Sucking It Up: Smart Bro Style

Every drone knows that the way to your boss' heart and mind (and possibly a longer tenure at the company) is to suck it up. In this light, when a drone is given even a minute opportunity to do so, he or she grabs it. In this case: fixing my boss' HP 500 laptop.

My boss was discussing with Paul, a newly promoted supervisor and my office best friend that her laptop was bent out of shape and needed a good formatting. The problem was that she did not have drivers for the laptop and all the wireless connections in our office were secure and needed WPA logins. Also, her Smart Bro Wireless was out of range of any distinguishable signal. So they offered to fix it, and the next thing I knew, me, RJ (another sup and friend), Paul, and my boss were on her way to her house (during the billable hours of our shifts) to pick up her wounded workhorse.

After picking up the laptop, we headed off to Jollibee for her treat (the inconspicious payment for the services we will render) then back to the office to perform the task. And so we did. 30 long minutes later the laptop had Windows XP running smoothly however, still had no audio or a decent resolution to work with. I then drove back home where I had wi-fi to download the drivers for her PC. After downloading all the crap that was necessary to run the thing I decided it was time to try if the Smart Bro thing worked. I first tried it on my PC and it worked like a charm, or probably less as the connection matched only the fastest dial-up around. Now the clincher, trying it on the laptop.

It did not work.

I then mustered all the neurons I could at 6 in the morning to troubleshoot what was going on to no avail. I tried uninstalling then reinstalling it, but still, no go. Finally I went back to the office like a fallen hero, only for her to have it checked at the nearest HP Service Center. I'll probably get terminated in a day or so.



** Smart Bro image from yugatech.

CNPC - Crispy Noodle Pancit Canton

One unusually boring sunday we were having trouble deciding what to cook. We had two choices, an old standby: Tokwa't Baboy, or the Tsinoy classic the ubiquitous Pancit Canton.

We finally went with the Pancit. Only this time, we would give it a twist: ergo, use crispy noodles.
It turned out to be surprisingly easy to make and such a treat for the eyes as well.

Here is the recipe for y'all:

INGREDIENTS:
(note: we never actually measure what we put in)

8oz flour stick noodles
200g pork belly
4 cloves garlic
1 onion
1/2 carrot (cut lengthwise)
1/4 cabbage
8 string beans
1 red bell pepper
1 tbsp. sesame oil
2 tbsp. soy sauce
2 tbsp. oyster sauce
1/2 cup water
1 tbsp. flour
salt and pepper


DIRECTIONS:

Canton Base

Saute garlic until brown. Add onions. Stir in pork. Fry until brown. Add all liquid ingredients however using only 1/4 cup of the water. Bring to a boil. Toss vegetables in the mix and let it simmer in medium heat for about 3 minutes. Use the other 1/4 cup of water to mix with the flour. Add the water and flour mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste. If preferred, you may add a teaspoon of sugar.

Crispy Noodles

Bring water to a boil then let the noodles barely soften then remove. Blanch the noodles. Remove excess water. On a frying pan, heat enough oil to make sure that all the noodles are coated evenly. Fry the noodles until crispy. Do not overcook. Remove from heat then strain off excess oil.

Makes 3-4 servings. Enjoy!

Just a Hypothesis: Big Bang Theory Rocks!

Finally, the entertainment gods bowed down to comedy that actually requires neurons.
The show is about two so-called geeks Leonard and Sheldon who live together in an apartment adjacent to Penny, a waitress (who, in an obvious cliche, has a normal, if not lower, IQ, but is every nerd's fantasy). Their irreverent indifference is promulgated throughout the series with witty banter and pseudo-intellectual interactions with so-called "regular folks". The jokes are sometimes so perplexing you'll find yourself confused in all the scientific hoo-ha, without losing the fact that it's still funny. I just hope this review doesn't turn my brain into the size of a pod.

Watch it online and get geeked out.

Welcome Lucky

A happy new addition to our family.

Valentine's Night Out

My Memi and I went to Queue Ristorante, a newly-opened resto located at Robinson's Angeles. I'll let the pictures of the food speak of how delicious (and surprisingly cheap) it is.








Besides the food, the service was impeccable. There was also free wireless access to all customers, and just this valentines season, they're giving out chocolate flowers. Although it is only a stone's throw away from the bustling party scene at Diamond Subdivision, it has more than ample parking for its patrons. The only con in the setup are the chairs outside, granted, it is a "designer" restaurant, the chairs should be comfortable. Besides the chairs, I give this place a big thumbs up!

On this day of hearts...

Adobe Lightroom 2.3

This is my new Canon 350D's better half.

Konstrukted's Workstation

I know it may be a modest workstation as I am not one of those techies who also proclaim themselves to be "gamers".

Specs:
AMD X2 System
2GB RAM
GeCube X1650 ATI Radeon 512MB/128-bit
250GB HDD
Samsung Super-SyncMaster DVD-RW

Peripherals:
Samsung LA22A450
Altec Lansing Speakers
Logitech Keyboard
Genius Mouse

Turn your PC into a Mac

All you people who want the sleek interface but don't want the limited Mac OS, click here.

I've been using this since 2001 when Chris Kite's program took the net by storm and made PC users sport the Mac interface.

The Ugliest Pair of Shoes Valentine Promo

If there's anything I could do to prevent people from wearing these, I would. I wonder what this atrocious post might do to my blog readership.

