bravo, Google!

I'll continue to introduce the websites which I think it's cool, useful, informational and worth visiting. :)

http://www.google.com