I really don't get it as to why people are praising Windows XP heaps. I mean, if you're talking about the stability that it offers as compared to Windows 9x/ME, I hate to break it to you but lemme tell you this: It's old news, my friend! Linux users would have definitely agreed. But even if you were to confine it within the Windows family, the stability has been there since Windows 2000. Windows XP is really Windows 2000 with the Fisher Price (y'know, the kiddie toy maker!) look and feel on the user interface, which was obviously something they just had to put in since Apple introduced Aqua in OS X. As far as the kernel (core) of the operating system, nothing like the Service Packs can't do to Windows 2000 to get it up to speed with XP (Heh! It'll be interesting to see how users of Windows 9x/ME handle patching their OS with Service Packs and Hotfixes in the future!). Of course, XP has got some other features tacked on to it as well, which to me makes it more of a bloat and subsequently puts a premium on the hardware requirements needed to run the operating system alone, I think. What XP can do, it can be done in Windows 2000 as well, only that it takes a little bit more effort to install the 3rd party drivers, software, etc. But hey! At least they aren't tied to the operating system like in XP (and requires much less resources too)! Besides, those 3rd party stuff have more functionality than the stuff that's bundled into XP so I think I'm gonna let Windows 2000 Professional live on my PC (besides FreeBSD, of course! ;) with its merry bunch of 3rd party software for just a little bit longer (read: until I can't run something I need to use on that OS!) So far, my current set up allows me to do the stuff I need to without hassles, e.g. email, web-browsing, watch VCDs/DVDs and even TV, play games (Quake, Max Payne), word-processing, photo editing stuff from my digicam, play/create MP3s, burn CDs etc. Besides, I don't think I wanna be forking the moolah this soon after forking out quite a bit when I got my copy of Windows 2000 Professional last year (Yes, Virginia! I got the original copy despite the bootlegged version being available in abundance at Imbi Plaza.) and not to mention ditch all the time and effort taken to get the set up to what it is right now.

Still, It'll be interesting to see how well it's gonna go with the consumers and prosumers out there. My bet is that most home users still using 9x/ME will eat XP out of Microsoft's hands much to Bill Gates' delight while those who have invested in Windows 2000 will just let it hang in there some more.

The old gang from Purdue was re-united for the evening when Joey hosted a pot-luck over at his apartment in Shah Alam. Coolness! It was certainly nice to meet and catch up with them ex-Boilermakers and see what they're up to these days! Anyways, shout outs to Joey & wife, Mat Duan, Shida, Seme, Amy, Bogo, Fern, Ninie, Duan, Izaidy, Putat, Burn, Hanif, Nadia, Nora, Bard, Rosli, Sal, Ustad, Cobou, Eijatt, Nong, Lah, Faris. Uhmmm... did I miss anyone there? Hope not! *GRiN* Anyways, them pictures are here. If you think the pictures suck, tell that to Izaidy, yah? 'Cos he took most of the pictures! ;)

Update (Oct. 30): I somehow knew that I missed a name, and it's come back to haunt me! Azura! There you go! :)

Thank God we made it back to Kajang yesterday or we would've missed this one had we prolonged our stay. Anyways, a massive mud flood hit our house this afternoon after a very heavy downpour. Thankfully, it didn't get past the compound garden and into the house after we've put some barricades to block the water and mud from further pouring in. Just check out the pictures below:

I just made it to Johor Bahru this afternoon. The drive from Kajang was just slightly under three hours (Okay! So I pressed the accelerator a lil' bit at certain stretches!), and for once it was certainly a pleasant drive! No kidding! For once, I wasn't harrassed by those kiasu drivers in the Mercs, Beamers and the occasional Protons, flashing their headlights signalling me to get off the fast lane when I'm overtaking some other car(s) at 140kph with some loved ones on board! I usually stick my middle finger out to them when they pass by. Anyways, today's drive was bliss, I tell you! Good weather, nice driving music to accompany me... Ahhhh! Still, I miss those times when my friends and I were doing those 300-400 mile journeys on the U.S. Interstates during the summer. Ever watched Good Will Hunting? Remember the end credit sequence in that movie? Heh! I suppose you can put that bit in my list of favorite parts from the brilliant movie!

Still on the subject of journey, Lil' Miss Brickchick's flying off tonight to Australia to further her studies. Sorry I can't make it to the airport with the rest of the gang as I'm some 300km away from KLIA today! :P Anyways, all the best there, doodette! Au revoir! Bon Voyage! There'd definitely be a vacuum left in Xfresh.com and #hitz.fm on SorceryNet! Heh!

Much has been said recently about how rampant piracy is in this country. I've been thinking about it lately and it struck me that one of the factors contributing to the situation is availability. I went to Tower Records the other day hoping to get myself Crystal Method's Tweekend, Baby Boy soundtrack, Methods Of Mayhem, Tyrese's 2000 Watts but NONE of them are available! I realize that the market for those albums may not be as many as the larger mainstream and commercial (read Boyband loving) market but you're ignoring fans of those artists and music genres altogether! So what else can we do but resort to finding MP3s of those tunes on the Internet and subsequently contributing and succumbing to piracy altogether? Now I really like those artists to the point that I'm willing to support them by getting actual copies of their albums but there aren't any dammit! And what's the deal with only the censored albums being available too? When I cough up the hard earned dough for an album, I don't wanna listen to some deformed and neutered piece of work. In this situation, piracy wins again when those people resort to other means (e.g. Internet via Napster) to get their music fix.

