October 2002 Archives

Tonight, I will sit down at a desk (which does NOT have a computer on it - not easy since we have 4 PC desktops, 1 G4 Mac, and 2 laptops at home), and read up for my application essay. Yes folks, gone are the days where admissions departments ask straightfoward questions like, 'Why do you think you are suitable for this course?' and instead, plunge straight into the syllabus they're supposed to be teaching you.

Tonight, I will begin reading about Communication theory from a BOOK. You see, a BOOK prevents me from checking my email and visiting websites in another browser window, as I'm reading it.

And now looks like a really good time to start. Goodnight!

Is it just the packaging, or is the Palm Tungsten absolutely gorgeous?

I can feel my old Palm 505 turning a little green.

She was "always the kid at the back of the class with the spiders in her pockets". And she feels that people in Britain regard her as a Teletubby. Taken from the Guardian.

It's interesting to see what kind of books get displayed at sales. Particularly the computer books. Going cheap were titles like 'Dreamweaver 3 for Dummies', 'Netscape Navigator 4', 'The Internet for Dummies' (1st ed - which I bought back in '95). You get the general drift.

However I spotted a hardcover book I first saw at Borders, priced £16.99 - only that it was going for $8 here. It's a BBC title, 'The Future Just Happened' (2001). My first purchase of the day. Hooray.

I was looking through my search engine logs and found a couple of recent queries that only one person I know of, could have entered. If it really is you, and you know who you are, I hope you do contact me - not by posting a comment but by using the more private contact form.

And - I'll always be watching.

Crikey, it obviously runs in the family. My brilliant cousin Luke has just unleashed a report on the study of S&M, in the Daily Pennsylvanian.

And since I talk so much about the Consortium, here's some info about its founder - who happens to be the same guy who conceptualised and 'invented' the World Wide Web.

I never run out of opportunities to preach to web coders who still haven't a clue what web standards are about. So listen up to this public service announcement:

The latest issue of Cre@te Online, the UK web design magazine, has a good tutorial on writing compliant XHTML 1.0 which is a transition between HTML (design) and XML (structure). Essentially we are progressing towards the separation of content from style.

The first thing we need to do is to keep our HTML clean: no overlapping tags; backslashes to close each standalone tag (such as 'br /'), use of 'strong' and 'em' rather than 'b' and 'i' respectively, naming of all images with ALT text for accessibility... you get the general drift.

For instant gratification (and further information), go look up the W3C.

As for my new new NEW re-design, the pages coded in HTML so far are totally compliant, right down to the CSS, but nobody can see the new site until I stop changing my ... mind.

Okay. This hasn't been exactly the most updated of weblogs - especially of late - but I have been busy for various reasons. The usual: work, applications (which I have been talking about more than I've been doing anything about), meeting up with old friends, church stuff.

And the fact that I keep on freakin' changing my design for the new site! Yes, so it's going to be totally W3C compliant, but until I make up my mind there's no point working on it. Aargh...

I watched a pretty interesting show on the National Geographic channel about the makers of Netscape, covering their phenomenal rise and subsequent fall to Microsoft, and their buyout by AOL.

What struck me most on the show, however, was the dedication of Netscape employees to their work. Some of them would stay over for weeks in the office as their homes weren't in the same city. But they were working for a cause they believed in - and they were willing to fight for it.

Pity they took ages to produce Netscape 6. Skipping one version number didn't exactly make a big impact on consumers, who were already using Internet Explorer by default on their PCs. In the meantime, as Microsoft's lawyers battled it out in with the DOJ, Internet Explorer kept on improving itself. It got developers hooked onto its support for DHTML, for instance, and it loaded much, much faster than Netscape 4.

