ToeyNumber10

Dusit D2 Barquda Pattaya

2009-07-27T11:12:00.004+07:00

Last weekend, My family and I had a chance to stay for a night at the new Dusit D2 HIP hotel in Pattaya. The hotel is situated right on South Pattaya just opposite to Ripley's Believe it or not museum.

The hotel is very nice with new design in HIP boutique hotel style. The room is decorated with one big king size bed right in the middle of the room. The sexy bath room comes with glass screen so you can through when taking shower. It's really good for the honeymooner.

The reception is hugh with free form furniture and large sofa for guest. All decorated with mirror wall giving the sense of modernize style. The freeform pool is rather small. Good for poolside party, not for swimming. There is a good fitness room and the restaurant.

The function rooms that make this hotel unique. The rooftop bar is excellent place to watch the sunset and the Pattaya town from atop. The 2nd floor computer room decorated in white with a few iMac (that what I love most) with 300 Baht an hour for the Internet. The Karaoke room on 4th floor and the seminar room on 3rd good for small team meeting.

The hotel just sit right next to the Major Cineplex Shopping and Movie place. You can find a good Italian Pizza restaurant and Starbuck coffee there. Or you can spend the afternoon watching movies.

We walk across the street to visit Ripley's museum. Now they have the Haunted house, the Maze, and the 4D theatre as well. The total combination of 4 access is 680 Baht. Not too bad. We all visit the 4 themes. We love the maze room so much. It was fun to walk in there in the dark and try to find the way out through many mirror glass door. The least that I like about is the Haunted house. It was quite a long walk, but totally dark. Luckily we have mobile phone that illuminate to see the way. Otherwise, we wold have hit many things as it was totally dark in there.

Pattay had changes a lot lately form the last time that we had visited. It was 5 years ago. Now it has many tourist attractions. We went to the floating market where merchants sells their goods o shops near water or some from the boat. The entrance is free and it's bigger than the "Talad Nam" of the Ancient City. I took a few good photos.

I think Pattaya is not too bad at all apart from the Russian Gang and Prostitute, they are quite a town with many things to explore.

iSwap Face

2009-07-21T09:07:00.004+07:00

After upgrading my iPhone to new firmware, I found this interesting piece of software. It's called iSwap Face. It just lets you to swap faces between the two persons. Myson did it on our duo portraits. I have nothing much to say, except see for yourselves how crazy it is.

Hansa Norway

2009-07-11T23:14:00.005+07:00

During last week, it was a long holiday in Thailand. So we decided to take a trip to Norway. That's right Norway as the Norge in the arctic up there very north of the world. Thai Airway had just operate their flight direct from Bangkok.

Norway visa is rather easy to apply. However, we had well planned the trip and all supporting documents were ready as the embassy may asked for. It took them 2 full weeks to issue and re

turn our passport. So if you wish to go to this country, be prepare in advance. We had 6 days visa. That's rather short isn't it.

We left Suwaanabhume airport with 12:20AM flight and 11 hour traveling time before we arrived in Oslo. We then catch the SAS domestic from Oslo to Bergen, the UNESCO world heritage fisherman village tourist attraction. Bergen is the old capital of Norway before it change to Oslo. Flight time was about 50 minutes, but would take 6-7 hours by train.

We got to Bergen at 11:00AM. The hotel can not be checked in yet until 3:00PM. So we decided to walk around the town and visit the famous fish market. The fish market is very crowded most of them are wither tourists or the fish merchants. The live catch are sold in the market. We decided to have shrimp salad, salmon, fish & Chips, calamari, and the giant king crab. Pun Pun really enjoyed the king crab so much as he finished them all. Temperature in Bergen was sunny and really hot. I guess it was about 30 deg. Anyway, it's good for photo.

After the cruising of town, we then back to the hotel to freshen up before we came out

again to ride the cable car to the top of Bergen mountain for city scenic view. The weather was really nice. We see the whole town under the sun. We came back down at about 7:00PM for our first dinner. We went to a chinese restaurant located just right at the fish market. The meal cost us around 2,500 Baht. This is a normal price as almost every meal in Norway for us cost around that much, except when we lunched at a McDonald store that costed us around 2,000 Baht.

We went back to the hotel at about 9:00PM. The sun is still high. Just like 4:00PM in Thailand. I got up at midnight to see that the light still on in the street. Sun came down at about 1:00AM and back the sky again at about 3:00AM. If we had the chance to go up further north such as Nordcape, we will see the midnight sun.

The second day was a long day for us. We had reserved the "Norway in a nutshell" tour from NSB. The tour started at 7:45AM. We took the train to Myrday, get another famous scenic route train to Fram. Along the way to Fram, there's a very beautiful watrefall. At Fram, we took a walk around the place to see that nice little town and bought some very expensive souvenir. We then get back on th

e cruising boat to travel along the Fjord. It was really beautify. The sun was too strong. We all get back with tan. No one will beleive that we go so far to norther Europe just to get sun tan.

The third day of our trip we got back on the plane to Oslo again. In Oslo, we have a free afternoon, so we arrange a local sight seeing tour from Bat Service. The tour brought us to the old folk museum to see old norwegian houses and church. It also took us to the viking museum and the famous Vegelan park, where most of the nude sculpture created by Norwegian Sculptor "Gustav Vegelan". The park was very beautiful. The sculptures were all about the circle of life where human was born, grow, getting married, raised family, grow old, get sick and die.

The last day we had a few hour before the flight. We take a little OSlo on foot. We w

alked from the hotel to the central railway station, then to the new Oslo Opera House. We then head off to the Thai Airways counter. The flight was so full. At first we thought we might have to change the plan and stay behind. Finally there were no show of passengers, so the four of us can get back to Thailand safe and sound. Had to Thank the Thai Airways Station manager for helping us to find the seat back.

Panoramic View of Loch Muick

2009-06-27T22:07:00.004+07:00

Seems like the power of Photoshop is enormous. I had just explored the Panoramic function of it. In this picture is the view of Loch Muick, a lake in Aberdeen, Scotland. After the conference, the whole team just took off to a nearby Lock (Lake in Scottish). At first we wish to go to Loch Ness. But Loch Ness is too far away from Aberdeen. It would take us at least one day to get there from Aberdeen.

Any how, we ended up in this Loch instead. It's very beautiful and quiet. I just took 3 pictures to cover the whole are of the Lock Muick. I used the File-->Automate-->Photo Merge function of the Photoshop. After the completion of rendering, I used the crop tool to cut off the excess edge. I also used the "Camera Raw" functions to adjust the exposure as well as the brightness, contrast, hue and saturation, etc.

A little Photoshop work

2009-06-27T14:02:00.011+07:00

After having bought a few books on photography, one of the things I see nowadays is they all use Photoshop to enhance their photo, no matter what they are-- amateur or expert. So I'd just started up my Photoshop that I haven't used for a long time. Follow a few chapters on the book to start creating my very first Photoshop effect.

It's easier than I thought. Somehow those book didn't explained why they use those tools or techniques. It just one of those follow me don't ask kind of book. Perhaps, I should start taking a course seriously.

So I successfully created the B&W photo with color highlighting. See for yourself. I just used the magic wand tool to select the red "Chaba" flowers and use the select-->Invert to do the masking of the entire page, rather than the flowers. Then I created a B&W layer from the coloring layer tool (at the bottom of the layer pallet). I also created another layer for the Hue/Saturation to enrich the redness.

