Tues 7 June
Went to the Jetstar site. The first time I tried entering our dates for the search, I got a message about the site being overloaded and please try again. I did so, and got to the next page, allowing me to customise flight times and choose accommodation options. The hotel we wanted to stay at had the same room type listed 3 times, at different prices. I had called Jetstar about this earlier in the day as I'd seen it, and been confused, when researching prices earlier. They had explained that it was the same room type - just if the cheapest price for the room type was already full, you would have to buy the next one up and so on. Following this advice, I chose the cheapest price for the room type offered.

I then tried to click the 'Reviews and Information' link which had worked earlier when I'd been doing the price comparison. This time, I got an exception message:

For the technical minded, you can see that the link from the package configuration page was faulty and did not include a 'hotelId' (bug?). Next, the hotel information page did not check the input parameters at all (bug and security risk) and exploded. Lastly, you can see that the Jetstar site has not been configured for production error messages. Instead, a developer error message was displayed which exposes implementation and technology details to the casual observer (security risk and poor user experience).

Somewhat concerned, I continued with the booking process. Choosing flights worked well, except I did wonder why one of the flight choices was listed as 4 hour duration, but left at 7am and arrived at 10am:

We next entered personal details for me and my wife. We had to try several times to submit the form as there must have been validation rules that our data was not meeting, but no error messages were displayed to help us. We fiddled around with the details we'd entered a bit (different formats for phone numbers etc), and then it finally worked.

Transitioning to the next page was very slow, but eventually came up with a chance to choose seats and travel insurance. My wife was sitting with me at the computer and we decided to choose seats. It was certainly not clear that we would have to pay extra for this. So I went ahead and chose some nice seats near the front of the plane (quick exit seats they were called) and then noticed that this would add an extra ~$64 on to the holiday cost! Realising our mistake, we chose regular seats a little further back. This was still an extra $16 on to the cost of the holiday. We tried everything we could think of to try and de-select our seat choices but could not find a way to do so that would actually stick (you could de-select temporarily but this could not be saved). Somewhat annoyed, we continued with the booking.

Next I entered my credit card details. It turned out there was an extra $30 booking and service charge that suddenly appeared at that point. Not happy but keen to finish the booking process, we next hit the pay button. The site took a while to respond and then reloaded the payment page, showing that there was a balance of $-907.40 with a proceed button below it. Quite a mystery. Had my credit card been charged? Had anything been booked? What did the mysterious $-907.40 mean?

I rang the call centre. Unfortunately it was either overloaded or down and I couldn't even get to the "Press 1 for English..." prompt. I waited 15 minutes and rang again. I left the phone on speaker and went on with other things. I was on hold for 54 minutes before I gave up and went to bed.

Wed 8 June
In the morning, I range the call centre again, and got through in about 20 minutes to the reservations section. I explained the situation to the customer service person and she found my booking. It turned out that flights were booked, the hotel was not booked, and my itinerary was not sent. I explained which hotel was meant to be booked and she went to talk to her supervisor. I was on hold for a further 30 minutes or so with a few other brief questions during this time. She was able to send me the flight itinerary without the hotel which she did. She was unable to help with the hotel booking, but sent an internal request to the holidays section and said they would call me back within 24-48 hours to help with the hotel booking. I asked if I had any assurance that the hotel was booked. She said I didn't have any assurance. I asked if there was any way to make this faster, as I needed to know if I should book my own accommodation. She sounded annoyed and said that there was nothing she could do, it was a different section of the business and she couldn't help me further, just wait for the phone call in 24-48 hours. I did receive a copy of the itinerary for flights without hotel within 24 hours as promised. Meanwhile I had tweeted to @JetstarAirways about the experience so far, and they asked for my booking reference via DM to expedite things.

Thurs 9 June
Finally received a phone call from Jetstar holiday section. The guy said that he had looked into the case and sorted out the hotel booking. Great news! I asked if he could do anything about the $16 seat booking charge from earlier, but he said that it was clearly explained on the site, and he couldn't do anything about it. He promised that the complete itinerary would arrive including the hotel booking within 24 hours and I gave him my email address (not sure why they didn't have it from earlier, I'd already received the flight itinerary via email).

Fri 10 June
Waiting for itinerary. It did not arrive.

Sat 11 June
Wondering what had happened, I rang the call centre again. This time, I didn't go on hold at all and got straight through to a helpful lady that confirmed my email address - it had been entered wrongly. That was probably why I hadn't got an email yet. She fixed the typo in my email address, and I received the complete and correct itinerary within 10 minutes. The booking process was now complete!

Conclusion
A transaction I had expected to take about 20 minutes booking through the site took about 4 days from start to end, including about 2 hours of time on the phone to the call centre. The Jetstar price was still good compared with other options, but the unexpected charges of $16 for choosing seats and $30 for booking fee were a major turn off. The bugs in the site (especially the validation of personal details without showing error messages) must lose many potential customers. The failure of the purchase process which left the customer confused but charged without services being booked was a major issue. The call centre delays were a time waster and the silo-ed nature of the business between flights and holidays made solving problems slower and harder. Jetstar's twitter account was potentially a help in resolving problems.

Post-Holiday Update
Happy to say that the flights and hotel worked well after all the booking was sorted out. Jetstar also upgraded us to a better room at the hotel which was a nice touch.

