I would say YES to this.

Picture from Etsy.com

p/s: It is not hard to make me happy.
Although it seems simple but truth is, am as complicated as the crocheted sterling ring above. LOL.

How to organise your PC desktop.

I'm a great believer that, managing your every day's clutter is the best way of freeing your mind. It's therapeutic for me.

One of the easiest space to de-clutter is your desktop PC. There are a few awesome organising widgets that you can use to organise your stuff. No longer you need to rummage through your directory to find those missing files and to keep on rearrange your icons all the time.

Here are some of the links of the widgets that I have been using to organise my own desktop.

I like my desktop to be as clean and simple as possible.

Well, everyone knows that I'm still using XP. It is the most stable OS that Microsoft has churned out and most of the applications am running, currently have no fix and doesn't support the usage of Windows 7. An old hag, but still very much reliable.

OK. Let us begin.

1. Organise your icons.


The one that am using above is called Fences. If what you need is to organise your icons accordingly, you can download the free version. It gives the illusion of fencing and segregating your icons according to how you want to organise it.

All you have to to is, once you have installed the app, launch it and drag your icons to it. Simple as 1-2-3.


2. To-do list.

Oh come on, you know you spend more time staring at your computer than going out socialising. LOL. What better way to remind yourself of those errands and chores that are just waiting to be done? Sticky notes on the fridge is way outdated. What we need is a virtual stick-on-note.

There a couple of options out there. If you are using Yahoo! Widget, then you can download the widget.

But what am about to recommend is something a bit more awesome than that typical sticky notes that are abundant out there. I use HottNotes.

Why? Because you can scribble on it, create a check-list and if you still prefer the old sticky plain note, they have that too. Most importantly it is created by Joel Riley, a student at Virginia Tech because he needed to list out things and I just love the fact that he shared this with the world.

My very own hottnotes!
(As you can see, my niece is quite demanding, and annoying too)

3. Yahoo! Widgets or Google Desktop.

What differentiate the two? Well for me Yahoo! Widget is more cool and fun. It is so fun, sometimes the widgets don't really serve any purpose and being fun with a large consumption of RAM is just a big NO for me. I chose Google Desktop because I depend on them like an addict depends on crack. LOL.

Since am using the grand daddy of Android Phone (T-Mobile G1), I occasionally sync my calendar, email and my contacts to Google cloud. So it is just practical for me to use Google Desktop anyways. I got my RSS feed, bookmarks, Google reader all from there. So it's cool but most importantly, it serves me perfectly. So choose wisely on what you want to use.

psstt! I've managed to root my G1 and had updated it with Froyo 2.2. But that's another story for another day. :)


4. Zune.



I've been using Zune for PC since the first day they published it. I kinda have a love-hate relationship with it. I hate their full version. It is just way to crowded for me. I like the fact that we get some sort of history about the artist, their music and everything but I usually need my music to be a background noise when am doing work. I don't really read those historical information and whatnot. The simple minimised version is totally for me; it doesn't really take up so much of space because my screen is not that big.

What? Winamp? Itunes? Oh come on, who uses that anymore? LOL.

P/S: If I download anything for free and if I like their application, especially programmer like Mr. Joel Riley, I usually paypal-ed them some money to show my gratitude and appreciation. We should always do that. As a developer myself, giving out or sharing free stuff is one thing, but to be able to know that someone appreciate what you have invented, the feeling is just too awesome, we might want to do more great stuff for you.

So be kind, donate some. :)

So True.

A friend (an Iphone user) emailed this to me. I laughed my ass off when I first saw it. I'm guilty of passing the same judgement. I'm an Android girl. I'm guilty of thinking and seeing Apple user as nothing more than just a poser and somewhat a cult follower that worships Steve Jobs and the closed-uptight path that he walks on. LOL.

Hello everyone, my name is Lina. I'm a Smokeaholic.

Today marks the 3rd day of my 105th attempt to quit smoking. As far as it goes, it hasn't been messing with my head, yet; like causing anger or turning me grumpy all the time.

Why the sudden change?

That's because I felt lethargic lately. At the same time, I was thinking that maybe I should quit since am not even smoking as much these days. A box would usually last me a couple of days and it became stale most of the time. Last Friday, I told Mr.Snots that *this* box would be the last box for me.

This is not cold-turkey. I have been reducing my intake for so many months. It is just normal that gradually lessen ciggies intake would eventually becomes no ciggies at all.

To be honest, I hardly smoke during the office hour because I'm usually too engrossed with my work. I don't like to smoke during hot days. The only time I smoke was usually at night when I had nothing better to do or when I was driving back from work.

This should not be hard as I have yet to develop any sort of urges or suicidal thought. So I'm hoping that this attempt should last me longer than the last time.

Things that kept me feeling positively cheerful!

Synchronised Steps.

Trying to feed a lazy cat.

Catching sunset while stuck in the traffic.

Good-hearted friends.

Holidays with loved one.

p/s: The thing I love about December is, it is the time of the year where I get to pack my things, shove it in my knapsack and run away from hectic life into doing two of the things that I do best, seeking adventures and taking pictures.

House of Harlow : BF Competition!

From left : Toots "Pothead" Ismail, Lina "my-ass-in" Mohd Yassin, Shai "sunshine" Jeyabala.

Thisis not something I normally do. Aside from the fact that I love the online shopping site, Thepoplook, I actually submitted a photo (above) for their House of Harlow: Best Friends Competition.

I had this picture for years and every time I look at this, I have this warm and fuzzy feeling inside of me. A picture of me with two of my best girlfriends.

We were supposed to create some sort of caption to describe our friendship. Told Toots about it, and we managed to came up with something that truly captures our closeness.

"We hang like monkeys on tree. We scratch each other's back and get rid of each other's ticks"

Haha. All because of that poor-pixelated-camera-phone-pouting-like-monkeys-picture!

So, without shame, if you think that we deserve to win, go HERE and click "LIKE".

Ossum Possum!

Lazy Ass.

