GDG Devfest @ Georgetown 2015

GDG is Google Developers Group and "devfest" is short for Developer's Festival (if I am not mistaken). Apparently it is GDG season and there was one happening last Saturday in Georgetown.


I was lucky to be invited by a friend of mine to this whole day event in Wisma Yeap Chor Ee. It is a beautifully restored British colonial building with dark wood flooring, white plaster walls and huge windows that reminds you of ballerina class, Steve Jobs' house when he first moved in and also from the classic movies.



Up to your imagination to fill up that beautiful space.

What's there? The main objective of the devfest was (in my layman talk) is to serve as a platform for software and apps developer to share their products and success stories. You can say, it is something like a TED-talk for geeks. Other things, well, there are the normal things related to Google's stuff and other tech gadgets. A robot that you use to teach kids programming, a self-made segway, Virtual Reality (VR) headsets with fun graphics to test, (man) shoes that adds 7 cm to your height (say what again?) and one that caught my attention; art projects that integrates electronics into it which I assume to get more girls to be interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).




I attended all the Main Hall lectures and skipped the code lab (didn't brought along my laptop) and one thing I noticed was that all of the talks were given by men, except for one; the very last talk, which was actually a forum set up to discuss about Challenges Women Face in Tech Industries.



One of the panel looks like The Big Show from WWE (now I'm going off tangent).

That was a good topic to talk about because apparently it was quite obvious that men out-numbered women in any tech events. I don't know why.. yesterday I hung out with three guys, made new friends where half a dozen of them are guys and only two ladies (!). So where them girls at?



A lot of thorns. Am I right or am I right?

I'll probably elaborate more on that topic on my next post.

Network Attached Storage Plan

I plan to build a Network Attached Storage (NAS) system for my home. It should be easy enough to connect to all the gadgets in the house and compatible for future gadget upgrades (a macbook perhaps?) and reliable enough to hold thousands of precious digital data; mainly pictures, work data and medias. Most importantly, it should be able to last, not fail and keep the data intact for at least 5 years (or longer).

I have this great and easy to use home network in mind, where any computer could save a back-up of their hard drive in one location, which will make file sharing easy. A Tv or multiple TV could access the network drive and we could watch downloaded movies straight from the NAS without having to conect any computer at all. Same goes for music, as long as I have a wireless system, it's all good. Pictures taken from iPads, iPhones and cameras could be stored immediately onto the NAS, and viewed on the TV, also immediately.

I think the NAS is the answer for the question I have for many years now. I asked photographers and Torrenters alike, how do you keep/manage your data? I also was looking for a proper back-up system for my computer in case one of these two things happens causing loss of data:
1) Hard disk failure and erased itself
2) Break-ins and the stealing of computers
I had these two incidents occured to me within the span of 6 months. I've lost quite a lot of data, especially pictures that I've taken. Fortunately some a retrievable from the internet and for some they are gone forever without a trace, forever irretrieveable =(

I know that there is a flaw of putting your eggs into just one basket. Backing up ALL your data onto a NAS is still risky. So I decided to go for a NAS that has TWO hard drives. Where one will be the first line of back-up and the second hard drive will be an exact mirror image of the first. This is just incase the first one fails, I still have a second back up.

Adding a second hard drive will increase the cost of the whole system by a couple hundred of Ringgit, but I believe the cost of disk space is very less compared to the cost of data lost. I mean, even if you lose just ONE single image of, say your grandparents, it's the only one you have in this whole world, then it would cause such a grievance to lose it, right? I would know.

Now the chances of losing all your data is 25% with two hard drives.

To have higher confidence in having your data intact, I believe, would be saving multiple copies of it on multiple mediums of storage. This includes CD-ROMs, external hard drives, USB sticks, flash memories and saving them in The Clouds (Dropbox or Box).

These are what I am doing anyway. Now, with the NAS I am adding another storage medium for my data. So basically, NAS's first purpose is not to back-up data, but to have a Network for media for the whole house.

The Currents War

This would be a quick one for today.

Growing up, I've always admired Thomas Alva Edison for being the inventor of the light bulb and other stuff. He was sort of an inspiration for me and that famous quote of his was a gem:

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

Little did I know about the other guy, Nikola Tesla. Because you see, that was the time before the internet existed (did I just sounded like an old person just now?), most of the encyclopedia I've read did not covered about how awesome that Tesla guy was.

Only recently that I learned to love and admire that guy, when I was working on an idea related to one of my engineering project, something to do about transmitting energy wirelessly. And all I had to say is; my-mind-was-blown.