Also, at high school, I and my fellow geeks spent quite a bit of time writing games in C like the TRON light cycle game, cunningly avoiding copyright violation by calling them NORT. After writing the 2 player version, we moved on to writing simple AIs so that you could play against the computer. Recently going through an old computer's hard disk, I found the code for these. Thanks to the backward comparability features of Windows they still run, although they were written in Borland C/C++ for DOS! Amazing blast from the past.. here's a picture of AI NORT in action:

Recently some of my colleagues recommended two other options:

• Book Depository UK: good prices, free international shipping, fast delivery, but at first glance less books than Amazon
• Booko book price comparison: compares multiple sites including Amazon and BookDepository. Presumably make money using affiliate links from search.

I'll be giving these a go and posting on the experience in future.

At the start of the trip, I went to the DMZ (the "demilitarised zone" at the border with North Korea). It's not very far from Seoul, and is only open to "foreigners" (not Korean citizens). It was quite an interesting place, and not a little scary, with mine fields, tank traps, North Korea soldiers and stories of massacres (including one with an axe, over tree pruning) and previous gun battles over defectors. The high point of the DMZ tour was going to the tunnels dug by North Koreas for invasion and the JSA (joint security area) where I briefly stepped over into North Korean soil. The South Korean guards are all chosen for their size and height and stand in a modified Taekwondo stance. Most places we weren't allowed to take pictures, but here is one of the negotiating table which is half in North and half in South Korea, some protective fencing and the North Korean size of the JSA, including a North Korean soldier.

I also went to see some Dinosaur footprints at Goeje. Quite a find, with an interesting museum as well.

We spent a few days at the end of the trip in Jeju Island, which is Korea's most tropical area. There are a lot of beautiful spots, activities and theme parks spread around the island (which is big enough to need a car but small enough you don't have to drive for too long). There is a tall mountain to climb in the middle (about 20km return, 2km up), and some pleasant beaches as well.

More Korea photos here.

The book outlines one main idea. Find your natural talents and capitalize on these, building them up into strengths. Shape your work and life in ways that use your natural talents, as this will make you more effective, productive and happy. Although anyone can learn anything, people with a natural talent in an area are going to be able to reach a higher level of capability and success. Mitigate your weaknesses by partnering with people who have complementary strengths, developing a support system to help you, improving your skills in the area just enough to stop them from detracting from your strengths or simply stop doing things that play to your weaknesses.

The core concept of playing to your strengths is covered from many angles in the book and with supporting stories of successful people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. There is then a detailed description of each of the strengths that the online personality test can highlight. The last part of the book is interesting and focuses on building organisations which play to people's strengths, management of people with different strengths and some thoughts on the staff review process in organisations.

Overall, the book was a very quick read with low information density. The online test was fun. You can see my results below. I don't think it told me anything too new - I already know that I'm pretty analytical, like to learn, focus strongly on achieving tasks etc. The core idea about playing to and building your strengths does seem a good one from the personal satisfaction and cost/benefit point of view (assuming society values the areas you have talents in, and your areas of weakness don't get in the way too often).

Please note that the following text is Copyright 2000 The Gallup Organization.

Analytical
Your Analytical theme challenges other people: “Prove it. Show me why what you are claiming is true.” In the face of this kind of questioning some will find that their brilliant theories wither and die. For you, this is precisely the point. You do not necessarily want to destroy other people’s ideas, but you do insist that their theories be sound. You see yourself as objective and dispassionate. You like data because they are value free. They have no agenda. Armed with these data, you search for patterns and connections. You want to understand how certain patterns affect one another. How do they combine? What is their outcome? Does this outcome fit with the theory being offered or the situation being confronted? These are your questions. You peel the layers back until, gradually, the root cause or causes are revealed. Others see you as logical and rigorous. Over time they will come to you in order to expose someone’s “wishful thinking” or “clumsy thinking” to your refining mind. It is hoped that your analysis is never delivered too harshly. Otherwise, others may avoid you when that “wishful thinking” is their own.
Learner

You love to learn. The subject matter that interests you most will be determined by your other themes and experiences, but whatever the subject, you will always be drawn to the process of learning. The process, more than the content or the result, is especially exciting for you. You are energized by the steady and deliberate journey from ignorance to competence. The thrill of the first few facts, the early efforts to recite or practice what you have learned, the growing confidence of a skill mastered—this is the process that entices you. Your excitement leads you to engage in adult learning experiences—yoga or piano lessons or graduate classes. It enables you to thrive in dynamic work environments where you are asked to take on short project assignments and are expected to learn a lot about the new subject matter in a short period of time and then move on to the next one. This Learner theme does not necessarily mean that you seek to become the subject matter expert, or that you are striving for the respect that accompanies a professional or academic credential. The outcome of the learning is less significant than the “getting there.”

Command
Command leads you to take charge. Unlike some people, you feel no discomfort with imposing your views on others. On the contrary, once your opinion is formed, you need to share it with others. Once your goal is set, you feel restless until you have aligned others with you. You are not frightened by confrontation; rather, you know that confrontation is the first step toward resolution. Whereas others may avoid facing up to life’s unpleasantness, you feel compelled to present the facts or the truth, no matter how unpleasant it may be. You need things to be clear between people and challenge them to be clear-eyed and honest. You push them to take risks. You may even intimidate them. And while some may resent this, labeling you opinionated, they often willingly hand you the reins. People are drawn toward those who take a stance and ask them to move in a certain direction. Therefore, people will be drawn to you. You have presence. You have Command.

Focus
“Where am I headed?” you ask yourself. You ask this question every day. Guided by this theme of Focus, you need a clear destination. Lacking one, your life and your work can quickly become frustrating. And so each year, each month, and even each week you set goals. These goals then serve as your compass, helping you determine priorities and make the necessary corrections to get back on course. Your Focus is powerful because it forces you to filter; you instinctively evaluate whether or not a particular action will help you move toward your goal. Those that don’t are ignored. In the end, then, your Focus forces you to be efficient. Naturally, the flip side of this is that it causes you to become impatient with delays, obstacles, and even tangents, no matter how intriguing they appear to be. This makes you an extremely valuable team member. When others start to wander down other avenues, you bring them back to the main road. Your Focus reminds everyone that if something is not helping you move toward your destination, then it is not important. And if it is not important, then it is not worth your time. You keep everyone on point.