Today I wanted to be lazy. There's no point of rushing deadlines when I had already been away from work for the past 1 1/2 days because I attended some lame ass course. 1 1/2 days off work means more work are piling in. Work will never stop and why bother slaving around while I can choose to enjoy the remaining days doing nothing but browsing shits on the internet and bought some cool global warming comic painting for just 100 bucks.

I decided to hang in the office rather than at home, well at least when my colleagues come over to my cubicle, they have something to entertain them and at the same time, create a bit of awareness. I guess.

They complain that I always ignore them. When I do my work, I put on my mp3 player and immediately am in my own world, oblivious of my surroundings.

So there you go chaps, some global warming awareness comic for your blardy entertainment!

I hate disclaimer or anything that sounds like one.

It is like saying, you have this awesome shit going on but when it doesn't go your way it, it's not your fault.

Or you own a blog and championing the freedom of speech and expression, but when people practice it on you, you slam them openly and ask them to fuck off.

Or, your blog header's description is a harsh way of welcoming readers. i.e.
"This is my blog, I write what I want, if you don't like then you leave".

Or some shit like that.

When you own a public domain and you seek the attention of strangers or the public to read it, make sure you are tough enough to not care of what people think of you.

People are mean by nature. That is something that is beyond our control, but to "manage" their reaction to your blog content (if there's any); moderation of comments, putting up tonnes of skimming and filtering process; is the exact opposite of freedom of expression. You are your own blog police.

I think the idea of expressing oneself is by far, only limited to what they like to hear or what they want to hear. Which is crap. In order to be fully receptive of this idea, it needs to work both ways; the incoming is as important as the outgoing.

Of course people are not enjoying the negative comments about themselves, but if the negative comments are nothing more than a bunch of bullshits, then the commenter is the one that is making a fool out of himself/herself. Stand for what you believe in but be open of what others have to say about it.

I'm just saying.

Some sense of Decency.

I'm contemplating about raising this issue because I wouldn't want to be seen or called as insensitive jerk and what not.

But here it goes..

I'm always against PDA - Public Display of Affection. It is not so much about being on a higher pedestal of moral conduct, but it creates an uneasy feeling and can't help but to feel ashamed when you encounter with one. (oh well maybe it is just me). The affectionate display between you and your spouse should have some limitation when you are out in public. Of course we are not talking about holding hands or a quick peck on the cheek but full blown French kiss with squeezing or caressing. Uneasy is one thing, but when you doing it wrong and rather raunchy, it is just disturbing.

You want to be indecent in your own private place or behind closed door, that is totally up to you. I have nothing against it.

Then comes the breastfeeding in public.

How should I put this? Yes, we understand the need to feed the newborn baby every few hours and am sure most mothers could vouch that the connection between mother and their baby is an out-of-this-world experience, but doing it in public? No matter how much you are trying to cover your tops as appropriately as possible, for me, it is just not appropriate enough.

I've seen young mothers doing this in the shopping mall, at the park and other public places with careless conduct. I even asked my mother about this and she said, never once she lifted up her tops in front of strangers or relatives to feed any one of us. For her, there's a place that she can do it comfortably and it is called "home". Privacy is the main key here.

If you really really really need to get the hell out of your house and taking the baby with you, doing shopping or whatever, I suggest that you find somewhere secluded with not so many people to do this business. I think all the shopping malls' ladies are now well equipped and their management actually provide facilities for this. Heck, they even provide comfy sofas for it.

Just think about it. Popping out the breast (even if it is used to feed a baby) will attract unwanted attention from all walks of life and most importantly, it makes people cringe!

I wonder how the husband would feel like seeing the wife breastfeeding his baby in public? Because whenever I saw a mother breastfeeding a child, I didn't actually see any glimpse of the husband standing/sitting besides her or anywhere nearby.

I'm just saying.

Fighting the "Shortcut Virus".

There's nothing that can make me feel more suicidal than hearing the first thing that come out from my colleague's mouth when they see me stepping into the office; beaming with smiles because that day I've managed to get in earlier than usual;

"The shared directory is no longer accessible. I think it's a virus"

*sighs and walks heavily*

There goes the thought that I had earlier on about how it's going to be a great day for me.

So I stuffed all of my "stuff" in the locker...I was once told by my boss that I would probably be the only "girl" in my company that is so technical, I need to carry two extra bags consisting of - laptop,network cable, tester, my test pen, external hard disk, thumb drives, CD installers and what not, just to satisfy my technical side.... and dragged my flat feet straight to the server room - Only to found out that I left my server room's key in my handbag and had to walk all the 100m back to my cubicle but at the same time trying to look as if I was actually running around trying to fix the problem.

On my way back to the server room, I bumped into a door,my leg hit the edge of the table and shoulder a wall. Man! Talk about poor estimation of space and opening.

Bruises aside, I finally got into the server room and started doing some troubleshooting.

*

"Shortcut Virus". It hides all the original folders and files in the directory and creates false shortcut of them, hence the name. Man! The genius behind this virus must have been so bored with his life living in the basement of his parent's house. I use the word "his" because, come on, you know woman can never screw up things and make it as haywire as this. :)

Back to the "shortcut virus". Unfortunately, the Anti-Virus software for my company is fucked up. Can't even detect the existence of it, even it is constantly running at the background and "pretend" to be apart of Windows system process.

So what a system-admin-that-thinks-she-is-awesome-but-actually-has-limited-knowledge-on-virus-fighting-regime's to do? Go online and google for it of course!! I spent few hours trying to find the best solution for my server that is currently running on Windows Server 2000 (haha yeah I know, it's damn old but we are in the middle of migrating it, so spare me the lectures) that is also our AD and Web Server. So this is a critical server for our daily operation.

p/s: Beggars can't be choosers you know. I have to work within my means. Combining everything in one server could be seen as poor, but damn, when it comes to OPEX budgeting, WE ARE POOR! so beat it!

After a couples of trial and error attempts, I resorted to the SUPERHERO scheme. Track it down, and put it out manually myself! *shred shirts and wears out-tie underpants*

So if any of you suffer the same predicament as I did, use the following steps as guideline in getting rid of the "Shortcut Virus".

