December 2003 Archives

Adam Greenfield, posting on K10K, did good to recommend the services of WINKsite. This is an online blogging service which allows you to maintain up to three moblogs for free.

I had a few difficulties at first but it was due to the fact that I had to activate my GPRS account with my network provider and then configure my phone. Once that was done, I managed to log in via my Nokia 6600 handset and create a new post!

I was also impressed with the co-founder of WINKsite, Dave Harper, who read my first post (on not being able to view my page on my phone) and asked if he could help me out.

Anyway, if you have a mobile internet account, check out my moblog, called 'Transmission', at http://winksite.com/vantan/moblog. Those viewing from a computer browser will be taken to an emulator so you can still view the site. There's nothing much there at the moment, but I think that will change in time ;-) And yes, you get an RSS feed and all sorts of other goodies with the package.

Yesterday, as I sat at the dining table having lunch, I saw from the corner of my eye, my sister, in her black t-shirt, walking quickly up, going behind me and moving into the kitchen. I turned around to ask her what she was doing, but there was nobody in the kitchen or the adjoining laundry room. It was a dead end.

Puzzled, I walked towards the living room area, only to find that my sister and father had been watching TV for the last 10 minutes and hadn't left their seats at all.

Maybe this sort of thing has happened to me long enough to not get shocked about it. I decided it was either a) really a spirit, or b) I was hallucinating. I said prayers, played worship music, and let the matter rest, because there was no use getting the family worked up about it.

Then this morning while at work, my sister messaged me saying she went back to bed, lay down with her head turned to the left, and heard whispering on the right side of her head: psspsspssppssspssspss. Sibilant. Her body stiffened. She called out to Lord Jesus Christ, and the spirit disappeared. Thank the Lord for His kind mercy and protection.

Still, I am seething at the moment. How dare they attack my sister?? And we've been in the new place for only a few months. Why are they only appearing now that she's back? I think it's time for another house blessing, and they must be gone! Amen!

In the light of recent (and not so recent) events I decided to re-think my Creative Commons licence. The changes will be effective as of this post.

You may now use or modify my work, provided you attribute me as the original author or creator. Previously on this site, no derivative works were allowed. But this is the age of the Internet - many of us are influenced by things which happen around us, and it is natural to build on existing ideas to create new ones. I respect that.

After some thought, I also realised I don't mind anything happening to my work, as long as I get credit for my initial efforts. I don't wish to seethe over the fact that people have blatantly copied my stylesheets or images wholesale, saving my pages onto their server or hard drive (and foolishly clicking on a link, thereby allowing me to see their directory path). Naturally I'd like my site to remain as unique as possible, failing which, I'd like to be known as the Person From Whom the Idea First Sprung. Dig?

I would also like to thank the two (2) people who have asked for permission to copy or modify my writings, graphics and code, since 2000. There are more who haven't. Please respect the effort other people have put into their own works. Good night.

I've been away from the Blogosphere for so long that I didn't even realise Zeldman redesigned. I like it!

I'm also toying with the idea of tabbing for my next redesign (which is not going to happen in a long, long time but I still like to think about it). A tip from me: I don't like the way Photoshop renders rounded rectangular shapes. The corners are pixelated, last I checked (version 6 or 7). Instead, I much prefer Fireworks for designing user interface elements. Try drawing a rounded box in Fireworks and you'll see how pretty anti-aliasing can be.

Unless you're going for the pixelated, k10k look ;-)

This is the most un-Christmas Christmas I've ever had.

We don't have a tree - we have no space, and I do not count a 1-foot high fir cutting placed in a pot, as a tree.

I didn't send out a single card this year.

I am not going to do anything fancy with this site for Christmas, because I haven't had time.

I just spent 2 hours - after attending the midnight church service - ironing clothes.

Merry Christmas, anyway.

Ben Trott has music for my ears. For the benefit of those who aren't on the Movable Type mailing list:

The next version of Movable Type will be version 3.0, a significant and free upgrade. Many oft-requested features will be integrated into this release, including:

• Comment registration. As a response to both comment spam and to the increased usage of Movable Type on large community sites, we'll be adding the option to restrict comments to registered users.
• Improved comment and TrackBack management features.
• New API hooks for plugin developers. Plugins will now be able to hook into many more pieces of Movable Type, including adding callbacks for saving and removing objects, building application methods with integration into the UI, and hooking into the publishing process. This opens up possibilities for plugins to add even more advanced functionality than they're able to do now.
• User interface rebuilt using CSS. We've seen with TypePad that a CSS-based interface gives users very fast application response times, and gives us a flexible interface for making application-wide changes, and we want to give this same speed and flexibility to Movable Type users.
• Support for the Atom API. We've already added Atom syndication feed support in version 2.65 of Movable Type, and we'll be adding publishing support for the API in 3.0.

In addition to the above, we'll be integrating some features into 3.0 that we're not yet ready to announce, but which we know will be very exciting to MT users. Additionally, for those interested in posting from mobile devices, we expect this to be a welcome release.

