After using the latest released Windows Vista (build 5308), I can say that this build is much better, more usable, and more stable than the previous build 5270, and looking at the improvement in the past two months, I'm sure the end product come near to end of this year will be great. Here are few screenshots


Alt+Tab in 3D. It's cool and the movement is very smooth too. And did I mention that the window is live? The picture a bit jerky though.


New copying/moving files dialog. Much more useful and more information stated here also.


My Computer with hendrikch.com in IE7 in the background. Look at how beautiful the transparency are


IE7 with Start Menu. Search in Windows Vista is instant. The moment I finish typing "msn", I get all links, URL, files across my computer that has the word "msn" in it, and note the word INSTANT!!!


It seems my machine not powerful enough that it's only rated 2 (out of 5 if I'm not wrong)

Six months contract position available for .NET developer with 1-2 years experience in Singapore. If you are interested or you know someone else who may be interested, please send your/their cover letter and resume to jobs [at] hendrikch [dot] com. Thank you.

I was watching Ice Age 2 trailer last week, and found it very funny. There's one part when Manny (the mammoth) met a female-mammoth, then asked Sid (the talkative animal), "Are you sure this girl is for me?" Sid answered: "Of course, she's lots of fun, you are no fun at all. She ... completes you..." hahaha...

I will surely be watching Ice Age 2 come end of this month, it was one of the cartoon movies I liked best few years back, and have been waiting for Ice Age 2 to come. Bring it on !!!

It was free tickets to watch Ice Age few years ago, in 2002 to be exact, when Vero, Cimit, Oscar, and MK (V.COM) participated in GigaHertz - complete IT competition back in NTU days, and we got free movie tickets to watch Ice Age. Thanks Vero for the reminder And now, two of the team (me and MK) happen to work in the same company

When someone has not "talked" for so "long" (long is relative) to you, and upon hearing those words again from him/her, it was really a feeling of joy, so happy, so much that we can appreciate simple words like "ok" and "thanks" again. Words that sounded so simple, suddenly after being muted for so "long", sounded so precious now. The same words can give so much encouragement. I'm sure it's really true when people say, we can't appreciate what we have until we lose it. As much as we can appreciate what we already have, I'm sure we can still appreciate it even more after that "long" period of not having it.

The feeling is probably similar to parents who upon hearing their child's first word, will feel very very happy indeed. I think I got similar feeling right now, hearing that first "word" from a friend after such a "long" period of "silence", and things are just starting to get better, I hope, I pray. I've gone through this before, but this time round is especially different, and I thank God for all these test to grow us up. It is painful, and need to be painful, when we are being molded, into something better, eventually.

Sorry if I sound so cryptic, well, I am....

We rode into town the other day
Just me and my daddy
He said I'd finally reached that age
And I could ride next to him on a horse
That of course was not quite as wide
We heard a crowd of people shouting
And so we stopped to find out why
And there was that man that my dad said he loved
But today there was fear in his eyes

So I said daddy why are they screaming
Why are the faces of some of them beaming?
Why is he dressed in that bright purple robe?
I'll bet that crown hurts him more then it shows
Daddy please can't you do something?
He looks as though he's gonna cry
You said he was stronger then all of those guys
Daddy please tell me why?
Why does everyone want him to die?

Later that day the sky grew cloudy
And daddy said I should go inside
Somehow he knew things would get stormy
Boy was he right
But I could not keep from wondering
If there was something he had to hide
So after he left I had to find out
I was not afraid of getting lost
So I followed the crowds
To a hill where I knew men had been killed
And I heard a voice come from the cross

And it said, "Father, why are they screaming?
Why are the faces of some of them beaming?
Why are they casting their lots for My robe?
This crown of thorns hurts Me more than it shows
Father, please can't You do something?
I know that You must hear My cry
I thought I could handle the cross of this size
Father, remind Me why
Why does everyone want Me to die?
Oooh when will I understand why?"

