Life & Times

 
Yesterday, I hosted a get-together for with Anna and our friends Tom & Zha Zha because next week they are leaving on for India, after which Tom will go home to the USA. A vast menu of Western & Chinese food was planned along with an evening of group gaming on the Wii. We had originally planned an unbelievable 11 different dishes for this even but after a step back we shortened the menu to only 7 dishes. Its was not an easy things to do, cutting out 4 dishes but we had to do something as with only the 4 of us this would have made too much food, in fact I’m amazed that we were able to eat as much as we made anyway.

Of the entire fest was my crowning touch, a lovely double chocolate cake. Perhaps the most expensive cake I’ve ever made as most of the ingredients were “imported” or considered “out of season”. I am just so proud of my cake that I want to share it with everyone, I’ve never worked so hard as to prepare a meal as I did this one and this is technically the first major meal I’ve prepared here in China.

As part of a new planned expansion to my personal website and blog scène I’m going to be adding a cooking section and students blog so stay tuned for more great things coming your way!

Some time last year I was shopping with my best buddy Rommel and his wife for some “fake” watches in the downtown area of Suzhou. Rommel picked up a really nice fake Rolex for 150RMB ($23.31) and I landed the fake 40 Years of James Bond Omega 200RMB ($31.07). Don’t let the price or the fact its a “fake” fool you. We compared the watches to photos of the real thing and discovered that to our untrained eye its hard to tell the difference, not only that but they are both Automatic watches and not battery powered. Rommel even wore his into the Rolex store and was looking at the real version, the girl at the counter thought this was real! I think she was either “that new” or from a distance they are just that good.

I’ve had mine for almost a year and never had any problems with it until i got it caught it my jacket one day and had to give it a hard pull to free it up. A few days later one of the little pins came lose and I just put it back in place. Some time after that, the pin finally gave out and fell out so the strap was broken and I stopped wearing it. I put off getting it fixed for far to long and stopped in at the store i got it from, told the shop keeping I got it from him almost a year ago, and he did remember us because its not the only thing we gotten from him over the past year. Rommel got several more watches for Joy and his sons plus a little bit of jewelerly and I got a Rolex for my father.

After about 60 seconds, the shop keeper found and installed a new pin fixing my favourite watch. I asked him how much it would cost for the repair and he told me not to worry about it. Not too bad, I mean once you consider how much I paid and how long ago I got it from him, the fix was free!

Due to recent events I’ve had to consider my physical safety when in operation of my scooter on the streets here in China. You see here, “they” have no sense of yielding, right of way, or even what we consider common sense while using the streets like we do in Canada. The overwhelming “Me first” mentality of Chinese culture can be clearly seen when using the streets so and this has made me reconsider my own safety has a motorist.

Under the law in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia in the we are required to wear a helmet when in operation of anything with wheels on public lands and streets. Here in China a helmet is not required unless your riding a gas power motorcycle or scooter and then during a recent trip to Shanghai, I noticed not even a lot of people driving the gas powered scooters wear one. Since owning my first scooter here in China I’ve always had a helmet but have driven without it on some of the hottest days of the summer just because it was hot and the helmet lacked any ventilation.

My first helmet as seen in the photographs bellow is simple yet effective. It does offer some protection and comes with a removable visor to which you need to request to be installed at time of purchase or you wont get one. If memory serves me correctly, you can pick these helmets up from most street side ebike equipment vendors for between 20-50RMB ($3.10-$7.75) depending on how well you can deal, just remember to try it on first as I had to get an XL size which is a little harder to find.

As seen from the photos above this helmet is “basic” it did come with a fake leather/fur liner that could be attached for winter driving but I soon found out that a normal winter hat when worn under the helmet does a much better job. The cheapness of the helmet can be seen in the quality of the visor as when it rains you can hardly see out of it and at night its also quite hard to see out of it. It also scratches very easily and you can never really clean it unless you scrub hard with water and some type of chemical agent. it does help to keep the wind, bugs and dirt out of your eyes while driving. While driving in the winter almost the entire visor fogs up from your own breath. You get what you pay for and when you look back at the price of this helmet in either RMB or Dollars you can’t complain too much.

