For those TF2 fans, the day of the major update has arrived, with a new game mode called payload in the goldrush map (very similar to thehappycow style tf2 maps) and many new spy-friendly fixes and misc updates on top of the new “loadout” menu for the medic with 39 new achievements. Here is the low down on what is up:

Pop on the update by simply logging into Steam and the update will kick in automatically.

Here is a video of the new goldrush map and medic weapons explained in the video on the click courtesy from gamevideos:

Though I have a whack more for continental cars more than Japanese tuner cars, the recent formula tuner drift held on April 27 was a sold out crowd at the Changi exhibition center, with Team USA’s Ryuji Miki taking the crown in his RX-7. You can check out more on their site at www.formuladrift.com.sg.

So the Japanese who started the drift craze will more or less be the naturals in the field (with the exception of tofu delivery on Akina), here is a small short video of zen in appreciation to just what they do as a pastime back in Japan ontop of the quickest way of turning rubber into smoke:

Here is quite a cool dance by Mao Murakami an 11-year-old in “Polysics- I My Me Mine”. Apparently she is called Strong Machine 2 which her group generally call themselves as part of a Japanese dance group focused on robotic dances.

Shes good, especially doing the robot at 0:58, I think she can even trash many of us considering how we dance in our clubs (lol), even I can’t dance like that haha!

Whee! Got a letter from my scholarship provider, the Defense Science Technology Agency today congratulating me on being awarded their scholarship! It will include fully paid fees for overseas studies in a top overseas university (as stated in their letter) including accommodation, not to mention all the nitty gritty book and computer fees as well! Woot! Now I just got to get all those enrollment stuffs settled. UK here I come!

Ultimately, this scholarship is what I will be going for. At this point of time looking at all the unopened NUS letters and enrollment packages they had sent over the past weeks, me ponders should I reject the NUS Global Merit Scholarship offer during their last round of interview next month and maybe give someone else more deserving that place.

Well, we’ve seen self parking cars in the Lexus IS series, and Volkwagen with their “Park Assist”, in its Touran, Tiguan, Passat and Passat estate to help drivers parallel park. Now Volkswagen is presenting the next evolution of self parking cars with it’s new “Park Assist Vision”. Now parking a car out of it will definitely turn heads!

Source: VW Release

Following up on the recent lawsuits, unfortunately Virtual Map streetdirectory.com had been denied leave to appeal, so as stated in this press release.

Finally, finally! got my PC up and running at full capabilities, that is of course with an absence of 1-2 days having to deal with unsupported so far my experience with Vista had been a bitter-sweet one, but I guess that is something I will have to live with as Windows XP, though faster have it’s software limitations as well. The last weekend was spent mostly backing up my data, about 400GB odd of work and raw video which took almost a whole day plus and overnight transfer over 4 harddisks before I can free a spare 500GB drive for my PC.

When I finally got vista up and running, Benchmarked my PC 3D Mark 2006 score of about 11600 at stock non-overclocked speeds speeds which is reasonable for a not so high end budget upgrade. Based on future mark’s website other systems based on my similar Quad core processor, single GPU configuration can go up to close of 15k scores when overclocked, but overclocking is something I won’t be doing.

Getting vista to run programs is almost like my experience with trying to install series 60 symbian applications in my phone- It’s horrible! Many of my favorite programs are not compatible and I had to scourge the web for updates and support. Here are some difficulties of “complains” as of date.

• Vista is very slow
  Especially when updating patches after Service pack1 (SP1) it can even take 10-15mins to shutdown. System resources on boot takes up more than 1GB of ram default. True there are registry tweaks here and there and disabling eyecandies, but these are just merely ways round the main problem. Moreover, vista deals with files very messily, leaving alot of fragmented items here and there so that it can index it’s searches faster, defragmenting and putting all these during startup/shutdown adds to the load times.
• Vista folder structure is very different from XP
  You need sometime getting used to the directory structure and how vista stores their files here and there. Gone are the “documents and settings: folders in place of the “Users” folder. I am ok with it if that is the requirement for But as mentioned, it’s not a big flaw but just increases the starting learning curve alittle, especally if you are a user of the previous verisons of windows.
• Lots of software are incompatible with Vista
  My version of Norton internet security 2007 had problems even starting up in Vista, prior to changing to a more reliable antivirus system, I had to make do with my old one as I have few spare licenses still yet to be used. Thankfully, symantec they have an update on their website.
  Vista can still make do with few of my older programs such as MIRC, and Winrar which I brought as older versions, it seems that the more basic the program, the least compatibility problems it have with vista. On top of that, my work and productivity programs like Office all running fine as well.

