11:38 by FoxTwo
Cool Way To Screenshot A Website
What's so special about it?
In simple terms, it captures a screenshot of a webpage. The great thing about it is, not only can you screenshot a FULL page, you can select portions of it and kwout will cut it out and magnify that portion for you!
Here's a screenshot of just a portion of ping.sg:
Nice eh? Makes it really convenient to just point and click, and do an image link in addition to a standard link to a website of interest...
Labels: cool, internet, website
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11:07 by FoxTwo
We're Boozing Tonight So We Can Quit Boozing
As I mentioned, I'm seriously thinking of giving up drinking - regular drinking I mean. Social ones, maybe. However I won't be drinking "every Friday" anymore. That's my first step.
But, I still have leftover bottles out there. Tonight, a friend of mine was saying we should go drink. Ok, good time to finish up some leftover bottles.
It's so ironic - we're going drinking so I can stop drinking.... Links to this post | 3 comments in Blogger |

11:25 by FoxTwo
New Bluetooth Earpiece, And Some Ramblings
For me, I realised that blogging is a way for me to vent. Thus, I probably won't disappear from the blogging scene.
However, I am definitely quitting some stuff. I'm gonna quit drinking. I'm gonna quit smoking... NOT! Well, cut down maybe. I'm gonna lose myself in my workouts and stop thinking about things I am powerless to change.
Anyway, since I so drunkenly misplaced my bluetooth earpiece, I had to go get a new one. I bought the Sony Ericsson HBH-V702 Bluetooth earpiece. No I didn't get this because I have a SE phone. I got this because it's the cheapest 8 hour talktime set I can find on Ebay ($45.00).
The one which I "misplaced" was a Motorola H500. It too had an 8 hour talktime rating, which is perfect since my current phone, the SE K810i is rated for 10 hour talktime. When I went hunting for a replacement earpiece, I had asked a few shops if they had anything that is over 5 hour talk time. A couple of the shops actually told me "Sir, no such thing lah. Where got bluetooth can talk more than 4 hours one?"
I am sad that retail personnel can make such claims. If you don't have what I want, say it. "Sorry sir we do not have anything that is over 5 hour talktime". Don't tell me they don't exist ok? Because I owned one that was 8 hour talktime. What makes you think telling me that "they don't exist" will make me buy the earpiece that you currently have?
So how's the new earpiece, compared to the one I misplaced?
Sigh, I shouldn't have misplaced the old one. I still preferred it over the new one. For one thing, the part where it loops over the ear is entirely rubber. The new one has plastic backing to it, thus making the whole thing "stiffer".
For another, if the phone went out of coverage (ie "no signal"), the old earpiece would beep and let me know. If another Bluetooth device was attempting to connect to my phone, the old earpiece would beep too. The new one is completely silent! In fact I got so worried that I actually placed a call out to 1711 just to check whether it was working.
However, the V702 is much lighter than the old one, and after a while you actually forget you have it worn on your ear.
Ah well, can't complain for a $45.00 earpiece I guess.
Labels: bluetooth, mobile phones, Rant
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21:18 by FoxTwo
SMRT To Install Glass Doors By 2012
So what will Singaporeans complain about now?
For starters, how about more fare hikes? Sure, the doors will be installed. Don't tell me they won't put aircons into all the overhead stations? Singaporeans will definitely complain that it will be hot, especially on very sunny days where the sun will shine very brightly into the enclosed, glass-sealed overhead stations.
Where do you think the money for installing the doors, putting in glass walls, and installing air conditioning in the overhead station is going to come from?
Secondly, Singaporeans will no longer have an excuse to be late for work. They can't use the "someone jumped onto the tracks again boss, so I'll be 3 hours late" and waltz in after lunch.
Third, mommies with little boys can no longer tell the little boy to pee on the tracks when the little kid has to go to the bathroom RIGHT NOW.
Fourth, where will suicidal Singaporeans go now?
Labels: MRT, Singapore, Singaporeans
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17:05 by FoxTwo
Sony Ericsson Needs A Slight Revamp
In addition to my recent woes, I have drunkenly misplaced my battery cover of my phone (not to mention my bluetooth earpiece, dammit!). So, I called up the helpdesk, and was advised to visit a service centre to get a new cover.
All fine and dandy.