Another piece is the creation of High Dynamic Range from a single shot photo. Normally HDR is created by the Bracket function that you shoot 3 shots with 3 different setting of the same scene. The Bracketing allows you to shoot the under-expose, the normal, and the over expose. Once all three shots are combined, you

will have a photo that have details from foreground to background. The three shots can be combined easily using the special function called "HDR". However, we can create HDR fro

m a single shot by using three layers duplication. We make one layer of photo as B&W. We use the copy of the photo to another layer with Hue/Saturation and enhance the color. We then overlay all three layers together. You will have the HDR picture out of a single photo shot. Image on the left of this Swiss Lake is taking using normal exposure. The one on the right is the HDR created from that original picture. As you can see, more details appear on the second picture from foreground to back.

It's easy and fun. After my Norway trip next week, I might have a few more of my photo and some photoshop enhanced effect.

Back to Blog

2009-06-21T08:51:00.004+07:00

Having been away for a big while. Lots of things happened in life. After a few month with around the globe travel, it is fun to be back. During the past few months, I spent the summer in Switzerland. I got to travel to Houston, TX, USA. Spent lots of fortune on shopping. Then back to Malaysia for an upset training course which was cancelled without prior notice. Back to England to watch Manchester United games with Arsenal at Old Trafford to celebrated their Premier League Champion. Up north to Aberdeen, Scotland to visit Stone Haven and a little Scottish Loch and Fjord.

Next month I'm going to Norway for a short 3 nights trip. It will be fun.

Relaxing Weekend

2009-03-08T08:55:00.008+07:00

The last weekend was really my fully relaxing weekend. My wife and I went for a stage play and a movie. We spent over 6 hours sitting and watching plays.

The stage play that we went to was "Love 11 scenes". It's a story of a couple who was first met at a high-school student get together pub. They start to introduce to one another. The story went on how the couple got into the love-sick cycle of life. The got broken hearted from their ex, then fall in love together, getting married, having baby, having hard time raising baby, having lots of argument, divorced, re-married with someone else, get

divorced again, the kid got pregnant and decided to keep the baby, got sick, and die.

It all happened in 11 scenes. I believe it's like the life of many. Khun Sinjai was the leading actress. She is a very famous characters with renown quality of her works. This times she did it again as a 16 year old girl, growing up and growing old into 51 year old woman. It was fun and very entertaining. My wife shed her tears a few times.

Then we went for a new released Thai movie. It's called "Short Memory but Long Love". It a story of two couples with different ages. The young love and the old timer love. The young female have lots of wound from the old high-school sweet heart ex-husb

and. Now led her life as a gardener. With her love of animal, it led her to an old friend who secretly had a heart for her from high school, but to learned that his sweet heart was falling for his close friend (who later turned to be her husband and ex-husband). The couple have to go through many things in

helping animal and the old couple. This is the road that drawn the two to be come lovers at the end.

The story of the old couple was really admirable. It's the symbol of the long lasting friendship that even distance won't keep them apart. The old couple met in a computer training class for senior citizen, where the young boy of the young couple teach. The old couple was living apart. The women is in Bangkok while the men is in Chumpon (6 hours drive from Bangkok). There are many gags that make the audience laugh, sending the heart out to cheer them to overcome all the fear and obstacles. The old couple story was a bit sad that at the end, the old man realized that he had Alzheimer. He would try everything to memorize the love and every moment that he has with the old lady. At the end, the lady has to stay with her son's family in America, while the old man stayed behind with his son in Bangkok. Distance is not the problem as they learned how to chat on MSN from the computer class that they went together.

It was a very good movie. Of course, my wife shed the tears again. It was a very happy feeling after all. Sometimes you wish to forget something, but you can't and sometimes you wish to memorize it forever, but you can't. This is how memry plays the trick.

Swiss Schengen Visa

2009-02-27T09:17:00.004+07:00

From March 10-16 the whole family have a plan to visit Switzerland. Like many others, Swiss was our dream destination for its beautiful scenic country. The kids had just started their long summer holiday starting from March to May. Good heaven for Bangkok with less traffic. Probably the best time to visit Thailand. We plan to go to Swiss for a one-week trip with Grandma and grandpa. Both of them and my kids will also stay behind for another week with the visit to Austria and Germany.

The story began with visa application. Since our port of entry and the longest length of stay will be in Swiss. We all went to Swiss embassy. We were treated poorly. This make me realize that the embassy is not one of the place that had a real negative attitude toward the non-Swiss people.

I understood that going to Europe had been very strict for non-european, but we were very careful. We learned a lot for the financial statement and asset that we presented to the embassy. My mom had invested a lot in a non-bank financial institute (for example Tisco, or other trust fund). This kind of passbook is not accepted at the first place. My kids will also extend their trip with their grandma and grandpa, but the swiss issued only a 10 day multiple entry visa. Finally they all have to cut the trip with two-day shorter than expected.

I really had a bad impression with Swiss embassy. I was told that to apply for Schengen visa, we should apply from other countries like Germany, France, Austria, etc., but not the Swiss.

If by any chance you wish to go touring on your own, consider not applying visa from Swiss.

Omelet

2009-02-18T09:23:00.004+07:00

Yes. A simple Omelet that anyone can make. Why it's so special? It's special because my son made it for me.

His school start teaching kids to do some cooking this year. Of course the Omelet menu is the simplest and easiest one to get over with. It's a fundamental threshold of the future great cooking.

Pun Pun came back from school one day and told everyone that the night menu was Omelet. It was a must for everyone to have it for dinner. Of course all of us had to agreed and ate the first time ever made Omelet by Pun Pun.

Tell you what, hot Omelet with smoke-full fresh-from-the-oven rice with a little chili and fish sauce do make the day. Pun Pun Omelet was delicious.

The picture say it all.

Canon 5D Mark II

2009-02-11T12:21:00.003+07:00

I spent lots of money over the weekend. On my new set of camera and gears. At first I was wishing to buy a second camera just to have my long lens ready for shooting along with my old camera for standard lens shooting. I went to this fotofile.net shop and talk to the sales guys at the store about the features of the new camera. I was eyeing for Canon 50D.

I guys shown me both the 50D and 5D MK II. Of course the MK II is a much more fancy in term of full-frame capture and the processing of colors. The price is also twice as much. I did the trading on my existing 70-200 f4L USM lens that I bought over 2 years ago but rarely use. I got quite a good number as I bought it for 20,000 Baht and sold it for 15,000. I also traded my EFS 17-85 standard lenses for 9,000 Baht (I bought it for 12,000 but heavily used it.)

Anyway, I bought back my Canon 5D Mk II, 100-400 f4L IS USM and a 24-105 f4L IS USM lenses. Now my set is perfect. I have two cameras as I wished for with lenses to cover from wide angle (10-20) up to 400 mm. The only thing that I don't have is the art in taking photo. My next move is to attend a photo class workshop. Too bad for a weekend spending lots of money on this little hobby of mine.

KhonKaen

2009-02-08T15:42:00.007+07:00

During Feb 6-8 2009, I have a chance to visit KhonKaen as one of my friend was to enter the monkhood for 7 days. He selected a temple in Khonkaen to be his monastery. Mac and I flew in on the evening as the event will occur early of the next morning. We had plan to participate in his ordain then visit a golf course in that afternoon

After the ceremony, we drove to Ubolratana Dam Golf Course to learned that the course was closed for

a competition. We then decided to drive to the other side of the town to a newly opened course, namey "Dancoon". Dan in Thai means the land, and Coon is a local plantation which is also the symbol of Khonkaen. So Dancoon means the land of the Coon plant.

