Acidz’s end of year entry

This is truly the end of year entry. In the past 5 years all my end of year entry was written in around november, but I suppose i was being a bit lazy this time.

Before i start, i should mark this blog with a disclaimer: this entry is going to be long

Like any other year before this, some things never change, like my weight (still at bloody 50), shortage of close proximity (SCP) theory, the good old melbourne and the remarkably good friends that i am honored to still have to this day.

Other things however, they did.

I think being 21, a graduate and unemployed is not exactly a nice situation to be in. There is a lot of pressure and stigma associated with having the 3 categories above.  Some people say that i am wasting too much time slacking and not looking for job, which to their credit, partly true.  Others say its okay to be jobless in a difficult year, but seeing as how many of your friends secured one, there is a certain pressure that perhaps i am not good enough for the workforce yet.In all i have applied to over 80 jobs applications of all kinds and with little results. And that is that.

Being unemployed does teach you some stuff though, first is, the world is unfair. It has always been unfair, and it will continue to be unfair. Its up to me, to make the best of the cards i got in hand. Second,  it teaches you how to spend less money, because its not easy to earn, and lastly, it teaches you how to hold your head down a bit after seeing reality.

The last is especially important to me. For some years, a few of my friends has nicknamed me ‘Putra” or prince in malay. I will not lie that sometimes i have an attitude problem that i often dont realize. I want to have my opinion accepted, my choice of restaurant without question, insensitive to how others might feel towards what i did. Thankfully enough, there are a small group of friends who always reminded me of this. They told me off at every opportunity, and kindly explain what i did wrong. And, I hope with their advices, and some lessons from being unemployed has made me a much better person.

The second big lesson i had learned this year is that in this life, you will have to make difficult, life-changing choices.

Stemming from my perpetual employment, and with blessing and encouragement from friends, i decided to look for opportunities overseas. I travelled around to Hong Kong, and many cities in Indonesia, and truly opportunities are abound.

If anybody can tell you how much I like being in melbourne, it would be me. I have written countless blog entries, and take thousands of photos in Melbourne, and its where most of my friends are. I love the constantly-changing weather, the fresh air, even the tapwater which taste better than many bottled water i can get at my hometown.  Nevertheless, i think a corporate career is not promising enough in the long term, and that is if i can actually get my foot in the door which is insanely difficult for the average person like me.

So after i conducted the numerous travelling trips around the country, I knew that opportunities where i came from is much better. It wont be an overstatement if i said, you can practically do almost anything and make quite a bit of money, as long as you know where to set up your shop. Location, is everything in here. What makes it so versatile is that because the market segmentation between cities is very very clear cut. Wealthier people lives in bigger cities, the mid-income at a smaller cities and so on.

Money aside, despite the flood of wealth to the upper class in the past few years, the wealth gap is stupidly large. 73 millions people are living below the poverty line. The people that barely just made it is quite huge as well. That puts about half of this country population that can hardly improve their standard of living. It seems to me, that I can at least do my part to alleviate some of the problems, perhaps starting by improving the quality of life of employees.

It is a huge step to take forward, and its a huge sacrifice that i might need to make, to which i can only hope the continual support, encouragement, blessings and prayers of many of the great friends that i have will help making my goals a little easier to achieve.

With that, I wish everyone a happy new year tomorrow, and a new year full of adventures!

-Acidz

1st week back in Indonesia

It has been nearly a week since i been back here,  and i know i havent updated this blog in such a long long time.

The past few weeks i have been busy going out, packing my stuff, having farewell lunch/dinner with multiple friends and finally i flew back here to indonesia.

There are a lot of thing i want to do, things i felt i owe myself because i havent been working the entire year. But being back here reminds me of what I do dislike about this place. That is, everyone here is unethical. The workers is unethical, the drivers and motorbike riders are insane, the supplier is batshit delusional and the weather is an absolute dog.

Trying to do stuff according to the rules here verge on the unattainable. Driving here puts my life in great mortal peril, motorcycle cutting lanes as if the road were owned by their forefathers, and then there is jaywalkers. And stupid minibuses which stops wherever they damn well please, and absolutely nobody gives way to pedestrian on zebra cross.

Aside from the catastrophic traffic condition, this week marked an important event in Indonesia’s history. Our country president is re-elected for the second time, and he chose his ministers this week. Many of them are capable, credible people but equally as many of the ministers are just there as token minister, so that other minor political parties can shut their mouth up. I guess this is one thing about politic, there is always somebody wanting to shoot you down, even if they know there are better people for their job, people who can turn this country around to where it should be.

I do have expectations for this cabinet, they have done quite well in the past 5 years, and i hope they can do well this time too.

In the meantime, I have been trying to find stuff i can do trading with, but as usual it proves to be difficult. There are a lot of opportunities abound, i just have to know where to look, and most of the times looking at the right places is the most difficult thing.

To all my friends in Melbourne, i hope you guys are doing well and i wish you good luck in the upcoming exams. Hope to see you guys again next year.