There is not enough adjectives to describe how superbly amazing this guy is. Fortunately for everyone, Matthew Inman from The Oatmeal did a very neat comic about how amazing, talented, genius, bizarre, intelligent and badass Nikola Tesla was. He is now the epitome of a true engineer/inventor. Sorry Thomas Edison, you have just been demoted.

Taken from here. Thank you Matthew Inman =)

 It is a shame that the world is run by greedy capitalists. And also it is a shame that history is written by those who won the war or the one who has more money (that is you Edison). I do hope that one day we'll be able to peruse many of Tesla's invention in our daily lives one day, soon. I know wireless charging is in the works.

Normal Blog Post: May The Fourth Be With You

If you have not noticed, yesterday (4th May) was Star Wars Day.

If you have not seen it yet, then I should say the most popular catch phrase of that movie was May the Force be with you. (Did you got the pun?)

You know what would be really cool?

If my friend, Wan, has a baby boy and named him Kenobi. Then his nick name would be Obi.
So when he goes out and introduces himself to others, he'd say:

My name is Obi, Wan Kenobi.

(*btw, that's a popular character in Star Wars)

Now, let's think of a way how to lobby for this.

28_Something that you could never get tired of doing

Blogging. Most definitely. I've been doing this since 2003. My therapeutic stress reliever has always been writing.. erm, to myself. Well, if i'm not writing in here, i'm writing in my journal. That's for my more 'private thoughts'.

And then, there's being 'awed by technology and gadgets'. I could never get tired of finding out the new technology. It's amazing how i could type this from my ipad, while i'm lying on my bed getting ready to sleep :)

Or maybe, looking at these camera bags... I don't get tired of looking at them, yet. They are to die for (metaphorically speaking). There are actually other bags that are to die for twice! Which is the Epiphan!e bags, but the price range is out of the budget. I'd choose these over Coach or LV anyday (unless they start making pretty and practical camera bags like these).

I'm going with the Rose series... but I'm undecided on the colour. The practical person in me says go for black or bronze colour, but there's a small voice that keeps shouting go for the funky colours! Like Teal or Moss or Yellow! Which one would you choose?

Rasa bersalah nak beli pasal I've been on a spending spree lately. But I do wish to replace my bulky and boring camera bag.

I think that's enough for now.

iCame iHome iTwice as iHappy i=)

I just thought I'd share my experience about my iFantastic iFriday being in the iQueue waiting for the iPad2. But before that, you can just jump right down to the very last picture for a summary of the day to save time and spare some geek drama.

=============================
iSlept early the night before the iFriday. The rain woke me up, and when I looked at the clock it was only 1130pm. What? I've only been asleep for 1 hour?! Went back to sleep. Woke up back at 4,5 and 630am. Excited much Dyanna?

Finally got ready by 730am and ready to move. Peeked outside, "Man.. the traffic is really bad outside! Luckily I'm taking the LRT to KLCC."

There's a reason why I choose KLCC and machines. 1st there's no bookings, so 1st come first serve give some guarantee that there's enough stock for early birds. Fanboys and girls are not allowed to camp overnight, unlike in some place that I heard of. More guarantee that less people are there early morning. I try to avoid geek central like digital mall and low yat. KLCC is a nice place and convenient too.

Traffic standstill.

After taking a light breakfast of roti canai and teh tarik, I headed to KLCC. By 830am, I reached Level 3 and found people has already started queuing. Bummer, I thought I was the first few. There's actually 70 to 100 people ahead of me! How crazy is that? I am standing across of Machines, on the other side of corridor. There's a 4 storey fall gap separating us.

Not so early birds.

Now let's take a look who ARE the people at the front of the pearly gates. I heard they waited there since 530am. Fuh... Store not open yet.

The REAL early birds.

930am. The lights inside Machines are turned on. Hopes went up. Everyone's bright eyed now.

Lights on giving hope. Stores not open yet for another half hour.

Once you make new friends with others, waiting in line wasn't that dreadful, really. A collection of Apple fanboys and fangirls. Geeks galore! Talking with these people are entertaining because you learn so much about stuff like the best food in Ipoh, Penang, KL. Whether or not we should buy the casing here. Take the protection plan. economics. gadget testing methods. Camera. Anything. So I had this one girl behind me, who took a leave to buy one for her boyfriend. Then, there's a guy in front of me who also took leave to buy for himself, I wonder if he's single. Then another guy, who took leave to buy for his wife. A girl who was in line with her dad/uncle.. (not sure).

Let's have a quick look at the line again... 

When the stores officially opened and rolled up the shutters at 10am, the staff came out with goodies bag and everybody applauded. Unfortunately it was for the first 10-15 customers =(  They got machines T-Shirts. I was a bit jealous... but what the hey.