"My precious Son, I hear them screaming
I'm watching the face of the enemy beaming
But soon I will clothe You in robes of My own
Jesus, this hurts Me much more than You know
But this dark hour I must do nothing
Though I've heard Your unbearable cry
The power in Your blood destroys all of the lies
Soon You'll see past their unmerciful eyes
Look there below, see the child
Trembling by her father's side
Now I can tell You why
She is why You must die"

Jesus, I am why You must die..............................

Friends, be faithful and serious in living your life everyday, coz back then Someone has exchanged His life with yours, so that you can have a meaningful life today.

PS: listen to the song here. Be blessed. [via ~dee]

I went to IT show on Thursday (the first day) night, and get two pieces of Sandisk Cruzer Micro 1.0 GB, one for myself. I got it at $75 a piece, and how nice and small it is. Now, in order to fully utilize it, and not to lose it (the main reason that is), I've put my new thumbdrive as part of my keychains. It fits nicely there with they rest of the keys, and see how small it is You won't notice it's there but it will be there when you need it. And, do you realize that little thing there can now contain roughly what 1.5 CDs can fit in? Gone are the days of CDs now


Sandisk Cruzer Micro 1.0 GB packaging, complete with three cover colors to suit my taste and mood.


Transfer speed is at speedy gonzalez 15.6 MB/sec.

If you need a thumbdrive, go and get one before the IT show ends on Sunday.

In the afternoon today, I started to feel a bit of headache, the same one as I felt many months back. It was probably caused by not enough sleep, or is it not? I thought I had enough sleep during weekend, probably still not enough to atone for the whole of last week. Granted, I had many things to do, but I also had lots of things going in my mind last week, which is certainly felt better this week, thanks to someone  Thank you so much, you know who you are. This morning, I felt so tired all over my body, and didn't have much will to wake up, but I woke up nevertheless. Have to be professional in work. Cannot anyhow take MC, right?

Felt rather tired whole day, though still managed to handle two projects plus a meeting, completed few things along the way. Thank God for that. Afterwards, in the afternoon, around 5 PM like that, I started to feel my headache again, felt very tired, and just couldn't do much. I tried and tried, but in the end have to succumb to defeat that I simply couldn't continue. I went out for dinner in search for fresh air and outside view and scenery, and of course food

I went back home not long after that, and here I am rambling in my blog for you to read  After bathe, and a bit of refreshing, I guess I have to fly to the dream world of mine already.  Good nite everyone (or good morning/afternoon if you happen to read it on different time ) Take care.

I encountered this demo of speech recognition built into Windows Vista. The demo is about 13 minutes, and you really want to see how cool and amazing it is. As the presenter said, this new feature is simply amazing. I am surprised to see how useful this feature can become. You can control "anything" on your screen simply by saying it into your microphone. It'll be something like: "If you can read it on your screen, and it's clickable, speech recognition can handle it, be it text in any Windows application, or any website opened with Internet Explorer, including my blog" How cool is that?

Get the podcast from here: http://www.windowsvistaweblog.com/2006/03/06/vista-voice-recognition/

Contrary to my belief, there are many, especially girls, who like to play built-in games in Windows, like Solitaire or Minesweeper. Good news for you all who like these kind of games, in Windows Vista, Microsoft has upgraded them to look so much better, and added a few games along the way. Here are what Windows Vista has at the moment. Click for the full-size pictures.


Windows Vista games, complete with rating


Hearts


Solitaire


Minesweeper


Chess Titans

Found this funny and thought I'll share with you all, hahaha....

Alvin's birthday celebration at Sakae Sushi


Me, myself, and my peach passion ice cream Very nice... slurp ...

This time is a team lunch at Pariss International Seafood Buffet, Marina Square.

The food here are hmmmm.... yummy yummy .... very good .... You can find lobster salad, samma fish, shark fin that's much better than wedding dinner, abalone, scallop, crayfish, huge oyster, chocolate fondue, crocodile soup (didn't have the guts to try it :p), so on and so on. Highly recommended. About $35 per person after all plus plus plus. The good side, with UOB cards, for every four persons paid, you can get additional one person free, cutting down the cost to about $27 for lunch. Nice.