1. Unhidden your hidden stuff!

As mentioned earlier, this virus hides all your stuff in the directory. So first, in order to make sure that all the data is still there, you need to "see" it.

• Go to the folder options under the View Tab, check on the Show Hidden Files radiobutton, and uncheck the Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) checkbox. This will enable you to see all the files available under the current active window panel.
• Do not try to unhide it by using the option under the Folder Properties individually because it is a hassle, and also most of it will be disabled.
  

2. Identifying the Virus Files and Ammunition.

Let me tell ya, this virus was solely created just to piss the hell out of you and messing with your head.

• It thrives on autorun.inf file available in your folder.
  
• It usually created 2 *.exe files under some random name that doesn't make any sense to you. In my case it was, taasmex.exe.
• Then there's, thumb.db. This file is usually automatically created by Windows when you are viewing the picture using the thumbnail options. But the thing is, original file under Windows is named THUMBS.DB. With an "S".

3. Killing the background process.

• If you are lucky enough, a mere task killing process can be invoked via Task Manager. But most of the time it didn't happened that way.
• If it is difficult for you to kill the bugger, then download HijackThis. A product from Trend Micro that would enable you to force-kill a running process.
  
• After you have downloaded it, install it on your server/pc, trace the process and kill it.
• Delete all the files mentioned above. I suggest that you Shift-Delete it rather than move it to the thrash bin. You never know that you might "accidentally" restore it back.

4. Delete all the shortcuts made by the virus and change the attribute of the directory or folders to unhidden all the hidden folders and files.

• Go to Start Menu - Run , type cmd. This will call the command prompt window.
• cd to the location of your infected directory. Let say its in E:\ then type this.

C:\> E:\
E:\> attrib -s -h /s /d *.

5. This command will make your folder to appear again before your very eyes.


If all the above mentioned steps do not work for you, then please email me so that I can bang my head on the table and try to hang myself on the ceiling fan.

Good Luck!

Love is never my friend, my dear friend.

I'm a hopeless romantic when it comes to love and when am so high up on the clouds, at times I forget that in real world, things aren't always as it seems to be. Especially when you are in a relationship with someone of a different race and religion.

You want to build your life together but there's a major barrier that prevent it from happening.
Deep within you, you know that you have to come to realisation; in order to make the relationship works, you need more than love. You need blessings from your family and the courage to face what might come your way, together.

We know when we first ventured into this territory, we might have to face the risk of having our heart broken. We shove it aside with a hope that when the time comes, we'll be ready.

We are here now and still we are not ready.

I know by doing this am putting him in a crossroad but believe me when I say that this has to be done.

I love him so much but to have hopes with no certainties just give me more pain than happiness. I can't pretend that I love the idea of having him around few hours a week when there's a possibility of having him besides me all my life. I can't pretend that I can deal with the fact that he's afraid to acknowledge me as his partner when he's around his family.

I'm hurting myself more when I had the courage to bring this up. Now the ball is in his court and he has to make the decision.

But here's the thing. I know this day will come. Deep inside me I know am going to lose him at the end of the race because I know him too well. As much as he loves me, if things aren't on our side, there's nothing much that we can do. I have to accept it and move on. I know that.

That being said, am still a wreck. I haven't stopped crying and I haven't been able to sleep. The vicious cycle has begun. I only have myself to blame because am the one who put myself in this situation in the first place.

I just want him to know that I would never ask him to leave his family for me. I would never ask him to change anything about himself. I would never ask him to put me before anyone else. But if he really has to let go of this relationship, please tell me that he has put some effort in trying to save it in the first place. At least I know that am worthy of something; even if it was just for a brief period. At least I know for the past two years, I have been loved.

Eid Mubarak.

Few people came to my cubicle, shook hand and asked for forgiveness. Greeted me with Eid Mubarak, wished me well and asked me to drive carefully tomorrow. Some called me on my office extension, some called me on my phone. Some sent email to me and some dropped comments on my fb page.

I'm driving back to my hometown tomorrow with my brother. Well, I'm pretty sure he's going to do all the driving instead.

This week has been a bit hectic. I never ever leave my office with my work unfinished or unattended. I would feel very guilty.

This is actually the first time in years that I'm going back the day before Eid itself. Usually, at this time am already at my parents' place helping them with the Eid preparations; helping mom cleaning the lawn, the house, paint the wall, change the curtains and anything that she wants me to do. This year, a bit of sacrifices has to be made. I will be on-call and on-standby for the next few days. I've setup the VPN client with a hope that if there's any problem, I would be able to settle it remotely so that I don't have to drive 2 hours back to the office in the middle of Eid chaos.

I don't actually feel any sort of urgency or looking forward to celebrate Eid this year. I feel a bit complacent about the whole thing. I don't know. I just know what's coming my way; the family gathering, the questions, the endless whining and complaints; I think I'm done with that. But am going back anyway, for the sake of my parents.

So for those who came across this blog and have remained following my updates, best of friends, friends, strangers, loved ones;

"Here I am asking for you to forgive me for all my wrongdoings and all the mistakes that I have done.; those hurtful words that might have affected your emotional well being (intentionally or unintentionally), those bad jokes that weren't even funny most of the time, those endless rage and angry updates that fuelled this mundane page, my limited vocabulary and poor choices of words that might leave anyone in confusion and all the unimaginable things in between. Being human, more over a woman, my updates were mostly based on my endless hormonal raging cycles that never seems to end from month to month, or sometime day to day. I realised that my thoughts were sometimes scattered and jumbled up in a nonsensical sequence, I feel that most of the updates didn't even make any sense at all. So for having to make you suffer reading nonsense all these years, I humbly seek your forgiveness. Thank you for staying and I am wishing all Moslem a blessed Aidilfitri and the rest, enjoy happy holiday!."

Sincerely,
Lina

Think: United state of confusion.