[Note: Netscape 5 BTW did exist internally, but the engine was scrapped in favour of the open-source browser I affectionately call Mozzy. Maybe they wanted to play catch-up with Microsoft's IE 5, but this confused consumers initially as they were expecting 4 to go to 5 and not 6 - which is reasonable. I came across some popular websites which stated that they required 'Netscape 5 and above', or listed that browser version in their error page feedback forms. As of today, the Guardian website still lists Netscape 5 as a browser even though it isn't available publicly for download. Click here to go to a fictitious link on their site, to see what I mean.]

I also had doubts when I heard AOL was buying it over. When I tried AOL in the UK a few years ago, I didn't feel comfortable with it - probably because it was meant for web beginners, not 'power users' like myself. I wondered briefly how Netscape was coping with the culture change. Well the documentary confirmed that some Netscape staff left after the behemoth swallowed them as the AOL culture was not really that of a 'dotcom'. I probably would have done the same.

Anyway, AOL didn't quite merge seamlessly with Netscape at first. For instance, their AOL browser was based on Internet Explorer's engine, not Netscape's. And when I used it, it certainly felt like an IE browser with the AOL logo slapped on it. AOL later came under criticism for this and I believe their browser has been suitably amended. Correct me if I'm wrong on any point, because I doubt I'm going to install AOL again so I'll never know.

But what I disliked most about the post-AOL takeover was how Netscape's approach towards consumers had changed. Now there are AOL popup windows whenever I visit netscape.com and every time I install a newer version of Netscape, I get AOL icons on my desktop, AOL shortcuts in my bookmarks panel, AOL shortcuts in my start menu. I mean, quit cluttering my screen; I'm back in Singapore now and there's no such service in my country!

Soon I found myself reading up on how to delete all references to AOL Messenger in my Windows registry. I even trashed that pesky aim.exe file which kept on activating whenever I ran the browser. I never asked for it! Like the very giant they were both battling against, they started using Microsoft-like tactics to push their own products, whether you wanted to download them or not.

But don't get me wrong - I'm not anti-Netscape per se (although I don't quite like AOL). I still use their browsers. Versions 6 and 7 are fairly web standards-compliant. I'm even using Netscape 7 to post this entry. But the company has retained less than 10% of the market share as of now. Many web designers don't even bother testing their sites using this browser anymore. I don't agree with this attitude but you get the general idea. On a similar note, in my undergraduate days I used Netscape Search ardently, then I discovered something called Google, which was even better.

Netscape's website now makes me feel like I'm entering another of those typical news portals, with content syndicated from various news sources such as CNN, whose websites I'd rather be visiting directly. The website also went through numerous redesigns, many of which I don't care to remember because they had no impact on me. I just went there to upgrade my browser and found I had to click more times to get to my destination.

Netscape did announce a change its direction for its website a couple years back, from being browser-oriented to becoming an all-in-one news provider, but frankly I would rather have the company focus once again on what they used to do best.

1. Await response from University of Bristol Registrar re: My transcripts. And pray it doesn't cost a bomb to send them off.

2. Thank the kind people who've agreed to write recommendation letters, again, in my heart.

3. Sit down and write the damn entrance essays. Write write write!!

4. Tidy up my old law essays, dig up my newspaper articles.

5. Pray that my nominee for 'last referee' responds favourably...and soon.

Time is running out! December 15 will hit me before I know it. Up, up and a-waay!

Planes in towers. Bombs in Bali. Sniper(s) in Washington. Gunman in Melbourne. Human bombs in Palestine. War pending against Iraq, and a nuclear weapon pileup. Not to mention the usual famines, natural disasters, global warming and diseases. Is this the Start of the Breakdown?

[Sorry, I couldn't resist using a couple of TFF song titles, they seemed so pessimistically appropriate right now.]

And now someone's claimed to possess the remains of James half-brother of Jesus. I'm in a state of want-to-believe-in-the-truth, but-what-exactly-is-the-truth?