A booking card. Sensed the irony?

By 1030, staff passed out booking cards. This is to ensure you'll get one. No changing of minds after this. Oh, and the 32GB Wifi+3G model has already ran out of stock. The first customer came out from the store with his iPad2 and the whole floor APPLAUDED. Wah, so semangat one!

View from the top.

11am. Stil waiting....line is moving slowly. Very slowly...

This is my second time being in a  long line waiting for something. The first one was waiting in line to get into NEXT stores on Boxing Day on a very cold December morning (5am already walking through Hyde Park!). Gotta give credit for the "commitment". Not.

View from the bottom?

12pm. FINALLY, in front of machines! But still can't enter the shop yet. Wait outside lagi. By this time I'm a bit irritated because i'm getting tired and hungry. I did brought some food, but I didn't eat there because I didn't brought enough to share.

Crowd in the store testing iPad and other iMachines.

1230.. Yeay, the big burly guy allowed us to enter the store! Still have to wait though...

Finally IN the store. One tired but happy camper.

1245.. reached the counter. Collected my ipad and paid. Looked at some accessories.. get some ideas... Can't wait to get out of that crowded place. Bid goodbye to my new friends.

Met other non-gadget frenzied friends for lunch and tea and coffee. Btw, I walked back to machines at 4pm. People are STILL queuing for the Ipad... But i doubt not all models are available.

The busiest store in KLCC today. definitely.

By the time I got home, I'm knackered. REALLY knackered! Felt like I knocked my knee off.

Finally, some alone time with the shiny =)

There's a Lady Gaga song that somehow stuck in my head which relates to this... but i'll share on the next one.

Quick UNBOXING of Ipad2 was done with my friend, Dieya, at Chinoz later that day. You can read about it here...

Summary of my day.

Normal blog post - Friday is Ipad2 Day

(my 2nd post for today)

Firstly, I have to come clean with you guys (or myself actually - I need to get this off my chest!), for the past 5 weeks I've been keeping a watch scouring the internet for any news of the Ipad 2 in Singapore and Malaysia, up to a point that I myself think I'm becoming an crazy obsessed freak. I don't even want to say how many hours spent doing this 'research' for fear of looking even more like a pathetic crazy obsessed freak.

Last Saturday new rumours emerged on some local tech websites showing someone holding a receipt of ipad2 pre-booking confirmation, then followed by the start-up of a tech forum and from there on, fans went mad and the forum expanded uncontrollably like a wild forest fire.It goes up to 108 pages in just 5 days and has more than 50k views! Apparently there's a whole group of pathetic crazy obsessed freak like me out there. Phew, what a relief! -lol- *maybe the hindi word 'pagal he' is more appropriate*

So, I did my research. I have set what kind of model, color and storage capacity that I wanted to buy. 

Last time Apple only gave fans 6 options to choose from. Now the number of choices have doubled with the introduction of white colored border. Talk about spoiled for choice. Black vs White. The dark side or the light side. The hip or the serious.

Then there's the option of which capacity to choose from. 16GB, 32GB or 64GB. For each model it's RM300 difference, which is quite a considerable amount. You could go for that lower capacity and have extra dosh for a funky ipad2 casing. However, the inner geek in me tells me to choose function over fashion.

And finally, choosing between a Wi-Fi or 3G model. For me this is a no-brainer.

Now the real question is what time should i go and make a bee line to the store? I don't know how long I'll be  in the queue. What should I bring? A jacket? A thermos filled with coffee/tea? Some food? A book? Fortunately it's launched on Friday, where people are at work, schools and some have exams! So I estimate the crowd would be less, but you'll never know, maybe it won't.

I really do hope they got tons of stocks and enough for everyone that day. I've seen pictures of the carton boxes in the stock holding room, but after doing a quick math and dividing it with all the different ipad types, it's actually not that many. Only 1/12th of the box contains the model I wanted. Like, hey, in US pun you have to wait 1-2 weeks if ordered online. ugh...

* I don't know why i'm so obsessed with this. If I was still working at M0t0 i don't think I would even look at an ipad. No, I will look, but I won't have the slightest desire to own one. Maybe it's because back then I already have a portable computer given. Or maybe because it's a competitor gadget?

OK what ever... now less than 24 hours to go! Friday is becoming a favorite song for ipad2 fans. Now Rebecca Black has the last laugh, how ironic.

It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward Friday, Friday
Friday, Friday
Gettin’ down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward for the Ipad2

Potato-ism Upped a Notch

I haven't reviewed any gadgets in years. The last one was an MP3 player. So here's another one to add to the list. Unboxing a media player. You see it coming, it's not too late to jump to another blog because I am going to rant about gadgets. Yes, shiny little things that is pleasing to the eyes ;)

Meet my new friend, Ryan. AC Ryan Play On Essential.