So, I went to one, walked up to the cashier and asked about purchasing a cover. I mean, there's nothing wrong with my phone, except that I lost the battery cover. Simple and quick, I thought. They give me a new cover, I pay them, and walk out. This transaction should be done and completed in less than 5 mins.
But no, I was to take a queue ticket. Ok fine I got one. There were 10 people ahead of me in the queue, and each of them, I'm sure, had a more serious and pressing problem with their phones than just a missing cover.
45 mins later, it was finally my turn. I went up to the service personnel and he went through the full routine - checking IC, keying in data and all that. Once that is done, I needed to sign the "complaint form". He said, the form was needed so that I could get my battery cover.
So again I had to wait. The technicians inside had to "process" my "complaint" and will release a new cover to me presently. About 5 mins later, I was finally brought to the cashier counter. However, I still couldn't get my cover, because ahead of me were 2 other people checking their repaired phones before paying. One guy was swapping SIM cards between his repaired phone and his current phone. The other customer, a girl, was scrolling through the menus and checking whatever. Only after a few more excruciating minutes passed before the guy finally got his SIM cards swapped and agree to pay for the repairs, and the girl decided that HER phone is good to go too.
The cashier even so kindly wanted to staple my new cover (which came in a plastic bag) to the "repair form" for me to sign.
Gah!
What should have taken 5 mins stretched almost to an hour.
Sony Ericsson should really start thinking about making stuff like battery covers available as "accessories" to be bought off the shelves in retail stores! I mean, there might be someone out there that might want a differently-coloured battery cover for their phone too, you know? Kinda like Nokia owners with their garish "housings"....
Labels: Rant
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17:26 by FoxTwo Something in my life just went topsy turvy. Well, not just one "something" but several of them. It's serious enough to make me re-evaluate some stuff, and do some re-prioritizing. Might even give up drinking and my usual Friday Nights too :(
Might not blog for abit. Or a long bit.
Labels: random
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00:17 by FoxTwo I was just passing by Merdurian's blog and she had this pretty interesting collage of which celebrity she resembled. So, I went to the website and ran through the whole process with my picture.
It was interesting to see the result actually. I'm actually amazed that the software can recognise my face and go search for a celebrity look-alike for me.
Wanna see who I resemble? Just look at the pic below:

Cool eh? Links to this post | 1 comments in Blogger |

14:19 by FoxTwo Ok so I'm gonna get a little picky today.
Sometimes, it just irks me so much that Singaporeans, majority of which are "educated" with English as the first language, can still write and speak so differently.
A long time ago, I wrote this. In a sense, this post is like a "followup" of that entry.
So what has this got to do with the post title?
Well, it's how many Singaporeans pronounce "owe". Yeah I know it's weird, there's no N in the word "owe" yet many people say "own" instead of "owe". Saying "own" to an American is actually to tell him you beat him hands-down at something. This phrase "You got owned!" is very familiar in gaming circles. As a side-note, the phrase recently changed to "You got pwned!", thanks to a popular spelling mistake by Blizzard in the game Warcraft circa 1998 or so.
I had a discussion about this with a friend some time back about Singaporeans and the pronunciation of words. She said, a large portion of the human race is mostly visual, hence they see a word and memorise its pronunciation, instead of using phonetics on the words. It's fine to mispronounce "Lavender" as "lah-ven-der" instead of "laven-der", but saying "own" instead of "owe" is almost hilarious.
This is especially so for Chinese, since the native language is pictorial in nature. People see a Chinese word, and memorise it. Hence, they apply the same principles to the English language. Hence, words like "spanner" is still being pronounced as "spunnah".
Very few people I know pronounce words phonetically. For people like me, I normally don't stumble when I come across a long word which I've not seen before. I just break it down into its phonetic components and pronounce it. Of course, the English language has its own quirks too, like "sabre" is pronounced "say-ber" but "genre" is pronounced "jon-rer". I will always remember and laugh at an incident my drinking buddy told me that happened to him in secondary school.
He said, once he was asked to read a passage by the teacher. Like me, he's a phonetic speller and reader. He came across the word "quay" and pronounced it "kway". When the teacher corrected him, he argued that if it's supposed to be pronounced as "key" then they should have spelt it K-E-Y. LOL! At least the Americans got it right - they called the place "Florida KEYS" and not "Florida QUAYS", in my opinion anyway.