In my Istanbul trip I visited a palace which had religious artifacts on display. I saw what they said was the arm of John the Baptist, encased in steel armour, with a slit in the metal, exposing the bones betwen his wrist and knuckles. Apparently, they dug his body up from Ephesus! In another room, I saw the supposed staff of Moses, a simple, weathered, curved rod, that was carbon-dated to his time - as well as the beard, tooth, sandals, letters of their prophet Muhammed!

In short, I'm getting miracle overload this year and I don't know what to believe. To me, they may serve as proof that something really did happen thousands of years ago. But I don't think these items should be worshipped, they are tools of the past.

Anyway if anyone has information or insight on all these happenings, please post a comment. No religious flame wars, please!

Another shocker. Read it at CNN, or at The Australian.

There was some hullabaloo this morning after I returned from church. My dad had, for the first time in his life, purchased serious software online. To be precise, it was an antivirus and firewall package he was trying to upgrade to, and somehow the installation screwed up, rendering his computer useless, making him grumpy and swearing never to buy online again (I'm serious).

All we had to go by was an error message about some faulty driver. After an hour on the phone with the guy who configured my dad's computer, I did a web search using keywords from the error message, and sure enough, found the instructions needed to backup and replace the driver.

In the meantime, I would like to report that I've completed my SECOND section of the yet-to-be-unveiled new website, after validating it in XHTML. I can't believe how many man-hours I spend just producing a couple hundred lines of code. I really should get back to my application essay on communication theories. Like, now.

Remember the traffic woes I had recently while trying to drive out of the house? The Traffic Police just sent me a reply to my complaint letter, saying:

1) there will be zig-zag (NO STOPPING NO PARKING) lines on our side of the road
2) a car park for Chinese Embassy visitors has been built at Camp Road
3) there will be police officers on duty to ensure it doesn't happen again.

I'll watch and see. If it doesn't work out, it might still be worth seeing my mother running up a hill and clobbering another inconsiderate driver.

Well, they're ALMOST there. To all the web designers who don't think they need to adopt the standards set out by the World Wide Web Consortium, think again. K10K managed to do it, and their website is much more complex (and pretty) than anything else on the web. If they can do it, so should you.

And I will too. This website will soon be completely W3C compliant (ALT text, printer-friendly, CSS 2.0...) and some elements will be redesigned for faster loading.

Finally, my browser gets a Service Pack which fixes, among other things, the CSS display problems some of us designers have been complaining about. This is what Microsoft had to say about it:

"Internet Explorer 6 SP1 offers a feature-rich platform for building Web-based applications and developing informative content for users. It provides full support for Document Object Model (DOM), level 1 and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), level 1, which enhance support for standards-based Internet technologies and improve the ease and speed with which developers can take advantage of these technologies. Internet Explorer 6 SP1 supports standards that ensure that pages run quickly, consistently, and without errors or failures in the browser."

It's so fitting that one of our hottest technology and culture magazines has revamped its website to comply with web standards. Code readers may note that they also have a stylesheet for disabled users. Netscape 4 users will be asked to upgrade their non-compliant browsers. All thanks to CSS.

I've finally got my first work of art featured on another website - and an Italian one, at that. However, my anti-war wallpaper seems to have been relocated or removed - so if anybody wants to see it, let me know and I'll email it to you.

What would you call kind of work? Webtivism?

Oh, belated joy. I completely missed the reply from USC Annenberg in my daily barrage of emails, and received some potentially good news:

1) I don't have to take TOEFL, but may need to take a test once my admission is confirmed.

2) As for GRE, they only look at verbal and quantitative scores, which must add up to a total of 1000. My scores total 1290. Whoopee.

3) They're fine with both academic and professional referrals. And as yours truly wasn't exactly a shining star at the Faculty of Law, the only academic on my list is my personal tutor, Prof John Parkinson. The sweetie :) The other two referrals will be professional ones.

This evening, I walked from my office at South Bridge Road, to the Esplanade - to listen to one of the world's best orchestras play Beethoven and Bruckner. The former was standard Beethoven, nothing particularly catchy. The latter was much more forceful and foreboding, and I could almost imagine it featuring in the next episode of Lord of the Rings.

