The Makiav3llian Enchantment…

Coining the term from the Amazing Race:

A Detour is a choice between two tasks, each with its own pros and cons. Teams must successfully complete one of the tasks described on the clue in order to receive their next clue. One task is typically an easier option that takes more time to complete, while the other is usually a difficult or frightening option that can be finished quickly. In later seasons, the trend has been towards Detours which offer less clear-cut choices. Often, there may be some degree of luck involved with the "easier" option, such that a team may accomplish the task faster than if they had taken the quicker, harder, riskier option. Should a team choose to switch Detour tasks part-way through, there is no penalty, other than naturally lost time.

In my project, I basically took one and may not be the last. I took a leap to the month of May and have purchased a DVD Writer. Of course, why don’t I follow the time table and yes, because of this detour I am stuck with pros and cons. The pros definitely outweigh the cons as I only lose out 170 Dhs and now I possess the legendary Benq WD1640. I’ve got it after a lot of debate over a Samsung SE-W164C (External @ 315Dhs), Sony DRX-800UL (2nd Hand, External @ 300Dhs) and this unit. Besides, I desperately need one right now, I’m losing disk space on my laptop and my hard disk enclosure plus wifey wants to download Smallville Season 4. Choices are limited and I am still deciding on the Power Supply and now that there is a new boy in town, I choose to wait it out. The Thermaltake Tough Power has caught my eye and I want it. The Liberty Series is still teasing me and I just want to cry out and take both. We’ll see in the next couple of days, I do aim to get a PSU by the 16th of March, of course I do have a choice to take my time as always. That is the whole thing about Project Piece-© (PC), which stands for Project Patient-Computing.

So the Project stands:
February: Casing
March: Power Supply
April: Wireless Keyboard / Mouse and Hard Drive
May: DVD Writer / BD Writer and 5.1 Speaker System
June: Display
July: Cooling Solution and Sound Card
August: Motherboard
September: Memory Modules
October: Processor
November: Video Card

Another good thing, Dervin’s blog is up and running again. Apparently, the server went down, I think, so I take back what I said about Fil.ph going out of business or something.

The last few days of my leave are actually dwindling and of course I do feel the strain. I want to stay a bit longer but I feel that my laziness will get the better of me so getting back to work is not that bad. Sad to say, nothing productive came out of my leave, just the way I like it, because I just want to lie down and take it smoothly. I was able to bond a bit with my daughter and wife and I think that was the best thing to come out of it.

Murder… I just want to cry foul murder for my best friend’s blog. Unfortunately, fil.ph has crumbled and has closed down the service. This leads to http://dervin.fil.ph/blog dead in the water. There was no warning and I as attempting to access Dervin’s blog for days, I thought there was something wrong with the RSS feed but the whole site went down. I received a confirmation email from Jed of Fil.ph a week ago accepting my membership. I never went in to complete the process installing Word Press, and now, it’s gone. I hope and pray that Blogsome.com will continue to support me.

Recognition… A couple of things to mention, most notably the people from my previous company, Globalstride. Yes, Sherman, I see you in the website. But before these guys, I would also like to commend the guys at TipidPC.com for improving the website. To the Moderators, congratulations and thanks. To the premium member, your payments go a long way to support the website’s expenses, my thanks to you as well. And to all of us members, let us further support Tipidpc.com in its endeavors.

As for the G-Striders, I would like to congratulate the new set of leaders for inbound. Benjie - Assistant Manager, OJ - Program Coordinator for Visto & Dervin - Visto Team Leader. I know you guys have gone though a lot the past month and after all is said and done, I believe all of you got the breaks you deserve. Kudos to you, you are now the Triumvirate of Inbound. Though I know the Inbound team seldom get the credit it deserves, since our start of Inbound operations in Webservasia, we’ve proven time and again that Inbound has become an asset to the company. It would not have been possible for startup performers such as yourselves, I included, and you guys should give yourselves a good round of applause. To the ADT, Visto and Prismiq team, to the guys who resigned and is working in other companies, to the ones who stayed and are working in different departments, to the one that passed on… All for one and one for all. Congratulations to everybody.

Its still a couple of months before the AMD’s AM2 Processors come into the market and everyone is still speculating. Every review of this processor plays a critical role in my project and TomsHardware.com took a closer look into it. A review submitted by Patrick Schmid & Achim Roos came up this analysis.

