hendrikch.com - Hendrik Christian Blog on Daily Life

One of the way to backup your files are using online backups. Sure, Yahoo and Gmail are fine, but dedicated site that are meant for backups should be better. After reading through some recommendations, I am trying online backup from Mozy. For a start, they provide free 2GB space for you to upload whatever you need to backup from your computer. It may not be enough to backup my 20+GB photos, but it’ll be more than enough to backup my other documents.

If you sign up now, use this link https://mozy.com/?ref=62J3Z2 or enter 62J3Z2 for the referral code to me. If you enter my code as a referral, the moment you start backing up, I will get extra 256MB for free, and so will you The more people I refer that sign up and use their service, I’ll get extra 256MB, as well as that person You can then further refer more friends who need online backups

Start using it, and let me know how it is. I’m just starting too

Today was another “expensive” lunch as my colleagues and I went to Garibaldi Italian Restaurant and Bar at Purvis Street, just opposite of National Library Bugis. We shared Carpaccio Di Manzo Wagyu which is Wagyu Beef Carpaccio with Parmigiano Cheese and Rucola - $28 for starters, it was very nice. Wagyu beef is one of the best beef you can taste, as according to what I was told, they treated the cow specially, they bring the cow for walk, massage them, and all kind of nice treatment, such that the beef meat from those cows will taste great. It was

Next follow was the main course. I ordered Frutti Di Mare (a.k.a Stewed Scampi, Prawns, Scallops, and Cod Fish with Asparagus & Tomato Oregano Sauce) - $42. Scampi is a kind of shrimp that has two very long front legs, recently starred in Mr. Bean’s Holiday movie :p The portion was okay only, but the taste was superb. It has been a while since I had very very nice seafood For a special occassion, I would heartedly recommend Garibaldi, you can bring your other half there for a romantic dinner, or bring your business partner or associates for a treat there. You won’t regret that!

To complete the lunch was dessert. After reading through the desserts menu, I finally decided to get Tiramisu with Homemade Lady-finger Biscuit and Espresso Chocolate Hearth - $12. Inside the center of it was liquor wrapped in chocolate. It was simply the best Tiramisu I ever tested, nuff said!!!

Tiramisu, hmmmmm…… very very very very nice!!!!

Truly enjoyed my lunch - priceless.

Hotmail has what? 2GB? Gmail? 2.8GB? Yahoo plans to offer UNLIMITED email storage for its users. Now, that cool, UNLIMITED!!!! You can’t help but feel that Hotmail and Gmail will follow suit, very very soon So, you got 10MB photos, send it to my email address, you got lots of songs to share? send it to my email address, and don’t bother to ZIP them up, heck, I don’t care about my email getting full anymore :p

Now, if only they remove the 10MB-per-email restriction, that’ll be best!!! or at least up it to 100MB per email?

Read the complete story in Yahoo! News.

Singapore, the majority of us live in Highly Dangerous Buildings (HDB), And most people have already got used to Paying and Paying (PAP) ….. Not only do you have to pay, you Pay Until Bankrupt (PUB). If that’s not enough, somebody still Purposely Wants to Dig (PWD) and get more from you. So what more can you do when you are in the Money Only Environment (MOE)? With the current Mad Accounting System (MAS), you are forced to Pay the Sum Ahead (PSA), Which will leave some people Permanently Owing Some Banks (POSB).
And forced to live on the Loan Techniques Always (LTA) system. When you fall sick and happen to be admitted to a Money Operating Hospital (MOH), You might be able to use your Cash Prior to Funeral (CPF) fund. If you are out of luck, you may meet doctors who Never Use Heart (NUH) to treat you, And you will be Sure to Give up Hope (SGH). To help ease the traffic, motorists have to pay Cash On Expressway (COE). If that doesn’t help, they can always Eternally Raise Prices (ERP) on the roads. If you don’t own a car, you can always make a Mad Rush to the Train (MRT), OR get squashed in a bus Side By Side (SBS) ….. Lastly, under all these pressures, there are not many places we can relax, Not even the good old place we used to go because it has become So Expensive and Nothing To See Actually (SENTOSA)!!!