Seth McFarlane's Cavalcade of Comedy

There are certain comedy shows that try to illicit comedy but somehow end up forcing it. This is NOT one of those shows. Get hooked on Seth's brand of comedy by clicking here.

If you're a big fan of the Family Guy, then this here's your new vitamin for that funny bone of yours.

Windows 7: Premature Still

After a week of trying the beta version of Windows 7, I already found myself rethinking what I'd done. Don't get me wrong: I've always been a beta tester of everything, I've made all my computers since 1995 run new crap (back then it was windows 98, then XP, then Vista). But even with all the bugs and fixes, I've stuck to my decision, somehow owning up to the fact that what's new will eventually work itself out.

For Windows 7, there is no such safeguard.

Yes there were new features added, namely:

• Option to have a desktop backgrounds to switch.
• Handwriting recognition
• Snipper (something similar to alt-print screen)
• Truetype (clearer fonts)
• A revised Action Center (which will include your firewalls, and AV softwares)

But to me, these are practically useless if you can't run the programs you want.

Somehow from its redundant menus to roundabout control panel items, from the thick taskbar to unstable network connections I finally decided that Windows 7 was still too premature for my taste. Which is why I went back to Vista. Critics may not hail it (as it is my personal opinion that only techies should be allowed to use Vista, even if it is a dumbed-down version of XP), but I am very happy with my experience with Vista.

I'll probably wait until Windows 7 is officially released.

Cannot Build in Sims 2

I've been playing the Sims 2 since it was released, mostly since I was still an industrial design student back then, however now that I've installed it both in my Vista computer and an XP laptop it doesn't work.

I then scoured forums to see just how many people are having the exact same problem and the numbers were dismal. Most of them are saying that the Sims creators assigned a bug in the executable file so that when a no-cd crack was used, the build mode would not work.

I completely agree that software which was created by people with their blood, sweat and tears should be properly compensated, however, only by the people who can. I am still not paying for a game which I can get for Php 100 on a market stand somewhere. Maybe I'll just download Call of Duty 5.

Sold! Emaxx ATI Radeon X1650 PCI-Express Video Card

Finally, after 2 resells, I can take this item off of my garbage can.

Acer Aspire One Weekend

This weekend is both a bane and a blessing. Kuya Kris got his new Acer Aspire One and Kiqs got his Acer Aspire. The bane is that all day we downloaded drivers as the Aspire One did not have one included in the box. Also, we had to format Kiqs new laptop and have XP installed.

Life is what happens when you're formatting a laptop.

I went through hell trying to find drivers for the originally Linux-based Aspire One so for everyone out there having trouble finding drivers, click here.

First I tried running Windows 7 32-bit on the Aspire One however, it had problems detecting the WLAN. Other than that it ran smoothly though. However, since my cousin really needed the wireless connection I reverted it back to XP with Flyakite customization to make it look like a Mac.

On the other hand, Tin went to see her programmer friend who just got home from Dubai and a couple of friends over at The Coffee Academy (who is owned by our neighbor). We also ate famous comfort foods namely sopas and ice cream then drank beer afterwards.

Facebook Turns People into Spammers

Late in the advent of Web 2.0 came facebook, a social networking site which initially promised to put a big cork on friendster's overloading servers (which are down every other day), is now filled with clutter from everywhere... and everyone.

It's not so bad that you get invited to a party, and get an invitation to a game every so often... but 99 other requests pending? That's insane. It seems like there's either an application or a survey for everything (complete from "were you breast-fed when you were a baby?" to "Do you snore?" LOL). I think the problem is, when everybody's a fan of something, or likes something, or anything in between, there's an application available for you. Let's just keep our interests to ourselves. If not, I bet their servers would be down more than the other Big "F" in the future.

Here are some of facebook's advantages:

• Only people you add as your friends can actually view your profile.
• Not as much spam as friendster
• Online Chat
• A personalized wall-to-wall messaging system
• Texas Hold Em Poker (an entire feature, well, at least for me...)

Windows 7 Beta Review

Today I have one of the most anticipated operating systems in Windows history: the Windows 7 Beta. The road coming here wasn't at all easy (sorry, Barack, I had to follow suit) : I first had to suffer an upgrade installation, a power outage in the middle of that installation, then a clean install afterward which effectively reduced all my personal files to a mere figment of my imagination (even after clicking the option NOT to delete my previous files and store them into a "windows.old" folder).

Even before the installation, I had to try downloading the beta thrice (thanks to the faulty Java platform which it came available for download), had it downloaded by a friend who [stupidly] downloaded the 32-bit version instead of the 64-bit one. I finally had to hunt down a torrent of the ISO file and burn it on a DVD.

Microsoft promised that this version will eventually shelf the agony that is Windows Vista. Not that my experience with that operating system was entirely bad. I had my good times with it too :)

In my opinion, my first hour using this operating system was a bit boggling. My first baby step was to change the desktop background, to find that upon clicking "personalize" a whole new interface was in place, asking me to change the theme of the desktop itself. Thanks to the clean install, my beautiful dreamscenes are now nowhere to be found.

Gadgets no longer have it's dock on the right hand side of the screen and does not exist. The taskbar feels a little thick to me too (with no option to make it a teeny bit smaller). I also notice that my system is running a bit slower than it did with Vista Ultimate.

Let me try this beta for a few more days before deciding whether I should get my old and clunky Vista back.