www.kennethjayden.com

Solution to Time Machine that's constantly in "preparing" state

kennethjayden@gmail.com (kennethjayden) — 2009-10-03T00:27:46+08:00

Does your Time Machine application take forever to prepare? Like more than 7 hrs...? And while it's preparing, it's starts to hang your other applications? And somehow you can't seem to get it to stop despite pressing the 'Stop backing up' option. Well then you might be in a situation that I was once in.

Here's a solution which worked for me. What I did was to reduce the number of items to back up. And then slowly increase it back to my intended items I wanted to back up. And here's how you do it:

Step 1: Go to your Time Machine settings in your System Preferences

Step 2: Click the Option button and include your larger size files/folders to be excluded from the backing up process. (eg. Photos, Movies, Music... etc).

Step 3: Run your back up.

Right now as your Time Machine starts to back up, the preparing time should be shorter as there would be lesser files needed to back up. One possible reason why the previous preparing time took so long could be because "Time Machine keeps hourly backup for the past 24 hours, daily backup for the past month and weekly backup until your disk is full." (as mentioned in your Time Machine settings page). So if you haven't backed up your huge hard disk for a long time, imagine how long the preparing stage would take.

And once your backup is successful, you could remove the files to exclude and backup your remaining data. By now, the preparing phase should be significantly shorter.

Hope that helps, happy backing up!

60 Signs You're a Singaporean

kennethjayden@gmail.com (kennethjayden) — 2009-08-13T17:34:10+08:00

(an article from talkingcock.com)

1. Thanks to SMS, you have an extra large thumb.

2. Tks 2 SMS, u oso dun no how 2 spel n e mor.

3. You pat MRT and bus seats to cool them before you sit down.

4. At lunch, you start discussing what to eat for dinner.

5. Your wedding photos include shots of you dressed up like Louis XIV, Michael Jackson, or Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in Titanic.

6. When speaking to foreigners, you somehow feel a need to adopt an accent. (If you’re a DJ, this happens even when you’re not speaking to foreigners.)

7. You won’t raise your voice to protest policies, but you’ll raise your fists to whack someone over Hello Kitty.

8. You’re forever talking about businesses you want to set up but will probably never get around to starting.

9. You don’t know ¾ of the people attending your wedding.

10. You separate food into 2 basic groups: ‘heaty’ and ‘cooling’.

11. You’re never completely sure how many times you’ve sung the second verse of the National Anthem.

12. You think that what makes you ‘married’ is not the legal registration but whether you’ve thrown a 12 course dinner.

13. You marry for the real estate breaks.

14. You have kids for the tax advantages.

15. You move to where you want your child to go to school.

16. You feel you can’t walk around naked in your own flat.

17. You force your children to take Speech & Drama classes, but pray they won’t wind up in Arts later on.

18. You suddenly realize you’re very interested in biotech - just like you suddenly realized three years ago that you were very interested in e-commerce, and before that, engineering, and before that, medicine and law.

19. You think being an entrepreneur is setting up a bubble tea/Portuguese egg tart/gao luck/porridge shop right next to an existing bubble tea/Portuguese egg tart/gao luck/porridge shop.

20. You think people are inconsiderate when they don’t leave their table immediately after eating at the food court but think you have every right to take 25 bites to finish the last red bean in your ice kachang.

21. You find it impossible to make suggestions without drawing a fishbone chart first.

22. If you’re a guy, whenever you get together with your guy friends, you invariably trade army stories.

23. If you’re a girl, whenever you get together with your girl friends, you invariably trade stories about how your stupid guy friends are forever trading army stories.

24. You think the most important sporting event in Singapore this year was David Beckham switching from Manchester United to Real Madrid.

25. You somehow feel that food tastes better when eaten by a longkang.

26. It actually makes a difference to you being called an ‘NSMan’ rather than a ‘Reservist’.

27. You’ve eaten more times at the Esplanade than you’ve actually seen shows there.

28. You need campaigns to tell you how to be courteous, to flush toilets, have sex, etc.

29. When you visit the Zoo, you wonder what the animals taste like.

30. You feel the urge to add the suffix ‘-polis’ to everything, viz. Biopolis, Airtropolis, Fusionopolis, Entrepolis, etc.

