& so there was, the closing of the Torino 2006 winter olympics in Italy, marking another entry in the olympic history. It was a good event, especially notable are the cross country skiing, speed/figure skating & adrenaline rushing blobsled events. Not to mention the rather interesting bialthon & curling event. Too bad Singapore is a tropical country, (with a real obvious lack of snow on the equator, together with the sports which goes with it that is). The thing which always set the conventional olympics & winter olympics apart are the rather precieved “unique sports” which we people in the tropics are often ailenated too, maybe thats why I personally find the winter olympics more interesting to watch. But otherwise the olympic spirit & sportsmanship will always live on no matter the event. Its just the olympic ambience. With that, here are the final results of the games:

1. Germany - 11 Gold, 12 Silver, 6 Bronze, Total 29
2. United States - 9 Gold, 9 Silver, 7 Bronze, Total 25
3. Austria - 9 Gold, 7 Silver, 7 Bronze, Total 23
4. Russian Fed. - 8 Gold, 6 Silver, 8 Bronze, Total 22
5. Canada - 7 Gold, 10 Silver, 7 Bronze, Total 24
Full List

Till then, we will meet the winter games again in 2010, Vancouver.

IT SHOW 2006 returns as the No.1 Largest Exhibition ever held in Singapore occupying 3 entire levels of the Suntec City Exhibition Centre, sprawling over 7 Entire halls of more than 270,000 Sqft.

9th - 12th March 2006
Entire Suntec City Exhibition Centre
Level 3
Level 4 (Halls 401 - 404)
Level 6 (Halls 601 - 603)
12 noon to 9pm Daily
FREE ADMISSION

The interesting thing in answer to large overcrowded exhibition halls are the new 4m wide walkways spanning all 7 exhibition halls, that will definately be a welcome, no more bumper to bumper human traffic!

Official Site

Due to be out in around Q3 this year (despite rumors of a December 7th release). It will be out in time when intel launches their Core Duo 64-bit Merom processors. This new generation operating system, the successor to WinXP will be launched primarily as a 64-bit OS (though 32-bit versions will be released too), allowing better & faster computing power for the future (with at least 8x the increased computing boundaries of 32-bit systems, e.g from 4GB RAM to 64GB RAM in the future). So a general advice now is not to buy any 32-bit PC or laptop now or in 6 months time, it will be 2 generations old.

With that, here is the juice:

Vista Starter Edition - A low budget “crippled” version, also MS answer to piracy.
Vista Home Basic Edition - Like WinXP Home
Vista Home Premium Edition - Like Media Center Edition, with TabletPC functionality
Vista Small Business Edition - Designed for small business without IT staffs.
Vista Professional Edition - Similar to WinXP Pro.
Vista Enterprise Edition - Designed for large institutions.
Vista Ultimate Edition - Everything Pro & Home has plus extra features.

Do note that in euporean markets, Vista Home Basic Edition & Vista Professional Edition will be labelled as Vista Home Basic Edition N & Vista Professional Edition N. Both will ship without Windows media player because of antitrust rulings against MS in the Europe.

Extended A1 subscriptions, free music downloads, free movie downloads, Online Spotlight and entertainment software, preferred product support, and custom themes are the currently rumorred extra features to be included in the Vista Ultimate editon.

Hehe on a hindsight, hopefully Fujitsu-Siemens will release a Merom 64-bit Tablet PC by year end, cause I had been following up with their tablets since last August & they are by so far the best to fit my needs. Would be upgrading just in time when both Vista & Merom are released then.

Update! January 2007

After a store roundup, Windows Vista OS is available now in Singapore selling in SLS at these following rates!

Vista Home Basic Edition (OEM DVD Edition) - $145
Vista Home Premium Edition (OEM DVD Edition) - $185
Vista Business Edition (OEM DVD Edition) - $229
Vista Ultimate Edition (OEM DVD Edition) - $309

MS Office 2007:
Home and student 2007 - $189
Office Basic 2007 - $269
Office Small Business Enterprise - $369
Office Pro 2007 - $489

The difference between the regular boxed version (you find in larger software stores) and the OEM version is mainly the packaging, price (up to 2x more for the boxed version) but what you get software wise is all the same. The OEM version is meant to be bundled with new computers.

