Greek Peak

Went on a school trip with Shiho and others yesterday to Greek Peak, a ski resort.

It's been a while since I snowboarded last time. But surprisingly, I didn't even have to go on a test run to get my memory back. It just came right back to me. On the second run I could even do the S I had been trying to do. With each additional run I made, I was able to start doing continous S. Going down the slope at 20 or even 30 mph was pretty amazing, and scary too! Call me a chicken, ha!

After the Spring Break, Shi-chan and I might go hit the slope again. Thnk about it, beach, ocean and sunshine then slope, mountain and snow a week after. Wow, talk about having fun!

BTW, the Enchilada burrito at Taco Bell was pretty good too, heh.

Dell 2005FPW

1680 x 1050, one word. PHAT!

Academic Reward

Got a another Hart Hall Academic Reward for being on the Dean's List last semester. Except for Spring 04, I've managed to make at least Dean's List every semester. Not a great achievement but I'm happy about myself. Keep it up ChiMan!

Adblock

I just tried out this great Firefox extension called Adblock. What it does is different than Firefox (or any Mozilla decedent). It blocks advertisement IN a page. Be it images, flashes, intellitext or anything embedded in a web page. With the help of it, you can view your favorite websites ads free, if any.

I knew about this extension for some time but didn't bother to try it because I haven't got any pop-up's or pop-under's for a long time due to Firefox's excellent pop-up blocker. Once I used it I was hooked. It's really great that you can make those flashy ads go away on websites you frequently visit. You will also find out how much crap those websites put on a page, you will be shocked.

Definitely a must have if you browse the Internet.

CSC365 Assignment 1 done!

Wheeeee!!!!! My news reader is done! It took forever.

Handling the .newsrc file is much easier than I thought. Didn't have much trouble reading and writing for APIs involved are pretty straightforward. Speaking of APIs, Java API is ample. Actually, it's way too much, as far as I am concerned at this time. To achive one thing, there are many ways to do it, you just have to find the right method. This is like putting puzzle pieces together. Unless you have in mind what the result looks like, you are going to be lost. But that doesn't mean I don't like Java. It's the only language I'm familiar with, if you call that familiar.

Anyway, I can finally take a little break. But this is by no means the end. I have more programs to write. CSC420 assignment 3, the time display program and CSC320 assignment 4, calculating cubic splines. Oh boy...

iPod Shuffle 1G

My long waited iPod Shuffule 1G finally arrived yesterday. It's so small (relatively) and light, it actually lacks the quality "feel" of a regular iPod. But hack, I bought simply because I wanted a replacement USB drive.

I do have to give it credit for its lightness because working out with a shuffle is much easier than a 5 ounce iPod.

BTW, I got my replacing driver's license in the mail this afternoon. One step closer to replacing all my lost documents.

Math minor == Zannen!! Chan chan!

Gawd daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn it! I could have got a Math minor easily but I now missed the chance.

I never thought of having a minor. Probably because the way of thinking about degrees I took with me from National Chung Cheng University. But 10 mins ago when I was talking to Shiho (I made her mad tonight, haha), she told me she has a minor in Economics. That strikes me that I might be able to get a Math minor. I had taken all these math classes that I don't really need for my degree. I took them simply because I like the math classes tought here. The teachers are simply great!

If I had known this earlier, I would use my spare time and take two more, just two more math classes! And they only need to be higher than MAT158! Gawd! I could easily do this, and get good grades too! It's such a shame that nobody, even my adivsor, told me about this.

Sigh, it's too late because I'm graduating soon. Well, at least I had fun taking those classes.

Happy Valentine's

Yesterday was Shi-chan and I's first anniversary. It had been a great year. Even though we both are not perfect and got into several serious fights, we get along very well and I think we're perfect for each other. And she looks so cute all the time! I'm pretty sure we will lead a great life together if we do form a family.

We bought the plane tickets to Puerto Rico few days ago. From the pictures it looks amazing! Clear blue ocean, white sand, palm trees...man I can't wait for spring break!

NewsReader Cont'd

Finally, I managed to get the group list, article list and the article body view to work! I also figured out how to weed out unnecessary header entries.

Now the following challenge is to provide subscription and persistent newsrc functionalities. I'm sure in a couple days I can figure this out.

CSC365 NewsReader

Arrrrrrgh! I can't figure out how to extract subject lines from a specified group! I can put the article numbers into an ArrayList with no problem. But then when I iterate through that ArrayList and issue HEAD Article# accordingly so that I can extract the subject line from server output, I get errors!

I read in server output one line at a time, from FROM to Content-Type-Encoding, assign each as a String, then instantiate an Article object encapsulating these info. There is, however, something wrong in the process that each line is off-sync with what I think it would be. Therefore, I am not getting the right info and that produces errors I'm getting.

I need a rest to clear my mind. Today's routine is legs. I hope working out can rejuvenate me and then maybe this problem can be worked out.

Microsoft's TrueType core fonts on Linux

Came across this link for M$ TrueType fonts on Linux. Not sure if this is needed for modern distro though.

First Major US Credit Card

Finally, after numerous attempts, I got my first US credit card and can start building up my credit here in the US. It's a CapitalOne "Platinum" Visa. Despite what the name suggests, it has nothing to do with a platinum card, at least in a Taiwanese finance sense. The card itself is half-transparent, I chose it. And the limit is $201.00, $401.00 3 months later if there is no defaults on my payments. I will be using it instead of my debit card from now on as long as I can pay it right off.