The orchestra was fantastic. Not an instrument was out of sync. Half the hall gave a standing ovation. Pity I didn't get tickets to the previous day's performance, when they performed my all-time favourite, Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major. I think I would have enjoyed that even more.

The acoustics of the concert hall were close to perfect. The durian shell looks big on the outside but is actually cosy on the inside, with four levels of stalls. This evening, a large circular panel of lights and speakers was suspended near the stage, presumably to be retracted (after each performance) into the round cavity in the ceiling directly above it. Neat. Everything sounded crystal-clear, with no echo. I was also happy that nobody clapped in between the movements. We've come a long way.

Alongside the Berlin Orchestra, the London Philharmonic is probably the best I've heard in a very long time. Ahem. What spoilt the mood slightly for me, was when the conductor Kurt Masur was presented with flowers. Firstly, they weren't very spectacular - something you could've picked up immediately at the florist's - and the lady presenting the flowers had the word 'employee' all over her attire. I would have removed the white work pass dangling from my neck, worn something nicer and presented the flowers with a flourish to the acclaimed conductor. Then again, maybe that's just how I would have wanted to do it.

After the performance, my dad and I headed downstairs for a late dinner. Nothing really caught our fancy (though I might give the Spanish place a try next time), so we dined at Senses, which had the usual Western menu. The French onion soup was very good, but my pan-baked seafood spaghetti in a tomato 'fusion sauce' turned out to be nothing more than breaded calamari rings and prawns, with a few chopped onions and peppers, smothered in a Chinese sweet and sour sauce. And a pool of undrained liquid beneath the pasta, a la Singapour. Never EVER try it.

Lastly, I like the car park system at the Esplanade. It works exactly like an ERP gantry, so you don't even have to wind down your window. :)

Muhammad was NOT a terrorist, for crying out loud. Read a US professor's rebuttal to Kalwell's religiously insensitive and inaccurate comments.

It is a tragedy that people are killed because of decisions their leaders have made - for or against a cause. All these people wanted to have, was a good time away from home.

Then again, that's the whole point, isn't it? There's no use attacking a fortress on watch, when you can shock the world with the horrific deaths of innocent civilians, someplace where you least expect it. It happened in New York, but now it's happened in a Muslim country, albeit on an island with a predominantly Hindu populace.

And when my family visits Bali, we usually stay at Hard Rock Hotel, which was just several blocks away from one of the explosions. One of my colleagues returned from her honeymoon there last week, thank heavens.

It's frightening when you don't know 'when' or 'where' the next blow is going to be dealt. But maybe we should look to the root of the problem, and work on the 'why'.

Talk about bad timing. Just as I decided to upgrade my system to Movabletype 2.5, my web host accidentally restarted the database server. Result: general chaos and a very baffled web designer over the weekend.

Fortunately, the database is now back on track, and so is my weblog. Cheerios.

Today, I drove to work. This was because I had two overlapping appointments involving two important events. One: Dinner with Cheryl, whom I haven't seen for most of this year, and who was also celebrating her birthday in advance. Two: Attend the last day of Cordon Bleu cooking class in place of my mother, who had to leave for Sydney this evening and couldn't get a later flight.

However, a silly car was parked in front of my house gate, and I was stranded on the slope of my driveway (at the time though, silly was not a word I used in my Anglo-Saxon vocabulary). I sounded my horn, but nobody in the queue going into the China Embassy, responded. I was highly irate, and called the traffic police. My mother's car was now behind mine, on the slope, and she was even more furious. She took photos and exchanged words with various construction workers and concerned passers-by, who were trying to alleviate the situation.

About 15-20 minutes later, the offender returned, carrying his breakfast along with him and smiling apologetically. I glared at him but was about to let him off - until I saw my mother in my rear view mirror, racing up the slope with a look of unbridled determination on her face.