Always remember, stop piracy, buy original.

Taken from the NTU Union Site, particularly how to check whether your mail-in registration is successful.

All entries should be made on official registration forms or photocopies of the original form. Incomplete forms will not be entertained.

The Closing date for registration is still 3rd March 2006 (Event day 12th March 2006)

All other mail registrants can check our website for confirmation of participation 3 days prior to the event.

Participants should call and enquire, if his/her name has not been posted online 3 days prior to the event.

Registration is on a first come first serve basis and will close once the quota for each category is reached.

Any enquiries can be made to sc-nvm06@ntu.edu.sg or by contacting Jasmine at 97953001 or Kenneth at 93830543.

Do note however, that there is no reciept on the mail/cheques you sent to them its only through the online listings 3 days prior to the event where you will know whether you are registered or not.

Had some spare relaxation time before my paper today, went around surfing for stuffs to keep my mind free & clean & chanced upon these few funny articles.. haha hilarious!

Top 50 things to do in a Final Exam (If ya gonna fail it anyway)
You’re A College Burnout If…
College Seniors vs. Freshmen
Stay Out Of The Dorms

The 3 links above opens in new window, enjoy!

Why must the dumb school place this semester’s billing period smacked where our exams are? As if we don’t have enough things on our minds already. Even it’s a good strategy to get people to pay up or get booted from the exam hall, I believe such payment matters should be best dealt at the begining of semester & not the end where time should be better spent studying & not doing payment matters at the bank!

CCA point check: 98 points accumulated so far (as in SAS) for semester 1 & 2 year 1, so thats umm 2xA merit grade?

Tomorrow will be my first paper, Engineering mathematics, had been doing quite some revision & mugging on the past semester papers. Mr Eric our lecturer said that EM1 is definately a favourite for distinctions in our class (so as he thought) & he is trying to push for a great number of distinction recommendations for us, that if we get an A grade at least. Frankly its seriously quite an easy paper as compared to ‘A’ Level Maths C. But lets not get too complacent here, however, its ultimately a distinction I want for this paper, as I guess hard work will definately pay off. & though I personally more geared towards studying smart than studying hard, its the exam-smart strategies you have which places you apart from the rest. All looks good for tomorrow’s paper here I come!

Wohoo, big fat meaty crab claw! Dinner yesterday was at East Coast Seafood area, mainly because mum & dad had a sudden urge for long-lost seafood & I guess they think I needed a good feast after my MR X-Country Nationals. Thinking about it had had been years since we came here & eat. Contrary to that almost 10 years back where we always frequent the place with our cousins for almost bi-monthly sumptuous seafood dinners, not to mention cycling around east coast & building castles on the beach on such gatherings when we were kids. Now everyone’s all grown up all busy with work & stuff, yes those were the days.

And so there were we, or me on a very hot saturday afternoon in Mac ritchie after lunch for the SAA National X-country championships. The rest of the team was late but I was there early around 1pm to check out on the admin stuffs & such anyway, such as the availablity of safety pins.. duh. It is also then where we are informed the 10km mens open will be cut down to 5.3km due to a landslide & muddy grounds on the 10km round route. So as I thought even the 5.3km trail we ran on was still soaking wet after the late afternoon rain, nature’s answer to the scorching early afternoon sun. & a good way to stain & get my new DS-Trainers muddy.. haiz too bad I don’t have a trail shoes & only my DS-trainer road shoe to run, I kept slipping about 10-20% of my strides due to the lack of grip & slipperyness the trail was after the rain, resulting in a more demanding journey, physically & mentally, not to mention a longer time through the trail then expected.

Knowing the best way I can pull up in the race is the concrete path part, where my road shoe will have the advantage, that is if I can keep my mud soaked shoes dry to perform optimally then. & while everyone was just ploughing through the mud & water like a bulllock on steriods, I was very much more conservative, running along the more solid drier sides & avoiding puddles, at a compromise of speed of course (with the expection of splashing mud water from other runners arghh! I am trying to keep my shoe clean here dude!) I left the trail at a dissapointing watch timing if 12minutes only to start my game of overtaking people on the concrete road path of the race. Overall I overtook the roughly the same number of people who overtook me in the trail, with the exception of some rather faster ones resulting in a rough maintained position with the one I started off with, I finished in a rather disappointing but satisfactory 23mins 22secs on close to the runner’s 50-60th percentile & 40-50% percentile in my Team. Thats all for sports this 2 weeks, this will be the last event till the end of my semester exams, next on the lineup will be the NTU vertical marathon at Suntec City (12th March 2006).