Input
You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information—words, facts, books, and quotations—or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring and compiling and filing stuff away. It’s interesting. It keeps your mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.

My grandmother, Jeanie Crisp passed away at 7am on Wed, 15 July 2009 after 30 days in hospital. I miss her very much.

Her funeral service will be held on Monday (20 July) at the Macquarie Park Crematorium, Camellia Chapel at 2:30pm.

Then on to the Tongariro Crossing, probably the best bushwalk I have ever done - 19kms of amazing scenery, steep climbs, volcanic craters, lakes and the "Mount Doom" volcano from the Lord of the Rings. Although it took all day, it was not a walk that ever left you bored - so much variety, ending finally with rainforest.

We went adventure caving in Waitomo (the Black Abyss), which started with tight abseil down a chimney, swimming and sloshing through wet caves in a wetsuit and floating on tires, some tight squeezes and we finally got back to the surface climbing up another chimney. Great fun!

More New Zealand photos here.

I tried to borrow "An Island to Oneself" from the National Library on Rarotonga (there is only one library on Rarotonga!) but unfortunately all copies were out. So, I turned to Amazon (the long tail poster child), and was very happy to find they could source me a copy. I don't want to spoil the tale, but recommend you have a read if you have ever thought about what life would be like on a desert island, surviving only by your own wit and skills, hundreds of miles from civilisation!

UPDATE (22 Aug 09): Recently, Taori wrote to me to say that he had made an electronic version of the book and put it online (with a number of other pacific island works and Tom Neale photos and info). Here is the main site and also a direct link to "An Island to Oneself" eBook.

• Lift up through body. Imagine your body is hanging from a thread from the middle of the top of your head
• Shoulders should be relaxed and down
• Knees springy (ie very slightly bent so you can bounce up and down)
• Tie gung on - tensing core muscles and rotating pelvis up slightly (bottom of pelvis goes forward)
• core muscles tensed, rest of body relaxed

Moving

• Get into stance
• Move with weight centred between legs, not on one foot or the other
• When you move forward, your core/waist should move forward in time with the leg. Ie, leg should NOT lead and then pull body forward.
• Waist should be driving the leg movement, which means your weight still stays balanced between your legs
• Legs should be light and relaxed, body is being drawn up by the stance

Speed
When punching or kicking, you arms and legs should be completely relaxed, although tie gung should be on. If completely relaxed can move faster. Imagine swatting a fly.

When moving in, trust your wing chun. Moving in should be almost like getting pushed from your waist from behind. Legs relaxed, high acceleration, full weight moving forward, taking the space they currently occupy.

Pivoting
Pivot so that both feet finish moving at the same time. Move from the waist.

Guard
Guard should be with arms relaxed and fingers pointing forward towards your opponent's centre line where the neck meets the trunk, to give even time for high and low attacks.

Defending against head punches
Think primarily of hitting the opponent with your punch/strike, as this will cripple the attack. The dai sau is secondary. Dia sau should keep sheering upwards on contact. It should be a rotation in the shoulder joint, your angles should not collapse. Your shoulder should always be down and the ball of the joint rotating at the back of the joint. Dia sau should be inscribing an even circle of your space. Contact should be shearing with the hard side bones of your arm against the inside of their wrist. Wrist should always stay on centre. Your fingers may be pointing towards the opponent's head near the end of the move, or your hand may be above your head, depending on strength and hookedness of the attack.

Hook Kick
You really need to swing your hip into a good hook kick. Your leg should go up quite high as it swings around and then drive down into your opponent's thigh / leg. In close, you may contact with your knee, with more distance, you should be contacting with the front of your lower leg (above ankle, but below knee).

Also, more Cook Islands photos here.

Overall, I would strongly suggest that you do not bother to try the F-Secure product suite, even if it is offered to you for free.

More photos here:
http://flickr.com/photos/soosun_and_james/sets/72157605121741281/

Ingredients

• 4 lemons
• 900g sugar
• 9L of water (enough to fill a demi-john)
• 1 packet / 2 teaspoons of Ale yeast (you can use bread yeast if you're desperate)
• 200g fresh root ginger
• 4 heaped tea spoons of tartaric acid (Cream of Tartar)

Equipment

• A large pot that can boil four litres of water
• A jug
• A glass
• A coarse cheese grater
• A wooden spoon
• 10L carboy (10L water container does nicely) washed & sterilized with bleach
• A bubble seal for the carboy
• A lemon juicer
• A lemon zester / fine grater
• A fine sieve
• 9 X 1.25 litre soft drink bottles, empty, washed & sterilized with bleach

Method

1. Fill pot with water and put on to boil

2. While the water is coming to the boil...

• scrape the zest from one of the lemons
• grate the ginger on the coarse cheese grater
• add the sugar to the ginger and lemon zest in a bowl
• cut the lemons in half and squeeze the juice into the jug
• add the tartaric acid to the lemon juice
• put the yeast into some warm water with a little sugar in a glass

3. When the water has boiled ....

• add the sugar, ginger and lemon zest to the water, turn off the heat and
  stir
• allow the water to cool to roughly blood heat, stirring occasionally
• add the lemon juice and tartaric acid to the water
• add the yeast mixture

4. Use the jug to pour the mixture into the carboy and top up to 9L with boiled water (cooled to blood temperature)

5. Seal the demijohn with the bubble seal (I use salt in the water to sterilize the seal)

6. Stand the demijohn in a warm place for 48 hrs or for several days in a cool place

7. After 48 hrs pour the mixture through the sieve into the jug and fill the bottles leaving an air gap for the pressure to build up in (1L into each bottle). Screw the caps tightly onto the bottles

8. Leave the bottles at room temperature for 24 hrs (to generate the C02 fizz)

9. Put the bottles in the fridge for 2-3 days to allow the yeast to settle

10. Drink and enjoy

Notes

If you ferment the mixture in the carboy for longer before bottling, it will be less sweet and more alcoholic.