As the inconsiderate driver had just climbed back into his car, his doors were still unlocked. My mother opened the door to the front passenger seat and stuck her head in, scolding him at the top of her voice - for parking his car in front of our gate and making us late for work. For having done this to us more than once. For having the cheek to buy breakfast after getting his visa, knowing that he had parked his car illegally. Mother, 1. Idiot, nil.

Anyway, after work I did manage to find the Japanese restaurant Cheryl was telling me about - after bumping into my mum's good friend as she was leaving her office! She told me I was in the wrong part of the building and led me to the correct escalator. After dinner, I rushed over to Fort Canning Hill and asked the security guard where At-Sunrice, the cooking school, was. He didn't understand what I was talking about, but fortunately, Jiamin's friend, Phin, who works at Theatreworks, was there and recognised me. He kindly showed me the way (with a flourish) and I made it to class, just in time to skin a fish. Karen and i made fish papillote and a lobster bisque-like sauce, and it actually tasted good.

Dubious bonus: back at the Fort Canning car park, Karen spotted a couple making out! In broad lamp light, in a car with the engine turned on (among other things, of course). I think the position was missionary; it was too dark and rude to stare.

What a day, what a day...

I was really glad I went for Alpha this evening. Not that the previous sessions weren't any good, but this time a few of us decided to be frank, and asked questions we hadn't dared to ask before. What was the verdict on couples living with each other before getting married? And what about homosexuality? How strictly should we interpret the Bible's commandments?

One of our Alpha counsellors pointed out that Jesus approached a woman at a well, despite knowing that she was living with a man who was not her husband. I also recalled that He dined with tax collectors and befriended prostitutes. So essentially, He saw their faults, but still reached out to them.

So I don't understand why some Christians behave like the rest of the world owes them a living. Sure, they may have attended church all their lives, and don't possess a single drop of deviant blood in their bodies. But I've also seen self-proclaimed Christians backstab and deceive other people like any 'pagan' would. And it was painful, being met with stony silence after I told certain devotees of my attempts to know God better through Alpha.

But right now, I don't really care what they think of me. I'm having such a good time at this course that I now find myself wishing that the bell won't ring so we can have more time to hammer things out with each other. In all honesty.

Feel free to post your well-wishes as a comment :-)

The Guardian online's best British Blog winner is a duck. A Scary Duck to be precise, and a Blogger, at that. Well-written and amusing.

And I just hit another payload of Singapore blog links - so many of them filled with angst and self-centered complaints, that I hurriedly left each site - all 22 of them. Oh, wait. This one's pretty good.

This is what I think of new generation mobile phones that can sing like a choir, check my email, play MP3s - and get your your photograph taken at the end of the day. They're cool, and you'll be the envy of your friends ... until the next person gets an even more feature-packed phone.

But frankly I'd prefer a phone that doesn't crash every time I try to access my Inbox. A phone which can intelligently organise my list of numbers so I can view my contacts in any way I want (for instance, call: Family Members > Dad. Or SMS: Friends > Bristol gang).

And a phone which remembers my personal settings and knows which words in its vocabulary I usually prefer to SMS with (for instance, I type 'mum' much more often than 'nun', but it's still the default when I use predictive text input).

But many phone manufacturers don't give a hoot about these 'little things' because it sounds so much nicer to say "We've put in polyphonic ringtones, colour screens, and a microwave to boot" rather than "We've improved our Calendar feature so the user only has to click once to access his schedule for the week. We've also gotten rid of that irritating bug which everyone's been complaining about. And overall, we've made things easier for everybody by getting rid of features which most people don't use, and charging them a lower price for this scaled-down model."

Frankly, I think WAP is dead, and 3G will follow in its footsteps until access to hi-speed networks becomes more affordable for the common user. The culture of using your mobile phone to access the Internet, hasn't been developed to its full potential, either - save for places like Japan where the average worker spends an hour or more sitting in a train to get to work, and is able to afford the phone and network rates.

