My Misc.

Mission to Taipei

2010-12-31T00:48:00.003-06:00

I went to Taipei on a mission to bring THE GUARDIAN (mother-in-law) for our major on-going project. Similar to my past visits, it was short and quick.

Asides from stuffing all the necessities (for the project) into a few luggages, I was able to accomplish a few other activities as well.

I managed to...

visit Taipei downtown like a typical tourist

From Typical Tourist @ Taipei

From Train @ Taipei

From Taipei Flora Expo

meet up with friends I haven't seen for quite sometime

From Coffee break

From Saints and Sinners Bar & Restaurant

bond with my new family

From Dinner @ Uncle's

From 1010湘辣料理

and their pets

From Ms One Piece

From Smelly cat

From Miss Mee

shoot some hoops

From Bball @ Neihu Sports Center

have nice food

From Lunch @ Fatty Zhou's

From Dinner @ Uncle's

From Saints and Sinners Bar & Restaurant

From 1010湘辣料理

yet still make it to the airport with the guardian

From Leaving Taipei

without leaving any luggage behind

From Leaving Taipei

Note to self: Attempt to root my phone

2010-12-30T23:06:00.000-06:00

Several attempts to root my new HTC Wildfire phone was not successful. Purpose of this post is to provide a few comments for myself when I revisit this project later on.

The documentation I found online provides a very useful big picture, but it was not meant specific for my phone after all. Unrevoked3 did not find my phone once I connected it to my computer. After some search and digging through the forums and comments, I found out why from Stipesoldo's comments. It turns out that while the instructions stated to remove HTC Sync, the drivers are still needed in order for the rooting software to find my phone. So the prerequisite drivers setup before HTC Sync installation is STILL required.

Getting pass the initial obstruction, the process was very much autopilot. The rooting software ran just as described. However, my progress stopped at the screen "waiting for root...". Several restarts of the process as recommended did not make any different. A quick search brings me to my latest conclusion:

Its not yet possible to root official Froyo. You will have to wait it out till Unrevoked updates.

Bummer. More waiting for now...

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

2010-12-26T20:19:00.000-06:00

Hereby wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year with my DIY greetings!

*Special thanks to wife for holding the background for as long as she could!

Note to self: APN setting

2010-12-16T19:09:00.003-06:00

A smartphone had came into my possession recently. (Thank you Johnny!)

While it's unlocked, when I took it back to the States, it's only partially working. APN was not configured on the phone. As a result, I wasn't able to receive any MMS message. I could've live with that. However, the error sound that beeped every so often when it attempted to download the MMS message began to get really annoying.

I decided to end that.

A quick search and a link from friend, and some trials and errors, here's my current configuration for T-Mobile (US) that works:

Name: T-Mobile US
APN: epc.tmobile.com
Proxy: <not set>
Port: <not set>
Username: <not set>
Password: <not set>
Server: <not set>
MMSC: http://mms.msg.eng.t-mobile.com/mms/wapenc
MMS proxy: <not set>
MMS port: <not set>
MMS protocol: WAP 2.0
MCC: 310
MNC: 260
Authentication type: None
APN type: default,supl,mms

This is a note to self in case I do something stupid in the future while attempting to root the phone and instead brick it...

References (thanks guys!):

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=728949efd681db72&hl=en

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=523136

Straying @ San Marino

2010-12-07T01:07:00.003-06:00

On the weekend, while wife was at her work site in San Marino taking some pictures, we took a short walk around the neighborhood. It's a wealthy neighborhood, i.e. houses are priced in the millions, and it's not hard to see why:

Fences of tall trees in the backyard

Plenty of tidy and clean lawns and streets and pedestrians walkway

Beautifully trimmed trees and well maintained houses everywhere

While we're walking, I was playing with some of the functions on our new camera

My favorite take of the day

And... I just found out that Whomping Willow resided here!

Next step

2010-11-19T01:20:00.001-06:00

In less than 48 hours, I will be well on my way towards the beginning of the next-next step of my life after the next step.

Little tangerine has rarely, unlike many stories we heard, given his mom hard times. It's been an almost smooth pregnancy so far except for the few tantrums he was throwing occasionally. No severe thrown up from mommy, no special craving for particular food at weird timing. Thankfully!

Keep it up buddy. We will see you, hopefully with no surprises before your due date, in early January next year.

Day trip to Solvang

2010-10-10T21:57:00.000-05:00

Before our trip to Grand Canyon, the new Tangs took a short trip to Solvang, CA, a Danish city in Santa Barbara County.

How do you tell it's a Danish city? Easy, by the abundance of Danish style buildings along the streets.

Subway restaurant is of no exception.