The course was neat with well groom fairway and excellent Green condi

tion. The price was only 800 Baht. We decided to use the golf cart as the weather is a bit hot and the rounding was the first of mine for this year. I made four wonderful pars. Not bad for a twice a year golfer like me.

The

next day we have three hiurs before our flight back to bangkok. We decided to give respect to the Khonkaen's town pole. (The town pole is the sacred place when the ancester first establish the town, they drawn all spirits to stay at the town post to guard against all the devils and bad things.)

We then drove off another 20 Km. to visit "Pratad Khamkaen" which is a pagoda in a temple that contain the remains of the lord Buddha. The temple is also the first establishment community of KhonKaen

town itself. The name "Khamkaen" was the former name of "Khonkaen" as pronunciation has changed over time.

Crafting a KM Strategy Presentation

2009-02-01T09:16:00.002+07:00

I was invited by IKEA-SEA and Bangkok University to give a presentation on KM. My topic was about "Crafting a KM Strategy". I got a chance to give my view on KM which I'm doing at work. There were audiences from many places, mostly in academic area.

It was fun and enjoyable. My view was really differ from other. It's a story from the field. I had a chance to meet Nial Sinclaire, he author of "Stalth KM" which is one of my favorite book on KM.

Now I'm invited to provide the same speech at Chiangmai University. Let's see when.

New Year Cruise

2009-01-09T15:21:00.004+07:00

I took a few days of before New Year to take my son--Pun Pun--on a cruise to Loei. We didn't plan ahead but just want to fill up our free time. Pun Pun's school was closed for 2 weeks to let all their foreign teachers to go back home during Christmas and Newyear. He is too free and would do nothing, except watching cartoon. It would be best for us to go out and see the world. No mother and sister allows for the trip, just the father and son alone.

We flew to Khonkaen and rent a little Toyota Vios to tour around. Our first stop is the Dinosaur Museum at Phu Wieng. We drov off from highway 201 about 50 Km to get to the museum. Phu Wieng Gosaurous was first found here. We took about an hour to walk around the museum and take turn to take photos.

We then drove off back to highway 201 to get to Loei. Khon Kaen and Loei is about 200 Km away. Our next stop was Phu Kra Dueng, the famous mountain trekking site where all students in their prime age always visit and go up to the top for once in their life. The walking and climbing distance is around 6 Km. and would take a normal healthy guy 4-5 hours to reach the top. Pun Pun was too small to climb up. Anyway we took lots of photo at the base to show the world that we both have been here. We also have the certificate made saying that we had conquered Phu Kra Dueng. (This certificate later did fooled my wife and sister that we both had reached the top of Phu Kra Dueng and made them so jealous.)

From Phu Kra Dueng we drove directly to RungYen resort in Phu Rue (just another 60 Km. away from the city of Loei) to end our first day trip. So far we had already drive around 300 Km. for the first day. We were so excited to get away from the house and spend the night at one of the coolest spot in Thailand. Our next morning plan was to go up the top of Phu Rua mountain to see the sunrise and we should leave the hotel at 5:00 in the morning.

It was also a Christmas Eve and Pun Pun wish to receive some presents from Santa Claus. Before going to bed, he prayed for the visit. Before sleeping, he put up a sock at the end of the bed. Shockingly, the next morning he woke up and rushed to his sock to find a stick of "Chupa Choop" candy inside his sock. He was so glad and I was so surprised how the candy came into his sock. Still unexplainable. He promised me that he would be a good kid so that Santa can come and visit him again next year. He was so proud and excited.

The temperature at RangYen was 12C. We drove through the darkness heading for the top of Phu Rua mountain. We were there at 5:30AM. We then took a little bus from our parking space to face the tip of Phurua just before the sun rise. The temperature was dropped to 9C. It was cold, but not so cold as we expected.

After Phurua, we came back to our resort to clean up and pack things to move on. Our next stop would be the "Kang Kud Koo", a famous river bank along the Mekhong river where we planned to have lunch.

We decided to take a small country road along the border of Thai and Laos alongside the Methong river. It was a scenic route and lots of trees and many beautiful scenery. The road was quite bad as many truck loading with stuffs from Laos use this route as well. The surface of the road was quite bumpy. Anyhow, it took us almost 3 hours to finish the 60 Km, but it was worth the try.

We arrived safely at "KangKudKoo". We had lunch there. The famous local thing to buy is the sweetened coconut. We stopped by and bought a Kilo of coconut with half for us to eat along the way, and another half for the mother and sister at home. The coconut did not get to our home. Pun Pun finished them all before. It was so tasty.

That afternoon, we drove back to the city of Loei to stay at Loei Palace hotel. Too bad, the TV in the room can receive the Cartoon Network. Pun Pun asked to stay for 2 hours in front of the TV.

In the evening, we decided to have dinner at a water reservation dam. It's called "Nam Mhan". It was a peaceful and quiet place to visit. We rented a wooden raft and stay afloat in the middle of the dam. We ordered some food and drink and eat and lie down there. It was a perfect lazy man dream holiday. Pun Pun loves this place so much and will take his mom and sister to this place when we come to Loei the next time.

The next morning we drove off from Lei Palace hotel at about 7:00AM in the morning. It would take us 2 hours to leave Loei via WangSaPung and Nhong Bua Lumpoo to get to Udon Thani airport. We get to the airport at about 10:00Am to return the car and catch the flight back home.

That's conclude our father-son three day holiday. And after we get back, we have to leave our house as early as 4:00 in the morning to catch the flight to Singapore. This time the whole family is to be together. Pun Pun and I had travelled for more than 5,000 Km. in a week. That's tiring but fun. I'll tell you more about our Singapore trip later.

MacBook 13"

2008-11-17T12:35:00.002+07:00

I've just bought a new MacBook on the last weekend. Now I have configured to use it under Microsoft Environment at my office. Here's the things that I did.

1. Use Directory Service utility to connect to the Active Directory
2. Configure the Entourage to connect to Exchange Server
3. Access to DFSRoot shared drive and created an Alias on the Desktop for fast accessing
4. Connect shared print server. I have no problem connecting to shared HP printers, but cannot find the driver for Fuji Xerox printer.

The Mac can be used under Microsoft environment eventhough its not that smooth, but it's acceptable.

I'm glad I can survive.

Loy Kra Thong

2008-11-12T20:17:00.002+07:00

November 12 is Loy Krathong day in Thailand this year. Loy Kra Thong is a festival in Thailand where once a year that you apologize and pay respect to the mother river for having us use water to wash, clean, and drink all year round. We make flower bouquet from banana stem and decorate it with flowers and banana leaves.

My son and I went to a canel behind our house to float the Kra Thong. My son was pround as his Kra Thong was the most beautiful Kra Thong on the whole canal.

.......

Of course, his Kra Thong was the only one in the canal.

Around half the world in October

2008-11-04T08:33:00.004+07:00

Amazing things happened to life. I had just finished traveling half the world in two weeks. First, I went to a Knowledge Management for Public Sector conference in London, England. Stay there for 4 nights and came back to Bangkok. Later in the following week, I had to go to Perth, Australia for a similar conference. Then had to rushed back to travel to Samui Island with family.