Of course, the other factor has to be consumers' purchasing power. Look at it this way, the average Malaysian earns between RM2,000 (USD 520) to RM3,000 (USD 780) a month. The average American earns between USD2,000 to USD3,000 a month. Now, there's already an imbalance there. However, the price of a music CD costs around RM 45 (USD 11) here in Malaysia. Looking at some online music stores (e.g. CD Universe), the price is about the same. Now, does that seem right to you? Two different groups of people with different income levels trying to purchase the same goods at the same price. The group with the lower income will definitely feel the pinch of course and what else can they resort to other than pirated goods which costs way, way less. And there we go, piracy wins again.

Then of course, there are those VCD/DVD movie pirates as well. Again, this is contributed by the high cost of a DVD to the average Malaysian. To the average American, forking out USD 20 to USD 25 may not be much when they're earning some USD 2,000 to USD 3,000 but it does to the average Malaysian who's earning around USD 500!

Whoohoo! This has gotta be the longest lapse yet as far as PWM's concerned! I was concentrating on some other stuff lately. Menial and mundane stuff. My head's really done in with the PWM thingy lately so I decided to take some time off from it. So today, I was at it again and fixed a couple of things mainly the Guestbook and Comments thingy. Previously what happened was that if you throw in an apostrophe into the entry and it'll just go *klunk*. So essentially, it's been made slightly more robust now. Oh yeah! See that 'Comment' thingy along the header? Feel free to throw in comments into my daily ramblings. Bring it on!

Got a call from one of my ol' buddies at PPP/ITM last night. It all stemmed from my curiousity when I ran his name on Google and saw his name coming up on UKM's website. I went, "W.t.f. is that s.o.b. doing there??!" So anyways, nice to hear from you again, Hafiz!

Saw this bit of news as I was browsing MTV's website. I'm sure this one caught many people and especially fans offguard. The parting was an amicable one it seems. No matter what, I think it may change Limp Bizkit's sound somewhat. He's been with the band since its inception and has somewhat made LB as what it is today. That elaborate face and body paint will be sorely missed from LB's future performances. But perhaps we'll see it again with Big Dumb Face instead? Heh!

Gee! The weekend turned out to be quite eventful after all. First on Friday evening, I was at my Aunt's wedding (Heh! Corny as it may seem, she's a couple of years younger than I am! In the scheme of things, she's my Mom's cousin). So many congratulations, Tini and Khairi!

Then, I was at MK's farewell lunch party at Planet Hollywood yesterday afternoon. Almost the whole of AMPi's team members were there. He'll be pursuing greener pastures after his stint at AMPi. All the best, dude! Oyez! I finally get to meet his kickass wifey too! Check her out... I mean her site!

This afternoon, Hadi invited me to his month old son's aqiqah and potong jambul ceremony at his place in Seremban. Heh! I wasn't sure how I should go about snipping off a tuft of hair from the baby. God knows I might poke the baby with the scissors or something. Thankfully it all went alright! Alhamdulillah! So congratulations once again, Hadi!

Heh! I finally broke down and got myself a Nikon Coolpix 775 digital camera instead. I know! I know! I've been rambling and singing praises for the Canon Powershot A20 all this while. So why the change of mind? Two things: 1. Rechargeable Li-ion batteries, this one came bundled with the CP775 while the A20 doesn't and 2. Compact Flash Memory Card, the shop I got this one from was willing to throw in a 64MB CF card for like an additional RM 50. So that's that. How do I find it so far? Great! A tad small though. I'm so used to using an SLR camera all this while so it's a bit awkward going back to something similiar to a compact camera. Nightshots aren't quite possible with this camera. No matter how hard I try to force the Exposure level settings, it's just not able to capture that much light, resulting an image with a lot of "noise". I suppose I'll have to wait a bit till I can afford something like the CoolPix 995 then. Heh! This is almost turning into a review already. Perhaps I oughtta put it in as an article instead.

Remember I wanted to work on the Bookmark/Link Manager thingy in my post a couple of days ago? Heh! I ended up went working on the Comment posting thingy instead! It wasn't too much effort on the coding portion for the user front end, but it's quite a bit of a job for the admin portion since I'm stuck on how to lay it all out on the screen. Now, this thing is really almost taking on the form of Greymatter, which I really didn't intend to in the first place. Then again, all the stuff under the hood is just different, most notably this site being database driven. Don't get me wrong. I used Greymatter and have in fact, installed it on my machine. The stuff just rocks! I wish I could write something like that. If only I have the patience for programming as I do troubleshooting system or network related issues. Haa!

Speaking of which, I've been spending some time lately browsing the web and have noticed people taking on blogging (weblogging). It's like an online journal thingy, similiar to this one, although I'd like to think that mine's more like Slashdot. Some of them blogs out there make really interesting reading! Reminds me of that book "Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4" by Sue Townsend. I think if the Internet were as popular as it is today, Sue Townsend might just make Adrian Mole write a blog instead! Heheh!