As my home loan provider doesn't show balances online, and only sends statements every 6 months, I like to ring up every month or two to make sure things are on track. I used to calculate interest, new balances etc in a spreadsheet / calculator but spent an afternoon writing a little Rails app to calculate it for me. Hopefully my little monthly loan calculator is of some use to you too.

http://flickr.com/photos/soosun_and_james

For the impatient, jump straight to:

• Our Wedding in Korea
• Travelling around in Korea
• Honeymoon in Vietnam

It was pretty exciting, with multiple costume changes, lots of food and exotic ceremonies! Soosun had heaps of family and friends, and my parents, sister and her husband and one of my grandmothers and some of my close friends were able to come to Korea for the wedding.

We got up bright and early and went to the Korean hair, make-up and dressing place before the wedding, and also had a spot of breakfast.

One we got to the church, we welcomed friends and relatives and had photos taken.

At noon, we had the wedding ceremony in the church. Soosun's uncle is a Catholic priest, and he performed the ceremony and took our vows. It was then time for lots of photos with all possible permutations of relatives and friends.

After the religious ceremony, we changed into our hanboks. Meanwhile, the guests were enjoying the banquet. The food looked really good and we had a chance to nibble a little bit before cutting the wedding cake with a sword and making toasts.

The last part of the ceremony was traditional Korean. We dressed up in a double layer of traditional Korean hanboks and bowed away like crazy to relatives, and they gave us advice and honeymoon money in envelopes. We poured plum alcohol for close relatives out of a teapot and drank with them. We at dates stuffed with pine nuts and various other traditional foods. Our parents threw chestnuts and dates and we had to catch them in Soosun's hand veil. We caught 10 dates and chestnuts altogether, which means we're meant to have 10 children!

After the wedding, the younger crowd headed out to Beer Plus for an after party...
  

The whole wedding ceremony was recorded, and we're going to edit together a short highlights movie. Stay tuned...

First attempt at a solution was to set the Message Centre Number in the phone. Strangely, the Message Centre number (configured though the SMS app) was always empty, and when I tried to set it to the correct number for Optus, the value wouldn't stick past a phone reset.

Thanks to Google, I found the outline of a solution on a message board.

In summary, the Treo 650 (unlike the Treo 600) is not compatible with Optus's standard post-paid/plan SIMs used in Australia. However, it is compatible with the Optus pre-paid SIMs. If you have a Treo 650, and a post-paid/plan SIM, you can buy yourself a new pre-paid SIM for $4 from your local Optus store, then ring the Optus call centre to have them do a "SIM replacement" to move your account and number to the new SIM. This solves the problem within minutes of the "SIM replacement".

Something I've been noticing lately is that in all of the Murakami novels I can recall, the protagonist always has a lot of time. This is so different to most other novels which try to rush from one exciting event to the next. Perhaps this is part of the reason why I really like Murakami's writing so much. Anyway, here's some memorable quotes from Murakami novels that I've read recently:

From Kafka on the Shore:
"Perhaps most people in the world aren't trying to be free, Kafka. They just think they are. It's all an illusion. If they really were set free, most people would be in a real pickle. You'd better remember that. People actually prefer not being free."

"Pointless thinking is worse than no thinking at all".

From Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World:
"Huge organisations and me don't get along. They're too inflexible, waste too much time, have too many stupid people."

"It's frightening," she said. "Most of my salary disappears into my stomach."

From The Wind Up Bird Chronicles: (language warning on this one)
Show quote, although it contains 4-letter words.

Place: Bar Broadway (opposite UTS)
Date: 29 Sept 07
Time: 6pm

I'm planning to go, and also to give a 3 minute presentation on my new free wedding registry site.

Hope to see you there!

I checked out a few different screencast recording packages and ended up going with CamStudio. It is a fairly basic product but free and good enough for my needs. It lets you choose a window to record and also lets you include an audio track. I think the easiest way to use it is by recording to AVI (very quick) and then converting to Flash SWF (slow), when you are happy with the movie. In terms of SWF settings, I found the best combination was 16 bit colour, Playback rate and Keyframe rate at 20 frames / second. It is also a good idea to set the 'Percent of movie to preload' to something like 15%, to get things rolling quickly for your viewers.

I'm reasonably happy with the resulting wedding registry screencast, although there is certainly room for improvement. CamStudio unfortunately doesn't let you set the look and feel of the playback controls, so they feel a bit out of place. When I get time, I might also split the screencast into two - one from the bridal couple's perspective, and one from a guest's perspective.

When my sister was getting married, she had a lot of trouble finding a good free wedding registry that was not tied to any particular shop. I developed the wedding registry site to fill this gap, and also to improve my web programming skills. I've tried to design Your Wedding Presents to be really quick to sign up and easy to use. Please tell me if there are any problems with the site, or ways the site could be made better.

On the technical side, I developed Your Wedding Presents using Ruby on Rails. It is running on an Apache load-balanced Mongrel cluster and data is stored in MySQL. It is hosted on Rails Playground.