London is just the same as the London that I went 10 years ago. This time I had a chance to go to a play, "Momma Mia". It was fun. I was ripped of by buying the CD album of the play at 14 Quid, just to find out that the same CD is on sale at HMV shop (just across the theater) at 2 for 10.

England trip was quite fun. I remembered the first time I was in England (1978) ABBA was on the hit chart. Now I cane back 30 years later, ABBA was still evolving around me.

Perth was so boring. at 5:00 PM everything was closed. My conference ends at about 4:30 PM every afternoon. So I only had 30 minutes shopping. Nothing much to see either. I stayed at Holiday Inn hotel right in town. The hotel gave me a feeling of staying at hospital. All the toilet bowl and shower with stainless handrail which is very common in a hospital was used here.

On the second day of the stay, I went to Freemantle, a port just down south from Perth with old settlement and historic building of the early sttler of Perth. The seafood was great. I would be a lot better if I should have brought along the Thai spicy seafood source to go along with.

<See Picture about PERTH for explanations>

Samui Island, in Surathani, Souther Thailand, was fun. We stayed at a 5 star hotel. It's a very lovely 3-bedroom apartment with a view to private beach, located just miles from district area. I just had my world away from hectic life. I a great month for me actually.

New fun for kids

2008-10-02T12:52:00.003+07:00

I found this on a weekend at a shopping mall near my place. It's a cool idea. Kids with bubbles are born for one another. This time kids are in bubbles. It's rather a clever idea. They made a big ball with big zip so a child could go in. Then the air is pumped into the ball. Then the ball is rolled into a small pool.

With this simple idea, kid could have lots of fun. They make lots of money too.

Our Iceberg Is Melting?

2008-09-02T10:38:00.002+07:00

I had just finished reading this book. It's truly funny and very educative. Now you learn about the change management process.

The story is just a fable about a flock of penguin who live their lives happily on an iceberg for quite a long time. They had no fear or no awareness and always think their home is the safest place in the world. Until one day, a little penguin, named Fred, had notice something that lead to the future catastrophe if something is not done to prevent or avoid it. So he informed the Leadership Council.

They all agreed somethings need to be done, but what....

Well, it just a fun reading and I think it's a must for any organization to read and prepare as their place will never be safe forever.

I would give John Kotter a 5 stars for this book.

Two books during weekend

2008-08-30T21:06:00.002+07:00

You wouldn't beleive what I just did. I finished two books during the weekend. They are both about Knowledge Management.

The first one is "The Lost Knowledge" by David W. DeLong. It's about the loosing of staffs through retirements as well as other means. It's unbelievable to know the truth that NASA had already forgotten how they put the man on the moon in the first place. The knowledge was lost due to the suspension of Apollo projects and the Baby Boomer are retiring from NASA. The book is worth reading. It gives you many techniques in retaining knowledge before it's too late, including the way to retrieve the lost knowledge.

The other is "The Corporate Blogging Book" by Debbie Weil. It's really every aspect of putting Blog into your organization. It give tips on how to write a good blog and the rule of thumb of what the blog will brings when deploying it. A web2.0 deployment enabler must read.

Mickey Mouse Fish

2008-07-14T14:35:00.003+07:00

So there were two fished survived. I guess the root cause was from the insufficient oxygen level in the fish tank. We then decided to buy more. This time we bought the Mickey Mouse Fish instead.

We were trying to buy the Burn-Tail Rose fish just like before, but the seller said all the fish was not well. I saw only a few left in the tank comparing to last week that we bought them. Another assumption is that the fish may not be well at the time we bought them last week. So they died.

About the Mickey Mouse fish, we were wondering where the name were from. But if you look closely at the bottom of the tail, you would know why it was named Mickey Mouse. Look at the black spot and see for yourself. You'll understand what I mean.

Fish keeps dying

2008-07-10T15:16:00.002+07:00

Bad news. The new fishes that we had from the weekend start dying again. Last night 6 of them died.

I decided to clean the fish tank and replace the water without using any medicated solutions. I moved the tank to outside the room just to avoid the temperature drop during the turn-on of air-cond.

Still bad news. Another 5 died. Now all my suspicious go to the oxygen. The seller told me that the water filtering machine was enough to put oxygen into the tank. One of the fish jumped out of the tank to die. I beleived this was from the lack of air.

So I asked my son to go and buy an Oxygen pump this morning. We will see how it goes. Hope I picked the right thing to solve the problem.

Fish in the AV Room

2008-07-08T14:00:00.004+07:00

Last weekend, we bought the whole set of fish tank and accessories. We had a school of fish. The Neon fish was a little fish from Amazon river in South America. The seller sold us many of the chemicals to use with the fish.

During the first few days, the fish survived well. We raised them in the living room where we turn on the air-cond. a few hours a day in the evening. However, our fish start to die. So we went to consult the seller again. They just sold us a few more anti-bacterial and the anti-chlorinated solution. the next day after the dropping of those chemical, all of our neon fish died. The whole school.

The seller was surprised as they were in business for over 20 years and never found such thing like that. They agreed to replace the whole school. We decided to switch the fish to the burn-tail Rose fish (I might be wrong on the name as I translated it from Thai name.)

This time I also install the thermometer to see how the temperature swing during the day and during the cooling time with air-cond. The fish is living hapily. The seller still insist to use those chemicals. I did it carefully. No overdose. Use precise droplet and measurement.

Singapore Flyer

2008-07-07T08:58:00.009+07:00

I just had a chance to visit Singapore for the Comunique Asia forum. Nothing much to say about the exhibition. On the freeday before flying back, I just had a chance to visit the new Singapore Flyer. It's located in the Marina bay area. Just see the picture for yourself for the explanation.

4 Phrang Again

2008-05-14T07:33:00.002+07:00

Now it really happened. Last night my son just went to seeprang.com to see the trailer of the movie. It's his curiosity that did it all.

He saw the trailer of the four short movies. He put up the hand to cover his eyes and at the end he admitted that he was scared. He asked to sleep with me for a night. I knew that he was so scared. Yeb. He couldn't sleep. That made me awake as well.

He promised that he will never ever want to see that movie again.

Jenifer Kim's Concert and 4 Phrang

2008-05-12T13:28:00.005+07:00

Last weekend, I got a free ticket for Jenifer Kim Concert. It's been a while that I haven't seen JFK sing. She is an excellent singer. She is a talented. Anyhow, in Thailand, if you are not attractive, it's so hard to become popular even you have a hard-matching quality of your voice.

The concert started at 7:00 PM and end at 11:30. She was an excellent performer. I've never gone to any concert that play this long hour. Anyway, time just passed. We all enjoy it so much. She sang about 40 - 50 songs in medley.

The part that make the concert so enjoyable were the guests. They all are actors, Musicians, and a comedian. The conversation on stage was not scripted. It came out that instance. My friend confirmed that after a few rounds of concert going.

"4 Phrang" is the name of a movie. It's a combination of 4 short films into one. 4 Different stories from 4 different directors. 4 Phrang in Thai means 4-way intersection. The stories are about ghosts of different incidents. I didn't see it really. And why I'm putting it here? It's because my son, Pun Pun. He is at the age where curiosity about ghost play the part. He love to listen to ghost stories and tell friends about it. Is he scare? Surely he is, up his vein.

He has been told by his friends about the stories of the 4 Phrang movie. So he wished to see it. He would be scared of course. But I have never seen his strong ambition like this. He asked me to take him to the movie. He knew that his mom will not allow him to do so. So he asked me instead as he know that I always be his rely on part. He did not like to take swimming lesson, but this time he told me to take him to the theater after his swimming lesson. He even asked if I could take a day off on Monday to take him to the movie.