-Aries

Zune Software 4.0 lightning review

With the wave of Zune HD news today, its hard to not get swept in the excitement. After all Zune HD seems set on its way to overtaking Ipod dominance in the portable music player market. As always, the good ol’ US of A citizen will get their hands on it first. Perhaps after the lackluster success of Zune Originals, Microsoft is taking a step-by-step approach for each market, testing the waters to see if the Zune HD will receive a warm receptions.

Despite getting shafted over here in Australia, i chanced upon a diamond in the rough. The Zune 4.0 software is available for use to us without needing a Zune. It is extremely slick, runs buttery smooth unlike the crippled iTunes that was made for us Windows user. Finally, a music software to complement the overall good looks of Windows 7.

Zune 4.0 Software

Positives

Zune 4.0 Software is a free music player from Microsoft, originally built to complement their whole range of Zune Music Player. It is a very well designed piece of software with full hardware acceleration. This means that most of you with decent enough hardware to run it with premium graphics will be absolutely delighted.

Installation was an absolutely painless process. If you have been diligent at keeping your album stored, complete with all its album art, Zune will load it automatically. Zune 4.0 will ask for 3 of your favourite artist from a whole range of artist available in your album collection to generate a soundtrack list that will suit your musical preferences. I think this system is a step-up from iTunes’ Genius, in that it only generate playlist from music you already have, and does not require an account or subscription.

On the main menu you will see quick play list on the left side of the screen, there are 5 slots or so that you can place there so you do not have to rumpage through your entire library or even as much as type something to search for a music you listen a lot. It is available at a glance. In the middle will be an option to buy a Zune Pass which is entirely optional.On the right side of the screen is newly added music to your library. Hovering over each of the album art will reveal the album name (in case the album art was not informative as to which album it is). I find this feature extremely useful, especially if you have a large album library

But by far the most remarkable impression of Zune 4.0 software is its hallmark now playing screen. Clicking on the now playing album cover in the main menu transport you magically to a screen like above. The background are made out of all the album cover in your collection (SO START GETTING THOSE TIDIED UP!) and it is dynamic. What i mean by dynamic is that each of those album covers swaps back and forth with other album art in your entire collection. For the first time ever, i am absolutely enticed by watching something usually known only as the now playing screen.

Not only that, Zune 4.0 software also integrates your entire library of videos and pictures in one place in an equally slick interface. Zune 4.0 software not only beat Apple iTunes by a wide margin, it practically sends Microsoft’s own media center and windows media player 11 to oblivion.

If you need more reason to give out the Zune 4.0 a try, Zune 4.0 features full Windows 7 integration as featured below. Notice how integrates with the taskbar at the bottom.

Should you decide to try out the Zune Store using a Zune Pass, you would not need to set-up a new account if you have a Windows Live account or Xbox 360 Gamertag. This saves you time of creating a new account when you are not going to use all of its features (i.e Genius for iTunes requires an account) and yet, leave you with enough options should you wish to browse Zune store collections.

Negatives

Overall, out of all the media player i tried so far, and believe me i tried a lot, Zune 4.0 offers the best interface with faster performance than iTunes on Windows, slicker than Media Center, smarter than Windows media player 11. The only downsides to Zune 4.0, is that Microsoft decides to leave Apple users to dust, because Zune 4.0 is not available for OS X at the moment. But considering Apple stance on always being propietary, it hardly comes as a surprise when Microsoft pulls the same trick.

Zune 4.0 software does not support a wide variety of video formats, one of them is the highly popular avi files. At the moment there is no other option to integrate your video other than converting them to WMV if you want to play it here. Interestingly, Zune 4.0 plays mp4 files, which is generally recognized by quicktime (more petty tricks).

Even with the fairly significant drawbacks regarding video file format, Zune 4.0 is a highly polished software that is definitely worth a try. For all of you windows 7 users out there, there is hardly a better choice for music playing, unless of course you have a large library of music collection bought off iTunes Store.

[Zune 4.0 Download][ Windows only]

-Acidz

The stake has escalated…

and it has come down to either trying my best or get swept in the current…

As of time of writing, i still has no job yet. The economy isnt helping, the channel runs dry,  and the stake has gotten much much bigger.

It seems that if I do not make a clear choice by the end of this month and try my hardest to get a job I would have to leave melbourne. Possibly with the chance that I might not come back.

Some of you might think, perhaps returning back is not such a bad choice after all. My family is there, I have a business to take care of, and i would instantly be 36000 AUD a year better off for every single year i am there.

But the sad truth of the matter is, while i have no human love interest, i have come to love melbourne quite a lot. Perhaps my ideals is naive, perhaps the friends i have over here will dwindle, but even through all that, I am willing to bet that my lifestyle here would be infinitely better than in any cities in Indonesia.

Thus, the challenge has cometh. Can i rise up to it?..or fall under the mighty current?

