Results tagged “personal”

On Sunday morning of 15th July, when I got up from my bed and walked straight to my personal computer (PC) desktop, and I woke the PC up from its sleep. For 4 years old of my computer as I bought in 2003, I never seen anything like this one before: the warning message appears, "You are running very low on virtual memory..." and there are dozens and dozens of pop-up windows appear all over the desktop screen. Once I knew in my mind, my computer is infected with adware, spyware or virus. So, I decide to use those tools to clean out, reboot, and I am still get the same problem few hours later. Repeat, Clean and Rinse. It keep looping and it never stops. I puzzled and I went ahead to investigate to find how malicious code got through my Anti-virus program (AV). My computer is getting worse and worse slow down, and I have to wait for 5 minutes to get window open by clicking the icon.

In few minutes, I quickly found the problem: The AV auto-updates connection is broken. That is why I can't get new info of new virus to prevent, and it got into my computer to mess around. The most important - I declare not going any login system (user/password to access email, etc) on web browser or my PC computer, the main concern is my computer infected with malicious code might read as I type the password to steal the information.

Now, here are my two options to take action: To wipe out the malicious by googling how to do so, OR format my computer. The easy and lazy answer is to format my computer because my computer is 4 years old, and never had those PC formatted before. It's going to be very long and unpleasant week to start all over again.

Monday, July 16, 2007:
- Clean out the My Documents folder to back-up: documents, images, and important files (such as projects) into secondary hard drive. Even, I saved my favorite XP themes (such as desktop background, fonts, etc.)
- Export the bookmarks from Firefox and Internet Explorer

Tuesday, July 17, 2007:
- Formatted C: drive.
- Installed Windows XP operating system.
- Reboot.
- Installed Windows Service Pack 2 (thank god it's comes from CD, not download from Windows Update)
- Reboot.
- Downloaded & Installed few critical Windows Update patches.
- Reboot.
- Downloaded & Installed huge Windows Updates, patched 81 items for 65.1 MB.
- Reboot.
- Checked remaining Windows Updates, patched another two items.
- Reboot.
- Installed AV and updated AV auto-updates.
- Downloaded & Installed Windows Defender.
- Downloaded & Installed Firefox 2.0 and AIM 5.9 with AIM middle_man plug-in.
- Installed Microsoft Office Professorial Edition 2003 and its critical updates.
- Installed Microsoft IntelliPoint to recognize my IntelliExplorer 2.0 mouse.
- Installed HP All-in-One Printer and its software to recognize to connect my printer.
- Reboot.
- Installed HP All-in-One software updates.
- Reboot.
- Installed security updates for HP All-in-One software.
- Reboot.
- Installed Canon software to recognize to connect my digital camera.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007
- Downloaded and installed Google Talk.
- Downloaded and installed Google Earth. (my favorite, can't live without it)
- Installed Firefox Extensions: Colorzilla, del.icio.us Bookmarks, Firebug, Tab Mix Plus and Web Developer
- Downloaded and installed WinZip.
- Downloaded and installed WinRAR.
- Downloaded and installed Flickr Uploadr.
- Downloaded PuTTY (one of best application for telnet and SSH client)

Thursday July 19, 2007
- Installed Adobe Photoshop 7.
- Installed Macromedia MX Studio.
- Installed Sony B Recorder Gold. (for burn CD/DVD)
- Reboot.
- Installed Paintshop Pro 9.
- Installed Microsoft Publisher 2002.

Now, you get the idea the length of my spare time to start all over again.. Now, XP is running as fresh as fast as new, can you imagine that XP had forced me to boot 9 times during 3-day rebuilding my PC after I come home from my work during weekday.

Yup, I am web developer. I write programming languages, debugging, testing and checking my code vulnerabilities on the web browser, so these can understand. I am full-time job responsible to have intranet web running in my department inside big corporation. I enjoyed doing that, this is my career. The web times have evolved rapidly if not weeks or months; I had so much stuff to learn Web 2.0 infinity.

Beside web developer at my work, I spend my own quality time of my pastime for my pleasure. Hanging out with my folks during special events. I suck over my time to play Wii at home, and DS on the road. I am swinging golf course to ease my stress, gathering the Deaf folks to play Texas Hold’em poker at clubhouse or host in their house on weekends. I am kickin’ my habits to eat healthy foods and do some exercising. This is 2007.