After heavy lunch at Pariss, I went for dinner at Marche at The Heeren.

Had a lot of varieties, though didn't each much, because my stomach couldn't take it already, hehehe... We had Rosti, Pizza, Crepes, Meat Grill, Calamari, Ice Cream Waffel, so on and so on. Wah, very full, now must prepare for tomorrow evening already for another wonderful meal hahaha...

Everyone waiting for the spaghetti to be ready


Very nice spaghetti, thanks to Dian


Iyus birthday cake. Sometimes, size doesn't matter

This is the fifth part of spending spree (partly) for my dine and wine within a week. Today, I went to Ichiban Boshi with some colleagues for lunch at Novena Square, had a set meal, can't recall the name, but it was the Chef's recommendation for today. It came with a bowl of rice, sliced pork with ginger and tofu, fish with some don't-know-what sauce, japanese tofu again, a plate of assorted sashimi, miso soup, a small plate of vegetables, and three slices of surprisingly-sweet watermelons. I had also had a little bit of sushi and green tea ice cream with red bean for my dessert. For $20++, that felt like quite value-for-money, isn't it? Very full afterwards that I could only had my dinner after 8 pm, hahaha...

Somehow I felt my calorie-burning exercise last Saturday was not enough to cater for all the good stuff I had over the past couple of days, hahaha...  On for next one (sixth out of six) tomorrow evening in UE Square. Bring it on!!!!

PS. Someone remind me to book tennis court for Wednesday night, hehehe... 

Or, should I say, Are we too plugged in? This statement "The minute the bell rings at most big public high schools, the first thing most kids do is reach into their bag and pick up their cell phone," sound really close to our life, isn't it?

Read more here: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/03/19/time.cover.story/index.html?section=cnn_topstories

If you all expect yourself to be using Windows Vista by the end of this year, you'll be so sad to hear that its release date has been pushed back to early (January) 2007. Microsoft said in the press release that business availability will come in November 2006, while consumer availability will come in January 2007. Ah well, guess have to wait a little bit longer than expected

Read more: Microsoft press release | Yahoo business | WhatPC

Finally, all these rounds of dining out ended in Vino Vino wine lounge in UE Square, Mohmd Sultan Road. We had free flow wine, both white and red, with quite a lot of food (snacks rather). I had a total of two glasses of white wine and two or three glasses of red wine (if I don't count wrongly). Since it was free flow, whenever we finish drinking, the waiter would just come and pour in more wine. After my fifth glasses, I started to feel the effect of alcohol in my head already. Not that I'm anywhere near drunk yet, but I'm glad I didn't continue much after that.

To quench my thirst, I subsequently ordered orange juice (no alcohol) and ice water for drink. I think I had enough wine already hehehe...

Well, finally all good food and drink must come to an end, and this marked the last of the whole series of dine and wine in the past one week. No more this week, but I'll have another one next week

Today, I went back to office, to meet an urgent deadline that my team couldn't meet on Friday, so I spent today whole day sitting down in office, preparing and making sure the thing we deliver on Monday is presentable. Well, it certainly looked much better after the team effort today and I'm happy with it.

One thing to "complain" about was the taxi driver this morning. It took me exactly 39 minutes and $14.40 to reach office from my home, where normally it would only took 20 minutes and $9. From Upper Bukit Timah area, the taxi driver asked me which road he should take. I told him, can go through PIE. Okay, fine, then after PIE exit, he asked me again, should I go via Newton or Stevens Road. For whoever sake, I don't know!!! You ask me, I ask who? I am as blur as sotong when it come to road in Singapore hehehe... Somehow, he managed to find Robinson Road after passing through one round of Orchard, Chinatown, Telok Blangah Road, haiyah .... never mind... as long as I reach office faster than bus. Thank God for a fruitful day today

Only now I know what is a 'birdie' means, hahaha...

Currently feeling: disappointed

Very cool advertisement. Check it out:
http://84.40.3.164/

[via je7ca] 

Ice Age 2 released today. Anyone watching, raise your hand, yak !!!

Currently feeling: excited