I know am not really a good Moslem to actually give out any advise or dictate what other Moslem should or shouldn't do. I also know that am not in a position to say whether certain things are right or wrong, but I always believe in the freedom of expression; having your voice heard and giving out your opinion on any matter, be it religious or not.

I refuse to touch on this matter in my blog before because I'm afraid that I won't be able to put my thought sufficiently and clearly. But with what has been happening lately, I don't think I can hold it any longer.

So here I am, jotting down my opinion, trying to state clearly of what I think about the latest conundrums that have been happening lately in my country of which has stirred some confusions and rage within the Moslem community and other races as well.

First about the racial issue. Let me make it clear that I am a Moslem first before I am a Malay. In this country that am living in, Malay race is being regard as superior or (or so they think), as we are considered the founder of the land and has been granted all sort of birth right privileges. If you are keen with Malaysia's political scenes, you had came across how this issue had and still being manipulated by the political parties, left or right, and had caused some unpleasant confrontations between the people. The minorities are against the majority and vice versa.

Unfortunately, this has also caused the people to become further segregated. We are now back to where it first begin, after 53 years of claiming our independence. I feel ashamed and most importantly I feel sad. This continuous-never ending shenanigans made me stop reading the newspaper and watching the news on TV for years. I just couldn't bear the thought or the feeling of humiliation, degradation and stupidity every time I hear the politicians contradict themselves within the same sentence, when it comes to religion and race.

I'm not just talking about my own race, but others as well. The seed of hatred has been planted, and sooner or later we are going to witness a tragic ending to all these, unless we do something about it.

It is just ONE thing AFTER ANOTHER and am just sick and tired of it.

I remember studying hard to be where I am now. I don't even remember my parents telling me that since I am a Malay, I don't have to do anything because the "Government" will help the Malays. Seriously, have you ever heard that from your parents?

I studied hard and be as competitive as I possibly can to excel in everything. Why? Because I wanted to further my study in a tertiary education program and I wanted to get a good job. What about scholarship? I was interviewed just like everyone else and I would like to believe that I was selected fairly. First two years of my undergrad study, I was fully supported by my parents.

So when someone says, "Owh it is easier for you because you are Malay" I'd say, "FUCK IT!"

And for the Malays, don't be such a smug and keep on claiming this land as our own and labeled others as immigrants. How do you even dare to use that term when our forefathers fought side by side to free the country. To be fair, every each one of us are immigrants. So when you point one finger towards other people calling them names and whatnot, you have another four pointing back at you.

Whatever happens to friendship? We do not identify each other through race. We form a clique because we understand and like each other. Gosh am so full of anger now.

And about being a Moslem.

When I was young, I was sent to a religious school to learn about our religion and to embrace the Qoran and Islam. I was thought how to pray, to follow the Sunnah (compilation of our prophet Muhammad (PBUH) acts and practices to compliment the Qoran), how to be respectful of people regardless of their religion, be humble and etc. And am sure, any other kids growing up in other religions experienced this as well.

Now we have NGOs that looked more like mafias to me, and those of higher power, suddenly transformed into Islam's champions and make a mockery our of the teaching of Islam for their own agenda.

Case of point: Non-Moslem MP entered a Surau (chapel).

There was a big hoohaa about this. To make the long story short, these so called "religious" monkeys asked responsible religious council to punish the non-Moslem MP just because she attended an event held in a Surau.

My God. The thing about why I hate them so much is they are putting out ridiculous image on other Moslem. Stop it already!

Is my faith and belief that I have nurtured since I was young, things that I have learned and loved about my religion can be easily threatened by petty stuff? Don't they realized that false representations and making false statement on religion are more damaging that anything else?

We need to come together. Stop playing both the racial and religious card. It would just make you look more pathetic.

A year older.

Photo: Aged 1 year old, 30 years ago.

Today, at 2.20pm I will officially turned 31. The impact of seeing a significant change in the first number in your age only hits you really hard when the second one starts to change as well.

Happy birthday to me. Many happy returns.

Think: We are the less fortunate ones, but we will support each other no matter what.

Photo: My dad's cat.

I called my mom yesterday's evening to wish her a blessed fasting month of Ramadhan. When she answered my call she sounded normal; well normal like how a mother would be, soft spoken but a bit irritated because she probably had to slowly waddle or stretched/pushed herself to get to her phone.

I asked her my routine sickeningly structured series of questions that came in a predictable sequence ; consisting of health - how is she feeling , wealth - did she strike any number today, about love - is she still annoyed with my dad's constant whining and last but not least her favourite activity - what's special on the menu today.

It was a normal mother-daughter day to day phone conversation, until she said, "wait" and then she was talking to someone at the back, "it's ok, it's ok, don't cry anymore."

At that moment I knew something was wrong.

When she finally turned back to me to resume our daily exchange of self-loathing and boring bits of our lives, I asked her who was it that she was referring to. She explained that all the while I was talking to her, my auntie was crying at the back and immediately her voice turned sombre.

My auntie (Auntie Lah) is one of the closest to me. We grew up together because, age-wise, we are not that far apart. It was heartbreaking for me to have listened to her soft cries.

My mom continued telling me that she discovered that her boyfriend of 5 years, has been married for 9 years. You can't imagine my disbelief and how shocked I was when I heard that bit of a news because it just doesn't make any sense at all.

Let me explain.

We've known him through a family friend who introduced him to my newly divorced Auntie at that time, 5 years ago. We've met his family, nieces, nephews and he came around to our family's house mostly every week, but all this while it was never brought to our attention that he is actually a married man. Not from OUR family's friend, not from HIS family. It is just totally dumbfounding. It is like a conspiracy theory. So, to found out that he's married AFTER 5 YEARS of being in a serious relationship with my Auntie, is a complete electric-kaboom-shock!!. Things just don't add up even when I tried very hard to gel them together.

It is out in the open now and it is better late than never. There's nothing much that we can do about what had happened and it is just a waste of time to lament about it over and over and over again.