Of course I didn't take him to the movie. I told him to pick a scary ghost movie we have at home and watch one first. And if he could do it without his eyes close and can stay alone in his bed room, I'll take him to that movie. He pleaded to start watching a ghost cartoon first. If he could watch Billy & Mandy alone from cartoon network channel, he is proved to be brave enough to go the the real ghost movie.

Ban Sansuk

2008-05-05T16:05:00.009+07:00

During the last weekend long holiday, my family and I went to Huahin, a beautiful seaside place where we always go. We usually go there 3-4 times a year with length of stay for 4-5 day each time. It's always a family place and we are so familiar with the surrounding and neighborhood. We always stayed at different hotels by the sea or friend's condominium.

My wife and I saw an advertisement about a new condominium project and decided to give it a visit. We talked to the sales girl and become very much interested in buying a unit. We all brought back the information and slept on it discussed with all family. We finally decided to buy a 2-bedroom unit.

The name of the project is "Ban Sansuk", which means the house with thousands of happiness. It has eight buildings. The unit that we decided to buy is on the fifth floor of the eighth building. It has 80 Sq. m. with two bed room and two bath room, plus a kitchen and dining room.

The project will finished in two years. From then on our family will finally own a place for our regular holiday without check-out time.

Forgot to tell you. The cost of that apartment is 7 million bath (225,000 USD). It's so damn expensive , isn't it. Of course we had shopped around looking for the same class living units around Huahin area. This is the most reasonable price condominium with trustworthy management. The property manages by San Siri, a welknown property management group with hundreds of projects around Bangkok and a few in Huahin itself.

Trip beyond the sea level-Siam Ocean World

2008-04-27T18:53:00.008+07:00

I took my son to Siam Ocean World at Siam Paragon Shopping Mall, Siam Square, right in the very heart of Bangkok. It's my second time already and it's my son's fourth. He loves aquarium so much. He had a dream of being an animal ecologist, especially marine. He asked what it take to be a marine biologist, I told him that he need a Ph.D. in that and would take 5 years to make a Ph.D. He said he would be too lazy and asked if he could do it in three. This is what a three grader thought.

The Aquarium is the biggest in South East Asia with a lot of fishes from many region of the world, including Amazon and the Antarctic. It also features many extra shows, such as, the glass-bottom boat, the fish feeding, the magic show underwater, and the 4-D movie.

Pictures above explain it all. See for yourself.

Lucky Kiss

2008-04-24T20:44:00.002+07:00

My son is now craze on cards. We play Poker every evening. His mom told him that kissing daddy brings good luck. So every evening, he give me a long deep kiss on the cheek. True it works like charm. He always wins on me with his lucky hands.

iMac at home

2008-04-17T08:51:00.002+07:00

Last week was the long weekend holiday in Thailand. It's Songkran day where it was supposed to be the hottest days in the year and people started to go out on the street and played water fight. All soaked and wet. Many people just took this chance to go out to the suburb. Traffic was so damn bad out of Bangkok.

I decided to stayed home enjoying the traffic free in Bangkok. You will experience this just twice a year on Songkran and the Newyear holiday.

I decided to buy a 24" iMac for me and the kids to play around with. It's the third Mac that I had in years. The first one was the Mac SE (The first 32 bit machine) that I bought back in my collage years. The second one was the very first iMac (the triangular-shaped screen monitor). Now I have the Leopard.

My 8 year old son was so excited. After unboxing and plugging on to the Internet, my son start playing around with it. From just a few minutes demo at the store, my son could edit a movie within the first hour of his experience with Mac. He found the small camera that are embedded on top of the screen and start video recording his picture doing some drastic acts. He recorded it for a 2 minutes video. I then had it synced to my Apple TV and the rest of the house start enjoying his first video.

The next day, I started doing the wiring for my in-house LAN cables. I really do not like the reliability of WiFi at all. My Apple TV has network connection problem using WiFi. Every time it goes idle (after not using it for a day or two), the connection just go off and can not resume unless reboot. I finally got back to the old conventional way of cabled network. Now I have a small LAN in my house with NAS box for file sharing. Probably I can start exploring the Time Machine features of the Mac pretty soon.

Abu Dhabi

2008-04-08T08:45:00.007+07:00

Last week, I went to a conference in Abu dhabi, UAE. I spent 2 nights at The Beach Rotana Hotel. It is a five star hotel and probably the most precious one in Abu Dhabi. The whole things in Abu Dhabi was built. It was amazing to see how money can do the changes. Everything there is man-made, the beach, the sea, the tree, the poolside. They are all made up. the restroom is so grand.

The weather was not that hot. It's just about the same as in Bangkok in mid-summer. I believe it will go a lot hotter in May or June.

Next to the hotel is a large shopping mall. It's called Abu Dhabi Mall. It a very modernize with all the brand-name shops. We dine there everyday at the food court. There are many nice shops but prices are slightly higher than in Bangkok. It was good that the money still remained in my pocket.

One thing nice about Abu Dhabi is that the grocery mart is so big and you can find a lot of things from around the world. I bought back many Kilos of Pitasschio and cashew nut. They both tastes so delicious.

The only airline from Bangkok is Etihad. Abu Dhabi is the central hub for Etihad. The airport is small and not so busy as Dubai. The shops there is quite alright. It look a bit old, but I'm sure in the future, it will just as big and busy as Dubai.

iPhone Unlocking

2008-03-12T08:10:00.002+07:00

Since Monday, I have been busy working with my iPhone. I decided to upgrade my firmware from 1.1.1 to the newer 1.1.3. With the existing of ZiPhone unlocking software, it really makes the unlocking work a piece of cake. I have been hesitating for the upgrade for quite a while as my 1.1.1 version was stable. Anyway, my boss and colleagues who had just went to America, also bought back many 1.1.3 OTB iPhone. As I always was a point to ask when they have IT problem, I decided to upgrade my phone so that I can talk the same language with them.

The process begins with upgrading the firmware to a new 1.1.3 version using the downloaded file. I had prepared my PC to have .net framework and the ZiPhone 2.5C. After upgrading, I then run ZiPhone with option to "Do it All". That's it. My iPhone is unlocked and are cable to run AIS GSM services.

Another day is spent resuming all software and settings to bring it back to the prior state before the upgrade. I found a lot of obstacles as the newer version is not fully backward compatible with the older ones.

Finally I managed to have all software and services back to normal. There are many steps and add-on runtime-based software to run. I have to thanks to all the iPhone user communities that really help supporting on these issues. The power of people are unbelievable. Who would think a small anonymous talents out there could change the close system like this.

Now I can enjoy a wider range of software that are available for the phone like never before.

Before Bagrak Soi 9 On Stage

2008-03-03T09:08:00.003+07:00

Last Saturday, I went to see "Before Bangrak Soi 9 on Stage" (ก่อนจะเป็นบางรักซอย9) a drama of the sitcom sequel hit "Bangrak Soi 9" of Thai Channel 9 TV. As being a true fan of this series, I have been watching and collecting all of its VCD since episode 1. Now the series come up to year 5 already. I wouldn't miss a chance like this.