Dined at a "highly recommended" pancake house. Food was just so so.

Tried out Æbleskiver (also highly recommended). Verdict: very pricey and overly sweetened donuts. And also very pricey but surprisingly tasty Danish hot dog.

To our surprise, there's a antique cars exhibition the day we're there. We ended up spending most of our time here.

Caught stealing food on the camera

My favorite car in the exhibition

A tribute to Hans Christian Andersen, a famous author of some of the widely known/read fairy tales in the world, e.g. The Ugly Duckling, Thumbelina, The Little Mermaid, etc.

Vacation to West Grand Canyon

2010-09-19T23:13:00.003-05:00

During the week long stay in LA and completed some important errants, we took a short trip to West Grand Canyon. This is sort of like a mini honey moon for us.

First day - West Grand Canyon

Upon arrival, four cowboys/girl awaiting us on their ride at the ranch

We stayed in one of these wooden huts for the night in Grand Canyon

A ride on the cart

Spot an eagle on our way to Skywalk

Each of this "certificate" cost $32 apiece!

Skywalk. Our best shot since we're not allowed to take picture from our own camera on the deck.

Original location they planned to build the skywalk

Gonna climb to the tip of that hill

Yelled "I'm the King of the World!!!"

"I think that's east"

Coming Soon! Proposed album cover of "Angel's Sing along nursery rhymes"

Watching the sunset

For the rest of the evening, we spent time in the ranch, BBQ ribs and grilled chicken for dinner, a campfire and sing-along, and night sky watching the milky way and shooting stars to call it a day.

Second day - West Grand Canyon/Las Vegas

Awake at five in the morning to catch the beautiful scene of sunrise

My favorite picture

A helicopter ride to the valley of Grand Canyon along the Mississippi River

A boat ride along the Mississippi River

Took a few more pictures in the ranch before we headed to Las Vegas

On our way to vegas, we stopped by a Subway for lunch and also a chocolate factory (I'm not sure why tours in vegas always include this place!). Dinner was buffet at Wynn.

The night was completed by catching the O show at the front row seats very very near the stage!

Last day - Las Vegas/Los Angeles
After a so-so Chinese buffet brunch (The tour guide's comment about the place being a first class restaurant was completely overrated and exaggerated), we headed back to LA.

Spin-off blog

2010-08-24T00:31:00.005-05:00

Hereby to announce a spin-off blog dedicated to journal of the new member to our family.

From Baby Tangerine

Pictures from our Civil Wedding Ceremony

2010-08-08T16:38:00.002-05:00

Here's a follow up from our wedding announcement, with pictures!

Most people I know know about my volunteer work at the Shedd Aquarium. For the many years that I've been to Chicago, the volunteer duty at Shedd spans at least 80% of my years here. So the thought of having our civil wedding ceremony performed in Shedd came naturally. It was, of course, the third options that came in my mind, right after parachuting and bungee jump. Not a surprise, the first two thoughts were rejected by my then fiancée.

After a few email correspondences with Betty, my volunteer coordinator, we're all set to get hitched surrounded by the fishes! Next on my list was to find a minister/judge to perform our ceremony and a photographer. Done and done at one of my shift at Shedd. Joe, one of my fellow volunteers is a circuit court judge and Frank, an owner of a studio! The tasks were easier than I thought.

While we're allow to hold a simple and quick ceremony without going through the catering department and reservation, we're advised to keep the attending guests in small group. Apology to all my friends in Chicago, I love y'all and could not choose between whom to invite and whom not to, thus I made the painful the decision of not inviting anyone to avoid hurting anyone's feeling. Of course if you still willing to pitch in for a wedding gift, you can find it here. Thank you for your generosity!

Following are some pictures I put together to provide a brief summary of what we did on the "Big day". It took so long for me to do it because:

Combining pictures from different cameras with different time settings is a pain, especially the grouping part
Took a while to upload the pictures
I only started to do it few months too late (which probably is the main factor contribute to the delay)

We're to meet Joe and Frank at 8. Here's me running towards Frank when he took the pictures around 8:10. Yep, we're a bit late.

It's official. The Tangs family.

Us and the guests.

Of course, for security reason I have to sign them in.

The rings from Tiffany.

It all began at the Caribbean Reefs. Video can be found here.

Hold hands and share the vows as couple.

Exchange the rings and laugh.

XOXO

Exclusive pictures of the newly weds!

The newly weds with the judge and the photographer. Thanks again Joe and Frank for helping us out so early in the morning!

The newly weds with the guests. Left: Hsiao-Long, Joanna, Mrs Tang, Mr Tang, brother, Wendy, Charles.

Nickle, the green sea turtle, showing his butt.