I felt that I am turning down to spend my time to do freelance web work at home. I felt so sick and tired that I had to sit my flat ass on the chair, stare in front of monitor to do coding at my home. From now on, I declared myself that I am no longer developing my projects, such as Deaf Faceroll.

Also I forgot to mention, I do blog here. What? I find myself posting far less frequently these days on this very blog here for my 4 years. I felt that I have fallen into blogging trap where you start to feel as if I have to write a very long and involved essay in order to post my blog. Go read through my blog archives, I was twittering long ago, but somewhere along the way, I decided that if I need to say something, I should think first. Bad, bad idea – that kind of thinking could kill my time to write a blog!

Now, what is my problem? My biggest enemy is timing. I want to have my time management being as my life to be happy, happy.

End of story. What’s next for me? I still do enjoy blogging right here in very daveynin's thing...

I saw the cool and fun stuff in Flickr: whatsinyourbag tag, so I decided to spread three different things to post there: Nintendo Gameboy & DS Series, camera portable carrying bag and Powerbook portable carrying bag. It took me almost a hour to do all three.

Click an image above to see the Flickr image including notes on the objects I own. I enjoyed most of the time for doing that.

A gal named Stacey sent me an AIM for her homework - she is doing a her interview with me about my life as deafness:

Mrs. Interview (6:15:28 PM): David? Hi, this is Stacey. I am a hearing student at Okaloosa-Walton College in Florida, now in my second semester of ASL. First, please let me say how much I enjoyed your website. I will admit that for many years I was unaware about Deaf culture until taking this class. I would like to have an interview with you.
daveynin (6:15:36 PM): yeah, i am here.
daveynin (6:16:03 PM): yes, sure go ahead.
Mrs. Interview (6:16:10 PM): First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I basically would like to ask you about your life- your family, your school life, and your social life to try and understand Deaf culture a little better. Please forgive me, I know I still have a lot to learn about Deaf culture and ASL, and will try not to get too personal or step out of line, but if I do, please tell me! In return, please feel free to ask me anything about myself!
daveynin (6:17:08 PM): okay. sure.
daveynin (6:17:23 PM): what do u want to ask me to get started for the first question?
Mrs. Interview (6:17:41 PM): I have read your bio on your website, and understand you were diagnosed at 5 months old. Can you tell me how you became deaf?
daveynin (6:18:25 PM): normally, my parents didn't know that i am deaf when I was 5 months old. they believed that i am born-deaf. Since I am born, they did not take a tests on audiology on my ear -- the doctors were saying that I am perfect normal baby until my parents suspected that I didn't wake up from sleeping -- during loud noise at our house.
daveynin (6:19:49 PM): that is how they found me as deaf.
Mrs. Interview (6:19:58 PM): Oh I see. Do you have any other family members that are deaf?
daveynin (6:20:41 PM): no, I'm the only first deaf in family generations.
Mrs. Interview (6:21:03 PM): Do you have any brothers or sisters?
daveynin (6:22:01 PM): yes, I have two oldest brothers. No sister. After my dad remarried, we had four oldest step-brothers. No step-sister again! That brings the total of six brothers.
Mrs. Interview (6:22:17 PM): wow!! that must be fun!
Mrs. Interview (6:23:04 PM): Was it difficult for your oldest brothers to communicate with you?
daveynin (6:24:30 PM): yes. my brothers are seven and five years old away from my age. Since childhood, we hardly talk each other. My second brother mostly gesture with ASL mixed with "home sign language", u call "HSL"
Mrs. Interview (6:25:17 PM): I see, yes I have heard of HSL. At what age did you learn ASL?
daveynin (6:26:12 PM): lol I can't remember. let me ask my dad.
Mrs. Interview (6:26:18 PM): lol
daveynin (6:27:41 PM): My dad can't remember too. he guessed least 2 years old of age
Mrs. Interview (6:28:57 PM): wow, thats great! I also see from your bio that you were in mainstream school from K-6 and the at a school for the Deaf from 7-12 grades. How were those experiences for you?
daveynin (6:31:06 PM): It was pretty ugly. My parents took me to mainstream. I wasn't happy that time since I am profoundly deaf, and difficult for me to become hard-of-hearing, which I unable to speak with my voices. I have problems with final year at mainstream through my life -- education and having a hearing friends to socialize. Because we really don't communicate well. We usually write down the paper what they're saying.
Mrs. Interview (6:32:18 PM): Did you like the school for the Deaf better then?
daveynin (6:33:23 PM): after I begged my dad to go school f/t Deaf since I first heard that, and I transferred to there and I am very happy -- they have deaf friends which I can easily communicate with into deaf culture.
Mrs. Interview (6:35:04 PM): :-) Good to know that! What about college? I see that you went to a Community College. Did you use interpreters there?
daveynin (6:36:30 PM): yes. I went there for 3 years at commuity college. My dad want me to go there since they can't afford me to go A plus universities such as Gallaudet University and National Technical Institue f/t Deaf.
daveynin (6:37:15 PM): I passed them to earn associate degree in three years. Yet again, I am still not happy attending community college due to lack of deaf students there.
Mrs. Interview (6:38:18 PM): 3 years! thats great! I am still working on mine! I can understand why you wouldn't be happy there.
daveynin (6:38:30 PM): yeah.
Mrs. Interview (6:39:18 PM): Did you finish at Rochester?
daveynin (6:40:22 PM): Yes, I transferred to RIT for final four years of college.
daveynin (6:40:50 PM): there are large number of deaf students at NTID/RIT, which I am very happy with that my life at RIT.
Mrs. Interview (6:41:09 PM): that's great!
daveynin (6:41:30 PM): I graduated there in Feburary 2004 as official date. Earned Bachelor's Degree of Science in Information Technology.
Mrs. Interview (6:41:56 PM): Wonderful! And now you are working?
daveynin (6:43:40 PM): After February 2004, I am unemployed. I also have freelance web work -- worked with two projects and earn little money for that. I am still looking the full-time career job until October 2004 I finally got full-time, permanent and career job. I am very happy with it ever since.
Mrs. Interview (6:44:19 PM): very good! I was very impressed with your website. Did you do that yourself?
daveynin (6:46:04 PM): yep, all of them are hard-coded HTML I made myself. that is why my major is web developer in Information TEchnology. I do design website, coding the web application.
Mrs. Interview (6:47:38 PM): wonderful! I am not so good on the computer myself. AIM, e-mail and surfing the internet is about the best I can do!
daveynin (6:48:01 PM): yeah, I understand. I do the same thing in my daily basis
Mrs. Interview (6:49:17 PM): It seems from your website that you have many friends and a good social life, that the Deaf community seems to be a big part of that.
daveynin (6:51:01 PM): yes. there are lot of deaf clubs, deaf events around Pittsburgh in my hometown. I am committee for DPHH in Pittsburgh. DPHH stands for Deaf Professonial Happy Hour. This event takes once a month in selected favorite locations around inside and outside Pittsburgh area.
daveynin (6:51:14 PM): You can find the website for that, http://www.dphhpgh.com. I designed this webpage.
Mrs. Interview (6:52:31 PM): thank you for the website, I will surely look at it! I saw the pictures from some of these happy hours! looks like a lot of fun! Also, I have to go.
daveynin (7:16:48 PM): bye, Stacey.
Mrs. Interview (7:16:53 PM): bye, David

