Maps

Published by
James
at 5:44 UTC Mar 6, 2010 in Computing, Education and Gadgets. 0 Comments

This week, I have finally been able to make the change from a 100MB data cellphone plan to an unlimited data one.   My usual monthly spending for the line came to an average of about HKD$220, sometimes up to HKD$250.  So this HKD$232 unlimited data + 3000min talk time adding a couple of other extra feature should not be any noticeable change in monthly spending to me.  With this, I’ll have carefree online experience and I’ll be able to use Google Maps more frequently.

Although Nokia had make Ovi maps navigation free for “everyone” last month, my Nokia E71 is still not listed as a supported device.  I could try the E72 version but I don’t feel like debugging for manufacturer again here as I usually ended up doing for most other new features new gadgets.  That’s because I have a 5″ Chinese GPS navigation device for my car now which is a very nice upgrade from my older 4″ device since dad don’t want to bother with it after I had given him the 5″ one for his birthday last Dec.

Nokia Maps has been a love hate feature over these years for me.  The nice feature is of course the handiness of having GPS navigation readily available at all times.  However, the installation of maps is a logic (or the lack of it) course in itself.  The single most important feature in worldwide map is having the local language available.  Google Maps does this brilliantly.  The reason being so is that when one is traveling abroad, all signs and people speak their own local language.  Asking for direction or simply checking the street signs to match the location on the map with the local language is the only way.  Even in my local town Hong Kong, official street names can sometimes be translated in it’s literal meaning or by the sound of the  pronunciation, making it difficult to decipher the names between the 2 official languages here – Chinese and English.

I use my phones in English, Nokia or otherwise.  It is because I find English much more easily recognized at a glance than Chinese.  Sorting in alphabetical order alone is enough to make me use English as I still don’t know how a Chinese list is being sorting when not in the number of strokes for the first word.  Like those names in a country list in any M$ products; I could be staring at it for weeks and I still have to search for it one by one or switch over to Chinese input and type in the full Chinese character to let the system search for (or miss) it.  When one downloads a Nokia Map and subsequently upload it to the phone, Nokia sends the map in the language which is currently set as one’s own phone operation language set.  In my case, English.  I am sorry this could be my fault but, what good is an Hong Kong map to any Chinese in English anyway?  If you had further downloaded any maps for the rest of China, you are bound to redo all your map downloading chores.  In order to have maps in the local language, I think one might need to switch the operating language before each and every country.  I doubt that my phone has all the languages in the world.

Having an unlimited data line and Google Maps only solves half the problem.  There is no free roaming for data.

I just fired up Ovi maps online with my computer and saw this…

Ovi Map Screen Shot

The above screen shot shows the widest view on Ovi Maps where it no longer shows “Hong Kong” on it.  Yet, Macau is still promptly being showed on the map.  Way to go HK.

Another thing that shows on the screen shot picture is the local languages available for Ovi Maps.  Chinese (Traditional or Simplified) is not on the list.

Creating a worldwide map for everyone in the world is no easy task.  Google is by far the only one that has what it takes to be on the leading edge.

Experiencing the Elements

Published by
James
at 15:04 UTC Feb 17, 2010 in Entertainment, Family, LoadACrap and misc. 0 Comments

Yesterday evening we tried to go to the Elements Mall.  The parkade was full and there was no provision for a line up.  They basically blocked the entrance entirely and didn’t allow any car in despite having cars leaving.  It was around 6pm.  So we when for dinner else where and headed back at at around 7:15pm but to no avail.

This morning, we headed there again.  We were able to get in.   It was around 11am, hardly anyone there.  The restaurant we wanted to go was not opened until noon, so we shopped around a bit while waiting for it to open.  Shops were empty and nothing worth buying except for a couple of magazines and a novel to kill some time.  At 12am we went in.

Inaniwa Udon

asimasen~!

Just like all other Japanese restaurants here in HK, except for the boss of ippei-an of course, none of them could pronounce いらっしゃいませ – irasshaimase properly.  It’s like Stephen Chow’s “ehehehah~笨!”  Absolutely no courtesy.  Utterly destroy the meaning of the word.  Might as well shut the F up is my impression always.

We had ordered 2 appetizers and 3 main courses.  All came quickly except for my mushroom udon.  Well, it doesn’t matter how good the food is, and it was alright, having one main course so late that everything else was done with is simply unacceptable.

When we were ready to leave, it took over 30 min just to get the receipts verified for free parking.  The requirements are, you’d need a total of $180 shopping receipts, in that, in order to be qualified for points, you’d need to make purchases of which where it is less than $200 with cash, more than $200 with credit cards.  Since there is no way you can make $200 for cash purchase, you can have them added up and averaged to the closest $200.  There must be 2 purchases on the same day, one for restaurant one for shopping…  add a couple drops of blood from your mother-in-law, 1 garlic, 2 table spoons of your sons saliva….. what, are we on MacBeth, or somethin’?!

As it turned out, points are collected for redemption of other coupons, not for free parking.