It a pre-sequel story of the before becoming the show on TV. It's a story of the two person, "Chadjane and Khun Pang" that they both actually met (on the old fashion technology of chatting by using paper-based mail" and fell in love without even met. The story gave clues on why "Ah Tu" (Khun Page's father become a henpecked (กลัวเมีย), How Chadjane became the boyfriend of "Miew", and How Chajane ended up renting a house from "Na Yao".

It's a fun and relax weekend of mine. The shows delivered what I expected. However, all the comedy gag was from the script, I still enjoy it. Some says it's a bit dull as the scene progressed too slowly. Some say it's very predictable. Any how, it's still a good way to let go of the stress.

One thing that struck me from the story was that the house where "Khun Pang" and her family was staying in Soi 19 was conceded by a bank before moving to another house in Soi9. But according to the main theme of Bangrak Soi 9, the house they are living in the series belonged to her grandfather who was a high ranking officer in the reign of the old king, not just a recently moved in.

Malaysia 2008

2008-02-29T07:42:00.003+07:00

I had just returned from a training in Malaysia. This time I stayed at the Equatorial Hotel. It's quite an old hotel comparing to the newer ones around. It's right on the Jalan Sultan Ismail road (actually Jalan means the road itself), and just about 5 minutes walk to Lot10 and Sunkaiwan shopping area.

I was there for two nights. The first of my night, I just took a walk to find some groceries for my late arrival snack. I realized that the hotel was situated next to the KL's red light street. Yeb, many of the transvestite just go out hunting on the street, yelling at the passer by, especially the foreigners. Luckily, I look like a native Malaysian, or I'm not their type. They didn't pay much attention to me. Anyhow, it scared me.

The second evening after the training, I decided to take a walk toward the Lot10 department store. it was much nicer. I just found a new shopping center that was not there when I was in KL last year. Too bad, I did not notice the name. It is right after Lot10. It is a big, new, and beautiful establishment. There are many brand mane shops all over. Of course, it didn't draw any money out of my pocket. I just went for a dinner there.

I didn't take any picture at all this time. It was a very short two-day training trip. On the last day, I have to rush to the airport for to catch my flight. As you may know, the airport is somewhat an hour drive and you'll never know what the evening traffic would be like to get to the nearest highway. I made it comfortably two hours before the flight. I noticed a slight change at the airport. There are more shops. Some old one dissappear. More of the brand name stuffs. I went looking for the bookshop. It was right at the same old place, but took me almost an jour to find it.

That was a brief trip of me during the past weekend. I hope to come back to Malaysia again for another training, but may not be this year.

Suan Nok Chan-The final episode

2008-02-13T09:56:00.005+07:00

As mentioned in the last Suan Nok Chan, this week, we will finised things off by getting everything in place. We went to Jatujak Flea Market agin on Sunday to buy additional stuffs. We bought a few more of the plants. We also bought the wooden fence to mark the edge line for the swing-out door, and also other necessary tools like trimming scissor for the leaves trimming.

We also re-wired the fountain so that the operation of it can be controlled by an on-off switch. Of course safety comes first. Before doing works with electrical parts, we cut off the main circuit before doing any work. I also bought the water-resistant connection box as all the wiring connection will be reside in the wet area. The box was sealed. The entrance and exit of the wire are also sealed with Silicone. The system is then hooked up to a switch. Now the turing on and off of the fountain is done by the switch. It really make my garden free from busy wire and look a bit nicer.

My son planted the newly bought plants to the garden. Some of them are flowers some of them are leave plants. We both help one another to set up the fence line to mark the edge of the door path. So everytime we open the door to access to the garden, we won't be interfered with the loose rock anymore.

Finally my son named the garden, "Sukhothai". It means "hapiness heart". We had the sign made and we put up a little ceremony of hanging the sign. Now our little garden of hapiness heart is finished.

Suan Nok Chan

2008-02-05T09:43:00.000+07:00

Over the weekend, My wife, my son, and I decided to use our little space on the balcony to be useful. We decided to make our own skytop garden.

The balcony is on the 3rd floor just under the roof of our house. We have the area of roughly 2.20 x 1.80 m. with swing out door and the shelf for the air-cond. compressors. It's not really big but it was used for nothing.

We decided to go to Jatuchak Park, a wellknown weekend flee market that has everything to be sold, esp. pets and plants. With very little idea on how our garden would look, we get help from the plant seller there. We stop at a little shop that has many beautiful plants. We went to see the owner of the shop and told her what we wih to do with our little space. She was so reluctant to help at the first place as the space is too small for a professional work on gardening design. But finally after some explaination of what we expected, she decided to help selecting the suitable plants, but we still have to buy the extra sundries for the garden ourselves.

We then went to another shop to buy the fountain jar with water spring, and another shop for the wooden fence and patio path. Next day, the lady at the plant shop delivered all the plants as she described. She then help arranging to put all the plants in place.

We used all the indoor plants that have the good meaning by their names. "Chon Ngern" (Silver Spoon) and "Chon Thong" (Golden Spoon) are the two main big plants in the area, trimmed the edge by "Bhuda Flower" and small "Phillipino Bamboo". Our garden turned out like the one in the picture on the left. Now our house is much more beautiful.

Knowledge cafe', KM the IBM version

2008-01-18T12:25:00.000+07:00

Yesterday, I had the chance to attend David Gurteen's workshop session conducted by IBM on Knowledge Management. David's session was brief and took only a few minutes, but worth the attendance, while the rest of the day talk was for IBM to sell their products.

Anyhow with David's session, I gain a lot on the KM body of knowledge. Many interesting questions arises during the sessions including.

The quality of context from the open collaboration community.
The comparison of KM1.0 and 2.0 (based on Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0), and more...

David believes that KM is about conversasion. It's the conversation that drives business to evolve. It's the conversation that make the topics more understandable. It's the conversation that make Knowledge Sharing possible. His pragmatic approach is then based on conversation. He had spent over 30 years developing software for collaboration. And the collaboration software is the heart of KM.

David mentioned that there are two forms of KM.

Techno-Centric
People-Centric

Techno-Oriented has to do with

management of unstructured information
Database search for context

People-Centric deals with personal KM with the following tools.

Community of Practice (CoP)
After Action review (AAR)
Peer Assist
Story Telling
Knowledge Cafe'
Opensources

With social tools people are allow to contact one another, to share knowledge, to exchange things, etc. Many tools for social exchanges for example, Blog, WiKi, Bookmarking & Tagging, Social Network Community, RSS, Podcast, Mashup (IBM term to combine portlets into a portal page).

The Knowledge Management facts.

KM is everybody's job (not a corporate function).
Knowledge is no longer controlled centrally. Ownership and control is distributed through the organization.

The social object is the topic of discussion. The social network is the collection of social objects.

KM is about understanding --> Making better decision --> Improve innovation

Understanding can be made through conversations.

Knowledge Cafe' is when a group of people get together to have an open, creative conversation, to share ideas & to gain new understanding of the issues.

Daniusoft Ripped DVD with Sound Out Of Sync

2008-01-16T09:08:00.000+07:00

I had a hand on Daniusoft DVD ripping software just last month. You can refer to my blog in December 2007. At that time I found Daniusoft an intriguing software to rip DVD for AppleTV. I was wrong. I found lot of problem on many DVD tilte to appear with sound out of sync to the picture. I had contact thier support. An agent named Alex had responded. I gave them as much details as possible. Now their support turn to silence. I haven't heard from them again since. My problem is still not solved.