There are a couple of facts that our analysis make clear:

• The Socket AM2 generation is certainly not going to outperform comparable Socket 939 (DDR400) processors at DDR2-667 memory speeds-see our benchmarks. This is why AMD decided to wait for DDR2-800 and launch in June.
• Since the production process is not going to be changed, power consumption and heat dissipation in the mainstream will remain where they are today. We did some basic testing, but as expected the difference was not worth mentioning.
• AMD is going to introduce low-powered processors for power and noise sensitive environments. The single cores will maintain a 35 W power envelope, while the dual cores won’t exceed 65 W. The latter is the mainstream thermal design that Intel intends to introduce with its upcoming Conroe processors in Q3. What we find amazing is that AMD must be able to reach these envelopes using its 90 nm technology, while Intel had to switch to 65 nm in order to maintain this course.
• Moving the Sempron and Athlon families to a common socket eliminated the need for separate budget and mainstream/performance platforms.
• The current Socket 754/939 Athlon 64 processors and motherboards usually cannot cope with more than 4 GB of RAM-there are few 2 GB DDR400 DIMMs-although addressing more than 4 GB is technically possible. The Socket AM2 Athlons will be able to use attractively-priced 2 GB DDR2 DIMMs.
• The changed mounting mechanism for the CPU cooler will annoy enthusiasts who spent a lot of money on a sophisticated, motherboard-mounted solution. However, we expect average Joe to be good to go with the boxed cooler or other 3rd party products that certainly won’t be more expensive due to this change.

Am I ready to jump the AM2 bandwagon? Not just yet.

But with AM2 reviews generated from AnandTech, Tom’s Hardware and other review site being similar, majority of the things I mentioned earlier about AM2 will figure out in my plan. The price of DDR2-800Mhz (as well as the support of AM2 on DDR2-800) and the total pricing of the motherboard processor package will play a crucial part in getting my rig up. But as of right now, I couldn’t care less. It’s just way too early to start counting. It definitely will be a long wait to June and I am hoping that AMD gets it right for my sake.

Now that you got your paper work done, authenticated documents and ticket, you are on your way to the airport. Hours before the flight you say your farewells to your parents or friends ask for their prayers that everything will go smoothly. They hope and pray that you will be safe in Dubai and that the rumors of Arab sodomizers don’t get cross your path. Little do they know, the minute you are in the airport, your trouble begins. Forget about your escapades in the UAE, it’s the people in the airport who you should worry about. Immigration officers are your abusers and they rob you blind.

I don’t really want to step on anybody’s feet but some of the people involved in getting you out of the country are people who are heartless. If I could just give a report to our investigative programs, they should have a look at this. And to the people managing the immigration office at the airport, open you eyes; crime is taking place under your very noses.

Immigration officers actually ensure that all your papers for departure are intact; you have the proper documents in your passport and visa. They ask all sorts of question and that is their job. But underneath these questions, they aim to confuse and check for weaknesses so that they can extort money from you, extortion is the crime they commit to you and bribery is the crime you commit. They claim money as much as PhP1000 or more, jewelry, mobile phones & more. They say that it is their job to do this but they have no conscience, they do not understand that the money they take from you will be used for your living expenses in Dubai. They claim that they are protecting you from starving in Dubai or having some problems, but the fact that they take your money contradicts their claims.

Instead of being treated a warrior going into battle being given rituals, blessing and weapons, they take you weapon (money) away and blind you.

I have nothing against these people, not all immigration officers are like this, but this for those who take advantage of my countrymen who dream of a better life. I am against your actions and I aim to prepare those people who you take advantage off into the battle that comes ahead.

Let’s take a break and reflect back on the script that never was on Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring.

As quote on a previous post…

"I plan it to be one of the power rigs available using the "old" AM1 architecture."

Looks like I may have to take it back. M2 is coming and for you guys tuning in late M2 is the socket preference of AMD. The days of Socket 7 is old school, Socket A hardly ever heard, Athlons a dying breed and the influx of A64s, Opterons, X2s, Socket 754s , 939s & 940s still top the chart. But the sun of a new dawn is upon us and the unveiling of the M2 or AM2 is real close.

If you are looking for links to what I mean, please click on the links below:

Anandtech

TipidPC

The Inquirer

They all talk about these major points:

• The new Socket 940 will be incompatible with the old 940 architecture.
• M2 will be supporting DDR2 memory only. The good thing DDR2 has bigger bandwidth and is generally cheaper. DDR2-800Mhz is the best in DDR2 technology while DDR1-400Mhz can pump up to 500Mhz. Price difference, I still need to find out.
• M2 HSF cage maybe different and the current heatsinks may not have the proper adapters yet.

So why am I writing about this? Well, it just goes to show that sometimes the best drawn roadmap changes and I choose a particularly bad time to push through. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I may stop the project just to be "future-proof," it just makes it a bit tougher to draw the line.

So the roadmap stands:

February: Casing
March: Power Supply
April: Wireless Keyboard / Mouse and Hard Drive
May: DVD Writer / BD Writer and 5.1 Speaker System
June: Display
July: Cooling Solution and Sound Card
August: Motherboard
September: Memory Modules
October: Processor
November: Video Card

* Mike was not able to buy the Scythe Ninja from Waycool. Which was a blessing indeed.