Movable Type 3.0 will be a free download and upgrade. We have full-time engineering resources devoted to this new version, and we plan to have a beta release in Q1 of 2004.

I've been feeling a little run down of late, both physically and mentally. My body has been crying out for more sleep. My mind falls asleep when it should be at work. Yet I find myself unable to stop... surfing and blogging (see what I mean?).

Anyway, I cheered up a little when I found out that another old namesake (and Bristol senior) of mine has a blog, too. It's a goody-bag of quirky anecdotes, one-liners, wacky and original poems, and even full transcripts of Singaporean political dialogue. Bright and cheerful, very much like the person I know in real life.

On my way to work this morning, I couldn't help but notice this rather interesting advertisement. To think it took a month to demolish our old house ... these guys could have done the job instead! :)

Photo taken with my Nokia 6600.

I picked up a few good CDs today: Café de Flore - Rendez-vous à Saint-Germain des Près. (mostly French, jazz); the latest Silje Nergaard album, Nightwatch (Norwegian, jazz), Craig David's Slicker Than Your Average ('what's your flava? tell me what's your flava', nuff said); and a tribute to Bill Evans.

[Note: From this post onwards, I may refer to a self-made term called 'skip factor'. This means the degree to which I feel like skipping certain tracks on a CD, because they suck and are embarassing to listen to when you are entertaining guests. I will usually not purchase an album with a high skip factor. But there may be albums with a moderate skip factor which are still good, because even though the lousy tracks are really shite, the good tracks could be really wicked too. Got it? Read on...]

Unfortunately, the development of TypePad delayed the scheduled release of Movable Type Pro, delivery of which - originally announced in February 2003 - has been pushed back to early 2004.

Aaaaaaaaargh!!!

We drove to Johor, Malaysia this afternoon to attend a book launch. The book in question was written by a relative of ours, about a famous ancestor who built palaces for the Sultan of Johor. Some of these structures still stand today.

Since young, all I could remember was the photograph of an old man, dressed in the traditional Chinese fashion, complete with white whiskers. We hear he was a very nice man who never said an unkind word to anyone. Being well-liked, he caught the attention of the Sultan, who at the time was looking to build more palaces to boost his reputation.

Because of this, a kampung and main road was named after him. If you should ever drive to Malaysia, after reaching Johor via the Causeway at Woodlands, look out for Jalan Wong Ah Fook round the corner. The old man's really done us proud.

On the way home, we spent two hours at the Causeway, stuck in a terrible jam. Tempers and engines were overheating. One driver adjacent to us tried to vent his frustrations by sounding his horn constantly, although nobody could move and nothing could be done about the jam.

Even more motorists attempted to change queues upon realising that their line wasn't moving as quickly as others'. Naturally, not everyone was able to cut in. In the meantime, we heard on the radio that Saddam Hussein had been captured.

We finally returned home, tired but relieved. I watched some football and was glad to see Arsenal win, and Leeds, well, take the lead. Tomorrow I hope Thierry Henry becomes World Player of the Year. [Update 15/12/03: Hmph, I'm tired of seeing the same people win all the time. Well done anyway, Zizou.]

Fellow codies: You might like this blog, too. I do. I'm glad that there are more of us around than I thought. Lucian will know what I mean.

Absolutely tired tonight, after watching the excellent Love, Actually, with my old friend JS. Have loads of work to complete by this weekend, so excuse the silence that may persist. 'Night.

We're watching the movie, the Amityville Horror, on TV now. My thoughts as the movie progresses:

Okay, they move into a cheap house, knowing that people have died in it. What do they expect? Then again, who knows what sort of history any plot of land has had - perhaps, the title deed could indicate previous owners' names. People living in brand new apartments have been attacked - nobody is safe. You have to hold on to your faith.

In the movie, church people get driven away and injured as they try to bless the house. All the more, I'm glad that we survived our own house blessing and drove a few little imps (Guai Zai) away. God's presence is far stronger than the Devil's; I just wish that the mass media would demonstrate this more often than making it sound like evil wins most of the time.

Doorknobs turning with nobody behind the door. I walked off when this scene occured (OK, I've jumped the gun as it turns out it was a kid who opened the door in the movie), because that was what I saw in my own house many years ago. And I heard my toilet door knob turn when nobody was there. I think I might be more daring should it ever happen to me again, but still, that's not a thought you'd want to go to bed with. Extra long prayers tonight.

Dogs barking at nothing in particular. This has happened to another friend of mine who later discovered Chinese charms embedded inside the wall of her kitchen, when it got demolished. We're getting a dog when we move back in, I think.

Dark, whooshing sounds behind you. You turn around, but it is too late - you see nothing. That happened twice - once, along the corridor (yes, the famous corridor, which is now demolished with the rest of the walls), and once in my sister's room, shortly before we moved out. But I could feel darkness. Some of us sense these sort of things more than others do.