Luckily, I just came across a new free software, called HandBrake. It a good DVD ripping software with output to many device format ranging from iPod to AppleTV. The output picture and sound quality are excellent. I get full display on my wide 16:9 Plasma screen. However, the interface is not at all attractive. It requires some understanding about the Display ratio. I am impressed with the solution. esspecially its free. Thanks to the development team. They really made the world a bit nicer to live on.

Khaoyai

2008-01-15T13:43:00.000+07:00

It's been awhile away from blogg. I did so many things during the new year holiday. Most of them are nonsense, but yet one of the best new year ever. I got to stay home with my boy doing the father-son things. It's a wonderful time of life to see him grow. Arguing with him over cartoons and pets.

Last weekend, I decided to take a fatherhood off and play golf with friends. It was a long time since my last grabbing the golf club and go out and play. Yeb. The score turned bad. Two of my friends and I went out for golfing in Khaoyai, 200 Km away from Bangkok.

We start our day with golfing at Voyage Panorama. The course is beautiful. Lots of Korean golfers. We manage to get a good start It was fun. I got a Birdie. It was a reward for a long break. Anyway, the second day ws different. We went to Friendship Meadows. The course was badly ruined. The green was excellent. Quite contradict, isn't it. Yeb. I got late 50 for the last 9 hole. My drive shot was not working at all. The travelling and short play was still good. Putting was alright. But I got punished a lot from driving outrageous and loos a lot of dropping points.

Anyhow, we decided to stay at a newly opened cottage called "Bann Ing Dao" (leaning agains the star cottage). We had a great time finishing our Vodka talking about old time.

For sure, next year we will come back for golfing at Khaoyai again.

The World is Flat

2007-12-18T09:30:00.000+07:00

Last weekend, my friend's company organized a staff seminar. I was asked to give a speech for an hour at Huahin. I decided to tell all those youngsters the story from the book that I had just recently read. I was written by Thomas Friedman with th ebest seller title "The World is Flat."

The story is really enjoyable to read. The reference cases inside the book was under my trail all the time. So I enjoyed telling the story, plus the knowledge I had known before was used to make the story more enjoyable.

The audience was laughing all the time and participated in answering the questions. It made my little one hour to be a very enjoyable.

At the end, I hope the younsters understand and see clearer picture where our world, especially with IT driven steroids, are heading into. It can sparkle them of what new invention and paradigm may brings and may even inspire them of what their power is adn their boundary is limitless.

iPod 5G and new firmware(1.2.3) upgrade with Thai font

2007-12-07T08:12:00.000+07:00

I had just recently upgraded my iPod 5G with the latest firware (1.2.3). I was so relucktant to do so because I had the Thai font installed on it. Many of my songs are Thai with names written in Thai. Anyhow, I finally decided to give it a try as I beleive the moethod that I used for Thai installation are just Thai font unicode. It should not affect with any operations.

So what I did was I downloaded the firware from apple and have it installed. As I thought, the Thai font disappered from my iPod. I could only see the blank space when it comes to Thai characters. I was so sure the songs were still there as I can still scroll up and down on those spaces where I beleived the song would be. Then I bagan the procedure to install Thai font.

I found this method from the website. which I used before for my last installation, except the font to use was having different typeface. I have to thank to the instruction as posted here for the simple step-by-step to follow. It's simple and safe as you did not modify the firmware directly, but work on a copy version then overwrite it later.

After rebooting, the screen appear blank. I was a bit schocked. So I detached the iPod from the PC and did a reset by pressing the menu and play buttons simultaneously. After rebooting, my screen appear nicely with Thai font just as you seen in that referred article.

Prior to doing anything, you must download the iPodWizard 1.3 and the Thai font first. From doing all this, I did not loose any songs or movies from my iPod. it's safe to try krub.

iPhone and Bluetooth

2007-11-27T09:47:00.000+07:00

I still having lots of fun playing with my iPhone. Today, I just have my iPhone to pair up with my bluetooth. Somebody told me that iPhone will only works with apple bluetooth. So I tried it with my Plantronic Voyager 510. (Follow the link to how to pair your Plantronic device.) The pairing was so easy and the sound quality is good.

Too bad, the bluetooth only works with the telephone call, not the iPod song play. I also had the chance to install many games and utilities. Apple iPhone can do a lot more than I thought. Syncing with my Outlook Calandar and Contact is so easy via iTune.

Just having fun.

iPhone

2007-11-26T08:26:00.000+07:00

I had just bought an iPhone from ebay. The item was shipped to me via express delivery by USPS. It was incredibly fast. The model that I bought was the iPhone with firmware 1.1.1 and have the sim unlocked.

After the first unwrap, I was so please with the condition of the phone. I spent many hours on Sunday try to configure the system with Thai localization. I successfully configured it to play the any converted ringtone so I won't be limited to a very small choice of Apple pre-supplied ringtones. Apple try to sell every contents from their iTune store including ringtone.

Anyhow with a few patch installation, I also get the Thai font loaded. It was not as hard as I think. Now even if I upgrade the firmware to 1.1.2, I still have the capability to read Thai and play around with Ringtone krub.

By the way, I also found the iPhone Browser is a helpful tool from Google Code to transfer ringtone as the iTune will not accept the coverted .M4R file. iPhoneBroser will allow you to upload the file directly to the Library/ringtone folder, bypassing the iTune.

Here is the code of what to do to get the iPhone work in Thai with any GSM mobile operators and ringtone capability. Enjoy the show.

Danuisoft DVD Ripper

2007-11-22T07:28:00.000+07:00

I spent yesterday afternoon browsing for information on the problem I encountered with ImToo. Finally, I found this excellent ripping software. It's called Danuisoft.

It's the kind of software that can convert the DVD to many formats, including MPeg4 and H.264. It even has the specially made format for all kind of Appple gadget, including iPod, iPod Classic, iPod Nano, iPod Touch, iPhone, Apple TV. It also has the format for the high resolution upto 1,280x720 dpi.

Timing that used for conversion depend on the output resolution. For 1,280x720 could take 6 hours to rip a 2-hour DVD, while for iPod normal H.264 would take only 45 minutes for the same movie. The above sample shows the size after ripping. I ripped 3 minutes of a Korean Movie with Thai Sub-Title decoded. The different format shows the differnt in size.

The program also have the merge into a single file option when converting a multiple files. Be sure to set the title option, if you want to have it decoded and imprinted on the file. The title option must be set on every files that are ripped, otherwise only the first file will have the subtitle and the latter won't.

The DVD ripper cost US$40. Anyway, be patience as the payment clearance would take a big while until you get the registration code back.

I would strongly recommend this software. the convereted picture and sound is very nice.

ImToo v.4

2007-11-21T14:11:00.000+07:00

I had been using ImTOO for the movie ripping for iPod for more than half a year now. Lately, I found thethe content inside the DVD had changed. From the list of chapters/Titles found on the DVD, there will be a file that display over an hour of play time. I bet it's the main movile title file. Before this, the list always show series of files in a shorter play time of each.

Anyhow, I set the conversion to iPod 640x480dpi - excellent. It took me hours to rip a movie and to find out that the converted file format is not recognized by Quicktime. That's also not importable to iTune. So I tried changing the format to 320x240MPEG4-Excellent. The result MP4 file is smaller and it can be imported to iTune.

I tried to contact ImTOO for the support, but find no channel to do so. The files when played on Apple TV is excellent. I may find some other tools to help me with the ripping to H.264 with excellent High-Res soon.