I'm pleased to announce that this website has moved up a notch on the Google Pagerank listings - from zero to one.

Wow, that's an absolute increase. The funny thing is, http://vantan.org is still ranked '0' while http://vantan.org/index.php, which is essentially the same page, is ranked '1'.

Minor changes to this website for IE users - I've increased the font size for headlines so they're easier to read.

I did a good deed today. I reported a faulty traffic light which refused to let the good ol' green man come out to play. As a result, a troupe of hat-wearing Japanese tourists were stranded on one side of the road outside my office, with some Caucasian tourists on the other end, looking equally hapless.

Being regulars, Kim, I and our new colleague Gurmit decided to heck it all after several minutes, and crossed the road in the face of traffic. It was very dangerous, since the nearest vehicle hurtling towards us along Cross Street, was about 100 metres away. The Japanese tourists followed us and made it safely to the other side.

Cleverly, the Land Transport Authority had placed a notice near the traffic light, with a toll-free number for civic-minded citizens to use in the event of a malfunction.

So I did my duty.
I felt like a star.
The lady on the other
end of the line
was actually polite.
She asked for my name
and phone number.
I thought I was going to win
the lucky draw.

I'm proud to announce that I'm now listed on Movabletype's donors list. Yessiree, I decided that the system was good enough for long-term use on this website, and duly forked out a US$45 donation.

Here's a list of my donations to worthy institutions so far. I'm not exactly earning big bucks myself, but I guess philanthropy runs in the family. Ahem.

Tonight I'm working on my application essay to Comm School and have realised how ignorant I am of everything except the Internet - and I'm not even an expert in that. I have to describe what I find most interesting about the theories, philosophies and research areas in communication, and am falling into my usual trap of not exactly answering the question (Draft #1 has since been scrapped).

Another bad habit of mine is spending too much time doing research for an answer that may only need to be written simply (Draft #2 currently in production). I guess I don't want to screw up my essay, especially since my university transcripts are nothing to shout about (except in pain and anguish).

In the meantime, I'm waiting for a reply to some other queries about applications. Hopefully by November I'll be able to make my submission. So far, there's only ONE school whose syllabus I really like, and my mind is already filled with possibilities for the future. What will an MA enable me to do, better than what I'm doing now?

I just attended the premiere of Boeing Boeing, a play about an architect who juggles his time between three air stewardess girlfriends. Everything seems to be going fine until the introduction of the Super Boeing which speeds up their travel times, turning his schedule topsy-turvy. It was hilarious. Our local actresses put on decent Japanese, Hong Kong and Singlish accents, and a few friendly digs were made at our Malaysian neighbours ... and let's not forget the long-suffering Filipino maid. Oh, and the talented individuals behind this project are Glenn Goei and Ivan Heng. Need I say more?

Shame on you, Microsoft. As Zeldman puts it, it's strange that the same corporation which advocates web standards, fails to implement web standards on its own, newly-revamped website.

I'm posting this in case the friend who sent me an email containing the W32.Bugbear virus (inadvertently, I presume) at about 2.03 pm today, is reading this. Could you kindly check your inbox again and delete any strange-looking emails from unfamiliar sources. And while you're at it, do install a decent antivirus program which scans emails and web pages as they're downloaded, that is, in real time.

The Bugbear virus infects users of Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5, who have not yet updated their browser with a security patch. It exposes your PC to hacking and will try to shut down your firewalls and antivirus programs. Hopefully, my system has prevailed :-)

I use Norton Antivirus, and it's worth every dollar I've spent on it. It immediately quarantined the aforementioned email and told me what virus it was infected with. For cheapos who want a quick fix, try Housecall. But remember that you get what you pay for.

Read about this virus on the McAfee website, which has comprehensive documentation of it.

I found this conspiracy theory both funny and frightening at the same time. Whatever the case, I still don't like him.

Some nice graphics against the war in Iraq:
digitalultras.com