I’ve been searching Taobao and some of the local supermarkets for a decent helmet and never really found all that much except on Taobao. Taobao is great and I love it, but unlike its western counterpart eBay, its only in Chinese and you must have a Chinese ID to use it. I was at the local RT-Mart which for some reason, has become a much better place to shop recently for good deals and has been adding a lot of new products. For the amazing price of only 139.99RMB ($21.73) which is right in line for the same product on Taobao just without the shipping costs, I was able to get a proper helmet for use on a scooter. I’ve only had it a few days and worn it twice since, so I have not had the chance to test it out all the much.

As you can see from the photos above it offers much better protection, the build quality is 400% better and the visor works the way it should and does not fog up expect for a very limited size spot. I’m willing to bet that even with the padded sides that this helmet would also be cooler in the summer because its got real working air vents! So far I can also tell you that not only does it “feel” so much better but I no longer need to wear my winter hat to keep my ears and sides of my face warm when driving.

I did ask around and it appears that helmet usage does up in the winter but not for safety reasons. As quoted from one of my Chinese friends “it keeps your head warmer”, it seams the local Chinese use them to keep warm rather than being safe, go figure.

So I’m driving home after dark the other night and some Chinese dude decides to just cut off a bus with his ebike and ends up trying to cut me off as well but I’m just too close to him to stop so he crosses the T and we make full contact with our eBikes its a huge crash on the side of the street. Normally when something like this happens, everyone stops and their is a argument and money is exchanged, but when I flipped up my visor and the guy saw that I was not a another Chinese person but I was a Foreigner, he just disappeared as fast as he could before I could get off my bike to give him a good beat down for being an idiot driver. I pulled over and picked up the pieces of my bike, looked around and he was simply “Gone”. Its not the first time I’ve had something happen while driving but this is by far the worst.

Crossing the T or getting T-Boned is the worst way to get hit or be hit. My bike made such hard contact with his that even front support/steering column was bent out of shape. I was a little depressed over the next few days that I spent the entire weekend at home and was debating to either have it fixed or just buy a new eBike. We stopped at the old shop where I got the eBike and the dealer had left but they did offer to fix it for me with a slightly different style. I needed to have the entire front end rebuilt, a tail light replaced and the back cargo support replaced. The front end rebuild was from the latest crash, the tail light was from some woman who tried to pass me at a “red” light because I was going to stop and she did not think I should have. As for the back cargo support, it was taken out the same way as the tail light but this time by some guy who had too much cargo on this own bike.

I need to learn how to drive “Chinese” but its something that I just cant do. Where I got my eBike from asked me for some crazy 800RMB ($124.08) to fix just the plastic parts and they could not fix anything else and it would take 2 weeks for them to fix it. I was unhappy and decided to check some other places, and when i did the price went up! I was looking at between 1000RMB-800RMB ($155.11-$124.08) to get everything fixed and my eBike back to 100%. Once I was told how much it was going to cost to get fixed I had to look at the cost of repair vs. replacement and at this point if it was not for Anna and her “Chinese” dealing powers getting me a 100% repair for a flat 600RMB ($93.01) and pickup after 24hours I would have given up. Have a look at the photos and you can see how much I really needed to have done.

Looks nice eh? this is what she looks like now and let me tell you, it rides much better and does work a lot better than it did. They adjusted everything when they had it apart to fix her up. When looking at photo #2 everything in inside the red was replaced including the front wheel and steering column. They were also nice enough to install a new metal bumper.

Yes, its true, I’m still alive and kicking! I must say that I’m very sorry for not having updated my blog in so long but a lot has been going on and yes I do have a lot to write about. I’ve just been busy with work and trying to get things done for the end of the Semester so I will be free to enjoy my spring festival and winter vacation. I’ve decided the best way to cover all of the things that need to be covered is to break this post up into several update areas for each category of my blog. This is going to be a long one so please get yourself something to drink and have a seat, its going to take some time to read.

Life ~
I’ve been so busy over the last few weeks that I’ve not had time to post anything to my blog. It was the end of the semester and I’ve got some 106 students to deal with. We had problems with our E100 Finals, which lead to more problems with our E200 mid-term being reduced to a take home exam. Our E200 Finals had sections removed to cut down on the amount of time it would take to write it. I had some 212 student evaluations to write along with final grades and lesson plans, so yes its been a busy time. Now I’m on vacation and can take the time to get back to my writing.

I’ve also been suffering from a bad cold to which I’ve finally gotten over and now feel much more healthy. My diet is now a lot better as I’ve taken much of the McDonalds/KFC junk out of it. Sleeping more has given me a chance to just feel a lot better about many things and given me more energy to get things done.