As part of my effort to push along with Project Piece-©, I have finally been able sell of my Playstation 2. Well, I’ve sold it off less than what regular second hand PS2 units sell for. Basically, I now have the money to buy the 600W power supply I need as well as the Scythe Ninja that is being processed by one of my best friends, Mike. I just hope he gets it in time, or else I will have to give him a serious @$$ whoopin’. To the new PS2 owners, take care of him. To my PS2, you will sorely be missed. Be happy because you are helping me embark on my dream project; better yet, if spare money permits, I’ll have a replacement when your upgraded brothers (PS3) hits the shelves.

My wife pulled a fast one on my birthday and I was completely taken aback with what she has done. She managed to bring in my TPC peers, we at least two of them and a couple of my friends and I was given a surprise party (28). I was really amazed at the strings she managed to pull, the fact that I was wearing home clothes when my first guests arrived. To my my guest thanks for dropping by, to my wife, kudos for sucessfully pulling this birthday surprise and I love you even more…

For exclusive backstage passes to to my party, please visit my wife’s Fotopages.

Not a lot of friends tell me this but I certainly know that I am one of the most tactless persons around, regardless if I know you or not, I tend to say a lot of things which mean rubbish but are necessarily true. Unfortunately, when Friday did come, I had to let one of my tirades come at church. We were basically attending Filipino mass and as you can see, a long and unorganized line and is sad to see that we as a community having to attend mass in this manner. First of all, there is Arabic mass going inside. Secondly, everyone is trying to squeeze in, its hot and there hardly any oxygen. I stayed in the line for a while with my daughter, I gave up and left the line, not worth it. Of course, i didn’t leave without leaving my thought. Hello Kabayan! More than 70 people died in the Philippines because of a scenario almost similar to this. I can’t believe that they still have not learned anything. Plus this is embarrassing to other people in church as the Filipino community lacks discipline.
On another aspect, I just happen to pass by some European league/club and I found it particularly funny after reading the signboard. Call me cruel and racist for now but I just found this ridiculously funny. In honor of Cartman, South park & "The Super Best Friends", I present to you the training center of SeaMan.

After a little bit of wrangling and wrestling I finally got a hang of this new place. Wordpress is tricky and assembling the website without any knowledge of CSS, PhP and MySql is like working on a pure black jigsaw puzzle split in 1000 pieces. I have no clue what the hell I’m talking about, now I’ve got to relearn a couple of things. Anyways, I’m learning and as I officially launch this blog (transfer) today, before my birthday, I make a birthday wish of having this blog evolve in front of your very eyes.

Welcome to my world…

It is extremely difficult being a nitwit every now and then but because of the amount of time I spend in front of a PC or game, I become a complete idiot at programming. As my bestfreind just witnessed, Wordpress and hosting, PhP and MySql, I have no idea what the hell am I doing and my decision of getting out of this blog is totally confusing me. I think I want to get out of the blogging business, however, no pain no gain. So I am back to square one, folks, welcome me back to i.Ph. Oh… Blogsome.com…

Now where is the spell check option here…

The good thing about this Taxi thing is that my family and I went to the beach today. I would like to thank Hussein for helping me out getting from Point A to Point B. Aside from this 31 Dhs thing, my dad said something important, spending quality time with my wife and my daughter (plus the sexy-two-piece bathing-suit-wearing Russians) makes the 31 Dhs worthless compared to the fun that we had together. Thanks for the sound advise Tatay!
So we spend a day at the beach and it was great. Water was freezing cold and this time my daughter and I were swimming and splashing waves. There was not too many people and it was better than last time, the last time we went, my daughter became a model, Pakistanis & Indians were picking her up and took pictures with her. They wouldn’t leave her alone and get the point that she wanted to play. Today was different though and we had time for ourselves. There were Russians and Europeans based in the former Soviet Union, and they were sun bathing. Yes, they were wearing bathing suits and all two-pieces and all. We managed to get a nice place for us and even got beside a nice looking Russian. Maybe I should go to Jumeria more often on a week day!
We spent more than 5 hours there and it was just fun. Usually when I go sulk over money for taxi fare, this wasn’t the case and this whole experience was just grand. I am planning to go back as often as I could and maybe find some alternative to get back home. From here I have been feeling in a very jolly mood and brought my family out of the house just to have some fun. Although going out will always cost you money may it be 1 Dhs or 1000 Dhs, if its for family, its worth it.

I was suppose to write this blog days earlier but my laziness got the better of me and the I am still rolling in pain for 31 Dhs I lost. Let me just start of with the bad thing since it is only issue. I want to remind everybody to avoid Arabian Taxi at all costs. From Jumeira to Muraqqabat, I had to pay a total of 31 Dhs and yes, that is a hefty amount, for me that is. First of all, the driver got us into an extremely traffic prone area occupied by big trailer trucks. Didn’t make sense to me why he didn’t take the road going to Maktoum bridge and opted for the Karama-Gharoud bridge road. If I was driving I would have known a better route. To cut things short, the meter was extremely fast, from the time duration because of the traffic and the usual .50 Dhs per 3 lamp post theory, it was just insane. I took a ride before and cost me less than 25 Dhs. I support these drivers for their quotas and all but if they are cheating on me… I would take it back.