I told my Mom to just let her cry until she can't cry no more -until she wears herself out, until she no longer has a voice and has completely drain all her energy out. Just like the last time when she was dumped by her then husband because he was having an affair with a younger woman. I know, just like the rest of us, she is strong and she will rise again from this tragic fall. She will emerge stronger than ever.

But for her to do that, she has to endure this painful phase. She has to go through this on her own and we must make known to her that she has our love and support no matter what. My mom was angry albeit sad by this whole episode. She's the biggest supporter of my auntie's relationship and knowing my mom, am sure she felt a bit responsible towards what had transpired.

I SMSed my auntie before I went to sleep last night.

"No matter what happen, you know you'll have us until the end of time. We love you, and you should love yourself too. Call me when you are done with the crying bit."

She was there for me during my meltdown from my previous relationship and I was there for her after her devastating divorce, and we will continue to be there for each other even though it seems that this cycle of tragic relationship ceases to end for all the women in my family.

Left: My mom's. Right: My dad's.
(How do we differentiate the two? My mom's cat is a cam-whore and my dad's cat is very shy. He never really looks directly at the camera)

Tweak: Bali, Indonesia.

Think : Imitation is the best form of flattery.

Photo credit to Mr.Snots. Summer night in Sweden.

When I first heard of this phrase,"Your eyes are the windows to your soul", I seriously think that who ever came up with that was totally delusional. I can never tell whether people are being sincere or lying to my face just by looking at their eyes. The only thing that I would probably notice about their eyes is how captivating it can be.

You also can't obviously think of me as a very nice, warm loving person just by looking at my eyes, or that I do charity, and feed the homeless or carry grocery bags for old aunties. Right? But of course none of these are true. I am quite selfish and a bit self-centred at times. Then again, if you have been living your life alone for so long, why would you want to care or bother of what's going on with other people.

Talking about other people, there are countless type of people out there with different needs and views on life. You might have encountered some few annoying ones, good ones, or sometimes the ones you would love to emulate or imitate in life.

On that note, I once dressed up with a cap pull backwards, baggy jeans with an awesome soldier belt (because they had this camouflage print) and also my oversized t-shirt because I thought it was cool to be like TLC, especially T-Boz and Left-Eye. LOL. I also had multicoloured handyplast plastered on my face and on my hand because it was deemed up-to-date.

There's this time when I basically had NKOTB posters on my bedroom wall and was dancing to Linear's saving all my love.. saving all my love to you...., I cut my hair short and put on so much of hair gel and hair spray, I had caused the thinning of the ozone, above the path I had walked on. It was even cool to be a boy for a girl like me. Lucky I didn't end up being a lesbian. (not that I have anything against them, I'm just saying you know). I even put on a choreographed performance (each of us was in character, I think I was Jordan Knight haha) with my "gang" in school during the Teacher's day and boy, they were so lame, they really loved it. We were freaking lame as well, because we wore torn jeans and a black leather jacket. LOL.

Then I came to know a bunch of skateboarders and listened to RHCP, Ugly Kid Joe and etc. Now I remember that we were divided into 2 groups of skaters back then; those who listened to rap/hip hop music. This group was further classified into 2 subgroups - east side and west side. How freaking ghetto is that? We had Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G wannabes. The other group, the rest of the brat pack, those (like me) who listened to rock/alternative rock songs that were on the rise back then. We donned the skinny jeans, t-shirts and the hi-tops shoes.LOL. This fashion has made a comeback, and now we have a bunch of teenagers with this fashion sense who associates themselves with all things Indie.

Growing up, one transformation after another took centre stage in my life, every time I discovered something new that I can totally relate to, or something I think I would want to become, or ought to be.

Luckily for me, at the end of my journey in search for so-called self identity (somewhere when I was 15), I reverted to my all time favourite; jeans, t-shirt and anything that I feel like wearing without putting any constraints on me - my comfortable self.

Since that point of time, I never had any urge to follow any trend, be it music, fashion, accessories and others.

These external changes influenced my image, my song choices, friends I mingled with, but deep inside I always feel the same. All I ever cared about was finishing up school so that I don't have to wake up way too early in the morning, my sports activities and try not to get on the parents' nerves because, this you guys have to agree with me, when they were much younger they were really mean and roarrr arrgghh *shows claws*, merciless towards us.

But life was so much awesome nonetheless.

Tweak : Fixing the Firefox.

I have a love-hate relationship with the Firefox internet browser. I know it is one of the safest if not THE SAFEST, most convenient, well organised and all the features that would make a geeky worm goes gaga over it. Well, I am one of those unimpressed geek.

The only issue I'm having an emotional flip-flop with Firefox is the Add-On/Plug-ins feature. Why? Because it is always being automatically downloaded and once it is installed, it always search for updates. I don't need all those extra features because I prefer the native add-on free browser. Disabling it won't exactly put my mind at ease.

Although I always refuse any sort of additional downloads, sometimes I do overlook certain updates. Especially when it comes with a DEFAULT configuration.

The CULPRIT is Ask.com Toolbar. I hate it with passion! And for the past few days, it has been giving me hell.

One thing I need to remind the fans of Firefox is, when you remove your Ask.Com Toolbar, just make sure that you perform this step.

--> Go to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components and remove the AskSearch.js file in that folder.

Because although you think by performing uninstall task and everything will magically goes away, in reality, sometimes it doesn't really completely remove all the components of the add-on/plug-ins, and these "containers" that were left behind will cause your browser to go haywire.

Example:
You will get this every time you enter any URL on the address bar. The browser freezes for few seconds and will later produce this error message. What triggers this? It is the damn AskToolbar (I would rather refer to it as Ass TooBAD). It leaves behind the file I mentioned above, and still the browser will try to call it. Stupid or what?


All you need to do is just to remove the AskSearh.js and things will go back to normal. Trust me. It is still a pain in the ass, but it is a curable pain.

One more issue.

If you are a fanatic internet user; say, you use internet 24 hours a day and browse almost all the available pages in the virtual world; you might want to, once in a while clear your cache and browser history. That what we were told to do right? and by doing that we would think that it will be gone, deleted, vanished, cleared, thrash-binned, and whatnot.