I had a real nasty accident on my eBike which resulted in the entire front end almost being destroyed. Lucky for me it was with another eBike and the Chinese guy decided to run off rather than get the beat down I was going to give him for driving like a retard. I mean, when I drive here in China I drive like a normal civilized person and not like a wild animal. I’m sorry but I do stop at red lights and wont move no matter how much you beep that shitty little horn, I do drive in a straight line and don’t talk on my cell phone when I drive. I do have respect for others and share the road. I do not however suffer from the “Me First” mentality so if your trying to do something stupid, don’t expect me to help or assist you in any way.

I’m doing what I can to give you as much updated info as I can in the different areas of my blog at one time without needing to make a huge amount of posts so please hang in their and keep on reading.

Wii Attack!!
I wanted to get more stuff for the Wii so I can have friends over for a Wii Party or just a fun day of games. For a modest 620RMB ($96.87) I managed to pick up Wii Fit, Dual Shock Pro gamepad, Wireless IR Sensor Bar, and Silicon cover for the Wii Fit.  Not only did I get all the stuff above but the shop keeper was nice enough to toss in a few extra titles just for fun to play with like always.

Wii Attack 2 ~

I had to go back to the dealer once more because having enough for only 2 people to play on the Wii is just not enough. I stopped by the dealer that my co-worker Rommel and his wife Joy used when they got some things for their sons to see about getting a better deal but they wanted 320RMB ($50.00) for 1 set of nun chuck and Wii remote.

For everything they wanted the massive some of 880RMB ($137.50). I thought this could not be right so I went over and asked “my” Wii dealer and he offered everything I wanted for 600RMB ($93.79) even so I did not need to break any more 100’s. It saves you money to shop at the same stores and make friends with the local dealers.

So now it looks like I’m all set and ready to go for a mega Wii Party any time I want. The only real issue now is should I even try getting an Xbox or maybe another DS Lite.

Blackberry ~
I had upgrade and then downloaded my Bold to OS 5 and back down to OS 4.6 until it finally became official. Bell Canada now with its UMTS 3G network running is supporting the GSM Bold and offered OS 5 which I downloaded but never updated to yet. I reloaded some things and got Google Maps to update along with Documents to Go to update as well. I’ve also got Google Sync installed now so all of my contacts can “finally” be merged and managed properly. I’m going to be sorting out that mess over the next few days.

I have Wi-Fi at home so when ever I need to download something I make sure my BlackBerry has its Wi-Fi turned on and I sit back and enjoy the blazing speed of my Wi-Fi.

Technology ~
One of the things that I did do was finally find a replacement for my Acer One which Susana took to Sweden. I decided that my new ASUS X66 was too large to travel with me everyday so I checked my pocket and remembered that I has sold my old ASUS A8He to Rommel. I was in the local RT Mart and saw a wonderful MSI X-340 on sale for only 3700RMB ($579.57) which is in fact much better than the Acer One or ASUS Eee PC I had been looking at. U-Town and TaoBao could not match or meet the price so this marks the first time since coming to China that I’ve paid “Sticker” for anything.

I am still a live! stay tuned over the next few days for several more posts coming your way on what’s been going on and what’s currently happening in my wonderful work.

I’ve been using the OS 5 on my BlackBerry Bold for around 8 days now and I’ve had a lot of likes and dislikes about it. I can tell you that when its out of testing and is made to be an official release its going to be great but right now I’ve encountered more than a few annoying bugs that make me not like it so much. The 2 major issues that I have with the latest build of OS 5 is that no version of Palringo works so that takes away all of my chat options, the other issue is that the apps button some times brings up the menu or the switch programs menu, its too hard to navigate like that. On the other hand, the biggest benefits are than even with Wi-Fi turned on, battery power seams to last a lot longer. I was playing Christmas music at our party for quite a while and it hardly even touched battery power, I even fell asleep twice watching 3 TV shows running 60minutes each.

