A bird, a plane, a piece of my heart in the post

This is the prototype design for the latest YF166A Tactic Strike Stealth Fighter. Ya, right. :) It does look like a plane though. But this is actually folded from a piece of paper which say that for every heart you send in the post, Singpost donates $1. What have I got to lose? I guess nobody question whether do they really donate or not or would some postman conveniently just dump away all these piece of papers. In any case, they important thing is : It cost me nothing at all. Maybe kill a few trees for the paper, but it had already been recycled. CAn we stillre-recycled? :)

You can find this in the Today newspaper often now. Anyway, here is how the final thing look like.:

Alphonso II The Making 6/6

The last part. Almost feel like part 3 of Starwars.
"I'm glad its finally over." Winston Avalon.


The front of A2. Notice the ugly white parts. Well, what can I do? Also see the 3 5.25inch bay fans which I am not too sure helps or not, blows air towards the back. I must also mention that my 2 HDDs are also running HDDs fan as well to keep their temperature down.


The back where you can see the PSU fan as well as the holes for the 2 backfans to blow out. Also notice the PCI exhaust fan here. This casing is kinda weird as it uses a screwless system for the PCI cards.


And this are the tools that made all these possible. Well, what do you think? Still want to save that $30 and or you are dying to assemble one like A2? This practically took 1 afternoon and of cos after rearanging the USB ports, I ended up having to reinstall some drivers.

Well, before I end this, here is a prizeless quiz.
How many fans are there in A2?
Dont look at me, I am not too sure either. :P

Alphonso II The Making 5/6

Now we are coming to the end of this, finally.


Here you can see the air from the CPU comes up. The PSU has 2 fans too. One blowing towards the optical drives and the other is shown here blowing at the CPU. The back fans draws out the hot air and when covered, the casing actually has a funnel to channel out most of the hot air out via the side of the casing as well.


See the funnel I am talking about. This is also the reason why I left space near the CPU as well.


This show the back, but notice the top part. That is how the fans look like after the cover. You can see the dual fans which pull in air here and the funnel which channel out air. Just bear with me, one more last post.

Alphonso II The Making 4/6

We are almost done here. Here is just to showcase some of the other stuffs.



This is how the fan are blowing on the HDDs.


The other dual fan blows right down on the AGP card which is in turn suck out by the exhaust fan beside the AGP card.


Now you see mess. But I try to keep the CPU area as clear as possible. I will explain later why this is so. Note the backfans are facing out. That is also why I needed to get the grill to prevent some cables from falling into the blades accidentally.

Alphonso II The Making 3/6

Now is the part where it will get really messy.

This is when I added in my cards. 2 slot taken for the Soundcard, one more exhaust fan here facing the AGP graphics card to suck out the hot air.

Here is another clearer view. You will notice I have a very huge Northbridge here near the AGP card, which prevents me from installing any of the dual side heat sink for the AGP card. :(

Here my harddisk and optical drives are in as well. I added the dual fans as well. More on that in the next post.

Alphonso II The Making 2/6

Here we are back again. Now lets start mounting the Motherboard into the case.



This is an awesome motherboard for its time. Now with the 9xx series around this 875 board has been forgotten. But its still good for me P4 3.0E.



Here the motherboard goes in. I think I forgot to mention the 2 backfans here are facing away from the case. Therefore the hot air will be effectively suck out of the case. This works with the aerodynamics of the 2 front front which blow in and this suck out, not resulting in any conflict where hot air is retended.

This is where the power supply goes in. This of couse is a really good PSU as well. It is PCIX ready as well. But like all power, the cables can be rather messy as you can see later on. This end part 2 here.

Alphonso II The Making 1/6

I finally had time to sit down and publish these photos which was taken during the making of Alphonso II.

The Beginning ...

I happened to see this $18 cheap casing one day at SLS and here it was back home. The casing core for A2 is monsterous. It has room for 4 casing fans. These 2 are from the front blowing towards the back.

Here is another clearer view of the front fans. I chose the Coolmaster Sleeve fans for these since I had overstock of it myself.

Ok, here is the 2 back fans. I will have to split this up. So the inital mounting of the fans before the installation ends here.

Genuine Windows Advantage

You will find that windowsupate and microsoftupdate no longer delivery without going through the new Genuine Windows Advantage (GWA) check now. Well, what do you expect from big M? But the only difference was this was broken in less than 1 day... and insult to injury, by a simple 1 liner javascript... I would had expect Microsoft to do better than that. After they hadput in so much effort in the ActiveX control, they would just let it through via a variable? If this is not a joke, tell me a better one.

