The secret hideout

I had to park my car in one of these abandoned (but it was not) looking car parks today for about RM3.00. Normally, I would use the ramps instead of the stairs. But today, because there were so much cars, I had to park at the topmost level which has no roof. And so, feeling a bit lazy and not in the mood to be knocked down by cars, I took the stairs for the first time. And ....... wow.

Here we have someone living in the stairwells. I
think this is the main living room level. The floor
is quite clean.

In one corner, you have the wardrobe and clothes.
Note the personal air-conditioned on the bottom left.

Then on the other side, you have the entertainment
centre. Unfortunately, you can tell this person is not
a Playstation fan nor a Hi-Fi buff.

And just in case if there is any trouble, all the
person has to do is to slide down and hop into
the Batcycle........

On the upper levels, there I think this is the kitchen
which is most logical as the fumes from the cooking
needs somewhere to go. If its based on the bottom
floor, the upper floors would stink. Alas, from the
pieces on the floor, I think this person preferred to
eating out.

Nokia 5800 Firmware Upgrade V30.0.01

Something must be wrong with me. I stayed up the whole night, trying to log on to the Internet and download the firmware. And all the time, I was very afraid that any sudden Internet disconnection might brick the phone. (As in corrupted installation to the chipsets, turning the phone into one big paper weight)

But I needn't worry as the software would download first
and then install. This was the shot I wanted to show you
but missed it the first time when I was updating to V.25

And after it reboots itself, a quick #*0000# reveals
the new information. Nothing new here but I felt as
if the phone used slightly more power and some of
the icons were changed. Still, it hanged everyday.
But now, it turns itself off even more, as if it does
not want to live anymore, dreading everyday that it
would hang on almost every application and making
the owner feel stupid and lose confidence on Nokia.

The Show

And so, with nothing much to do, since we stopped them from watching TV too much (unless they escaped to Grandma's room during the day), I let the girls play in the room. Lately, Kristine has started to wear the "jacket" again. Which belong to either me or my sis when we were babies. She wears the jacket to represent long hair.........

And so, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a show for you.
Its all about me, Kristine, who will dance and sing for you

"But I want to sing and dance too."
"No, you go to the back and play the guitar or whatever"

"Hmmph. I will get her for this."

And so, Kaelynn stole the show with her cute cute smile

And also her singing. Kristine is starting to realise the
audience is not paying attention to her.....

And so, as usual, a fight ensued.

But in the end, the Evil Monst........er In the End, Kristine
agreed to give Kaelynn more time for her show.

And she even shared her treasures with her

Unfortunately, Kaelynn was so distracted, she was knocked
down with Kristine's super duper armpit pillows.

The End

The mysterious connector

Me: Your alarm line is out, issit?
Guard: Dunno.
Me: Let me check your phone too. Is it working?
Guard: Dunno.

Go inside the office, and talked to the person-in-charge, "Your alarm line is out, issit?"

"Yeah, the (alarm guys) came yesterday during their monthly routine check and told me its out"
"Alarm guys? And in those alarm guys who monitor your alarm 24 hours?"
"Yes"
"And no one knows until they came for a check?"
"Yes"
"Are you sure they're monitoring your alarm 24 hours"
"Yes"
"Wow."

[In this case, if they monitor your alarm 24 hours, any problem, their centre would have called you up after a set period of time if your system does not handshake with their monitoring system. So, in this case, the problem could have been happening since their LAST monthly check.]

And they mystery here is, that the connector blocks
are in a bad shape. This is a sign of water seepage but
the box was sealed shut. What is more worrying is the
plastic parts of the connector are crumbling. See the
green stuff coming out of the wire? It has turned to
copper sulphate, via electrolysis.

And it was so bad that the first four wires were affected
until the metal is gone.

So I had to re-route the cables to other pairs and updated the customer of the situation.

"Your Guard's phone extension is also out, you know."
"Really?"
"Have you tried calling them?"
"No"
"Have they tried calling you and complained?"
"No"
"........"

SOIC to DIL Adaptor Part III

OK, I admit I did a boo-boo here. I should have used the proper pins for the adaptor. This is what happens when you make critical decisions at midnight. The problem was that the legs were too thin and so, when I am not too careful, I would topple it when I insert or removing the chip. And so, this would weaken the legs since I have to gently bend them back again and again.