So we were supposed to have 3 points collected but the computer would not print out the 3 points on the membership card despite having it registered in their logs and records.  Well, in order to kill time one must waste some time, I suppose.

iDontpadwhatsux

Published by
James
at 14:15 UTC Jan 28, 2010 in 唉~. 0 Comments

Once again, Apple, like everyone else in the electronic market, has given us something that’s not and making us wait for something that is.

How many new adapters are you planning on making anyway?  Haven’t we all got enough for our computer related components?  Micro/Mini/USBs, 1394a/b, eSATA, D-SUB/DVIwhatever/HDMI/Apple Display/Apple miniDisplay…  Don’t we have IEEE standardizing ports anymore?  If it’s just another glorified iPhone/iPod, WTF is wrong with their existing USB cable?  And what’s with that MicroSIM, who uses them anyw… oh, never mind.

1024 x …res…, my 7 year old Fuji 10″ subnotebook had 1280x res.

So yeh, now Apple fanatics will have to bring 3 Apple gadgets out? NetBook, iPad, iPhone coz none of them really does anything the other 2 do at all?

My prediction is, just like the nonphone iPhone 1G, by the 3.5 generation we’d get the proper iPad.  Hopefully by then, there would be one without the long side margins making it more like the iPhone aspect ratio in 16×10 ( I hate 16×9 for work ) format, 1280x res, multitasking, Flash support, USB/Firewire/eSata, DVI so it may not need to have yet another computer with it, front cam.  No I don’t like lugging a sleek machine along with 30 adapter cables around, not even across the isle to the desk next to mine.

Either that or just put 4GB RAM, 3G phone support with proper SIM slot, and a GPS in the new Macbook Air and make the keyboard detachable.  Then we’ll have a real computer so we wouldn’t need to bring 50 gadgets out at once.

Now the Nokia Booklet… nah, 1GB RAM with WindO$ 7!  Who are they kidding?

MSWindO$ Auto Updates

Published by
James
at 12:33 UTC Jan 13, 2010 in 唉~. 0 Comments

restart now/restart later, restart now/restart later, restart now/restart later, restart now/restart later….

Screw you MicrofxkingSoft!  I wanna work with my computer for MY WORK, not constantly pampering your dumb ass OS maintenance!

Canon Pixma Pro 9500 A3+ Color Printer

Published by
James
at 9:06 UTC Jan 12, 2010 in Arts&Crafts and Computing. 0 Comments

I have bought this printer second hand at a very affordable price for a few months now and it had even gotten me through a joint photo exhibition with three of my photos printed in A3+ size with raved reviews.   However, after that exhibition, I haven’t been printing much of anything; and that’s where the expenses come in…

Unlike most HP inkjet printers, Canon printers does not change printhead at every ink-cartridge  replacement.  The problem with this is, if you don’t print often, printheads could get clogged up and you need to do numerous printhead cleaning routines to unclog them.  When you do, massive amount of ink would be used.  Although this in no different with HP printers, the main issue is, sometimes the printheads get so clogged up, you could use up the entire full cartridge and the printhead is still clogged; whereas in the case of HP printers, a new printhead comes with each ink-cartridge and therefore no more clogging and no more further cleaning is necessary.

Regardless of printer brands, I suggest one prints a full color photo daily so each and every single printhead nozzle gets used daily to prevent clogging.

On another note, for the print driver settings, a Print Quality setting of Standard rather than Fine is better suited for photo printing.  The Fine setting is probably more for brilliant solid pie charts where this setting would put a glaze patches on a photo.  With my 20″ iMac color corrected with OSX’s built-in color management settings, the color settings on the Pro9500 driver can be set at all neutral with an Intensity setting of +1 or +2 within the Color Mode set to Standard gets me pretty well to WYSIWYG.

A nice affordable printer with expensive consumables that saves multiple trips to a photo printing shop.

Juat Another Day

Published by
James
at 4:03 UTC Jan 5, 2010 Uncategorizedin . 0 Comments

Went through Christmas and New Year just as they were any other day of the week with the usual traditonal NYE ball with the folks. The ball was boring, as usual. Does getting older mean feeling less excitment in daily life? I mean what is there left to do that is refreshingly exciting short from getting hurt or getting into trouble?

One problem in writing blogs is that there are so many things in mind that simply can’t be revealed to the public. I suppose revealing just those in a way could be exciting but surely would get into trouble.

For the record, I don’t like drinking. I don’t get high, or rather, I have just as much or little fun with friends with or without alcohol. So what’s the point besides needing to go pee more often and an upset stomach the next day, and possibly getting fatter by each and every drink?

Picked up wakeboarding the year before. OK fun, expensive. Picked up snorkling last year. OK fun, nothing to see. Think I’ll pickup surfing this year. Should be able to shead some weight and relatively inexpensive. No big tunnel waves in HK but so what? I don’t want to be eaten alive by the ocean or Great White anyway. I can’t slamp dunk either but that doesn’t mean I can’t have fun shooting hoops. If I wanted to be competitive in a sport, I’d pickup sprinting again; or Rugby for that matter but don’t really feel like getting hit by ten 2000 lbs men at the same time anymore.