Wrong.

You need to perform this instead.

1. Go to your Start Menu, navigate to Run and enter this %appdata%/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/.

2. You will then be diverted to your mozilla profile folder (oddly titled with an extension .default) that housed all your configurations; like bookmark, historical data and so on and so forth.

3. Open that folder, search for this file, places.sqlite . This file contains all your browsing history for as long as you have been using your Firefox browser. The size won't become smaller just because you constantly clear your history.

4. Rename this file place.sqlite.bak or you can delete it if you want (but I would recommend you to rename it, it is always a good practice to do backup). Because this step will force the Firefox to create a new file and will give you less headache every time you want to type in a URL and the browser would "SLOWLY" trying to search for the recommended site for you, based on your browsing history.

There you go. Hopefully it is all clear now. Even the greatest and the awesome-st browser is flawed.

Think : Somber and Suicidal.

Photo: Standing still.

I received an email this morning from Mr.Snots asking me why the tone of my writings is somber and suicidal lately.

I said that I didn't realise it at all. Then I came back to this blog, browsed through the archive and I finally see that I do sound a bit suicidal. I noticed that my choice of songs have changed dramatically as well. Keith Urban, Eagles, Joshua Radin and Paolo Nutini is on top of the playlist now compared to Stone Sour, Kiss, Kinks, Papa Roach, Three Days Grace and Nine Inch Nails a couple of weeks ago.

So here I am, updating this blog with a hope that as I compose this entry, I might discover what had influenced this transformation in me.

Before this post is published, I have taken a couple of breaks in between, to analyse what's going on. Few things that I understand now, and most important one is the fact that what I write is a reflection of my emotion in that frame of time.

Emotionally, I have been a bit under the weather lately. I don't know how to elaborate on it, but I know that I do feel empty. It felt like - I could have done more with my life and maybe the outcome will be different. You know? I don't feel happy or maybe because am PMSing. But not to forget the fact that PMSing actually emphasize the state that you are in. Things that you think is petty, no longer seems to be small and irrelevant. Things always get blown out of proportion, just like all these stupid chaotic hormones.

Well, let see if after I've done with this rollercoster ride of hormonal chaos, I will be able to atleast not sound so suicidal. For the mean time, bear with me.

Sew Myself Shut.

Photo: Enjoying the sun.

Photo: A nice lady feeding the lil birds on a bright sunny autumn day.

I have a tendency to keep everything to myself. Something that should be out in the open, sometimes is left unspoken until it is forgotten. I have an attention span of a 5 year old, and a memory of a flushed-down-the-toilet goldfish. Things that have been forgotten will not be recalled or remembered until it is triggered by some tragic incident. Most of the time, none of it will ever be remembered at all.

I don't blame it on the ageing factor, or for having too much of interesting things to remember. My incapacity of remembering anything started since I was very small and my life ain't that interesting. I think it is somewhat due to the fact that, I am able to block any undesirable experience at the blink of an eye and can easily pretend like nothing ever happened. So, for having to process so many "hide" function for the past 31 years of my life, my brain can't differentiate between manual intervention and auto clean-up anymore. It basically disconnect everything that seems insignificant.

I have a lot of things that I have been meaning to say to a couple of people about a couple of stuff, but somehow I feel like there's an invisible hand holding me back from pouring my heart out. One shitty fact about me is, I can never find the best or suitable word to describe any of my resentments, sentiments and predicaments. I'm easily misunderstood. *sigh*. So I rather keep my mouth shut than to say something totally out of context or or could bring any sort of confusion towards other people.

Bitter truth.

I have always been in a relationship. I've started my journey very young and every time I fell out of it, I picked myself up, and believe that my Mr.Right is somewhere out there. Although sometimes Mr.Right ended up being Mr.Right Now, but as they cleverly put it, it isn't so much about the destination, but the journey towards reaching it.

I had my first boyfriend when I was just 10. We were in the same circle of friends and both of us played hockey for our school. Funny to think about it now, because having a boyfriend back then was just a school girl's way of making a statement and something to brag about. He didn't serves much function/purpose in my life and vice versa. Nevertheless, I had one at the mere age of 10.

I moved on to another boy a year after, to another one not long after, and the other one right after, until I met (who I thought back then) the ONE. Since both of us were in a different situation and under some circumstances (being a bit older and whatnot) it lasted for 12 years. The breakup shattered my heart in gazillion pieces and at that point, I never thought that I would be able to make it whole again.

Then I met Mr.Snots. It has been two years, and we are still together.

The recap of my journey in search of unconditional love is not because I want to portray or make anyone think of myself as someone who can easily get a man. What I want to uncover is the side of me that I think hasn't changed since I started this journey, 21 years ago.

I have always wanted the same thing. A partner who wants to be with me as much as I want to be with him.

Some people had it easy - fall in love, get married, build family and fall prefectly (or unperfectly but still) into the sequence of events that usually follow suit. Unfortunately, am not one of those people. I don't know how to take my relationship to the next level. Most of the relationship resolutions will dissolves itself without any further action from me.

I'm actually scared to bring up anything about "marriage". Although it had been conveyed every once in a while, but I was more scared than excited when talking about it. I think I was afraid that I have to face the possibility and the probability of it not happening, and I think I still am.

You see, it is not that I want to get married tomorrow but this thing will always be at the back of my head. It will be nice if I could talk comfortably about it.

The only thing that I can tell my mom is that I'm not thinking about it, every time she asks me about my future/relationship. The truth is, I lied.

Work from Home(town).

I love this picture. It was taken by a friend of mine, candidly. Didn't notice the love symbol carved on the wooden door before the photo was captured. It turned out great though. I was sitting because was too tired from too much of walking LOL.