31. You always feel oddly hungry at 11 pm, and are willing to drive to far away places for supper.

32. You meet in hotels a lot.

33. Your children have a rudimentary knowledge of Tagalog or Bahasa Indonesia.

34. You work at McDonald’s when you’re old rather than young.

35. You’ll gladly spend $50,000 on a car, but will go to great lengths to save a few bucks on ERP charges or even a few cents on a parking coupon.

36. Pork floss and mayonnaise on bread is a completely natural combination to you.

37. If you’re pregnant, you have the strange ability to make people on the MRT fall asleep instantly.

38. You ask for the bill by miming a signing movement.

39. You’ve started referring to foreign employees as ‘talent’ instead of ‘expatriates’.

40. At the dinner table, you’re always discussing which other food places serve better versions of what you’re eating.

41. You copy down licence plate numbers of cars involved in accidents.

42. You think your boyfriend doesn’t really love you unless he gives you part of his liver.

43. During sales, you book hotel rooms near malls to enable you to shop more efficiently.

44. You pronounce the letter ‘R’ as ‘ah-rer’ and the letter ‘H’ as ‘haytch’.

45. No matter how old you are, you keep associating people with their secondary schools. (alternative: No matter how old you are, you secretly need to know what other people got for their PSLE, O levels and A levels.)

46. You’re always on a quest for the definitive version of your favourite local dish.

47. When you explain things to people, you keep (a) using alphabets, and (b) speaking in point form.

48. You believe that you can generate ‘creativity’ through rules and committees.

49. You ‘chope’ a seat by placing a packet of tissues on the chair.

50. You’re very forthright with your criticisms of the Gahmen, unless there’s a chance they might actually hear you.

51. You diligently track the whereabouts of your favourite hawkers, i.e..you know that the famous Tiong Bahru Bao is now in Jurong, the famous Outram Char Kuay Teow is now in Hong Lim Centre and the famous Lau Hock Kien Hokkien mee from the old Lau Pa Sat is now at Beach Road.

52. Your mother probably can’t speak your ‘mother tongue’.

53. You’d rather drink your own pee than pay someone more for water.

54. You secretly find that the best part of the Speak Good English Movement is hearing the Singlish bits in their ads.

55. You have an automatic sensor in your head which categorizes people you meet into stayer/ quitter, cosmopolitan/heartlander, normal/ express/ gifted, etc.

56. You think we’re living in a modern, sophisticated country even when our leaders still insist on wearing their school uniforms.

57. You wish your constituency is in a walkover, because otherwise it’s damn ‘leceh’.

58. During elections, you decide that there is no credible opposition even though you don’t know the name of the opposition candidate in your constituency.

59. You think having a constitution is like the condition you get when you don’t eat enough fibre.

60. You can never quite remember what “the core values” of Singaporeans are.

Summer in Europe 09

kennethjayden@gmail.com (kennethjayden) — 2009-07-15T18:27:12+08:00

Ok i'm back to Singapore, again. :P i guess many of you would have realized by now, but i'm just putting it down for the record. for good? yes. i'm always back for good, it's just that i was over to Stockholm over the spring for a short work trip. ;)

i've always enjoyed being in Stockholm. the weather is amazing, cool and dry unlike in Singapore where you sweat like you're dispensing water. the people there are amazing, beautiful and extremely friendly. and of course, the fact that it's in Europe!

this time, it was a short 7 week trip back to Europe during my school holidays. it's not exactly a holiday trip for me, but a work trip for my company. they decided to fly me back to work with them during my school holidays, and of course while i'm there, i take the opportunity to travel! ;) so for my 1st 6 weeks, i was working in Stockholm and the next 1 week, i was in Prague and Budapest. during my 1 year in Stockholm in 2008, i travelled mainly to central and western Europe, so this time i went to visit eastern Europe. the eastern side is much more cheaper with an old charm to it. time was short while i was there, spending only 3.5 days in Prague and 3 days in Budapest. But it was great while it lasted and i made some cool new friends too. i hope to go back there and also to the other countries like Poland and Croatia as well. i'll save that for my next trip. ;)

i have a few people and friends requesting for some of my trips itinerary and info. so i'm wondering if i should blog about my individual trips to the various cities i've been to. i think that would be rather useful for those wanting to go Europe. sigh. i would love to do that, if i can find the time for it... :P meanwhile, you can look @ my photos/videos and see which are the places that interest you and i can share with you more about it.

you can view the photos of the places i visited in a map view here.