Thinking perhaps I need to pickup that HKD$250 camouflaged tent and go shoot birds at hours like shooting sunrises. HK people are lazy as hell most wouldn’t start any event until 1030. By that time of the day anything facinating in nature are gone. All wildlife HK people ever met is stinking drunks or off the buses zombies. Either that or fucking assholes which I’d rather shoot them with a M60 or a Gatling gun instead.

Need to move back to Canada within a few years before I no longer could carry the weight of my photo gear.

Homemade Sukiyaki and slow cook BBQ beef rib meat were great for those cold evenings. Will try to make a pizza from scratch this week.

Hong Kongish

Published by
James
at 9:39 UTC Nov 9, 2009 in 唉~. 0 Comments

In an ATV kit show, they interviewed an English pronunciation teacher asking him to demonstrate how he teaches English pronunciation.  The teacher had two examples, the word “CAT” and CATERPILLAR”.  He explained how English words can be broken down into several bits to assist with the pronunciation of the entire word.  Like the word “CAT”, if we break it down to their individual alphabets – “C”, “A”, and “T”, and learn how to pronounce the the alphabets, like “C” has a “ke” sound (he didn’t explain how to pronounce words that end with “CE” or “CI”) “A” has a “ah” sound, “T” has a “Te” sound, by simply pronouncing their individual sound together quickly, one would get the “correct” pronunciation as “ket (spoken by him without written on the board)”!     @_@’

By the same token, the teacher continued, the word “CATAPILLAR” can be first broken down into “CA” “TA” “PIL” “LAR”….. blablablabla…. and “LAR” is pronounced as “lur (spoken by him without written on the board)”, then we know the correct pronunciation is “keterpilur”!

With teachers like these, we may as well go watch movies instead of going to classes.

Perhaps I should take over and double their fees.

英語一奔東

Published by
James
at 8:58 UTC Oct 27, 2009 Uncategorizedin . 0 Comments

Hey, TVB ads! …

D(ove)   =/=   兜F   :   L(ove)   =/=   陋F

F(eel)   =/=   F(ew)   =/=   F(ill)

Bernie E and his Medal System

Published by
James
at 22:56 UTC Aug 17, 2009 Uncategorizedin . 0 Comments

is an idiot with a stupid idea.   Just a gold medal to the winner and nothing else for the rest is simply a single point for the winner.  That would mean a person who had won the first half of all races and came 2nd for the rest ends up in a tie with a person who had come dead last for the first 1/2 of the races and then won all the rest.  STUPID IDEA D’YOU HEAR, BERNIE!  BERNIE?!

“Hurt Die Me”

Published by
James
at 12:15 UTC Jul 31, 2009 in Linguistics and 唉~. 1 Comment

The following was a forum message copied from here….

A Miss Hong Kong contestant complains that she was treated poorly by TVB in the first interview
Monday June 8, 2009 Hong Kong
Translated by: Matchbox @ http://mediachamber.net

Miss Hong Kong’s slogan has always been “Beautiful and Intelligent”. But earlier the girls that turned up for the auditions were below standard. Apple Daily received an English e-mail from a contestant that attended the first interview named Lucy. She stated that the judges treated her poorly. The judges suggested her English was below standard which she found unfair. In the email she used the words “Hurt Die Me”. The Co-ordinating manager for the pageant Chan Ka Yeung denied and said “Definitley not, the company will always pay attention to courtesy. Perhaps the contestant didn’t get through the next round and was unhappy about it.”

TVB executive Virginia Lok also denied treating the contestants poorly. She said “6 Contestants are grouped together to face the judges in the first interview. Normally we just ask them very general questions such as “Why do you want to enter Miss Hong Kong?” and “Which part of your body do you like most or dislike? We will see what reaction and answers they give us. Perhaps the contestant was too nervous.”

Lucy’s E-mail

The Contestant’s e-mail contained a lot of Hong Kong English (港式英語),

我是 Lucy, I went to Miss Hong Kong first interview. Wah d judges very not polite and not nice law. Today I see a megazine saying this year’s Girls so ugly. I saw many good and pretty girls there but they didn’t choose ja ma. Don’t choose mei suen law but the judge in first interview — most very not polite to many young girls and to to me law. I only 18 the judges ask me to “why join Miss HK go and why not study la u only F7 ja wor how can fright with other wor.” Also say my English bad … hurt die me.
Ho La, other girl tell me la, she study in University ok ga dou but little fat or short then the judge (woman) said ” why you look fat or so short!” wah ho hurt ga ma.
One girl is a 博 士 student ar very high level and very nice ga dou cant get in second interview la. We think she will be in ga but she said no law. You can search her pic and my pic to see la. She gum high level duo ng dak, gum me ng duk duo rite gei but i think the whole choosing is not fair law, choose model mei? young yao inch’, high study level yao inch, short yao inch … They onky choose rich girl law so bad.
We don’t go and let them inch ga law if they need tall or high level people then why not put in the application form lei.
Waste time !
dou ng fair gei!
u can email me if u want.
Lucy