Daily Archive for June 19th, 2007

Bedroom cleaning completed

After an exhausting afternoon, I finally cleared out all the junk from my room together with the help of my girlfriend. Things are definitely much neater now, and all that is left is to finalize the arrangement of the furnitures in my room.

What a stupid way to spend my precious block leave. But with a neater room, I feel happier too.

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“Upgrade” your XP to Vista for free!

This simple tutorial will teach you how to make your Windows XP look like Vista, without making any irreversible changes to the computer.

Visual Style

1) Firstly, to replace the Windows XP look (buttons, windows, etc), you need to patch your PC to allow it to use third party visual styles that are not licensed by Microsoft. To do that, you need something called the uxtheme patcher. However, I am not sure if using such a patch is legal. You will have to google for “uxtheme patcher” and download it yourself. If you want to do this 100% legally, buy this program called StyleXP. It does the same thing for a fee.

2) Now that your PC can use third party visual styles (or MSStyles). You can search for the visual style yourself on the net. To make my PC look like Windows Vista, I am using this visual style called Vista Perfection. Download the entire package, and unzip the files from VPX4forNonLSPatched.zip into your C:\WINDOWS\Themes folder. Next, fire up your Control Panel, and click on Display if you are using Classic View, or click on Appearances and Themes, then Change The Computer’s Theme. The Display Properties dialog will appear. Click on Appearance, and then under Windows and Buttons, choose VistaPerfection X4. Apply. Your PC will now look like this:

If this is good enough for you, you are done. If you have at least 1GB of RAM, and want something more, read on.

Third Party Applications

The thing on the right of my screen is known as Sidebar. Google Desktop looks very similar to Vista’s sidebar, and is very powerful. Get it from here.

Notice that when I mouse over the button on my taskbar, a small thumbnail or preview of that window appears. To have this effect on your PC, download Visual Task Tips

Although this is not a feature in Windows Vista, I feel that this next application is a nice addition to your PC.

Yet anOther Desktop Manager 3D is a virtual desktop manager that allows the user to navigate 4 virtual desktops in a cube form. Rather cool and very user-friendly. Get it from here.

Your XP have been “upgraded” to Vista. Happy?

(Vista sound, icons and cursors can be downloaded to replace your current XP set. However, this is quite geeky and may result in irreversible problems if not done properly, so these are obmitted. If you want, you can always google and find out how to do it.)

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I need to write

I know I need to write.

I desperately need to write something. Something that goes with my style. Something that is the result of a few minutes of uninformed pondering (like with other of my posts). Something that allows me to practice writing. Every inch of my body is itching to write. But my brain couldn’t think of anything to write. Bloody traitor.

Since I have nothing to write I’ll just write randomly. I know this is my blog but I seldom talk about myself. I talk about how I think. You learn more about my thinking process than my day to day life by reading this blog. I find it fucking boring to write about me, myself and I for every single blog entries, unlike other self-proclaimed “celebrity” bloggers out there.

My sentences felt chunky so far, like drinking a diced meat soup with more diced meat than fluid. I don’t like that. This way of writing makes me feel out of oxygen. It slows down my thinking too. But I am sleepy. But I need to think faster. Let me get on with the previous paragraph.

For me, a blog is NOT a media through which I gossip, tell people about myself, or post pictures of myself in seductive clothings (like that bunch of girls with the so-called 1600 friends). I am a person with tonnes of opinions. I think about things. I don’t take things at face value. Maybe some people say I think too much. The thing is the way I think is very different from other people, and often the way I think about things is directly opposite of mainstream. Hence I often write about the way I think about things on my blog to present the readers another way to think about things. Maybe some reader will say I am partially right about the things I say. Some will agree with things I think. Others may also rethink their thinking. Are you hungry for ice-cream? I have sounded pretty much “think-thing” sounds in your mind to emulate that made by an ice-cream vendor along orchard road.

I love to think about how other people think. Look at those people doing transport in Singapore, for example. I notice that they have a very good way of solving problems. When something causes a problem, just remove the source. So when bus-bay causes congestion along the road, they proposed to remove the bus-bay (and perhaps cause even more congestion?). When people complain of having to squeeze into MRT trains during peak hours, instead of adding more trains, they view the chairs as a problem as it took too much space. So they took about many MRT chairs so that more people can stand on the train. This will lessen the crowd. Damn. If my computer RAM is giving me problems, then I’ll just remove it and the problem is solved. Wheee!

But sometimes, no matter how I think, I still couldn’t understand how people think. Look at NETS. I find their thinking amazingly amazing. I find it incomprehensible. It is a puzzle. A riddle. The NETS people could have made better puzzle games than me. Lets see what NETS has to say regarding their fee hike.

…there has been a growing trend of merchants accepting debit cards by international card schemes. As a result, more international debit cards have been introduced to the market. To sum up, Nets is a debit payment facility facing competition from international card schemes. To respond more effectively to this increasing competition, Nets has had to align itself with the business model of the international card schemes……the price realignment (increase then say increase lah!) exercise ensures Nets’ viability as a business, to continue serving the interests of card issuers, consumers and merchants here. Without the future presence of Nets to protect merchants’ interest, merchants will be left paying the higher rates charged by the international card schemes…The mindset change was possible because electronic payment was able to deliver on its promises: Convenience for consumers; lower processing costs and higher security for merchants.

Wah, what a chunk. Dare I give you a summary?

“NETS is facing competition from other cards that charge more. So we need to up our processing fee too to remain competitive. If we never up our processing fee, you will have to use international card schemes that charges more. We are successful in providing a lower processing fee.”

My brain is all screwed up by NETS by now. Someone help me.

Programme Line-up For Block Leave
180607 - Wild Wild Wet
190607 - Bedroom Area Cleaning
200607 - Sentosa
210607 - Interview by MyPaper
220607 - ???
230607 - ???
240607 - Cry at home because block leave over.

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