Summer chillout with colleagues

Shallow english football fans

kennethjayden@gmail.com (kennethjayden) — 2009-06-02T05:44:17+08:00

sometimes the media are right. all you read about english football fans being hooligans are not that far from the truth. i am just so amused that i can even get slammed by man u fans when i, a fellow man u fan, actually go to old trafford to support man u and watching them trash stoke city. fans slamming another fan of the same team! how absurd, shallow and pathetic can they get? if those uneducated english fans haven't realized, it is the global (& asian) fans who are supporting the team to help make the team successful. and that's maybe why man u's doing an asia tour this year to reach out to their fans and to build up their fan base? but with english fans like those, man u will have a tough time keeping the fans happy together...

here's the video which i uploaded while i was @ old trafford..

and here are some of the comments..

you can check out more of the comments @ the youtube page.

one of the more hilarious comment was the one by the stoke city fan, "We Outclassed You On That Day So Shut The F**k Up". errr... stoke got trashed 5-0...?

Don't copy if you can't paste

kennethjayden@gmail.com (kennethjayden) — 2009-06-01T15:12:44+08:00

A popular motivational speaker was entertaining his audience. He said: "The best years of my life were spent in the arms of a woman who wasn't my wife!"

The audience was in silence and shock. The speaker added: "And that woman was my mother!"

Laughter and applause.

A week later, a top manager trained by the motivational speaker tried
to crack this very effective joke at home. He was a bit foggy after a drink.

He said loudly to his wife who was preparing dinner,"The greatest years of my life were
spent in the arms of a woman who was not my wife!"

The wife went; "Aaaaaggh!" with shock and rage !!

Standing there for 20 seconds trying to recall the second half of the joke, the manager finally blurted out
"...and I can't remember who she was!"

By the time the manager regained his consciousness, he was on a hospital bed nursing burns from boiling water.

Moral of the story: Don't copy if you can't paste!

Ikea to take over General Motors

kennethjayden@gmail.com (kennethjayden) — 2009-04-23T00:34:23+08:00

Business Update: Just Announced - IKEA to take over GM

IKEA HAS ANNOUNCED IT'S INTENTION TO TAKE OVER GM and TO SELL CARS.

In that case, WE WILL BE IN DEEP TROUBLE.

ALL THEY GIVE YOU IS THIS ...

AND THIS...

Mambo stats

kennethjayden@gmail.com (kennethjayden) — 2009-04-22T17:06:20+08:00

Here's some mid-week breather, something i got from my friend. If you're not into mambo songs, then you'll probably not get it. But if you love mambo and stats, then you'll love this! xP

Bleeding for a cause

kennethjayden@gmail.com (kennethjayden) — 2009-04-20T11:26:11+08:00

If i saw and heard correctly, this should be my 5th time or would have already donated 5 times previously. As much as i can, i try to donated my blood at least once every year. It's for a good cause.

For those who haven't donated before, i would strongly recommend you to if your health permits. It's not really that painful or scary and your blood will definitely replenish, so don't worry about not having enough blood. Think of the thousands of times you fell or injured yourself and bled profusely, including those times you can't recall when you're a child, your body would then generate more blood. I guess it's the needles, or the fear of it that stops people. But just don't look at it won't be so bad. Although you could feel some pricking in your arm, but pain is not any stronger than an ant's bite. So go donate at the next drive! And for those 1st timers, you'll get a "Please be nice to me, this is my first time." sticker to get a 5-star loving treatment from all staff. ;) You can always find out more info from Redcross or HSA.

