Nice white elephant

can't believe after so many years of dormancy (at least 2 years) the iMac g4 is finally in constant use! it has become the main household computer, since i sent in my laptop for long overdue repair (now, that's another story i have to tell later on). anyway, i'm so happy that i finally get to learn flash!!! and surprisingly the classes are really easy... way easier than what i was expecting ( which was based on what the 3p program administrator told me) and since i had sent my laptop away, i tried to reformat the old desktop pc but i had forgotten to write down my activation code underneath my laptop... so instead, i tried to eliminate the malicious wares on the system. after a whole night jumping from the mac (internet connection) to the desktop (too far away from the adsl modem), i finally gave up as i realised there were more than 20 trojans hiding in it... and my virus killing skills are just not up to par.

ooh, that reminds me of a proud moment... as mentioned before, i used a powerpoint presentation to aid my oral presentation for my final year project. since i came late to the presentation hall, i had to save my file during a timely break (1 person before me). and in my haste, i plugged my thumb drive into the computer provided. everything went well... and i suspected that the presentation computer had a virus since it behaved funnily whenever a usb removable drive was plugged into the machine... i had totally forgotten about my suspicions when a couple of days later, i plugged my thumb drive into my laptop to work on my thesis! as a result, my poor laptop got infected by a virus called IOImall.exe which produced a popup and caused my disc drive to eject every time it was executed. the popup contained some sort of "kampung" mentality message which read, "Kapok is the best guitar in the world!!!.." etc etc etc (i do not remember the exact words of the imbecile developer) but it led me to believe that the numbskull lives or comes from puchong... as i don't think someone in taiwan would actually write/speak in kampung-style bahasa melayu (you know with the slurred ending of each word making it seem like you're reading an unknown foreign language...) which leads me back to my proud moment... i managed to completely eliminate the bloody virus manually!!! my antivirus was next to useless against this fella (although this av is better than avg and norton) i went down to the bare minimum (in safe mode) and sneaked up on the fella (windows, startup and system 32 folders) and all its other roots and killed the bugger (delete and empty trash). one stinky virus took me so many days to chase after the fella (it was my first time manually killing a virus). ah, and this leads back to my white elephant... the iMac was really useful in getting rid of the virus which stuck onto my thumb drive (so i don't re-infect myself when i work on my thesis later on).

the mac also got me interested in open source softwares... which are a better alternative than what i was using before this... and it also led me to discover many softwares which are even better than the purchased softwares... like mozilla firefox is better than ie and foxit is a smaller and faster pdf viewer than acrobat reader... when i get back my laptop, i must start finding an alternative to windows live messenger (its always getting stuck and slowing down the pc). now , some of the open source softwares i'm using are like mozilla firefox, adium, gimp, neo office, foxit, jzip, chmox, darwine, audacity, burrn etc.

humph... i've just recalled the whole 'sending in laptop for service' scenario... i went to the nearest sen heng (as the extended warranty card said that any sen heng shop could take in the items to be repaired). number 1, the fat chinese guy (must be the supervisor or branch manager) could not speak english so he replied me in BM. nevermind about that, number two, since the major problem with the laptop was that the hardisk was about to die, the laptop took forever to startup. and since i'd just finished writing my thesis, i had a number of files on my desktop (say, it covered a quarter of the desktop)... then the fella starts saying something about a clogged up desktop causes the comp to hang (he must have thought that i'm like most of the other incompetent girls who only know how to use and not maintain my comp)... so i launched into my attack mode and answered that the problem isn't caused by a clogged desktop or anything software related since i've reformatted the pc and the problem still exists, and also that the burner has completely died (with a warning tone in my voice, that should he try to deny me the bloody warranty which i paid more than rm300 for, he will have an ear full). after that he didn't try to provoke me anymore... and did his job...

wow, that was practically the first time i've almost shouted at a stranger... in fact i've never really shout/fought with an acquaintance before... sheesh, i must train myself to yell at idiotic people i come across in the future... i really HATE it when these "adults" (who judge me by my young looks *not being cocky here, it's the truth* or my gender or race) try to push their weight around. i mean i may look young and stupid (or naive, a more civilized term) but i KNOW my capabilities and when i'm assigned a job, i take pride in my work (unlike many others that i know of). so it's just sickening when some "know nuts" idiot tries to look down on my capabilities. i know i'm not the most decisive person one may meet, but when i'm sure about something, i know I AM RIGHT!!! hah, the image mr JP used to draw about mrs ng just popped into my mind... it was a dinosaur (like a T. rex) with somebody's foot stepping on its tail and the dinosaur turned back to bite the offender... it was suppose to illustrate "don't step on my tail and i won't bite you!" - kind of feeling like that now...

ok, so today was my 2nd adobe flash class...i hope i can pass the certification exam, then at least i can put that into my resume... hehehe... hopefully adobe dreamweaver won't be too different from frontpage and html... probably going to go crazy with the css... but ultimately i hope at the end of these courses, i'll be able to create a template for the craft website... then we wouldn't need to buy a template or use a common one... i don't know what kind of job i'll be able to apply for... my skills and interests do not match... like a jack of all trades (ok, not really all la) but master of none...