If you are stressed out and can do with laughters, go and watch Mr. Bean’s Holiday I would rate it

It was almost midnight, I was in MRT on my way back home from City Hall to Jurong East. It was raining, I didn’t bring an umbrella, so walking back from Jurong East home would have been a challenge. The only choice to reach home without being drenched was to take bus from Clementi, either 52, 105, or 183, but I was not even sure that any of the bus would still be available at that time. Come to rescue was the new iris (Integrated Route Information System) from SBS Transit. Now, we can check the bus timing in every bus stop in Singapore for any SBS Transit-operated buses. We only need the bus number as well as 5-digit unique bus stop number. For example, the one in Clementi is 17171. The one at my home is 28641.

How to know what is the 5-digit bus stop number

So, when I almost reached Dover, I browsed to mobile iris website from my handphone, and checked the timing for each of the buses. 52 next bus was coming in 3 mins, subsequent bus would be coming in 26 mins, so that’s out. 105 next bus was arriving (according to experience, that meant the bus is already about 1 bus stop away), and subsequent bus would be coming in 2 mins. That too was out, because I can’t possibly reach Clementi in 2 mins time. The subsequent bus for 105 was like 30 mins after that. I tried 183. Usually I don’t like 183 because it’s taking the longer route and hence longer time to reach home. To my delight, the next 183 was coming in 6 mins time and I would have reached Clementi in 4 mins by then. True to its “prediction”, when I reached Clementi, I only waited less than 2 mins, 183 bus came. I reached home dry with the fastest and cheapest possible way, and the cost of making informed-decision was to pay Starhub GPRS charges of about 15 cents.

For those who has GPRS-enabled mobile plan and handphone, bookmark this URL: http://www.sbstransit.com.sg/mobileiris/. You never knew when you’ll ever need this

It’s unavoidable, as I am using my computer, the more I use it, the more stuffs gets installed to it, and continuing from the list of applications I installed last month, there are few more applications that found it’s way to my computer in the last month or so. Some are essential that I missed out, some are not-so-essential, and here they are in order of installation date.

• .Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 - free
  I installed, trialled, and uninstalled lots of software, but I want my current Windows Vista to be as clean as possible, meaning no crapware is allowed to get installed into my Windows. The more software I get installed and uninstalled on my machine, the more unstable my Windows is, not to mention it’ll get slower by the weeks and months, so I installed free Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, and installed a copy of Windows XP inside. Whenever I feel like trying out new software, or simply comparing few applications to see which one is better to be installed on my Windows, I’ll just use this Virtual PC to try out. Only good stuffs gets into my Windows Vista install
• .Sony USB Driver - free
  I need to connect a Sony miniDV handycam to my Windows Vista for video capture. My family got tons of miniDV cassettes (50 is my last count), and as my family self-declared IT guy, as my home project, I need to convert all these cassettes into DVDs that my dad, my mom, or my grandma can play on their DVD player.
• ..WinAVI Video Capture 2.0 - free FULL version for limited time
  This usually $29.95 software is currently free (go get it while it’s still free!!), used to capture video played from my Sony handycam into an MPEG-2 movie. After all these videos have been captured, I can simply use built-in Windows DVD Maker (only available in Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate) to convert all those MPEG files into DVDs that can be played in normal DVD players.
• .Acronis TrueImage Home - $49.99
  The best backup and imaging software. In-line with my current plan of having routine backup of my computer, I have to find a great software to do the job, and Acronis TrueImage does just that. I have been using Acronis TrueImage since version 8, and now it’s at version 10, it’s certified for Windows Vista.
  I have been looking at the built-in Backup and Restore Center in Windows Vista, it only can do backup of whole drive. I can’t select which folders that I want to backup.
• .avast! Antivirus v4 Home Edition - free
  There are two free antivirus that community seems to recommend to be used in Windows Vista, AVG Anti-Virus Free v7.5 or avast! Antivirus v4 Home Edition which is free for home use. I chose the latter because it seems like more people recommend avast to AVG. Also, according to Antivirus review, avast caught more virus compared to AVG.
• .Raxco PerfectDisk for Home - $39.99
  After usage of computer, harddrive gets fragmented, and as a result, computer gets slower. Windows all-along has built-in disk defragmenter that does a basic job, but PerfectDisk does a much better job in improving the performance of your hard drive. Here’s the comparison between PerfectDisk and Windows Defragmenter.
• .Switcher - free
  Mac OS X has Expose. Switcher brings this feature to Windows Vista. Press F9, and all open windows are scaled small enough such that ALL windows fits in your screen, make it easier to find a window you want in the stack of opened windows.