If you've always struggled with the English language, and one of your weaker points is spelling words, I've just given you a clue to help you - learn phonetics. When I was a schoolkid, I prided myself in knowing how to spell words that I've never even seen before, by just listening to how it's pronounced.
That is also my Archille's Heel in the Chinese language too - you cannot apply phonetics to Chinese. For example, nobody could explain to me why "mouth" (口 pronounced as "kou") and "ten" (十 pronounced as "shi") becomes a "field" (田 pronounced as "tian"). Why can't the pronounciation be something like a combination of "kou" and "shi" and end up with something like "kosh"? Yup, you guessed it, I suck at Chinese.
And please, it's "oh" and not "own", ok?
Labels: quirks, random, Rant, Singaporeans
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11:11 by FoxTwo Seems like everyone's down with the flu lately. Xizor is also sick, and his doc gave him poison for his cough. I have been sick since last Tuesday, 8 Jan 2008. After being on MC for 4 days and resting effectively for 6 days (weekends included in resting), I'm still coughing up green stuff with traces of blood in them. The meds ran out, and going to work yesterday only aggravated the situation.
So today I went back to see the doc, and, as if on cue, I coughed up more green stuff to show the doc. Eyes wide open, the doc immediately gave me 2 days more worth of MC and stronger meds. Then, I noticed this:

This made me remember Xizor's post yesterday immediately.
Looks like doctors nowadays subscribe to the idea of "If it doesn't kill you, it'll make you stronger" ideals.
Labels: random
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10:10 by FoxTwo Long time ago, some bright spark thought that putting a "mobile TV" on buses would be a neat idea. At the time, the TV had no sound, but advised people to tune to FM89.3 to listen to the audio from the TV.
And it was good. WAS.
Later on, either the same bright spark, or another one, thought that putting speakers into the buses was a good idea, cos "not everybody will have a radio on the bus". Duh! Nowadays you'd be hard-pressed to find a handphone that doesn't have FM Radio as one of its functions, just like you'd hardly be able to find a handphone without a camera.
Then, the explosion of iPods and Zens came. It was cool, it replaced the aging "walkman" and "discman" sets out there. What's not so good is that the bright sparks at the respective companies thought that "music should be shared" and made bloody mini speakers for the devices, and turning it into a "fashion accessory". In one fell swoop, they completely undid the good community service that Sony spent 20 years cultivating - listen to your music with EARPHONES!
Someone should glue those speakers to the bright spark who thought this up and blast the music from the iPod or Zen into their ears at full volume. After all, this is what's happening on our buses and trains now. Stupid teenagers blasting their "music", so kindly "sharing" it with everyone in the bus. Sometimes, I feel like taking out my Teochew Opera MP3s and blasting it back at them.
No I don't like opera. I don't even understand 'em, and I'm Teochew myself. I just converted a couple of my mom's Teochew Opera cassette tapes into MP3s for this purpose, although I haven't actually blasted them yet. I had been controlling myself thus far.
However, this morning really pushed me almost to the edge of me taking out my Teochew Opera and blasting it. The bloody schoolkid was sitting in the middle of the bus and blasting some heavy metal rock music or something (I dunno, since I can't understand a word of whatever the singer was screaming). Besides, his speakers sucked, and the music was highly distorted. He should get better speakers maybe, and perhaps his music might sound better.
As a side note - all your karaoke singers, take note. Singing louder does NOT make you sound better ok? Same goes for sucky music. Making it louder does NOT make it better. It just gives people a headache.
If any bright sparks from iPod or Creative is reading this, please, go smack yourselves silly and pull these damn speakers off the shelves, or stop making them. People who take buses and trains already have to put up with body odour, and being crammed like sardines. We don't need an assault on the auditory front too.
If anyone from TVMobile is reading this, please broadcast your audio solely on 89.3FM ok? Stop pushing the audio stream into the receivers on the buses. Or, maybe SBS should cut all the wires on the speakers.
Labels: quirks, Rant, Singaporeans
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14:48 by FoxTwo I haven't been doing much lately. That's because I'm sick :)
Yeah I'm happy to be sick. Normally I'd hate it, but for once, I don't mind it. I'm kind of fed up with the situation at work, and any excuse I can have for not going to work is fine by me. What's more, the doc gave me 2 days worth, and I'm enjoying it by fragging the heck out of demons in Hellgate.