Favourite wallpapers collection courtesy of interfacelift

I known interfacelift for 2 years now, and i never ceased to be amazed by the quality of the photographs people posted on interfacelift

Here are some of my favourite wallpaper collection from them. It matches with Windows 7 pretty well and i tried it with Rainmeter’s enigma theme.

Unfortunately i only had them in 1680×1050 reso. Head down to interfacelift for more pictures and other resolutions, including full HD and above.

Acidz’s life FAQs

Its been a while since i last wrote my entry and some of my close friends have began to ask why haven’t I updated anything about myself. Well, it seems like the event in the past few weeks was considered big enough to warrant their entry into my annual end-of-year note round-up. That is my most significant, and my most well-worded blog entry of the entire year and unfortunately i only have one chance a year to write it, otherwise it wont be fun anymore. Secondly, i dont really have anything to update with. So i prepared a FAQs for those who wanted to know how am i doing.

FAQs

1.  Have i got a job yet?

No. If i did, i would tell the whole world about it within the next 10 minutes.

2. Do you cook?

Not really. I will only cook if i know im cooking for more than one person, i.e myself.

3.What do you do in your free time since you are…..very free?

Well, I do what everyone else does in their free time. Read book, watch movies, go out and try new restaurant, take photographs, hang out with friends.

4.What is one quality of yourself that you like to get rid of.

I take comments too seriously sometimes. Its not good for health. Thankfully, i’m not as bad as i used to be.

another one is, i should be more sensitive to my surroundings. I can be a bit tactless to public properties.

5.What kind of books do you like to read?

Non-fiction

6. Are you the tech guy that ppl calls when they have problem with computers?

Yes.

7. Why do you like living in melbourne?

Melbourne is like a living, breathing, mother of a city. You love her when she showered you with good weather, while you sip coffee at Starbucks. You get angry at her for suddenly changing the weather when she gets PMS. She has secrets hidden everywhere, it took you years to discover all of them. Her people are nice, ready for conversations when they are drunk or sober.Heck even the bus drivers are nice. They made up for happiness lost while waiting for a bus. Plenty of good restaurants, plenty of good photographs to take. And lastly, everyone came from all over the world to melbourne. I met so many good friends here. Most of them are intellectual people, interesting and in some way different from what i used to meet before i came here. Most of them are relatively well-off, but almost none are bragging about it. Such good friends and such knowledgeable people. Its really the icing on the cake.

I love melbourne, and i love you guys..

Cliches

I read through my GMAT prep book about avoiding cliches. It is refreshing to read a how-to book written in such a novel manner.

This is the excerpt for avoiding cliches

‘In an essay, however, especially one that is supposed to demonstrate your unique cast of mind, you must avoid cliches like the plague. “Like the plague,” in fact, is one you should avoid, along with other secondhand phrases and expressions like the bottom line, how does that sit with you, to touch base with, off the top of my head, I’m outta here, a point well taken, two sides of the same coin, getting psyched, go off the deep end, life in the fast lane, for openers, flipped out, get off my back, get a life!, super, so amazing, at the cutting edge of, and would you believe, would you believe?

Using such trite phrases and expressions declares that you’d rather borrow what someones else has said than think of something on your own. Spewing one cliche after another is the sign of a poverty-stricken mind’ – GMAT test book

point taken, im getting psyched, flipping out and would rather get a life outside to be a super amazing person at the cutting edge of something, build an empire maybe. Instead I’m rotting at the deep end of my cave and would you believe, unemployed.

yes, a point well taken indeed. I am in big trouble.

PS 3 Slim Australian pricing and spec

The PS 3 Slim is released today at Gamescom as rumoured and it will be on sale on September 1st for 299 USD

Update: I juz went to EB games in Melbourne Central earlier today and can confirm that they will have the PS 3 Slim in stock by September 3rd for AUD 499.

. It will have no backward compatibility, 2 USB ports instead of 4, tactile buttons instead of touch, matte logo instead of gloss, about 50% slimmer but does not come with HDMI cable (which is a big boo) and you cant install a Linux OS on it. It will have a larger HDD as standard which is 120 GB.

It is now available for pre-order in the US (once again sadface) at major retailers and websites such as Amazon.com, Kmart, and FYE. Germany, Saturn is selling it as well.

All in all beside the apparent size drops, the current crop of PS 3 to me is still a better buy, especially at the current price. Unless the lack of space is making you think of the slim and you like the look of it, there is little reason to buy the slim.

Here are some links to round-up this PS 3 slim summary

PS 3 Slim Unboxing (Kotaku)

PS 3 Slim SPecs

Melbourne’s pictures!

La Trobe St view towards Docklands

This is my collection of pictures i took while exploring melbourne with my trusty LX-3. Most of the pictures i posted on Facebook before, but the pics in here are the full-resolution pictures. The files are about 3-4 mb each.

A day in the State Library

Was studying for my GMAT test and then got bored and took some pictures.

Click on the images below to download High Resolution Images.