If you're in Sydney and interested in stopping by, details are as follows:

When: Sat 25th August 2007 from about 9am
Where: University of Technology, Sydney (Jones St entrance)
More details...

One of the novel aspects of BarCamp is that all participants are encouraged to present or start a discussion around something that interests them. For my part, depending on what people are interested in, I was thinking of one of the following:

• new stuff in the .net space (C# 3.0, .NET 3.5, LINQ, WPF, WCF, etc) and showing some demos
• giving a bit of a Ruby/JRuby introduction with help from Ola's JavaBin slides
• or, if people are keen, a discussion around JRuby vs C# 3 vs Java vs ?? and their stacks for different situations and problems

By the way, the conference is free, and it is not too late to sign up
Hope to see you there!

]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2007/08/22/barcamp-sydney-this-saturday/feed/ 0 http://jamescrisp.org/2007/08/02/tech-ed-talks/ http://jamescrisp.org/2007/08/02/tech-ed-talks/#comments Thu, 02 Aug 2007 06:37:18 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/2007/08/02/tech-ed-talks/ Jim Webber and I will be co-presenting at Tech Ed Australia and Tech Ed New Zealand this year. Here's the low down:
Learning to live with the static-typing fascist and the dynamic-typing fan-boy in your enterprise...

Gold Coast
Thursday 9 Aug
5pm - 6:15pm

Auckland
Tuesday 14 Aug
2:20pm - 3:35pm

"What's best for your enterprise? Is it the 'glue that never sets' and flexibility of dynamic languages like Ruby, or the tried and true, hard and fast rules and tool support of static languages like C# 3.0? Are there different trade-offs for green field development and integration?

And more importantly, which is best, the Mac or PC?

In a dynamic, and combative presentation, Jim and James will let their alter-egos run amok and answer these questions from the perspective of a seasoned enterprise architect and a l33t hax0r. By the end of this session you will understand the interplays between the two personality types, have had a few laughs, and picked up a few tips on how to use both technology
sets in harmony in your enterprise. "

Hope to see you there!

]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2007/08/02/tech-ed-talks/feed/ 5 http://jamescrisp.org/2007/07/24/ultimate-laptop-protection/ http://jamescrisp.org/2007/07/24/ultimate-laptop-protection/#comments Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:55:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=65




Better than money can buy. Made by my dad

]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2007/07/24/ultimate-laptop-protection/feed/ 6 http://jamescrisp.org/2007/07/15/consulting/ http://jamescrisp.org/2007/07/15/consulting/#comments Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:58:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=64
A present from my adorable fiancée
]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2007/07/15/consulting/feed/ 0 http://jamescrisp.org/2007/05/18/fixing-a-palm-treos-digitizer-touch-screen/ http://jamescrisp.org/2007/05/18/fixing-a-palm-treos-digitizer-touch-screen/#comments Fri, 18 May 2007 12:07:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=58 Let me tell you a sad tale. One day, out of the blue, the digitizer on my palm started to drift. Every hour, it got worse. This meant that when you tried to click a button like 'Add' the Palm thought you clicked 'Delete' - no fun at all! It was possible to temporarily improve the situation by running the re-calibration program built into the system, but within a few hours, where you clicked again had very little relation to where the Palm thought you had clicked. After about a week, it was not possible to run the re-calibration program, as the digitizer was so far out (program just looped forever so I had to reboot the Palm). I discovered that there are actually keyboard shortcuts for just about everything, and that the 4-way nav button gets you most places, so the device wasn't a total write off. However, it was slow and cumbersome to use.

Now, one month later, I'm sure you'll be thrilled to know that things are better, the sorry tale has had a happy ending (touch wood!). Much googling led to many suggested approaches to fixing the problem including:

• Various auto-calibration programs (AutoDigi, DigiFix, etc).
• Running paper around the screen under the casing to remove gunk.
• Cleaning the insides by putting a vacuum cleaner to all openings.

However, all of these approaches ended with disappointment and no noticeable improvement.

Finally, near buying myself a new device (aside: it is a shame that Palm has not managed to produce a device significantly better than my several year old Treo 600), I came across a site selling replacement Treo 600 digitizer/screen modules. They kindly provide a very useful movie on pulling your Treo apart to help you replace your digitizer/screen module. With little to lose, I decided to open up the case of my Treo and see if there was anything I could fix.

Following the instructions in the movie was not too difficult. I didn't have a small star alan key myself (required for opening the case), but I borrowed one from my dear dad, who has an amazing tool collection. Also, lacking a plastic case opening tool, I used a butter knife - this worked OK, but did damage the plastic of the case a little. If you have something made from thin and strong plastic, like the case opener in the movie, it would be a better tool for the job. I had a great time pulling everything apart and finally had all the components spread out before me. I cleaned the screen carefully (there was a fair bit of grot around the edges), fixed the buckled taping on the side of the screen, and put everything back together, carefully re-seating the various cables.

And now, almost a month later, the digitizer still seems to be working fine! Hurrah! So if you are contemplating what to do about your Palm's broken or drifting digitizer, I recommend pull it apart, clean it all and re-seat cables and then hope for the best!

]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2007/05/18/fixing-a-palm-treos-digitizer-touch-screen/feed/ 3 http://jamescrisp.org/2007/04/18/experience-of-an-international-amazon-virgin/ http://jamescrisp.org/2007/04/18/experience-of-an-international-amazon-virgin/#comments Thu, 19 Apr 2007 00:02:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=57 Recently I ordered 12 books from Amazon. It was my first time.