I have dozens of movies on my portable hard drive that I have not watched yet simply because I'm too lazy to sit propped up in a chair in front of my computer and to add more reasons, the audio system on the computer isn't that good either.

It so happen that one day when I visited a friend who was also gadget enthusiast, he introduced to me a nifty little thing called a media player. And it was The Answer to my digital media predicament.

As a rule, I waited one month before buying anything that costs more than RM50. That only make it more desirable. I was thinking about it day and night. Read reviews and made comparisons. It is also one of the reason why I have sleeping problems. Finally decided to go to the dreaded PC Fair (I hate crowds).

Contents of the box. HDMI cable was an extra Christmas gift.

There were like half a dozen options at the Fair, AVF, Imation, WD Life, RMVB and VBridge. It's hard to make a decision on which one to buy. Price range is roughly the same, ranging between RM280 to RM300 depending on their capabilities and bundles. You must know what kind of files they're able to play and whether the software could be upgraded for better user experience. Does it come with all the cables?

It came down to only PlayOn . This one is slightly pricier than the rest, but I bought it because it has 2 years warranty (the others only provide 1 year warranty) and plays almost anything you dump into it.

The PlayOn Essential doesn't have any LAN input for viewing internet directly from the system, but you can buy the hardware and upgrade if needed . It also doesn't come bundled with a HDMI cable (too bad), but I managed to persuade the tauke to throw me in one for free and he even gave me a reduction on the price by RM10 and got a RM30 voucher. OK la, I think I found a good bargain.

A peek inside the box. A lot of space for air ventilation.

Like most product, this one is made in China, but designed by a Dutch company. The system is quite 'boxy' compared to other players of the same range. I was dismayed at first looking at all the wasted space which holds only a thin PCB board. But the extra space has a purpose, which is to install a 3.5" hard disk inside of it. The cooling fan at the back helps with air ventilation and prevent hard disk from heating up and is pretty quiet. (most don't offer this option).

Test drive with a USB stick. Blosson is patiently waiting.

The PlayOn Essential can play any kind of media file you throw at it and perhaps more in the future because the software is upgradable. It plays movies, music and picture slideshows. It has 2 USB 2.0 ports and an SD card slot at the side. It detects the TV system automatically. User interface is blue and black, soothing to the eyes and easy to navigate. I've played Glee from my 8GB USB stick and watched a couple of movies from my 500GB portable hard disk and there wasn't even a single glitch.

However there is a few things that I wish it could improve upon:

• The volume is pretty low. I normally watch TV at audio level of 7-10, but I had to boost it up to 40 when playing from the Essential, maybe it's just the files. 
• Although the system auto detects the files and displays it on the list, I wish it could be more 'intelligent', like sorting files into folders and not dump it all in one screen. I had to go through 360 files to find a movie. Most of the rubbish are .dat files that doesn't have media content of interest.
• I found that I had to press the button twice on the remote to make a selection. I don't know if this is like as a 'confirmation' press, but it surely annoying. A single press would be good enough.
• The remote control range is does not have wide coverage. I had to point directly to the box to get a response. Cheap infrared remote?

Disconnect to Connect

Do you like oxymorons?     I DO!
It's the innuendo of the English language. So cleverly arranged in a sentence that when the first time you hear it, it makes sense and when you think about it, you'll go "Hey, wait a minute!". It never fails to amuse me.

There is a website dedicated to cleverly crafted oxymora (plural of oxymoron; oxymorons is also accepted ~ according to Wikipedia at least) that you just got to go see.. it's terribly good (pun intended).

[image from Gizmodo]

As amusing it could be in literature, having it in real life is called paradox. Have you ever thought about the paradoxial social networking is?To connect, you need to disconnect.

As we thread our days living in the era of social networking, we are slowly detaching ourself from 'actual' socialising activities? We stopped talking to our neighbours who lives just next door, but we chat non-stop with people hundreds of miles away through social network. We kept quiet during meetings, but we criticised incessantly about how dull or indecisive the meeting was on virtual walls. We are sooo much connected that we allow work stuff to creep into our mobile email boxes even after work and during holidays just to be 'on top of the game'.

We wanted to be connected with the other side of the world so much that we've forgotten that there's actually one in front of us. We rather look at back-lighted devices for updates rather than look into the eyes of loved ones and have meaningful conversations. Sadly, this is the irony of 'being connected with the outside world', we have to be disconnected from everything that's happening around us.

Hear this song. It has this kind of continuous looping music that just can't escape from your brain.

Rogue Waves - Eyes