Pros:
Longer Battery Life
AP News App works
Wi-Fi is amazingly fast
Scanning on 16GB MicroSDHC card is faster
Nice new options
XVID, DIVX work much better
New SMS system works nice

Cons:
Can’t get Google Maps to work
Palringo wont work
Less 3rd Party support for BlackBerry Bold on OS 5
Predictive text drives me up the wall
Future support for older device???
No Opera Mini support
Menu button bug
No official Pinyin support

Conclusion:
I’m going to have to make the switch back to the latest official build for the Bold and consider retiring it and getting either the new Bold 2 or Storm 2. The fact that updating older hardware with newer software does not always mean things are going to work as well as what we might want. I’ve noticed less and less support for the 9000 Bold and more and more for the 9700 Bold 2, so that makes me wonder about future support for my unit.

I’ve been a member of SETI@home since December 22nd 2000 and during that time I’ve processed my fair share of data. Way back when, we had to connect to SETI’s server and download ungodly work units to which I managed to process 1308 on an old 500Mhz Pentium 3 desktop and then my HP laptop running a super 1.6Ghz Pentium 4 with an amazing 512MB of ram. I can remember how many days 1 work unit would take on my old Pentium 3 system, only to see it become a matter of hours on my new Pentium 4 laptop. Mind you, it was still painfully slow but who really cared?

I still run SETI@home but now they run a much better operating platform called Boinc. With Boinc came a new era of computing technology that they would be able to take full advantage of, including 64bit processing and multi core processors. We all know that Windows x64 or the 64bit edition of Windows is supposed to run faster but we need software that reflects this and that’s just what Boinc does. I’m not sure of the exact percentage but I can tell you that everything else does run better and Boinc does run faster in 64bit mode. Another good thing is the ability to support multi core systems from home users and just not multi processor servers from the professional world.

One of the biggest advances in technology for the processing of work units over Boinc is the ability to now use GPU’s or Graphics Processing Units. Nvidia supports CUDA GPU technology on most of its new video cards and this mean that my Nvidia GeForce GT 220M 1GB that supports CUDA technology can be used to process work units on Boinc for SETI@home. I know ATI has technology that is similar but I’ve never seen it in the notebooks or even been told by them about it being built into every video card they make. Its nice to know that Nvidia supplies its customers with advanced technology and even tells you about it. CUDA technology has fired up my SETI work unit processing, I almost wonder what would happen if I ever decided to build a new desktop based on raw computing power rather than its ability to play games. I wonder how long it would take to chew a work unit on a system like that.

Powering the very heart and soul of my new X66 is Intel’s very own T6600 or “Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.2Ghz”. This is a big step up over the Intel T2060 or “Intel Pentium Dual Core @ 1.6Ghz” I was running in my old A8He. The Intel Core 2 is the premium line processor while the Pentium line has become the new Celeron. Since neither of the processors support HT technology I will only be able to process 1 task per core so raw clock speed will help. The Core 2 is a 64bit processor so I will be running it with 64bit Windows 7 and 64bit Boinc, which alone will make a huge difference as we know that 64bit vs. 32bit processing in much faster for raw data applications.

Average processing times change so much and are never really constant from one work unit to another. I’ve seen the SETI work units take between 2 and 5 hours for the for the CPU, while the GPU moves around from 45minutes to 2.5hours. I’ve also hit my first Astropulse work unit which has taken 1 of my processor cores over for at least the next 36-48hours, I’d love to see my GPU get a crack at one of those suckers with its CUDA technology.

I love my BlackBerry and it keeps me going everyday. I have it tuned in to look after everything for me and keep a track of everything things that’s going on. If I can’t get something to work I’ll find a way to hack it or find something else to get it working on the local network. Recently I’ve been able to get Wi-Fi working because I now have Wi-Fi at home. I’ve known that RIM has been planning to load OS 5 to the Bold 9000 but no one really knows when they were planning on getting around to that.

I did a search on the net and found 9000M_PBr5.0.0_rel661_PL5.2.0.33_A5.0.0.411.exe which would be the latest build for the Bolds version of OS 5. I downloaded the OS, wiped my Berry and proceeded with the update. Everything worked ok and now my AP News even works once more. Gmail is back up and running fine where is Google Maps 3.01 wont run but 3.02 will. Each time I try to get Google Maps 3.02 for some reason Google starts to fight with me and I end up with 3.01 even though they tell me I am downloading 3.02

Using the Wi-Fi I’ve been able to update to the latest version of Wordpress for Blackberry along with Documents to Go! Palringo is currently not working as of version 1.07 with OS 5 on the Bold 9000 but they are working on it and will have it working soon. I’ll keep you posted on what I found about OS 5 for the Bold and whether or not I go back to the old OS.