I enjoyed the time to have an interview with her. I asked her how she found me -- what is the name search engine use to find in my website, and it's MSN Search, she used the word term in search field: deaf chat rooms. It can be found in 3rd page, 3 down.

Hmm, intersting. Who's next?

210?!? My normal weight was 195 from last week's weight check-in. That explains why I ate so much turkey yesterday. Today the day after Thanksgiving, I am going to do whole x-mas shopping for my family. Walk, line up, walk, carry heavy objects, walk, stand and walk. All of those I am doing for my x-mas shopping to keep me in shape, and I could bring my weight back to normal.

What did I ate Thanksgiving dinner yesterday? Last year's Thanksgiving feast is always same, except Pepsi for Coca Cola.

TGIBF: Thank God, It’s Black Friday, is very special day for business, at least it is non-holiday.

I have been waiting for long time…..

Yes, you heard it. I am now employment as a Business System Analyst in Mellon Information Services Department. It is located in downtown Pittsburgh - there is a picture of a building in my Flickr, take a good look at it.

I received the email from Mellon last Monday morning (September 27th), at first; I saw the email subject line: “Mellon Offer”. I have a good feeling about this, and I opened this email in my Outlook – they asked me to call Mellon Human Resource. During afternoon, I called them through video relay service (VRS) by using videophone, and they asked me to offer the job for this position. I smiled and quickly respond them, YES!