In fact, I had even found a better way myself. Its not that I do not own originals (mind the s, I do owns quite some asserts label with big M, ok?), but it the fact that it was so easily done that makes this worth talking about. The javascript had to be ran everytime before GWA take place and thus not so fantastic. There is this Legit*.DLL sitting somewhere in the system32 directory... You might as well use Microsoft's own debugger and play with it. Its not even compressed to my surprise. There you can play with just assembly language and thus ending up changing 2 or 3 bytes. And this DLL let you bypass the GWA forever. Well at least until they can invest in something new.

My point is. Its too simple. Almost like a high school project. And all these never really bothers the pirates. They just crack it and forget about it. Its always the honest people like us who pay hard money for it that has to deal with all these inconveniences. Having to activate, to check this and that. Was this what we paid for when we buy the big M label? I certainly hope not. I would rather pay less and opt out on this. :) Haha.

By the way, its just POC. I wont give you the patch. I also wont tell you how to do it. Please do not ask me for it.

PSX Gamesave

Just confirmed that even the ORIGINAL Sony PSX Memory Card cannot be read using the PS2 Manager. But I kinda solved the problem. Wait, what? Oh the picture of Wild Arms 2? I am coming to that. This is the game that save my ass. Just kick this game in PSX mode and there is a cool Memory Manager in the game. You can copy, delete...(YES, delete). I finally got rid of my Rampage Through Time save and make some decent spaces for other PSX which I may play. But my multi bank PSX Card I am still unable to switch bank... Guess I can only use it like a single bank memory card then. Anyway, thanks for the guys behind Wild Arms 2. You never know this save me someday.

Kagero 2 FAQ

My Kagero 2 FAQ was finally posted in GameFAQs.com. It is also surprisingly fast that many other sites has mirrored it, without my notice as well. I don't really care about this one anyway. It was intended for sharing. GameWinners has a link, Gamespot too and so on. Anyway I guess everyone can find the FAQ now without having to download it from the share which I believed is not working now.

Cant help it, I feel good. :)

You have Won ... AGAIN

While trying to download Mess for MSN Messenger 7.5, I was redirected to a fastclick.net link and this is what I saw. Emm... they even used SSL, so they must be for real. Anyway, for a CISSP guy like me, I am always skeptical about this. So I registered Bobi for the name. If you still do not know who is Bobi, look lower...


Next gets more interesting... Some info collection. Since Bobi is not very good in English, he will fill up his info about his house in Dogville.


So the final screen is rather interesting... A number to call... Well, I will kill Bobi if he use my phone to make an international call. So of cos he didn't. Haha...

Anyway, you still envy of my dream holiday? Then I have a few links to show you:
http://www.expertlaw.com/library/consumer/free_vacation_fraud.html http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/Crimes/Telemarketing/Outbound/Minor/vacations.htm

Now what do you think?
Hei, you know what? I did some more homework if you are not convinced. I checked the address, well, nowhere to be found. The building yes, but a company called "Travel Services". How original. BTW, the original link was from fastclick.net. They have quite a reputation with spyware I guess too. Still not convince ha? Ok la, give you the link you go win yourself that dream holiday ba...
http://media.fastclick.net/w/click.here?cid=29633&mid=65482&sid=6164&m=5&c=0

National Library

Well, I am a real bookworm so to speak and you can often catch me hanging out at the libraries esp the one at Esplanade now. Anyway, since the National Library has reopened, I figure I should go take a look.ITs like 8 storeies tall, so what can go wrong?

Well, it was a day of disappointment. The shelf were huge, well kinda becos there are only like <8 books on each row of the shelfs. The total number of IT books came close to a total of 200 I believe if not less, which I feel is easily less than any regional Library. I was very disappointed.

Actually I primary aim was to see what Multimedia section offers. DVDs? CDs? Well, nothing. Yes, The biggest Library in Singapore does not have a MM or AV section. Dont't believe me? Take a spin yourself.

Tune Transfer

It turns out that there is another good software :
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product_Code=VUS+TUNE%2FIPOD

This is for backup, transfer of iPod songs. But looking harder I notice there WAS iFree which actually can move songs between devices. But of cos Apple shut them down.