Knowing these pins are fragile, its a matter of time before they break altogether. Luckily, I had the rare opportunity to find a nice parking spot, near enough for me to run to the shops to get the proper connectors. "PC Headers", they call it.

This is what happens when you forget to use both
hands to release the IC chip. The adaptor would
topple and bend the legs.

And as you can see, the legs are very very thin and
if I re-bend them too often, it will break. To solder
them again, it would take a lot of hard work since
the legs cannot be soldered in a single piece; you'd
need them in rows since the heat of the soldering
iron would melt the black plastic holding all the legs
together. In short, you would need to redo the whole
circuit board. And so unsolder the green ZIF socket
is also not easy as well. Sigh.

These are the wrong pins (legs) I used on the left
unless I want them on those round IC sockets. So,
I need to use the PC headers on the right.

There. One new circuit board and a ZIF socket
desoldering job later, I can solder the new pins
in. This time, I know for sure, they will last

No more skinny legs!

The secret ingredient

Nom... nom... nom...
slurp.......
Yum...yam... yam...


Ah, finished my lunch. And oooo..... this leong char is
tasty. Very very tasty.
Slurp.... drink, drink, drink.. crunch.. crucxh... drink.
Hah? Crunch?
Hey, wait a miute. How come this leong char got
crunchy stuff wun?

Alamak! ptui! ptui!


Ahahahaha! And just in case you want to know where this place was, I am not going to tell you. Because it is not nice to eat bees.

Growing up yet?

Instead of giving her milk in baby bottles, I made
Kristine's Milo and poured it into a cup. I told her
that its time she used a cup as she is growing up.

Later on, she kept using the bottle. I must try again. Soon.

Hairy experience

The moment they let their hair down,
you can be assured of a hairy situation
to the point of asking, "Why?"

Overlooked

Sometimes, with so many things going on with them,
its a bit of a problem as there are things which needs
to be attended to but forgot. Luckily Kaelynn does
not scratch. Much. (3mm nails, man)

What's in the cupboard?

We have finished laying the cables from 28th to 34th floor and now, it was up to the customer to complete the finishing touches before we can continue. In other words, we are waiting for them to install the cupboard for which the wires and other cables can be terminated. We waited for days until my last call to them which they say they were waiting for the carpenter to make the access holes....

And so, Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the curpboard.
We missed it at first because it looked like a normal
office cupboard. It was not until the customer told us
to take another look when we went back to 28th floor.

Yeah, this cupboard was sitting there for
days, waiting for access holes to be drilled
In the end, there is it, job done. Bye-bye.

The JJ Tricorder Project 5

Its finally done. After weeks or working at it, or shall I say, a few weekends, the Tricorder is complete. All in all, what took the most time was not the electronic design itself, as I have done them within a few days, but the actual grinding and drilling of the toy. Not to mention, soldering more than 20 or so wires.

And I can tell you, since I am getting older, I realised my eyesight was not as good as I though it would be, and soldering in the middle of the night, without a good light, is really asking for trouble. Which and after all screws are in place, it came in spades. Luckily, if I did not reveal this to you, you would have thought everything was perfect. Ha ha ha ha haaa.........

And just to make you go over to my Website, I have added more photos and notes here:

The JJ ABRAMS TRICORDER PROJECT

OK, so the Blue LEDs are not flashing correctly
but when you look at it, there is no difference!

You want me to go what?

I know you guys are renovating and all
but its just to difficult to go in there. Oh,
you don't mind if my shoes break open
the bags and spill the shredded stuff?
OH, OK, then. I in go.........

[I was so tempted to just dive in too]

The trip to Loke Yun

Mom wanted to go to Ampang today because of one shop she saw. It featured Hai Nan Chicken rice and was always sold out. Anyway, so off we went, pickup up clues here and there, like how the shop was there for 20 over donkey years and we missed it. Even my Nokia 5800 couldn't help as the car's V-Kool is blocking out the GPS signals.

By the time we reached the place, it was closed.
It was closed since about mid-day, I think.

So, we went to some shop which we saw when we
were nearby. And someone ordered this:
Pork shoulder. Wow. Delicious!

Also, we ordered other weird stuff. But the marmite
chicken was no where as good as the shop bankgok-boi
showed us. Hmm.... been a long time since I last spoke
to him too.

