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May 2006

Viewing posts from May , 2006

fat thunderbird

recently found my workplace Mozilla Thunderbird client acting messed up. every time a message comes in, i get a message saying my Inbox summary file has been corrupted and needs to be deleted. yet even when i did that the problem still persists.

after scouring the web for answers, it seems that Thunderbird mailboxes get crappy the bigger it gets, especially when it hits 2GB. my Inbox was 2.07GB :O it seems that Thunderbird doesn’t compact your boxes for you automatically, so even if you delete files from a folder, the message is really still there.

so the moral of the story is to compact your folders regularly. there are probably some extensions you can download that’d do that for you automatically so you don’t forget. while trying to recover my Inbox, i’ve had to rebuild files, renamed folders and whatnot to get my emails back, so don’t repeat my mistake of letting it grow too big.

myuu’s inbox after compacting: 571MB.

puter matters

my puter just experienced it’s first ‘ghostly reboot’ yesterday while i was watching an episode of BSG. the first occurence since its return into its semi-modified casing. checked the temperature history and found it well within its normal range (i’ve seen it do constant 67C without any glitches). hopefully it isn’t dying a slow and unknowing death. :O

the original 7800 GS i ordered got cancelled, due to Inno3d not having any more stock. but the same guy managed to hook up with BFG, so i’ll be getting a new version on june 11th. yea, i know i shouldn’t splurge, but the logic behind this purchase is BFG’s True Lifetime Warranty, which replaces the card with the same or better in the event of the fault, irregardless of the product life. so hopefully the card dies after they run out of AGP stock and give me a PCI-Express equivalent instead 😀

anyway, the new card should allow me to play BF2 better. my bigger display lets me catch tiny enemy movements easily, but the major artifacts blurring my vision removes that advantage. oh well, i still managed to get my veteran support combat badge and combat infantry medal. there seems to be a bug where i’m awarded with that same medal each time i start the game, but my stats still show one (if there’s to be a bug, they should make it thorough!). unknowingly, i got myself a navy cross medal as well. a lot of the stats requirements have gone down, but that’s no reason to increase my BF2-playing time with lotsa other things for me to do.

while the new holes in my pc seem to help, i can’t rest until i’ve finished all my planned mods, including some vents on the side panel. i don’t have enough cutting discs to last the project though, so i’ll have to try and find some more. however, that trip to pasar road just ain’t happening.

finally, some episode checkpoints:
Lost S2 E21 – betrayal!
Rome S1 E10 – soft porn!
Battlestar Galactica S2 E05 – not really soft porn!
House MD S2 E04 – starting to get boring!
O.C. S3 E25 – XO

money matters

stretched so thin… it’ll take another month or two for my finances to normalize. i haven’t even considered savings for my accompany-my-sis-to-Australia trip. credit card bill for the past two months have spiked due to the timing belt incident and ‘promotion-related expenses’.

at least my net pay finally crossed the 2k boundary.

still, the end of my woes is nowhere near. the honda is acting up once again, this time unable to keep a decent idle rev. it’d be either too high upon ignition, or too low a few minutes after.. low enough to stall. that car will have to go soon, but it’s not for me to decide whether to sell cuz it’s not my car.

speaking of cars, my trust in Utama Tyre & Battery Service has dwindled. i went back to get this rev problem looked at, and they assign me this noob to look at the car. he didn’t even check the symptoms before recommending a spark plug/cable change. and lo and behold.. problem still there! then he unloads a huge amount of wd40 like stuff into the carb and making my car propel tons of white smoke from the rear. the yelling from his colleagues didn’t even faze him.

time to change places. the original foreman of this workshop was good and trustworthy, but he left to start his own stint in sunway. a little too far for me though. 🙁

so, any recommendations besides ah keong? 😛

elven fetish

last weekend i was told that i had to attend training this week. so i’ve been at menara TH instead of the office so far during business hours. still, i find myself back there just to finish up things that needed finishing. my training will last till tuesday, so the late nights will probably continue too.

it’s just been really hectic these days, and a long list of tasks await my attention. it’s hard being a process improver. and while my car can move, there seems to be something wrong with the idle rev timing, causing the car to rev too low and at times stall altogether. gonna have to bring it back to the shop.

seriously thinking i should consider a new car now.