Well, according to my friends, you will not run into problem as long as you keep your songs in MP3. The M4P formats has DRM. Well, thats life. Though you could run away from MP3 right? Well, I did too when I was using WMA, but tough luck when I got my K750i, has to change all back to MP3.

iTunes Woes

Seems like this software spend more time making life difficult for the users than anything else. As I hear more and more evil about it, I figure there should already be solutions out there... I dint have to do everything myself I hope.

Pod Player
Info :
http://www.ipodsoft.com/index.php?/software/podplayer
Download :
http://www.ipodsoft.com/files/evildude/podplayer/podplayerpackage.zip

Alphonso II

Yes, my flagship PC just had a new makeover. The original Alphonso Casing was dumped and rebuilded. She is all black and shiny now. Well almost all black. The whole process took my whole day off. But she is a monster inside man. With more than 10 fans and a planned wind flow, I believe she is as cool as ever. I cant wait till I have the time to post the various pictures I took during the making of Alphonso II.

By the way, I would love to rebuild Calissio as well. Maybe when I find the time someday.

Casing $18, Transport $3. The satisfaction of Alphonso II's new look - Priceless. :)

Windows The Next Generation

Well, just heard from reports that the next Windows OS is going to be called Windows Vista. What a name right? Personally, I feel it can mean :

Viruses
Intrusion
Spyware
Trojan
Adware

Well, if these are the problem WinV try to address, I will be happy. Come to think of it, WinV is not a bad name. I still remember there was a Japanese DOS called Dos/V. Well, I really will take time to get used to Windows Vista. I felt that even Windows Victory! sound better.

Hello Kitty Roller Rescue

A good site with many pictures :
http://uk.playstation.com/news/newsStory.jhtml?storyId=106909_en_GB_NEWS&linktype=NSON

Needless to introduce, Hello Kitty is the cat without the mouth :) I do not mind playing HK games becos they are cute and simple. You will not be expected to make impossible jumps and make crazy coordination movements in these games. The graphics is cheerful and enjoyable I must say. Strangely this game has different names all over. Roller Rescue (NGC), Rescue Mission (XBOX) and actually the PS2 version is "Skate Battle" in Japanese.

Anyway this time, HK actually gets to battle against an alien invasion of squares like creatures where their ultimate goal is to change Earth into a ... Oops.. Better not spoilt the story. Anyway, you get to save all your fav Sanrio characters and have them fight side by side with you.

The game was partly made by the Hong Kong branch Typhoon Games who made the Soccer game earlier. And as such you will see many Chinese people in the credits. Its not bad at all I say. Man, I wish I was working for Typhoon Games. :P

Rampage Through Time

Who would still be playing with the Playstation 1? ME. Well, at least this particular game called Rampage Through Time. Basically, its an extension of the original Rampage series which I must say simple, but will never be replaced. This is just one of those beat them up where you can take the bad guys for a change.

I must say this is probably the first PSX game I beaten on the PS2. I start to realized the so many problems of playing PSX games on PS2.

First there is the Gameshark. Well fortunately Codebreakers codes are 100% compatible. Next is the savegame. I had a multi bank save, which I just found out will not switch bank on the PS2... To add to the problem, there is no way to manage the PSX Memcard in PS2. This means I have a full card not able to delete off the older saves. A real situation this is now. I will have to find out how to or else this is probably the last PSX game I can play on the PS2 as well.

P.S. I still like Ralph as compare to all the other monsters.

Painkiller + Painkiller : Battle out of Hell

Finally got the time to sit down and finish this game. I must say the graphics is pretty decent. Especially BOOH. There are many new levels which has a very different theme from WW2 Leningrad to a Themepark. I must say I love the rollercoaster drive. Too bad I was too busy shooting then to be able to enjoy the scenary. The City scene is pretty cool as well. Reminds me of the Land of the Dead. They just keep coming and you just keep kicking asses. :)

Wel, I managed to finally ran this game at 1280x1024 which is my LCD resolution without much problem after a fan upgrade. I wouldvery much love to take a photo and show you how my graphic card looks like now, but I feel really lazy to take out the casing again. Maybe another time then.

Night shoot on SE K750i

Night shoot is always the killer for digital camera. And you can see even in this first picture its not so fantastic. I had choen the worse light condition and probably my worse shot as well.


This is the Zoom of the moon. Emm surprisely it has some details. Much like those astronomical pictures. Other than the noises, I figure at least you can take this kind of night shoot. @nd thought, maybe not. Go get a real camera for night shoot, man.