However the downside to this is, I can't go out anywhere. Not that I'd "get caught", but I am really sick and really dread going out. Even going downstairs for lunch or dinner puts me off. I'd rather cook at home with whatever little food I have in my fridge.
Yup, my fridge is usually bare. Don't really need much since I don't buy "for the family", just myself. Buying too much means food will spoil and then I'd have to throw them out. Buying too little is fine - I can always pop down for dinner, except in cases like now, when I'm sick.
For what it's worth, I'm actually saving money being sick. Oh yes, there's the doctor's fee and the medication fee, but other than that, I spend close to zero! Well, not counting electricity since the PC is on most of the day (yes even when I'm knocked out by the meds). If I'm not knocked out, I'll be online with my drinking buddy, fragging demons.
Or, watching DVDs. I just got a new one, George Orwell's "1984". I've read the book, now I get to see the movie of it!
My mom popped over the other day. She bought me a heapload of junk food - potato chips, otah, etc. Stuff that I shouldn't be eating since I'm working out. Speaking of workouts, I haven't done any since Sunday, cos I got sick on Tuesday, my "workout day". Been sick since.
Man am I gonna hurt when I start again!
Labels: random
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10:03 by FoxTwo I was just making my usual rounds of pingsters' blogs this morning (hey, people surf news sites, I surf blogs ok?), and guess what? Chillycraps' Department of Crappy Engineering is blocked!

Yeah, for some reason the company has decided to block his blog! Makes you wonder how a humour blog can garner a "Malicious Web Reputation" eh? And, it's not just that post either. Going to the actual URL is also blocked.
No, blogspot.com isn't blocked :) I can go to themuxicbox's blog fine.
I should really go find out who in my company reads his blog and hates it eh? LOL!
Labels: blog, firewall, internet
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15:23 by FoxTwo
Advertlets Took Me Down, So I Took Them Out
Thank you for giving me a wake-up call. It's not enough that I should take care of my own servers, but I should be mindful of which widgets and advertisements I put on my blog. Your recent "partial outage" completely redirected all my blogs to some parking page, and new visitors to my sites will instantly have the impression that I'm a spammer instead of a blogger.
You took me down, and now I'm taking you out.
Your ads will no longer run on my blogs. Maybe after you get your act together, I might reconsider. Might.
Labels: advertise, advertlets, internet
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02:07 by FoxTwo I was just surfing the net these couple of days, especially over at Youtube. I discovered a couple of gems, and thought this particular one might be the best among them all.
NTT - you might have some problems with the video since you probably understand what they're saying, but the subtitles will throw you off hahaha!
Labels: Humour, internet, youtube
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11:24 by FoxTwo I never would have expected it myself.
Normally I shy away from crowds, so, I counted down to the New Year at home. As the clock struck midnight on 1 Jan 2008, I was home fragging demons on Hellgate. SMSes kept coming in and interrupting the fragging, and thus causing lots of deaths, for both me and my gaming buddy. Why "deaths"? Well when you're thumb-typing on your phone to reply to SMSes, you're not controlling your character in the game, thus the monsters in the game will have free shots at you and thus killing you in the game :)
On the first day of 2008, my gaming buddy decided we were thirsty and needed some drinks. We didn't leave the place till 3am when the owner kicked us out. But, not before we got the owner, the bouncer, and 2 of his waitresses drunk too hahaha!
On the second day of 2008, encore performance. Same pub, same owner, same waitresses, same bouncer. Except this time we didn't get 'em drunk. This time we had other friends along and we got them drunk instead hahah! That was because me and my gaming buddy were still kinda reeling from all that alcohol from the day before.
On the 3rd day of 2008, I'm writing this blog entry. No plans to ingest anymore alcohol for the rest of the week though. That means even the regular Friday drinking thing might be called off this week, not that I'm complaining. We probably would replace that with more demon-fragging on Hellgate instead.
So as you can see, I've been too busy to bother about some sex scandal that a minister in Malaysia is involved in. I mean, I really don't care who he slept with, or what he does. We are all humans, we are all responsible for our own actions. I'm sure he enjoyed what he did when he was doing it.
Yeah ho-hum. So what else is new in the New Year?
Labels: pubbing
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