The process started really well - quite easy and pleasant to find the books I was after. Not to mention that amazing range and the great option of getting cheaper second hand books. Adding to the shopping cart was also a breeze.

I was pretty impressed, good prices, nice process. But then the honeymoon was over. Time to check out - stream of consciousness. First, I need to enter address details. Fine, as expected. Then I get a message (from memory) "There is a slight problem with your order. Some of the books you have chosen cannot be shipped to your address. Change your delivery address or change the quantity to 0 on these books.". Not happy! One third of my books (second hand ones) cannot be sent. That means I need to cancel the check out process, remove 4 books from my cart and then try and find the same books from other more expensive suppliers which can be shipped international. So I try again, adding the same book from multiple suppliers to my cart, in the hope of finding one which can deliver to Australia. Then it's back to the checkout process again.. Problem - I missed one book and have to cancel the process and go back to basket process again. Great, all books are OK, finally time to complete the order. So I get to review my order, and it says at the top something like "With an Amazon credit card, this order would be $324 rather than $368". No other total including postage is provided. So is my order $368? Maybe? Further screens finally confirm that this is the case. Nowhere is it possible to see how much postage is per book - you have to work it out yourself doing best guesses and following the Amazon formula. Maybe it would have been better to get a new book rather than a second hand book, as second hand books have twice the postage charge.. ah well, too late now, I'm not going to go through the whole process yet another time! So finally I can check out and my credit card is charged. However, since my credit card is hit by a multitude of different vendors that use Amazon as a front, within seconds of each other, some transactions are rejected as my credit card does not allow too many transactions in too short a time (some sort of security feature?). Finally, after getting a few emails from Amazon saying the card could not be charged, and then telling Amazon to retry, my order is at last paid for and on the way.

Okay, so what could be done to make this better?

1. Allow buyers to filter their results so they only see books that can be delivered to their addresses.
2. Do not use patronising messages like "there is a slight problem".
3. Do not suggest that people change their delivery address to another country.. that is clearly not going to happen!
4. Show the cost of postage all throughout the process. Book buyers know they are going to have to pay postage and want to optimise their orders taking it into account.
5. Do not show the order total including postage for the first time as a confusing advertisement ("With an Amazon credit card, this order would be $324 rather than $368"). Instead, provide a simple breakdown in a table, including postage on each book.
6. Hit the credit card once per order, and divvy up the money at Amazon internally, rather than allowing each book vendor to do it and having credit card rejections as a result.

UPDATE: My books arrived about two weeks after I ordered them. Delivery was smooth and on time. Unfortunately, one of the CDs that came with a book was broken. Amazon has kindly agreed to replace it and the book.



 
]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2007/04/18/experience-of-an-international-amazon-virgin/feed/ 5 http://jamescrisp.org/2007/03/31/mango-liqueur-fruition/ http://jamescrisp.org/2007/03/31/mango-liqueur-fruition/#comments Sat, 31 Mar 2007 13:44:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=53

The mango liqueur started about a month ago has now reached fruition. After filtering with cheese cloth, and adding a little sugar (much less than a cup), it is quite tasty. It should improve further as it ages over the next month or so, assuming it lasts that long

]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2007/03/31/mango-liqueur-fruition/feed/ 0 http://jamescrisp.org/2007/03/26/a-few-choice-quotes-from-the-unbearable-lightness-of-being-by-milan-kundera/ http://jamescrisp.org/2007/03/26/a-few-choice-quotes-from-the-unbearable-lightness-of-being-by-milan-kundera/#comments Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:29:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=51 Starts slowly with quite a philosophical bent, but becomes really compelling once the main characters are introduced. Some memorable quotes:

Happiness
"If Kerenin had been a person instead of a dog, he would surely have long since said to Tereza, 'Look, I'm sick and tired of carrying that roll in my mouth every day. Can't you come up with something different?' And therein lies the whole of man's plight. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition."

Love
"The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful... Their love story did not begin until afterwards: she fell ill and he was unable to send her home as he had the others. Kneeling by her as she lay sleeping in his bed, he realized that someone had sent her downstream in a bulrush basket. I have said before that metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory."

A feeling of importance
"We all need somebody to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under. The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public...
The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes. They are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners...
Then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love. Their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. One day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark..
And finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers."

Kitsch
"Kitsch is the absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and the figurative senses of the word; kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence...
Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch. The brotherhood of man on earth will be possible only on a basis of kitsch...
And no one knows this better than politicians. Whenever a camera is in the offing, they immediately run to the nearest child, lift it into the air, kiss it on the cheek. Kitsch is the aesthetic ideal of all politicians and all political parties and movements...
In the realm of totalitarian kitsch, all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions. It follows, then that the true opponent of totalitarian kitsch is the person who asks questions...
From that time on, she [Sabina] began to insert mystifications into her biography, and by the time she got to America she even managed to hide the fact that she was Czech. It was all merely a desperate attempt to escape the kitsch that people wanted to make of her life."


]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2007/03/26/a-few-choice-quotes-from-the-unbearable-lightness-of-being-by-milan-kundera/feed/ 0 http://jamescrisp.org/2007/03/08/wing-chun-bong-sau-tips/ http://jamescrisp.org/2007/03/08/wing-chun-bong-sau-tips/#comments Thu, 08 Mar 2007 11:18:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=49 Today my class was visited a very talented high level instructor. Although he only spent a few minutes looking at my bong sau, he gave two invaluable tips:
1. When bringing your hand and arm up into bong sau, you need to be moving both upwards, forwards and inwards towards the centre simultaneously. A good way to do this is to imagine your elbow tracing an arc through the air from start to end point.