anyways, this state of mind has kept me somewhat on the edge, and i end up snapping at people for no reason. i just can’t help it. being hooked on a book named Eldest doesn’t help either. instead of socialising, i’d rather drown myself in its fantasy world. yes, there are elven chicks involved. it’s part 2 of a trilogy; fortunately the last part isn’t published yet, but my sister was kind enough to buy me Sir Thursday (part 4 of a series of 7; arigatou ayin-chan! :D) so i’ll still be antisocial for a little while longer.

by the way, i just upgraded my router’s firmware a while ago. there’s definitely some improvement in terms of accessing my own site internally, and hopefully this version brings an end to the constant downtime. :

also changed the body text color of this site to black. reading my own site was putting a strain to my eyes at this resolution.

feckin linksys

back from my trip. it was fun. caught up on some reading.

you probably weren’t able to access this site till now. this damned linksys router is giving tons of problems, i might think i was better off with my d-link. previous versions of the WRT54G router were supposedly good, but this latest version 5 uses a different OS, and so far it sucks big time. can get past a few days without a soft reset, and the damned DDNS function doesn’t work properly either.

feckin cisco and their sob.

truth prevails

was in a meeting with the VP HR yesterday. we were there to help our users explain some of the steps forward that we’ve taken in some issues raised by internal audit. i hoped that i could just have sat there letting my superiors do the answering, but in the end that was not to be.

although i’ve known him (the VP) since i joined the company (he conducted my take-in interview), there’s somehow this feeling that he might snap at you if you say something he doesn’t like to hear. but then again, usually, who wouldn’t? but anyways, i had to speak up for a certain issue, and there was this feeling of panic in the beginning.

it’s not that i don’t know the facts or what’s happening… it’s just that the truth might actually hurt my relationship with the users, or even my colleagues. but in my cuak state i managed to blurt out a longwinded explanation (with a few repetitious statements) without incriminating anyone in particular. it was the truth, but the truth without names. or something like that.

i guess at the end of the day, it’s easier to give out some form of the truth. whether you like it or not. i’ll need more training in that aspect, definitely.

so tomorrow i head out for PD, for a work-out session with the project support team. will be there the entire weekend, save the later half of sunday, so you prolly won’t hear from me till then. yea, rejoice while you can. 😛 all that’s left for me to do is to pack and clear up the mess in my room a bit. bed sheets are in dire need of changing as well.

my computer seems to be happy in its new casing. i haven’t totally closed it yet, but there hasn’t been any crashes or reboots so far. i’ll post pics later when i have the time. one tiny quirk seems to be the boot up sequence; somehow the system will report a non system disk error which a simple Enter will bypass. it’s not major, but annoying.

a tiring off day

yes. i took a day off today. not surprising you say? well, bleh to you. 😛

slept reasonably early last night, but i ended up waking up around 11, feeling a little under the weather. maybe my body misses the workload at the office. yeah, right.

so the day started off with a visit to my workshop in DU to pick up my accord, and to service my sister’s kelisa. grabbed some light brunch at dharoos, while waiting for the service which was unexpectedly fast. they tell us her tires are gone, which i guess is the reason that it’s still not aligned after. oh well, at least mine only cost rm900. and that was after they threw in a new number plate and wiper motor.

back home, i continued where i left off with my computer case, and i’ve finally finished modding the main frame (with only 3 heavy-duty discs remaining out of 25). definitely can’t continue with the side panel, so i’ll have to wait till i acquire more fibreglass discs for my rotary tool.

then it was back to the order of the day, which was to mop the floor, scrub a shower curtain and the balcony. needless to say, i’m really tired.

uber mice

Bought a new funky looking Logitech mouse as a HTPC remote, but can’t quite set the buttons to do exactly what you want?

Get uberOptions for SetPoint!

super pissed and super broke

dad’s forcing me to arrange this year’s road tax myself. reason: supposedly i didn’t pay him back for last year’s. i’m pretty sure i told him that the amounts were used to pay for my brother’s tuition fees. or i might’ve passed the message to a sibling, which didn’t get delivered. either way, he’s not easy to talk to, and after this, i don’t think i want to speak to him at all.

at the same time, the car’s timing belt snapped this afternoon. i knew it was coming, and i had planned to get it replaced at the next service. but i guess it just couldn’t wait. think i clocked about 130k on this one. a very expensive lesson indeed.