I'm planning to go back to my hometown this weekend. Since it has been a long time since I last went back, I applied for another 3 days of leave next week so that I can extend my stay a bit longer. I will be packing my work stuff with me because although the idea of spending time with my parents and aunties, doing nothing ;except for endless talking and eating; is my top priority, but *sigh* work is work and deadline is just a bitch. I'm still struggling to finish reading all the SIRIM standards to come up with a report. That book is like a sleeping pill, every time I open it, I fell asleep.

So my mom asked me yesterday, is Mr.Snots tagging along this time around? Much to her dismay, I said no. I know that she's probably wondering why on earth that, I've been with this dude for 2 years but everyone in the family (except for my brother who is living with me) only met him once. I don't know how to explain this to everyone. The situation is a bit different with this one because every time we make an arrangement to go back home to meet the parents, that usually means that we meet our OWN parents at our OWN hometown, separately.LOL.

I always believe in this perception about doing things (certain things pertaining family) separately. If you are involved in a committed relatioship; married or unmarried; you can and should be able to still spend time with your family without your other half. There's no such thing as - if I go back to my parents' you must come as well or else - kinda arrangement. You don't have to follow me every where I go.

Also, the problem about being single for too long is, you have somewhat developed these routine "activities" that you do together with your family every time you (in this case, it is totally me) go back home. Like I would want to take my mom and auntie out shopping, and take her anywhere she wants to go. I also think that they would be more comfortable talking to me about "family" issues alone, without my bf nearby. But of course, there's always time allocated for family, time for relationship and most importantly for both, probably at the same time , next time.LOL. Just need to make a bit of arrangement every now and then, so that everything is well balanced and everyone is happy.

Krabi Trip 2010 : Pictorial Edition.

We promise each other that we would spend time away every year together. I'm talking about my girlfriends here. Last year we made it to Bali, and for this year's trip - Krabi, Thailand. Did nothing much but lazing around, talked, shopped, read books, and whatnots. Good times!

I'm still pretty much obsessed with white fluffy clouds I guess.

What is it about these girls that I love so much anyway? We don't actually have anything in common except for enjoying each other's company. Each of us came from different background yet when we sit and talk, we can REALLY talk. I don't know, everytime I spend time with them, it feels as if am free of my worries. I can always count on them to be around everytime I give out a distress sms/email/call.

Sunset in Ao Nang beach.

We share stories about love, life, expectations and the lack of it, ambitions and everything under the sky. I have no idea why is it that everytime we meet each other, there's some kind of a magnet that attracted/extracted stories out of my chest/brain or something. I.must.tell.them.what.has.been.going.on.lately. or else I would curled up and die. Seriously.

The girls.

But that's the thing, I have other girlfriends but I don't have that urge to tell them anything. These four (it's five actually but one of them would only available whenever she wants to meet us; hehe - but we love her nonetheless) silly girls (or otherwise known as The Cacklers) would always have a special place in my heart.

The beach.

Thanks for the friendship and am looking forward to our next outing. Probably tomorrow, yes?

The books.

I lost a bet to them. Now I must muster enough courage to eat the most disgustingly foul -smelling (in my own book of course, I don't speak for others) Durian because the two seemingly cowards "I-am-afraid-of-riding-a-boat" had managed to spend two hours travelling from Krabi to Phi Phi. Blearrghhhh!!

I.must.not.give.in!!! BRING IT ON!

Lost and Found II

It takes quite an effort to produce a well organised and constructed post about programming codes, I tell ya. I am about half way done compiling the code and with all the print-screens but still I don't think it is sufficient and it will never pass as a good post. So, until I am fully satisfied with the content and be really sure that people who reads it will understand what I was trying to show them, I will work on it some more.

Tomorrow, Mr.Snots and I will scout around for tables. I need a small yet nice console table for that little work space I have created for me in my apartment. It is right at the corner of my living room. Just perfect. I can watch the TV and do work at the same time. I hate to work in a quiet and empty room. I need some background music or anything that I could immediately turn to whenever I’m bored with my work; like watching TV or DVDs.

I found these two pictures and am not sure whether I had published (uploaded for friends to see of course) or not. And am just too lazy to check on facebook either.

Crystal Mosque in Kuala Terengganu.

Picture of a subway tunnel somewhere in Belgium (if am not mistaken)

I took thousands of pictures, some might be overlooked during the selection/editing time. But am sure I got a lot more hidden somewhere in that "ALL JUMBLED UP PHOTOS" folder of mine. But one thing for sure, I do have a lot of photos of the sky with all sort of clouds formations. *scratches head*..I must have loved looking at the sky before, but I must stress that I rather work indoor nowadays; less sun exposure, less rashes to scratch.

Standardisation.

I just got back from SIRIM for a work group meeting/discussion. Unfortunately, I can't disclose anything because we were requested to sign a confidentiality agreement.

I was just a stand-in for my boss actually, but somehow they want me to return as a permanent representative for my company due to my background and experience in cyber security issues before.

I was really lost at first because it was my first time joining this meeting, but once I get my momentum, everything appeared interesting although I must say the refreshments - two types of kuih - tasted like paper. I also met a couple of familiar faces from other CNIIs (Critical National Information Infrastructure - woah that's a mouthful). It was good catching up on what's new.

I will be doing a lot of reading on these documents to come up with a checklist, do some cross reference check and to produce a report on it. Analysis phase is upon me. I haven’t done this kind of task for so long. I was always on the technical side of everything, so it is expected that I spend hours on reading and understanding the concept and flow of standardisation process.

Lost and Found I

Found a couple of interesting photos when I was trying to free some space in the external hardisk. These were taken during a short trip to Rome. Took it with a point and shoot, and in a moving train. Didn't tweak, didn't make any colour adjustment or whatsoever. I remember it was a bright shiny day and everything that was captured was pratically awesome in the sense of levelling and lighting.

I miss taking random photos of whatever.

Egged Out!

Can't help but to be totally egged out now that everyone with nuffnang sponsored ad is currently doing their bit promoting whatzername egg. Can things get more original than this? ;)

I bet Toots would love this. The last time we had an outing she ate like 3 eggs in one seating!!

Junk or Treasure?

Well, it is true that one's junk could be another's treasure..and nowadays, it comes with a price tag.

