Alfred's New Ramblings

I wrote about syncing your data without a computer before. After a particularly tragic loss of my E71, syncing to the cloud seems to be well really useful.

Your data is available where ever you go. That is provided Google does their data backup / replication diligently. Once you have a replacement device, all you have to sync to download all the contacts, calendar and you are back in business. Except for the photos and the SMSes. Need to figure out a fix for that.

I have tried the latest Mail For Exchange, version 3.0. Claims to be HTML compatible. Strange software. It works well for calendar and contacts but it sync peculiarly for mail. The folders in Google are downloaded but the mails are not. What gives?

Any way, back to version 2.09 or 2.9 for continuity of service and more head scratching for HTML mails and photo backup. Note Google mail app cannot write its status to the home page or scheduled sync.

The other post.

Taking advantage of the long Chinese New Year holidays, I started sorting through all my digital photographs.  They are scattered all over different hard disks, folders and naming conventions.

I consolidated them together (somewhat) into a tree of folders.   Those special noteworthy shots I uploaded into my own personal photo blog.  Flickr can do the same job but after a nasty scare with Lycos’ s Tripod Asia, I have decided to be cautious about those free services.

How do you store your digital photos?

I was going through my wardrobe post New Year, pre Lunar New Year and saw a business shirt.  There are two small black stains on the sleeve courtesy of the glue used to seal the lid of the FVPS unit. 

That staining was a long time ago.  Much more longer when I start counting back the years and it goes into two digits.  Surprised it lasted so long.  It is a light grey colored shirt, cool for those many long hot days.  Time to give it an honourable discharge and dig out the new shirts in the store room.

Chinese New Year goodie bag distribution 2010

Happy Lunar New Year to everyone !!!

The limes from the supermarket downstairs are larger and gave much more juice that previous batch. Much more sour too.

Carefully taste the mixture at each step to avoid too much sweetness.   This time round, double the butter for the biscuit base.  It is now much easier to mould into the pan.  Unlike the second attempt it was like trying push dry sand.

Now for the waiting part.

Update 3 Feb 10
After 3 days of waiting, tested it.  The lime is way too strong, giving a raspy feeling .  Theodore as usual, gobbled up his portion like a champ and his sister’s too.

Using a toy train to calibrate a nuclear reactor. First spotted on Slashdot. link

God mode in Windows OS. link

Waiting for the results of my second attempt at the Key Lime Cheese cake. The first attempt I literally followed the instructions to the letter. It was so sweet that my eyes nearly popped out.

This time round half the portion of condensed milk.

Update 15 Jan
After 3 days of waiting for the cake to ’settle’, it tastes less sweet as the first round, but can be better.  I wonder if it was due to the sweetened creamer instead of sweetened condensed milk.  The crust needs lots of improvement.  The biscuits were not totally converted to powder causing a very flaky crust.
Need lots more butter too.  Third time lucky?

Update 17 Jan
Passed have the cake to Father and Brother.  They did not find it too sweet.  Father though was wondering where is the cake in the cheese cake.  Hmmmm

This is a late. I just learn a friend has passed away in May 09.

We worked together in the automotive industry. He was the on-site IT delivery lead, I was the customer.

So we had interesting times together. I learned from him about handling paperwork, leading by example and much more.

He will be missed.

RIP Foo Yong Pat

What a week!
 I got an earful from the bosses about work issues.  Followed by a farewell lunch for the outsourced desktop engineer.  While on the road, a very helpful cabby pointed by rear tire is flat.  Gingerly I navigate out of the lunch time jam to the nearest car park.

Cross my fingers and hope the 5 year old spare tire has enough air.  The last time I top off the spare was nearly a year ago.  

Guess what caused the flat? Yup a screw in the tread.  It looks like a countersunk woodscrew.

During the weekend, assembled an Ikea Besta shelf with a Inreda drawer.  Besta shelf is a plain shelf that you can customize it with various bits like drawers, hangers for files, wine bottle holders, even a ladder!

My Inreda drawer is with Besta Tofta front.  Glossy red no less!
  
The drawer base is kept in place by grooves in the front and back.  The sides they used the roller arms.  From the side, the arms are screw mounted.  The left arm has bottom screw holes presumably to keep the base from bursting.  The right arm has no bottom screw holes and they don’t provide the screws.  Strange.

So all in all a screwy week.

On New Year’s Day, I decided to go hashing, the first time in a few years.  Since it was a Friday, that means it is the Lion City Hash House Harriers.

The run site was at the Bukit Batok Nature Reserve Car park.  When I reached there, it was 5.15pm.  I thought was going to play catch up when peer through the pouring rain to see an empty car park.

Continue reading First Hash run of the new year