  On a sidenote, DirectX9.0 is not included in Vista, even in SP1 so you need to install it if you have older DirectX9 specific programs and games.

• Lots of drivers are incompatible with Vista
  This is my biggest headache. There were quite alot of trail and errors trying to get vista to work with old XP driver. I had to junk my old WinTV Tuner card as it caused bluescreen errors upon shutdown, so no watching TV and FM radio on my PC from now on.

  Moreover, I initially had a hard time get my old Creative Audigy soundcard to work in Vista, even the official Creative drivers are so so horrible in getting it done- it didn’t not do a proper job to install the gameport drivers. That where I got some working third drivers from Brazilian programmer Daniel Kawakami, who wrote a Vista support universal package installer and auto-detected my card and installed the required drivers in a charm (contrary to creative official ones having to manually select your model). But such drivers will be quite shortlived if you were to follow the sate of lawsuits at the moment, so as he said after being threatened by Creative:

  Creative purposely modified the Audigy drivers to disable some features when Vista is detected and also purposedly introduced some bugs to prevent some XP utilities from running.

  I did a complete analysis of the driver to determine where all the checks and bugs were introduced and started modding…

  Creative drivers had long notoriously been horrible, not to mention their super-paranoia bundled programs available on their website only as updates (you cannot download full programs there, even if it requires the hardware to run). The thing I do not understand is that why must they eat into and condemn 3rd party drivers which actually work while theirs don’t?

  Moreover, the fact that they are purposely not supporting their older products to get people to buy their newer ones is a big no-no to me, in terms of customer relations with respect to PR and marketing. I am starting to drift further from patronizing Creative soundcards now, they should be rest assured that my next soundcard will definitely not be a Creative one. Patriotism? eat that home-grown slime.

  You can read more of it here

That is all I have to date. Luckily I did not purchase the 64-bit version of vista, or I don’t think I will even be done installing all the crap by now. For the good side, the “Im lovin it” part of vista will definitely be the Aero interface which allows 3D scrolling of windows together with effect. So as I come to know, can be enabled at the quick launch menu or pressing the “app” icon on my Logtitech G3 mouse, wow so at least I am fully utilizing my mouse now! The instant search function is also neat too.

The thing is now after installing all the need MS patches, things are starting to get up to speed. So in the end once you get it all up and running, that is where everything will truely shine. Fired up C&C Kanes Wrath last night and continued my saved campaign, completing all campaign missions on Hard difficulty at the ultra settings and 1920×1200- I am starting to appreciate what I can’t do on my old PC now.

As you know SP graduation attire is very much different than what it was years ago- with a simple white shirt/blouse with black pants/skirt- very much a waiter’s reception we would say, so with the way enroute on “progress”, apparently, a more formal graduation attire and robe is required for the grandulous occasion since last year, this year being the 2nd batch to don it during the day which every poly student dreams for.

Serangoon Broadway is the appointed agent for distribution and management of the attire situated along the outskirts of Bendemeer from Potong Pasir MRT and along Serangoon Road. You can find out more details on the graduation here, together with the directions to get there.

I was there to collect my attire today, slightly ahead of the slot for my course but they were ok with it anyway. The thing is that the staff there do not speak english well, so ok when that is not a big issue, once you are done with all attire given to you based on their recommendations (you can give it a try in their studio), they will start selling you all their photo studio packages and try to get you to commit into placing (assumably non-refundable) deposit for their family studio packages costing $160 for a minutely pathetic photo to $2000 over for their flagship size, with everything, “free, free, free” so as they exclaimed. The most descent package will set you back in the mid of a $1000 over, which I think is where they make from you. The funny thing is that so coincidentally too, today is the last day of the “offer” for big big discounts. I won’t be surprised if every student who visited the place got bombarded with all these sales and to succumb to them too (another family was there as well).

It was quite challenging trying to “smoke out” without pissing them off- it’s harder than you thought once inside, you need to take off your shoes in another studio, so it’s like a barrier and you can’t simply just run off like that. Nevertheless all we all got out one by one and left just with what we only wanted and came for- my rented graduation attire.

Oh yes, on a separate occasion, yesterday’s was my Sree Narayana fund raising flagday for their elderly wellness and daycare centre. It was more of less a morning to afternoon event selling flags around orchard road. The marshals were all active volunteers of the welfare home who all came down to help, even still dressed in their nursing work attire- so it’s quite funny seeing them selling flags on the streets. There were also students as well as few public volunteers including me involved in the event, otherwise they were a very friendly bunch and a pleasant experience working with.