Making a meal out of oats

I unexpectedly came back to the house for lunch and saw my Mom cooking instant noodles for the kids again. Since I was in a hurry, I made myself some oats (yeah, I am starting to get addicted to it) and it was delicious. Only problem was, I was too full and lazy to go back to work again. But I must.

So, this time, its the usual crispy prawn chili and some
onions, mixed with the chicken flavoured powder.

Yum-yum! If it wasn't so hot, I would have
drunk it like some Guiness malta.

How to sleep well

Maybe its the air-con or just the short skirt but
the way she cuddles up, its very cold. So, I left
her alone and go about my things.

Today is Saturday

Usually, on Saturdays, our calls are never that heavy and now, I am starting to "let go", where my techs would handle more calls instead of me. But despite that, I am still doing calls. Not that it mattered but because its a small company, everyone is pulling their weight to the point of complaining of not enough work if they have nothing to do.

Still, I want to enjoy today, while it still lasts.

And what better to enjoy a nice helping of Nasi Lemak
plus a can of Light Coke. (No, I am not on diet, just
wanted to taste what is so good about Diet Coke)

Supporting your siblings

She (uhn) ain't heavy.

She's my ... my...

Sister. Whoa! Phew!

Warning from Teacher

Its every Parent's dread when they receive a note from their child's Teacher. For our case, we won't know until we rifle through Kristine's school bag. She won't tell us if there is homework for the day or if there is a note from the school. But occasionally, she will tell.

To her, these are minor things which is of no importance at all. But for us, its an indication of how well she is intergrating in school. So, getting a note of such nature this time, is upsetting, for me, at least.

Me: Girls what happened?
Kristine: My friend was talking to me
Wife: Did you do your work in class?
Kristine: She kept talking to me
Wife: Did you tell teacher your friend was talking to you?
Kristine: Yeah.
Me: And?
Kristine: Teacher tell her not to talk to me
Me: So, you continue to do work, right?
Kristine: But I want to talk to my friend
Me: Sigh.

If there is no work, we are worried to the point
of being suspicious. If there are work, we are
worried that she might not cope. Soemtimes,
she does not even pass up her work at all. But
most of the time, its all good.

The Mysterious System Part II

And so, after bringing in the system back to the office, Boss and I gave it the once-over. It a very mysterious system indeed. Initially, I struck it off as just a system where the seller tried to pull a fast one and polished the casing and also removed the serial numbers, etc. But after looking at it thoroughly, I was really stumped.

OK, so I put the two cabinets side by side. Normally, they
look the same, which is rightly so as both base and the
expansion cabinets were designed to be stackable. But if
you look closely, there is a small difference.

In a normal Base cabinet, the connectors for the CPU
cards are designed to be placed slightly higher up
than the ones for the interface cards. Here, with the
normal Base cabinet, this is what it would look like.

But on the mysterious expansion cabinet, the design
was the same too. In fact, for a normal expansion
cabinet, the first two connectors would line up with
the rest. So, this is really different. I would have
thought the seller put in a Base motherboard into an
expansion cabinet. But who would want to do this?

Another point is that on the Base cabinet, you would
have connectors for the other expansion cabinets to
connect to. Only a Base cabinet would have these
connectors to communicate with the other cabinets.

And on a normal expansion cabinet, they would only
have these connectors. But how on earth can a Base
motherboard have expansion connectors?

Boss mentioned he did hear of such system, most
probably a demo unit, which, I assumed could be
a prototype or just a real demo unit to show some

Publish Post

customers how a Base or Expansion unit works.
With this, you can have either way. And we looked
at each other, like boys who have found a secret....

Where's the PC?

"OK. I'm here. So where is the PC you want me to install the software?"
"Its in there"
"OK, I'm now in HERE but I still can't find it"

"Its in there la. There. See?"
"OK. So where's the RAM?"
"RAM? What RAM?"

"OK, now we have the RAM, where's the HDD?"
"HDD? What HDD?"

"OK, now the PC can boot up with no beeps. Hey, where's the Keyboard and mouse?"
"Its there what."
"OK, I can take the keyboard from here......... and mouse from here........."
"No. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. OK! OK! I give whatever you want! Just don't cannibalise.."
"..like what your staff did to this poor old PC, right?"