2. When moving from bong sau to tan sau when rolling, move into fook sau first, and then roll your wrist over. This will stop your hand from dropping and will leave your hand on the centre line.
]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2007/03/08/wing-chun-bong-sau-tips/feed/ 0 http://jamescrisp.org/2007/02/26/holiday-2007-venice-and-padua/ http://jamescrisp.org/2007/02/26/holiday-2007-venice-and-padua/#comments Mon, 26 Feb 2007 10:20:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=44 It was a sudden decision to take a sleeper train to Venice. We didn't really know what to expect. By chance, we arrived at Carnivale (mask and costume festival), probably the busiest time of the year. Venice was filled to the rafters with tourists, prices were high and it was difficult to walk in many areas due to the number of people in the narrow streets! The solution was to take to the water - catching the ferry was fun and it got you out of the crowds.

Venice is really beautiful. The Doges (ruler's) palace and nearby Cathedral in St Marco square are amazing. The palace has huge painted ceiling murals by famous artists and enormous open halls. In the Cathedral, there are golden mosaics over the whole ceiling, and even the floor is an artwork in tiles. There's also some impressive golden relics from when the Venetians sacked Constantinople during the crusades.

In Venice, most streets lead to the water, and the best facades are turned towards the canals. It really is a city designed to be traversed on the water. The buildings are mainly standing on foundations made from hundreds of pine trees hammered into the silty mud under Venice. Historically, Venice's influence peaked in the 13th century or so, and from then on, it was a slow decline in power. But to make up for this, the wealthy families spent lavishly on buildings, clothes and decorations.

On our last day in Italy, we went to Padua to take a look at a more typical Italian city. It was a friendly and fun place with few tourists, but good food and a nice atmosphere. Last picture is of Padua, all the rest are from Venice!
















 
]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2007/02/26/holiday-2007-venice-and-padua/feed/ 1 http://jamescrisp.org/2007/02/26/holiday-2007-monaco/ http://jamescrisp.org/2007/02/26/holiday-2007-monaco/#comments Mon, 26 Feb 2007 09:54:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=43 Monaco is easily accessible from Nice - about 1/2h by train. We spent an enjoyable afternoon and evening there, visiting the cactus "exotic" garden, castle, casino and cave. The cave was particularly interesting - it was about 18degC inside (despite winter temperatures outside), and walkways for visitors had been made using explosives and diamond drills! Despite the damage, it was still a lovely cave. Monaco was clean and tidy, and felt almost like a movie set.







 
]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2007/02/26/holiday-2007-monaco/feed/ 0 http://jamescrisp.org/2007/02/25/holiday-2007-provence-cote-dazure-in-the-south-of-france/ http://jamescrisp.org/2007/02/25/holiday-2007-provence-cote-dazure-in-the-south-of-france/#comments Sun, 25 Feb 2007 07:19:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=41 France supposedly is the number 1 tourist destination in the world, and certainly it is one of my personal favourites! Besides the pleasure of speaking French, we had the opportunity to eat a lot of good food, and visit really pretty coastal areas, medieval towns, castles and ancient Roman remains.

Our itinerary looked roughly like this:
Marseilles -> Aix En Provence -> Avignon -> Nimes -> Arles -> Tarascon -> (Italy) -> Nice -> Antibes -> (Monaco)

In terms of hotels, it was very much 'get what you pay for'. We tended to stay in two star places around 40-50 euros per night. Our first hotel in Marseilles was only 37E per night, and it convinced us that the extra 10E or so was really worth it! Hotels were fairly easy to find (well sign posted), though often not too close to transport.

We tried the random approach to finding good restaurants to start with, but this led to a number of disappointments. The solution was to ask our hoteliers for their favourite restaurants - this led to some really great meals

We had planned to rent a car for some parts of the trip.. however, make sure you learn to drive a manual before attempting this! Autos in France are horribly expensive to rent, so we ended up doing everything by public transport - bit tricky in winter time especially, but we managed. Tourist offices were generally very helpful.










































































 
]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2007/02/25/holiday-2007-provence-cote-dazure-in-the-south-of-france/feed/ 0 http://jamescrisp.org/2007/02/25/holiday-2007-south-korea/ http://jamescrisp.org/2007/02/25/holiday-2007-south-korea/#comments Sun, 25 Feb 2007 06:26:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=40 South Korea is a great place to visit. People tend to be very friendly, the alphabet is phonetic, food is good and everything is excitingly foreign! Don't forget your phrase book though.. English is not widely spoken. This was my 3rd trip to Korea, and it was an opportunity to catch up with Soosun's relatives, improve my pitiful Korean and see some interesting areas.

Should you happen to go to Korea with a partner, I would recommend staying in 'motels'. They are around 30,000-40,000 WON in most places per night, are conveniently located near transport and generally have nice rooms. Despite their reputation as love hotels, they are often more comfortable and cheaper than other alternatives. Don't be surprised, however, if they don't ask for your name, and require payment in cash!

Also, visiting the local jim-jil-bung (sauna) is an experience not to miss. They are generally open 24h and provide showers, sauna rooms, hot and cold pools, massage and general sleeping and relaxing areas, as well as funny coloured clothes to wear while you are there

Some of the fun stuff I did this trip was catching up with friends and relatives, walking around fortresses, going to a hot spring spa, doing a little caving, taking in some amazing scenery and going skiing.


