Classes this week are as empty as the bus I was on today to school mmm, I guess I can even skip school tomorrow, no point going for class when you’ve already sucked the teachers dry of questions only to sit in a quiet class face to face with your lecturer & crickets chirping continously in the background.

And there we have it by wednesday today. GEMS & CRS modules cleared! ontop of the Workshop practice modules. Now I can try (wheee!) dump these notes outta view. Scored 95& for my workshop practical so thats 52.25 marks of the 55% weighage as a whole, plus 100% for my last class test, I can see a total predicted score of 95.25% for this module. Hopefully can get a distinction for it. Other than that, CRS seems cool, & I felt I did quite a good argumentative response in the final written test. Whether I can get a distinction for Character development is still uncharted, but a high chance I am not betting too much on either. So lets not count the chickens before they are hatched & carry on with the other 4 modules left in the semester…

Undergraduate admissions for NUS & NTU are open! Don’t know should I even try applying again this year, $20 total for registration charges ani’t cheap too, but haha me ain’t no cheapo too. Furthermore I am coping relatively well & enjoying the CCA points & progress in Poly, will it be “a break” if I leave poly to uni? I guess any wise soul will say that its no harm to try to register for the 06/07 of under grad admintrations anyway, haiz.
Update: Registered already for both NUS & NTU… for the 4th year in a roll already…
now gotta hunt down an atm to pay the registrations fees….

Check this out man, multi-touch screens, will minority report styled screens be a thing of reality for mainstream consumers now? Neato!

Exams are just around the corner, in fact the first paper is in in less than 2 weeks time. Though I more or less studied for the papers already, my current state will only allow at least a pass or the most a low B, I guess its the hard work which counts for the As or Distinctions. Last but not least to truely shine as top 5% on the board of Honours again. I aim to obtain at least 4 Distinctions this semester, either maintaining the record from the previous Semester or to score even better, moreover there will be no grade less than an A for me. An obession? maybe… & maybe thats what 2 years in Junior College made me I guess, despite my long break in the Army. Furthermore I really really want the scholarship study grant this year, so got to work hard for it. By mid next week I will be able to clear the last papers of 3 modules I am taking now, thus bringing down the load signifcantly, them being:

Workshop (Engineering) - Practical last day, online exam
Critical Reasoning Skills - Argumentative essay writing test
GEMS - VisualBasic.NET ICA3 exams

After that, I will have 4 written papers starting 22nd Feb to 1st March

Engineering Mathematics - 22nd Feb
C++ Programming - 24th Feb
Engineering Materials - 27th Feb
Electrical Technology - 1st March

Should be going into the advanced stages of “Mug Mode” already. With that, I will be cutting down training to twice a week, (gym on Wednesday & Macritchie X-country competition on Saturday), otherwise its plain study, no more usual Sunday swim next week. I guess you won’t see many blog updates too till the end of Semester Exams.
Wish me luck!

& so there was, fireworks at the esplanade promenade at around 9pm yesterday, signifying the end of the chinese new year period… Putting aside the oranges, red packet or goodies (with the exceptional need to finish leftovers!) & move on into the year of the dog.

Mum invited cousin gordon, his family, not to mention us again to Walton International’s 2nd buffet gathering in a fortnight. Held at One-Fullerton, we not only got the luxury of a buffet with movie screenings, but being able to view the fireworks unobstructed through a clear air-conditioned equivalent of a balcony as well. The gathering this time round is more packed then the last. Mum even managed to get her team leader to give us a short pep talk & introduction into the whole idea of the rather lucrative land banking business, a wise old man he is & he shared plenty on his experience in the line & how he made the millions & such.

Ahha forget about the recent 10 million dollar 4D man! If you want the greens, you work for it. Only big time that is!

On a side note, the SAF finally paid me my marksman bonus for last year’s range (2nd year of service), only that it’s one year late. Typical of SAF administration… Screwy… Now if they can only remember to pay the marksman bonus I obtained the year before (1st year of service).