I have came across so many preloved websites, or blogs that offer their "old seldom used" stuff, or "impulse purchase" at a dirt cheap price. Ok it is reasonable if they offer you their designer's handbags that you can't afford to buy directly from the boutique even if it is on 50% sale; given that it is in good condition, well maintained, comes with the dust bag and a warranty card; but old used clothes? I don't want to be presumptuous to say that people are surely desperate for money or being judgemental, but I think it is better to give it away than to sell it for RM5 or RM10.

There are still a lot of poor people out there that could use a set of new clothes or two; and am sure by doing that you help to put a smile on their face too.

When I was young, every year my dad would collect our old but still wearable clothes and took it with him to work. Since his work required him to travel to the very nook and cranny of my hometown, so whenever he came across a poor family especially the ones with many small children, he would approach the family and gave them our clothes. He even once took me to that area and asked me to give it to them myself and since I was really young, stupid and selfish, I couldn't appreciate it as much because at that point of time I think all that I care about was either this girl or that boy would end up wearing my t-shirts, of which some of them I still fancy.

Nowadays, from time to time, we still collect our old clothes and ask my uncle to give it to anyone who needs it. I guess my dad's act of kindness has influenced him to carry on with the good deed all these years. He will make sure that we don't give out anything that would look better in a thrash bin rather than on people and still in good condition to at least hold well for few months if not years.

I know there are organisations out there that provide temporary storage and collect clothes, food, baby supplies and other stuff and would then help to disseminate these collections to those in need.All you have to do is to google them.

I’m not so much of a big charity drive person nor would I organise any charity event, but I guess whatever that we could contribute in making this world a bearable place for them to live in, means something.

Conversion.

I woke up late this morning because the alarm clock was not ringing. I have yet to confirm that theory though, because I haven’t checked the alarm function yet. But there’s a major possibility that I didn’t set the alarm in the first place or I dismissed it unconsciously.

Mr. Snots is in Stockholm right now, probably wandering around aimlessly; exactly like when he was in Amsterdam; or searching for an open air market or shop that sells water colour paintings and talk with the painters/artists for hours exchanging views on their passion for art and their favourite subject that most probably revolves around horses, boats and sceneries. I guess he wants to transform his condo into an art gallery or something. What ever that strikes your fancy, honey; as long as you are happy. I just hope that he got me those fridge magnets I’ve asked for. Talk about how easy it is to please a woman eh.

We chatted until almost 4a.m this morning, hence the excuse for my half-day emergency leave.

Ok.That’s that.

Regarding this blog; I have this plan going circle in my head for quite some time now. The plan is that I want to transform this blog into a “techy/geeky” blog and post about what I do best, Application Development and all things IT/System Integration. I’ve started this dotNET journey with zero knowledge, and now I can safely say that I’ve emerged a “hero” or somewhat (talking about an inflating ego the size of a planet). I have gained and learned so much from other developers through their weblogs and their contributions in the forums, I want to pay it forward.

I will share whatever that I have learned (anything that I have managed to get it to work to my advantage, my cheat-sheet, my little code manipulation tricks, things that I have successfully tweaked, from the simplest of example to the most complex algorithm) through out my journey with all the newbies searching for fast solutions and help in this area. I do hope that when they search for that certain keywords, they will be diverted to this blog and they can get something out of my post; exactly like how I started. I was like a virtual scavenger rummaging through piles of garbage before I found what I was searching for.

But I wouldn’t want this blog to be entirely geeky though. This is my space, where I share that little passions that I have in my life; my work, my friendships, my hobbies, my rants and all the things that mattered to me. I would probably label and organise it properly so that people won’t get lost and get confused.

But first, I need to get rid of all the historical posts and delete all the unnecessary. I need to make the layout more user-friendly; I don’t want it to look so depressing anymore. Enough with that already, if I got tired of it myself, I am sure people who stumbled across this blog would think that I’m suicidal or something.

So, here's to a new beginning. *cheers*

Waking up early is not really an ideal way to kickstart my day, ever since I was a wee toddler. You will probably think with all that years spent waking up in the morning for schools and classes, by now I should be able to wake up as early as 6 a.m. I guess my mom had a couple of tricks up her sleeves because somehow she managed to pull me off bed, bathed me, clothed me and sent me off too school with me still very much in my slumber. Most of the time, I only realised that I was awake when I was already in my school compound. Even now, every now and then, I'd be on an auto-cruise mode. Tiba-tiba dah sampai ofis; bila bangun, bila mandi and jalan mana ikut gi ofis pun tak perasan.

But seriously, I have no freaking idea why I can't bring myself up that early. Tried it and failed miserably at it.

If Mr.Snots let me sleep in by not calling me too early in the morning just to spite me (smses tak jalan) during the weekend, my body alarm will automatically wake me up at 10a.m.

This brings me to the next section in this crappy post; so every day for the past 7 years of my working life, I have been deprived of sleep for hmm, let me calculate.


Bangun tido at 7 the latest, so 10 -7 = 3 hours

3 (deprived hours of sleep/day) x 260 (working days/year) x 7 (years)
= 5460 deprived hours of sleep.

From the calculation above, we can see that it is only fair that tuan punya badan, should be compensated with 5460/24 = 227.5 days of leave for this 7 years that she has been slaving around working for this company.

With that much leave days in hand, I think I want to pack my bag and hmmm go travelling. The cheapest way of course; backpacking and stuff.

Why am I talking about this again? Owh yeah, I was just wondering what should or will I do if I was given a year off because my friend has just started working after being in sabatical leave for a year.

Since taking a sabatical is akin to killing your career in Meleisia, so verangans lah. At least until I manage to devise an ingenious plan on how to trick your company in giving you your deserving sabatical leave.

Imagination. Berangan. Tada salahnya.

But ntah-ntah a year off work in this office, will cause me to pile up on side projects pulak. Or silap-silap take up knitting, or sewing.

One thing for sure, I will replace balik all the missing hours of my ensem sleep.