This photo is taken with my iPhone. And yes, for the uninitiated, I've finally gotten my iPhone. ;) And I must say, this is the best phone I've ever used. For a techie like me, it has all the features, customization and community support that an IT geek would need. But if you're looking for a simple phone and you don't intend to get a data plan with it, then I would recommend you not to get it as it defeats the objective of it being an internet phone. Ok, I'll probably talk more about the iPhone another time. Meanwhile you can check out the iPhone page for all the cool features it has, and not forgetting all the applications you can download!

Back for good?

kennethjayden@gmail.com (kennethjayden) — 2009-02-28T05:16:54+08:00

Hi guys! I'm back. back in Singapore to be more specific. ;) Yes back to $3 SGD (17 SEK) meals as compared to $15 SGD (80 SEK) meals in Stockholm, back to local yummy food like char kway teow, chwee kway, won ton mee, prata and not just pasta, pizza or kebab, back to my church, family, friends and my darling! But definitely not glad to be back to 30℃ temperatures with 70% humidity! Nonetheless, it's great to be back home after being away for the whole of 2008. I've been back for about a month plus already and have been doing quite a lot of catch up and meet up with friends. And one of the most common question i get is,"So, are you back for good?". I guess i've been away for too long that people think i've decided to migrate over. :P But yes, i'm back for good. ;) It was really sad when i had to leave Stockholm. My church and my company there was like my family during my 1 year stay. for the record, i was doing an internship and exchange programme there rather than going there for my full-time studies.

so what's been going on now? well, i'm back to school in NUS. and no i have not graduated yet as most people would think so. unfortunately, or fortunately, i will be in school till june 10 before i graduate. and while i'm at it, i'm still working part-time with my swedish company, adding on to my usual hectic singaporean-chc lifestyle. ;) but i love my company, and they love me too! so i'm glad to be onboard their team.

actually i have alot to blog about regarding my recent winter trip around europe, but haven't really found the time (or set aside the time as some people would insist to phrase it) to go about doing it. so just make do with looking at my photos while i trying to set aside some time (if i have) for it soon. which might be... never? :P

Julbord - My Swedish Christmas Dinner

kennethjayden@gmail.com (kennethjayden) — 2008-12-21T00:29:04+08:00

on friday, i had a company Christmas julbord at a restaurant along surbrunnsgatan. i can't really remember the name the place but it had very tasty traditional swedish food! as per all smörgåsbord, we started with the cold dishes like herring, ham, salmon, moose sausages and smoked reindeer's heart! yes i ate rudolf's heart! :P i thought it would be soft and taste like the "spare parts" (pig's intestines, liver.. etc) we would eat in singapore, but apparently not. it was tough like meat and tasted really good, like smoked ham. and my colleague was telling me it is hard because the heart is a muscle. so desu ne... there were raw herrings in different flavours and i tried about 5 different kinds. this wasn't my 1st time eating herring in sweden but it still takes a while to get used to it. i find it ok but it's really an acquired taste, especially if you're not swedish. ;) after that, we moved on to the hot dishes like meatballs, omelette, sausages, ribs and some other fancy traditional swedish stuffs which i can't really remember. and then finally we finished off with deserts!

there was a wide spread of really good swedish food, but more than that, the atmosphere was AMAZING! every once in a while when we were eating, 1 of my colleagues would call for everyone's attention by making the triangle-like sound using the fork and the wine glass. and then he would start singing a swedish song and every one will continue along with him. and this happened like about 7 times throughout, initiated by different people, but mainly by the more rah-rah ones. ;) there were moments of singing, talking, sharing, laughing and of course appreciation. it was a rowdy but yet heart-warming and joyful night. everyone was so spontaneous and high-spirited and it really felt like a nice family gathering. but in every sense of the word, these people really form my swedish family. although i started out as an intern in the company, but i ended up being part of a swedish family. never once did it felt like work when i enter my office everyday. there is always so much fun, joy and laughter being around all my colleagues. i was really touched by all the gifts, love and kind words from all my colleagues and bosses that night. i'm really really really going to miss them alot! this has really been one of the best years of my life.

3S & Comaea, God Jul och Gott Nytt År!

Here's my NCST graduation video which i did for our batch to thank everyone in stockholm for their love and making our stay here a wonderful and memorable one!! (facebook photos and videos link)

NCST Batch 6 Graduation Video

NCST Batch 6 Graduation Flickr