And the priests and nun definitely felt it. They should have said a prayer at ONCE. I think everyone should have a special prayer they can recite (with sincerity and faith of course) when they are in trouble. I should learn one. Reciting Psalm 23 saved my cousin who awoke paralysed, feeling two paws on his chest but seeing nothing. The unseen beast leapt off his chest when he said in his thoughts, 'I shall fear no evil'.

More screaming from the living room as I type. Why do we subject ourselves to this? Haven't we had enough?!

To be continued...

Forget IT training for women - marry them off instead, Malaysian opposition party PAS has proposed in a debate.

[A PAS assemblyman] said that polygamy was better than computer training for single women as they would have difficulty learning technical skills, the Star, a Malaysian daily, reported.

You don't say...

Previously, a Pas leader, Nik Aziz, the chief minister of Kelantan state, decreed that only ugly women should be employed by the state as attractive women would be able to find husbands instead.

Um...no. I'll PASs on that.

This is really a surprise. vantan.org has been kindly nominated in the Asia Weblog Awards for best designed blog. Currently we are at the bottom of the list with one (1) vote. Now, I don't need to win, but ... please don't leave me at the bottom of the heap either, will ya?

I'm just wondering what I have to show for 'design'. My photo gallery has been taken offline for privacy and technical reasons (when is MT Pro coming out???), so there's really nothing much in here visually - except a lot of text. And W3-compliant code. Like that matters to 99.9% of visitors. Other nominees have put lots of effort into their design; so all the best to them!

Publicity has its pros and cons. Last December, after getting featured in the papers, I received a few job offers and many queries. Then people started asking me to link to them even though they had weird sites. They still are.

Of course I have also met many nice people along the way (MT Meetup again, anyone?). I don't wish to create expectations I cannot meet; I simply hope that this blog is a good reflection of my own personality. I hope you've enjoyed the reads so far.

Salam Pax, the famous Iraqi blogger, has finally found his friend Raed. They now blog together on the same site. You can also watch Salam in the award-winning BBC series, Newsnight.

Amazon has done the unfathomable and changed its wishlist link; as far as we know, nobody was informed, and if you don't have a cookie you might see items that aren't supposed to be there. [Thanks to Kristen and Kottke remainders for the news]

And Blogshares has been closed down. So I've removed the link to the site. The ailing database had lost my ownership records months ago, so I'm not too surprised this has happened.

Update: Google has also overhauled its search engine. This has apparently affected many online businesses who no longer show up tops in the results pages.

After doing the usual household chores, I settled down to watch Galatasaray beat Juventus. Juve are in the last 16 anyway, so it doesn't matter. It's been ages since I watched my World Cup favourite Hasan Sas play.

As expected, fouls were committed, the usual tempers erupted, and numerous awards for 'best soap opera' should have been dished out, along with the yellow cards. Looking at the sea of yellow, red and white, I thought the match was played in Turkey, despite security problems, then learnt it was in Germany. 60,000 of the 65,000 members of the audience were Turkish!

Anyway, ESPN made a boo-boo in post-match analysis. They tried to be clever and looked up the meaning of 'Hakan', the first name of the veteran striker who scored both goals in this match, and also scored the world's fastest goal in the final match against South Korea last year.

So now we know 'Hakan' means strong and fiery in Turkish. But the commentator just had to add that when you have TWO Hakans on your side, that's really something. The second Hakan, was apparently 'Hakan Sas'. This is not the first time that commentators have got his name wrong.

In other news, my favourite Leeds striker, Alan Smith, might be sold to Newcastle if a certain Sheikh doesn't pump in enough money to keep it from going into Administration mode. If you sold Smithy, it would be like sawing one of their legs off. Newcastle would turn into a Leeds alumni, what with Lee Bowyer (hissss) and Jonathan Woodgate already there. Just keep those plastic bottles off the pitch.

God has a sense of humour. And matchmaking skills, to boot.

A few months ago, a new church mate joined my Bible Studies group. We hadn't met her before, but a few of us had seen her singing in the choir. She was either referred, or felt drawn to, our group, perhaps because we were in the same age bracket. A sweet girl.

So anyway, the usual introductions were made all round. A couple of guys came in slightly late. One of them was another fairly new addition to the group, someone's ex-colleague from another church. A decent bloke.

What felt mighty unusual was the point where the guy and girl shook hands. Maybe it was their personal mannerisms that seemed similar to me, but at the point where their names were exchanged and their hands met, I distinctly heard a triumphant cry in my head, "This is it!!!"

The voice was familiar. I think I heard it at a bus stop before.

I was baffled. I thought out, 'Huh? You mean, they're going to be together?'

Whatever the case, I felt very positive vibes. In time they learnt that their jobs involved similar knowledge, even though they were in different professions. They seemed to have loads to talk about.

But nothing else seemed to be developing. (Patience!!) I talked it over with another Bible Studies mate, who - amazingly - told me that she had also experienced the same message. We waited, and waited ...

And the lovely couple have finally announced that they are together. What a glorious day!