Finally, I have a new career job that I have been waiting this for long time in two months since I had interview back in July.

I'm full of smiles.

Today is the new day of the month, October. It is one of my most favorite month. I have to remind you, it is not about Halloween.

Why?

Because of my birthday. 12th day of the month.

Also, 12 is my favorite number; wore this uniform number for my old high school sports -- soccer, basketball and track.

Good mood into Mild weather.

World Series.

Fall is also my favorite season.

Top of best games contenders tend to come out in fall season.

Also, keep an eye on October 4th; I will make a big announcement. (I'm sure some of you know what I actually doing on Monday.)

What I have been doing lately:

Last 7 days today:
• Went interview at Mellow Bank for second time
• went bowling with deaf gathering on Saturday night
• watched Olympics
• spend less time doing web work: WPSD Alumni Association
• read the book to learn about new topics related to web terminology

Forwarding the next 7 days:
• Awaiting to hear from Mellon Bank for career job
• Continue looking the job
• Going deaf friends’ wedding this Saturday
• Continue working WPSDAA website

Personality cocktail, daveynin, is that or that is me?

Meg asked me her questions about the experiences being a deaf blogger and Information Technology work environment, and I am happy to write my personal comments on her site, and I thought myself I could copy & paste my comments here:

That's all folks.

Meg is very interested to finding deaf bloggers out there somewhere, and it would be very interesting to meeting new people of deaf bloggers. I second Justin a support for encouraging deaf to sign up in Meg!

The barcode value for a 26 year old male, that lives in United States, is 76 inches height and weights $9.43. Barcode Yourself!

Via Weez Blog.

Interesting, I have been into twenty-one states all of my life. The map below from World66, I visted and produced a map of the US with those states in red shown below.

Since three months of my full-time career jobless, I am looking for the full-time web-developer fields around small and larger companies, and I find more frustrating myself to find the job field and requirement which fits my needs.   Many job fields require having the web developer include the database experience such as SQL, ASP and ASP.NET.   I have little or none of these.

I need to have experience the web database to gain my valuable knowledge, so I found the classes relating to web database system and e-commerce applications at Community College of Allegheny Country, which could raise me the opportunity to find the general job fields of web developer & designer, application programmer, programmer analyst and web database system.

My step brother, Walter bought a late Christmas gift for me today.   It's Smart Mug 2, a digital & programmable mug product.   This product includes:

• Four preset temperatures
• Programmable to set any temperature
• Thermal Insulated, keeps beverages hot or cool
• Digital LCD display
• Safety cap at 170 F degrees
• Removable washable inner liner
• 12V Socket plug and cord

Hmm, A junk $70 mug?   This product is fittable for traveling in the car, morning rush traffic or cold weather.   I do not know if I like it, and might use it in future.

Take a first look my bedroom.   Bear with me, this image quality wasn't that best.

This program was made by The Panorama Factory, it is a panoramic stitching program for Windows.   It creates high-quality panoramas from a set of overlapping digital images.   The Panorama Factory transforms (warps) the images so that they can be joined seamlessly into panoramas whose fields of view can range up to 360 degrees.   This program supports hotspot editing, web page creation, and QTVR, IVR and PTViewer!

Fontifer lets you to write your own handwriting into a computer font.   I grabbed the template, print it out, write my own handwriting on template, scan the template to save a gif image and send it to Fontifer. It took me less than a minute to get a font file, and installed it on my computer. Here what it looks like:

This font size is around 80.   Bad, bad quality.

UPDATE (1/10/04 11:47 pm): Also some people does not get what it (the font handwriting) said.   I typed this: "daveynin thing".

What I got presents for Christmas:

• Three Lottery tickets, 1 out of 3 winner for one dollar
• Two Purtan silk tie
• A Crazy Horse casual shirt
• A thick, soft and long winter sock
• 'A Job Searching Online for Dummies' book
• 'GAME PLAN: The Insider’s Guide to Breaking In and Succeeding in the Computer and Video Game Business' book
• One $10 K-Mart gift card
• One $40 Borders gift card
• One $20 dollar bill from Christmas card
• One Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for Gameboy Advance
• One Gameboy Game Case
• Four carpet floor mats for car
• 1 Grooming & Care Box Set
• UPDATE: Wireless IntelliMouse® Explorer
• UPDATE: Two loose jeans

Do you think these are the best presents I ever had?