Taking it outside at the main entrance.

With one of the guests "Everybody" (insider joke alert here). Waiting in line to get in to the aquarium.

Sears tower (Willis tower now). How can you not love the summer of Chicago?

Note: real Chicago skyline behind us. No photoshop here.

One Museum Park apartment. Should I get one unit?

I was apparently very happy.

Newly weds at Whale Harbor, home of the pacific white sided dolphins

Penguins exhibit at Polar Play Zone

Having fun with the kids in the penguin suits.

Shark exhibit at Wild Reef.

In the volunteer office with Todd. Thanks for processing all my tickets request Todd!

Mrs Tang and her flowers.

Lunch at Brazzaz.

Closer look of the rings.

Group picture before the feast begins.

All-you-can-eat buffet.

Rubbing our stomach, satisfied.

Simple Wedding Ceremony

Laptop upgrade project completed

2010-07-15T22:34:00.000-05:00

After more than a few months of using since I bought my new computer, I was impressed by new Windows 7's elegant performance (even without service pack) that I was convinced to also put it on my five year old and still working (but slow) Thinkpad.

Apparently, my existing 40GBs hard disk and 1GB of memory on the laptop doesn't cut it. Thanks to Chris, I managed to upgrade them to a bigger hard disk and memory for cheap.

Then comes Microsoft's Ultimate Steal which offers Windows 7 Professional upgrade license for cheap. I pulled the trigger to buy and install it. Now my laptop, with the newly installed OS, is flying again. I have an additional computer for development and testing, awesome!

KFC double down

2010-07-15T00:04:00.000-05:00

Finally gave it a shot to the much hype KFC double down sandwich. For those who don't know what that is, it's the new sandwich from KFC that consists of two slices of chicken breast with bacons and cheese and mayonese and no buns.

Verdict: too salty and the look is better than the taste, fried is better than the grilled.

*FYI, I did not eat two. My roommate and I bought each flavor and we shared.

I miss you, Mesh

2010-07-02T18:16:00.000-05:00

Ever since Microsoft introduced Live Mesh Beta version about two years ago, me and a few at work have been hooked by its "quick to setup" and "easy to use anywhere" features. While we kind of expect that a beta service as such is prone to be problematic, it has been surprisingly stable and pleasant to use, until few days ago.

It was announced that Live Mesh is merged into Microsoft's latest Windows Live Sync Beta. The latest version is great, except that we will have to upgrade to Win 7 since XP is not supported! And we Mesh users should have about six months from now before it is discontinued. So we're still weighting on whether to upgrade to Win 7 or get a third party Mesh alternative, thinking we have enough time to figure something out before the deadline. Guess what, it's broken ALREADY! Since the day the Live Sync Beta was released to the public, we only have intermittent success to connect to computers in the office!

So while working on to implement the new solution (most likely an upgrade to the latest OS), we'll have to use some third party software to get around. Mesh is great in the sense when I'm on the remote computer, the experience is as if I'm using the RDP software even though I'm working on a browser. The third party solution, while supports full screen mode, it's still limited to the size of my browser and the implementation is so clumsy that I don't think I am willing to pay for it. Using it for long term, fuhgeddaboudit!

Please, Microsoft. If you hear me now, please put Live Mesh back for another six months as promised!

The Black Swan

2010-06-27T22:53:00.001-05:00

Since my professor introduced The Black Swan as a MUST-READ in one of the Risk Analysis classes while I was in grad school about two years ago, I not only bought the book but also have been trying to read it.

Now it's a book by my bed that I've been reading on and off for the past few months. It's either that I am now really bad at reading before bed or that the book is really dry, I've been put to sleep almost every single time. I barely get pass the first few chapters!

So I decided to give it a try again today in the afternoon. Maybe it's because it's summer and it's warm, I wasn't able to really following through the texts. Barely read for about 20 pages and now I've finally passed the 100 page mark after a few months of trying!

Now I guess it's safe for me to conclude that the book is too dry for me or maybe I am not that mature yet to understand the materials? Either way, I think I'm just going to put it aside for now.

Bite my shinny metal ass

2010-06-24T15:23:00.002-05:00

Pardon my title. I've been a big fan of Futurama, even more so than The Simpsons and Family Guy. And after it was cancelled since more than five years ago, the season premiere begins tonight at 10/9c at Comedy Central. Can't wait!

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

To the Infinity and Beyond!

2010-06-10T22:00:00.002-05:00

What a hilarious commercial, well done to Pixar and Google!

Congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks!

2010-06-09T22:43:00.005-05:00

Witnessed two Chi-town pro sports champions within five years! Last was the White Sox in 2005, and now the Blackhawks in 2010! Considered myself lucky! What's left? One from the Bears and one from the Bulls!

Congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks!

Image courtesy of ESPN

Old pictures dump

2010-06-04T23:40:00.000-05:00

It happens. Sometimes you have loads of pictures you took and it simply slipped off your mind to organize and share them with your family and friends and fans (right, like there's any!).

Embarrassingly, here's just a collection of some of those moments that did not get my immediate attention. They are all special and each deserves a dedicated post (my bad!). But I figure it's some really dated pictures so either I'd take my time to create new post for each, or I can take a 15 minutes and have them all here. No surprise, I chose latter. So here they are.

From San Francisco and Napa trip

Trip to San Francisco and Napa Valley after first week of class of my first quarter in my MSF program.

From Santa Catalina Island

Visited Santa Catalina Island on another trip to LA to visit my girl (now wifey). Note: that's Fred and I admiring the beauty of the ocean, not my girl. Just in case you're wondering.

From 28th B'day

A surprise 28th birthday party when I got home from class one night.

No longer single

2010-05-16T23:59:00.012-05:00

So after this post, I hereby announced that I'm leaving my single life behind. I just married the girl I love, whom I've been dating for the past five years. We will move on to the new chapter of our life together.

Pictures to come soon!

"March Madness" Weekend feasting edition

2010-04-13T00:14:00.001-05:00

On a weekend both my girl and my bro were in town. The weather was not pleasant, i.e. snowy and cloudy. We decided to have a grill and wine party at home to comfort both our stomach and my wallet. Courtesy of my house mate awesome SLR camera, here are some of the food and wines we had!

Wines

Chicken

Ribs

Gotta have some vege to balance out the meat

Bacon rolls of sausages/scallops

Lights off this Saturday

2010-03-23T21:26:00.001-05:00

As usual, I plan to participate in the Earth Hour event this year. I hope you will join me too.

Countdown Creator Progreat free widgetsWidgetboxMore info

St Patrick's weekend 2010

2010-03-22T22:56:00.003-05:00

The last time when I went for a St Patrick's weekend parade was when I first came to Chicago. That was almost back in 2002. Apparently I wasn't to keen on the celebration at all. Decided to just give it another shot this time, alas, shitty weather with rain and cold from the windchill.

Conclusion? I think I like the idea of staying at home with a cup of Joe better, and that's probably what I'll do from now on. The breakfast at Meli Cafe was good though.

Terrible weather I mentioned. Wet and cold and windy...

Barely see the top of the Sears Tower (a.k.a Willis Tower)

Missed the "dyeing ceremony". River was already very greenish

Licking the cherry in the mojito glass (actually a McD's sundae)

The gang

Some St Patrick's day special green beer. Over rated. It's just regular beer with some food dye.

Got out of the bar at noon. How depressing, no sunshine for Spring

Focus group study

2010-03-18T22:00:00.000-05:00

Attended a focus group discussion on a potential new application yesterday. Sat through two hours and provided opinions, paid was very generous! I need more of these...

My first AJAX!

2010-03-18T00:16:00.000-05:00

I just created my very first simple AJAX website with the help of this tutorial page. Embarrassingly way behind the whole Web 2.0 crowd when they are moving towards 3.0. But hey! It's better late than never eh!

Back dated CNY post

2010-03-14T23:31:00.003-05:00

So you know sometimes I like to play some competition against myself. Since my last post, I was paying a game of "See how long my blog is going to be without updates". I think I did fine this time with about one month without new post. I had better record before... But my brother and cousins still beat me to it:

Brother (last updated July 2009)
Cousin Jordan (last update July 2008!) *winner*
Cousin Wei (last updated March, 2009)
Honorable mentioned: Xuanxuan and Yunyun

OK Fine! I was just being lazy! I was busy with my other schedule, say playing Torchlight for example...

Jokes aside, I just want to post a big thank you to Mr and Mrs Yeow(a.k.a Kelvin and June) for the cookies I received for CNY this year! I have been craving for the Malaysian style pineapple tarts for so long. The gift, with pineapple tarts included, came just in time. Needless to say, I consumed most of those tarts and most of other cookies that came in the gift.

Thanks to my roommate Welson, I am able to show you guys some high quality pictures here:

The box I was waiting for. I was worried the mail man would have eaten my cookies! *joking*

The containers!

Mocha Meringue Kisses (brown) and Kuih Bangkit (white)

Peanut cookis (brown) and Cornflake cookies (yellowish)

Pineapple rolls (in red foils, "rolls" according to June's website) and Butter cups (in white foils)

June posted the whole preparations on her website, you can check it out here:

2010 CNY Goodies

*Please only visit her blog when you're not hungry