Apple TV and YouTube

2007-11-20T06:52:00.001+07:00

Apple TV can connect and browse YouTube. What I needed to do was to update the firmware of the Apple TV. After rebooting, the YouTube menu was up there. So I spent hours browsing through the YouTube site with my login credential. I just hope Apple would come up with more features to browse through sites like this or even the Internet itself. Then the TV and the Internet are really converged.

Now about the sound system connection, Do you still remember what I said yesterday about using the optic fiber to connect to my sound system? My NAD home theatre system gives priority to the sound that connect using the Optic Fiber Cable. That is even if the Apple TV stays idle, my sound processor amplifier do not switch the source to use the input from other video source. Even when I switch off the Apple TV, the light source stays connected. The only way to have my amplifier to play sound from the DVD was to pull off the plug of the Apple TV.

So what I did to my DVD player was I switched the Optical Cable fiber back to connect the DVD to my amplifier, and use the stereo pair monster cable to connect to the Apple TV. By doing this, when I do not use the DVD and switch it off, the sound source will be switched to the stereo cable. This means that for my DVD, the light source is off when the unit is switch off as well. I can then have both units stay connected to the system at all time.

My next trial is to use anothe Optic cable to connect both units to my amplifier. It might not work, but it worth the try so as to know if my amplifier do have precedent setting on both of the optic fiber port.

One thing that I found with the Apple TV is the heat. It rather hot when the unit stays on power for sometimes. I may need a cooling pad/device to help on this.

Apple TV

2007-11-19T12:45:00.001+07:00

During the last week end, I happened to buy an Apple TV. It started from just wanting an in car FM broacaster system to transmit all my music from my iPod with the FM signal to my car radio reception. And since my daugther has her new iPod nano, this system should be easily sharable. Belkin has this little gadget that comes with the car cigarett lighter plugin iPod holder with FM transmitter. So I bought one at 4,000 Baht. It didn't work. I can only hear a very thin voice on my radio.

So I just brought back the unit to the iStudio Mac shop for a trade in with other products. There was nothing else that was a close substitue to what I wished for. So I decide to switch with an Apple TV, which I long had an eye on. I ended up paying 11,000 Baht extra. This is silly, isn't it?

Anyhow, what I did was I configured the Apple TV to connect to my unbroadcast wireless network. I just typed in the SSID of my WiFi Access Point and key in the WPA key manually. It was so easy. It obtained the IP address from my existing DHCP pool.

Apple TV works in 2 modes, the Sync mode and the Streaming mode. The Sync mode allow only 1 PC/Mac to connect to Apple TV, while the streaming mode allow upto 5 machines to stream the movie from. I sync my Windows XP PC with my 40 GB apple TV. I bought the 40GB model because I wish to store all my movie, songs, etc. files on my drives on the network and will only sync/stream when only I wanted to. With technic like this, I won't need the large disk space on the Apple TV. Another added advantage is that I can store and index all my converted entertainment in the digital media format which can be easily search.

I used component cable (RGB) with Optical Cable for sound. I hooked it up to my home theatre system. The sound and picture quality is great. If you have older system that support the composit video only, Apple TV is not right for you yet.

Apple TV can load movie trailers and the Top Ten DVD teaser direct from iTune Store. It's very nifty. So I had a great time playing around with it. I think this is the pre-hiostoric version of the Internet TV. Next thing that I wish to try is the viewing of contents from YouTube. I'll let you know how things goes.

Kik's Birthday

2007-11-07T09:58:00.000+07:00

Today is my wife, KIK, Birthday. It was not that exiting birthday as expected. We all both had works to do and I could not join her for the dinner as well. So the planned dinner will be on Friday for the make up. We will go to see CATS, the stage play.

Actually this year is the year that she turns 40. It would be some kind of remarkable year for her. At 40, we still are energetic and still have many wonderful ideas and funs.

I wish her a very very happy birthday just as ever. Hope all the best may comes to her. I am not wishing to have the best from me as I will always stay aside to share all the goodies and the baddies and that's predictable. So the wish is just for the best from all others surrounding her.

Happy birthday with tons of love (if that can be weighted.)

KK Birthday

2007-11-02T08:07:00.000+07:00

So today is my daugter birthday. She turns 13 today. Her name is KhongKwan, which means present in Thai. When carrying her, the due was between my and my wife's birthday. So we decided to named her "KhongKwan" as she is the present for my wife and me.

We sometimes call her "KK" or sometimes even "K" for short. KK is a good student. She always comes home after the exam with ranking of not more than 5 in class. She is very very tall for a Thai girl now. At 13, she is already 165cm.

Time passed by so quickly. I still remembered her as a little girl crying out lound at night. I still remember taking her first trip abroad to England to visit her aunt when she was doing her Ph.D. there. Even though now if you asked her if she had any fond memory of going to England, she would say no not at all. Istill remember when we madly singing Karaoke at home, she kept dancing around or showing us what she had learnt from her Piano class.

Now she is going seriour about her study. In the next few year she will have to take multiple of exams to get a place in a medical or dentistry.

She wish to have an iPod for her present. So I just bought an iPod nano 2nd generation for her. The bad news is, there is no Thai language on the piece. We might have to wait a while till someone come up with Thai enabled on this firmware. Uncle Mac bought her the FM radio extension on iPod. Thanks to him.

Well, just want to see how proud I am to have her as a daughter. So glad being a dad. Happy birthday K.

eCommerce

2007-10-29T07:39:00.000+07:00

During the weekend, I played around with the opensource e-commerce software. I wish to start the eCommerce online eShop. So i just went to Soureforge.net as it's the most common OpenSource downloable resources. So I downloaded the following programs.

osCommerce It's one of the most welknown e-commerce software.
ZenCart It's also another welknown e-commerce software.
AppServ The comprehensive all-in-one PHP, MySQL, and Apache Web Server.
SurgeMail The free BSD e-mail server.

I have little knowlegde about PHP coding and it's my first time to play with Apache and mySQL. So every thing is new to me. So I did spent my weekend on evaluating the two software.

Both osCommerce and Zencart happend to run on the same environment so I can just easily swith between the two software. ZenCart is easier to install, comparing to osCommerce and it has more complete of the e-commerce server functions. However, I like the look and feel of osCommerce better. Anyhow, I'm now ordering the ZenCart book to start the rest of the online store setup.

I use the SurgeMail for my mail delivery mechanism. You may wonder why I need the whole mail package to handle for a simple SMTP mail delivery task. It's because I can diag the problem if things are to occur with mail delivery. The mail server has the mailqueue stack. So I can see and trace of what is happening. When the system golive, simple SMTP script would be used instead.

So I was able to get them up and running. It's kinda fun for one weekend of not having touch with the real barebone technical level tasks for almost 10 years.

Next step is to test the link with PayPal. It would be easier for me to bypass the most critical function of e-commerce, that is the risk of the e-payment. Let the expert do the work and handle all the risk

1st day with Blog

2007-10-27T13:01:00.000+07:00

This is my first day to start my life-with-blog. I am just an IT guy who spend my last 10 years on the IT infrastructure. I didn't have time to play much with this kinda gadgets. Now I started my new career in Knowledge Mangement. I guess I would have more time to play around with technologies and ideas that drives the Internet.

This Blog will contain most of my personal jottings and notes. It may not be an interesting topics for anyone who read it. I just need a place to write things down.

Vanessa Race, the writer of "อัจฉริยะสร้างได้" said one of the things to build intelligence is to write your diary. Here I am doing as she recommended.