What am I doing for the last time

last cigarette: 2 years ago at party.
last car ride: 1 hour ago
last kiss: October 13th 2003
last library book checked out: May 2003 at RIT
last book read: The First Quarter by Steven Kent
last beverage drank: milk
last food consumed: meatloaf
last tv show watched: Headline News
last time showered: last night
last shoes worn: Nike basketball shoes
last item bought: Mario Kart: Double Dash for GameCube
last soda drank: Coke, 3 days ago.
last key used: front door key
last sleep: 2 a.m.
last time in love: now and forever
last time hugged: my mom, last week
last chair sat in: played GameCube
last webpage visited: http://www.ebaumsworld.com/family.html

I am currently playing video games, one of my longest hobbies in my life for more than fifteen years since my first introduction to Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1987.

Few days ago, I visited my friend house with their four friends, and we played Super Smash Bros Melee and Mario Golf on GameCube, and these great games never bored me down. I felt replay is the most important for fun factor, popularity, longevity, game play, and true original.

I remember the memories in past fifteen years that I played the game more than hundred times, play against each other (party) often, and completed the game repeatedly in various console and PC platform:

One-player games
Tetris   (Gameboy)
Mario Golf   (Gameboy Color, GameCube)
Adventures of Lolo 1 & 2   (NES)
Super Mario 64   (Nintendo 64)
Super Mario Bros. 3   (NES)
The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past   (Super Nintendo)
Advance Wars   (Gameboy Advance)
Crazy Taxi   (Dreamcast)
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2   (Dreamcast)
Super Punch Out!   (Super Nintendo)

Off-line Multiplayer games
Mario Kart 64   (Nintendo 64)
Goldeneye 007   (Nintendo 64)
Tecmo Bowl   (NES)
Street Fighter 2   (Super Nintendo)
Super Smash Bros Melee   (GameCube)

On-line multiplayer games
Starcraft   (PC)
Quake   (PC)

The year I was born.

I visited Jake’s 8BitJoystick blog article about the events happening in 1977, the year of Jake’s birthday.   He is four days younger than me.   I really like their article.   Anyway, why don’t I make the fun entry just like what Jake did?   Here I go to see what happening in the world in 1977…

Who’s Who’s…
• President: Jimmy Earl Carter Jr. (D)
• Vice President: Walter F. Mondale (D)
• Elvis Presley, “The King,” died at age 42
• Along other celebrity deaths: Charles Chaplin, Bing Crosby, Guy Lombardo, Grocho Marks.

News Events…
• Carter urged 65 degrees as max heat in home to ease energy crisis
• Comedian Freddie Prinze died of self-inflicted gunshot wound
• Nixon said he “let the American people down” by lying in Watergate
• Carter gave Coretta Scott King Meal of Freedom in honor of husband
• “Son of Sam” Killer arrested in NYC
• Unemployment drops to 7.7%
• Alex Haley got special Pulitzer for “Roots” along with nonfiction best sellers book

Sports…
• College Football: Notre Dame
• Superbowl XII: Dallas Cowboys 27, Denver Broncos 10
• NBA: Portland over Philadelphia 76ers, 4 to 2
• NCAA basketball: Marquette 25-7
• World Series: New York Yankees over Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-2

Entertainment…
• Oscar Best Picture: Annie Hall
• Oscar Best Actor: Richard Dreyfuss, “The Goodbye Girl”
• Oscar Best Actress: Diane Keaton, “Annie Hall”
• The “Love Boat” with Gavin MacLeod premieres
• “Star Wars: The New Hope” movie premieres
• #1 TV Favorites: Laverne and Shirley
• Emmy Best Comedy: All in the Family (CBS)
• Emmy Best Drama: The Rockford Files (NBC)

Prices…
• Postage Stamp: 13 cents
• Milk (half gallon): $1.68
• Gas (gallon): 62 cents
• Economy car: $5,829
• Minimum wage: $2.30

Games…
• ‘Golden Age’ of second generation of video games glory begins
• Bushnell opens ‘Pizza Time Theater’, later changed to Chuck E. Cheese
• Atari launched Atari Video Computer (VCS, later known as the Atari 2600) in October for $249
• Shigeru Miyamoto the creator of Mario and Zelda joins Nintendo

References:
Via birthday card - Kalan Cards
Via book - Phoenix: The Fall & Rise of Videogames Second Edition, by Leonard Herman
Via website – 1970’s Flashback and Brief History of Home Video Games