 
]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2007/02/25/holiday-2007-south-korea/feed/ 2 http://jamescrisp.org/2007/02/25/back-from-holidays/ http://jamescrisp.org/2007/02/25/back-from-holidays/#comments Sun, 25 Feb 2007 05:50:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=39 Back to Sydney after a very enjoyable holiday! Soosun and I were away for a bit over a month, and spent time in South Korea, France (Provence, Cote D'Azure), Monaco and Italy (Venice and Padua). The next few posts are going to give a little taste of these places
]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2007/02/25/back-from-holidays/feed/ 0 http://jamescrisp.org/2007/01/13/my-sisters-indian-red-wedding/ http://jamescrisp.org/2007/01/13/my-sisters-indian-red-wedding/#comments Sat, 13 Jan 2007 23:13:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=38 Yesterday was Mia's second wedding. This one was a Hindu, Fiji-Indian, red wedding and quite different to the first, although it had some similarities in terms of having vows and speeches (and yes, the same husband!). The red wedding included a lot of reading by the Pundit (the Hindu minister) in Sanskrit, many prayers with rice and petals held in hands, and various things put in a mango-wood fire. There were also various prayers with coloured powders, stuff to put on the forehead, water, gee, milk and bananas in front of statuettes. Male members of the bride and groom families wore turbans. Food was all vegetarian, but nice, and alcohol was forbidden. We danced a little at the end of the night. All in all, it was a lot of fun

As the brother of the bride, I had quite a lot to do in terms of prayers and ceremonies. On the Tuesday before, the Pundit visited my place to bless a bundle of clothes and other things for Neeraj (Mia's husband) with water and a banana leaf. We then went to the Neeraj residence where we did a ceremony for about an hour, with all the ingredients mentioned above. Before the wedding, I was also responsible for making some popped rice - similar to popcorn but made from rice in the husk. I needed to give this to Neeraj and Mia several times from a yellow cloth sling the Pundit wrapped around me during the wedding, as the couple walked around the fire 9 times. Also there were various points where I needed to pour water for foot washing and similar.

To give you more of an idea, here's some pictures!

















]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2007/01/13/my-sisters-indian-red-wedding/feed/ 1 http://jamescrisp.org/2006/12/26/bye-bye-edi-hello-thoughtworks/ http://jamescrisp.org/2006/12/26/bye-bye-edi-hello-thoughtworks/#comments Tue, 26 Dec 2006 06:03:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=32 Well, after almost four years at EDI (now called CargoWise edi) I am leaving. I finish in the middle of January next year. It has been an interesting time, and I have learnt a lot working with very talented people and from building the framework for a big solution suite (around 4 million lines of C# code). I've also had the opportunity to experience the very different joys and pitfalls of product management.

I will be starting at ThoughtWorks (of NUnit, Jim Webber and Martin Fowler fame) in the middle of February in the new year. I'm expecting that there will be a lot of new exciting stuff to learn, and a lot of variety in terms of clients and technologies. ThoughtWorks are strongly XP, do a lot of development on client sites and even have some Rails projects. The people I have met from ThoughtWorks have all been very friendly and I look forward to starting there soon

]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2006/12/26/bye-bye-edi-hello-thoughtworks/feed/ 0 http://jamescrisp.org/2006/12/23/our-christmas-party-06/ http://jamescrisp.org/2006/12/23/our-christmas-party-06/#comments Sat, 23 Dec 2006 23:18:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=31
Last Saturday, we had a Christmas party at our place. It went really well. Many thanks to Anh and Neeraj for doing such an excellent job with the BBQ.



]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2006/12/23/our-christmas-party-06/feed/ 0 http://jamescrisp.org/2006/10/08/my-sisters-wedding/ http://jamescrisp.org/2006/10/08/my-sisters-wedding/#comments Sun, 08 Oct 2006 10:46:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=23 Today was Mia and Neeraj's wedding. It went really well, and the newly weds looked awesome After so much planning, everything was very smooth. Neeraj and Mia made their vows and danced very nicely and the speeches were all good.




I got to sit at the top table facing all the other guests for the wedding ceremony, as I was doing a reading of a poem. Afterwards, I joined Soosun on the family table for the reception.

After the reception, Mia and Neeraj left for their honeymoon, we went back to Neeraj's family's place. We dressed up in our Bangladeshi clothes (many thanks to our flatmate Asif and his family for these!) and ate far too much tasty curry.
A wonderful day was had by all



]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2006/10/08/my-sisters-wedding/feed/ 1 http://jamescrisp.org/2006/09/02/engagement-party-photos/ http://jamescrisp.org/2006/09/02/engagement-party-photos/#comments Sat, 02 Sep 2006 06:47:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=17 See them here:

http://gallery.maebmij.org/jamesc/EngagementParty/

(thanks Jim for the hosting

]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2006/09/02/engagement-party-photos/feed/ 0 http://jamescrisp.org/2006/08/27/engagement-party/ http://jamescrisp.org/2006/08/27/engagement-party/#comments Sun, 27 Aug 2006 05:39:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=15 Last night was our engagement party! It went really well

We had it at the Royal Exchange Hotel in Marrickville. The weather was great, and the venue was really nice, and our guests were awesome!

Many thanks to my mum and grandma for the cakes, my family for being so helpful on the night, to Dennis Building for the drinks tab, and to everyone for coming along to celebrate our engagement with us. We had a really great time and I hope everyone else did too

]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2006/08/27/engagement-party/feed/ 1 http://jamescrisp.org/2006/07/27/engaged/ http://jamescrisp.org/2006/07/27/engaged/#comments Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:42:00 +0000 James http://jamescrisp.org/wordpress/?p=8
Haven't had a chance to write on the blog for a little while, but Soosun and I are now engaged! We went away about two months ago to Palm Beach for a long weekend, and I proposed there... and she said yes
]]> http://jamescrisp.org/2006/07/27/engaged/feed/ 1