Category: General

Earlier this week, I remembered a conversation I had with Ying. She said my blog was boring. 🙂
I do not deny that my blog is boring. However, I do not blog for others, I keep track of random thoughts and keep records for myself.
With that said, I have no doubt that others read this blog. I’ve had people come here for some reason or another, referred by google or elsewhere. And even paste a comment or two.
What reminded me about the conversation with Ying was while I was in class; I realized that I could google a given person and have relevant information come up. There could be another Lloyd Leung, but if you do a whois on the domain name, they’ll know if I am that person or not.
Vanity has it’s downside, which is anonymity.
I intend to keep what’s private, private.

Funny video from .be

Unless your buying it straight out, it’s was better to buy it last week, than this.
It’s funny, since Ford and Chrysler were both offering Employee discounts to the general public, GM had to follow suit, or risk losing even more money.
Before (After):
Interest rate 0.9% (3.9%)
Residual Value 38% (36%) @ 48 months
damn the fine print. 🙂
Also, as of friday, GM stopped the petro gas money incentive. Don’t forget another $500 off with the gas card.
The new price is $17,633 @ 3.9% x 48 months = $20,604.70. While the old price is $19,795 @ 0.9% x 48 months = $20,520.33
So unless you’re buying, you’re actually better off with the old program.
The difference of $84.37 just in interest alone. Now add that gass difference. $584.37
So, now… lets look at that fun stuff.

I started to use computers since MS-Dos 3.1 days… earlier if you include load "*",8 for the commodore 64 to load games when I was 4 yrs old (maybe younger)
I’ve been struggling with linux for a little bit. Without google, I’d be lost.
But for those commands, that you’re so used to… like copy, move, and stuff, I’ve had to create aliases to make the transition easier.
What’s thrown into my “~/.bashrc” file.
alias cls='clear'
alias del='rm'
alias dir='ls'
alias e2w='sudo cp /usr/local/emc/generic.ini ~/gcode/generic.ini'
alias eg='sudo nano /usr/local/emc/generic.ini'
alias emc='/usr/local/emc/generic.run'
alias ls='ls -Ail --color=always'
alias w2e='sudo cp ~/gcode/generic.ini /usr/local/emc/generic.ini'
alias untar='tar -xvzf'


Well, looking and seeking for a plugin to do what I want, has been a time waster for the most part.
I think I’ll take two plugins that I’ve seen kicking around, and modify them both, (giving credit where credit is due), and forging a new plugin that lots of people are looking for. (more…)

I’ve been having a ongoing debate with Sam and Alice, in regards to how I believe that Apple stuff is expensive.
One would argue that you are paying for quality, design, and innovation. While I will argue that it’s over priced, well designed, but innovative? Maybe when they first started as a computer company. But now, I don’t think that they are more innovitive than their competitors.
I found that their want-to-be-monopolistic ideals prevented them from reaching critical mass early on. Such as preventing 3rd party manufactures from producing compatible hardware for them or along side them. So most people just went for the IBM PCs, and IBM clones. Though, now they’ve changed their turn, as their market shares are in the single digits.
How does Apple compete? By pretty packaging.
I’m serious. They’ve made white cool. I look at the products, and I find them pretty. Look at the iPod, the iMac, the iBooks. They’re all well designed, functional units. Whoever their designer is, is a genius. Not to mention their marketing team.
While Dell has awesome deals, and if we compare feature to feature, Apple is more expensive. And lets not forget about Wal-mart USA, where you can get a computer with lindows/linsphere for the same price as a few cases of good quality beer.
Alice added, that I at least have the option to buy from someone else other than Apple. I could pay Apple some insane amount for ram, or go to a reputable third party, and pay about 1/8th the price. Just as long as the pinout and timing is the same.
Still, I consider it price gouging. But hey, Mac people are strange.
Sort of like how Saturn, and VW people have a cult following towards their cars.
A car salesman at a GM/Buick/Chevy dealer, said that if GM said to have a picknick, maybe 5 people from their thing may show up to the picknic. Now where as a Saturn dealership held something like, they may have hundreds of people. The same would be true to VW folks. It’s a different type of person that buys those cars. It’s NOT bad, just different. And of course not ALL will be like that as well, but a greater amount would be.

I’m pleasantly surprised by the quality of Open Office . org (OO.o).
OO.o is much quicker than MS Office. I never used the scripting features for any of the office products except for Outlook, to sort my email based on subject headers (group mailing lists, etc). Since Firefox runs circles around Outlook for mail handling, just ditched Outlook.
Firefox is able to handle the type of sorting I need with ease, so why use something that takes a ton of time to just _load_, let along search for anything of importance.
I highly suggest to my peers, to drop MS Office, and just use Open Office . org. How fancy do you things? Do you really need the cheesy word-art of word? or whatever bloat that comes with it?
My requirements:
– spell/grammer check
– columns for text
– spread sheet (with standard fuctions, and perhaps some analysis funtions)
I’ll have to find the site that did a indepth look at OO.o.
I’m sure there will be hiccups with OO.o, but
1.) it’s free.
2.) it’s faster than MSO.
3.) All major features that are required are there.
So… hmm… Cheaper, faster, does the job the same… or pay for something that does the same thing?

As the customer, I want the best product. As someone that isn’t making billions of dollars, I also want the best price. This is the point of view from the consumer.
How do you make the happy medium between buying dosmestic or import?
My options where as follows:
Purchase the items made in India, from an US discount online merchant.
Purchase Japanese, or European made, from another US online merchant
Purchase the items made in Europe, from a local supplier.
Price difference, significantly differed (increasing down the list). Quality, significant as well.
Now, I couldn’t have bought anything made in Canada, as this kind of product isn’t made here. Nor would I know the quality, or price of such an item.
At anyrate, I broke down, and spent the big bucks. I paid pretty much double. Stupid? Maybe.
But how do you make that happy medium? Quality versus cost, or support for local versus foreign.