Phil's Notebook 

Ironic...

Ironically, I got today what I've been hoping to get ever since stepping foot on Japan, my gaijin card (or　外人登録証明書）. A gaijin card is a useful piece of document required in almost any business transaction for foreigners living in Japan, examples are opening bank accounts and renting an apartment. It's also useful when using city or community facilities. Of course there is no more need for it since I'm leaving in 6 weeks. But maybe I can still make use of some of the community facilities like the local basketball gym...

I managed to get my ATM card today as well. That's after walking for over 30 mins from my pad to the post office. I could've avoided the long trek if I had read about the redelivery service in advanced and not wait til the last minute (today was the last day the post office was to hold my package from the bank). And since I need the card to withdraw cash Friday, I had no better alternative. Another lesson against procrastination. Also another ironic situation, bank account will have to be closed in a month's time...

Next Stop: HKG (again)

It's official!!! I'm heading back to Hong Kong after a 5-month stint in Tokyo. I'd be around until the end of April and will start employment with another company in May. Other than the May 1 holiday, there's no time for R&R, sigh...

I've started working on a list of TODOs for the next 6 weeks. The Yokohama Sea Paradise would certainly be top on this list. So will the Ghibli Museum. I'd like to visit other museums and galleries as well. Saw that there will be a Van Gogh exhibit around this time. Hope to get lots of pictures later on. Sigh.. so many things to do, yet so little time...

Moodle on Joe's Box

Joe made his server available for me to use and I decided I'd move Moodle over and let it have a permanent home.

The installation took most of my time this morning and parts of the afternoon. It was supposed to be smooth since I had installed it before. But there were some gotchas:

1. the OS is different. Did it on 2000, this time is 2003 (IIS is different too).
2. MySQL already installed by Plesk which is an earlier version of MySQL.

In retrospect, it wasn't difficult at all, answers were readily available online and it just took some experimenting, trial and error tests. It's a good experience and I'm really forcing myself to document the steps that I take which have several advantages:

1. I can go back and undo things when they don't work out as expected.
2. I can use it as a reference for reinstalls or similar future projects

I hope I can keep up this habit and allocate time every week to do something like this.

Slacking Off...

I'm guilty of slacking off since coming back from Hong Kong and the ski trip as far as blogging is concerned. Haven't really posted anything other than one or two posts in the geek section.

The Monday following the ski trip saw me sick with a slight flu where I had to have the afternoon off. After a good rest, it was a pretty busy at the office for the next couple of weeks.

March also happened to be the month my video service is doing a promotion where I get to watch all the premium channels for free. I've watched a number of films recently:
(in no particular order)
- About Schmidt (nice and somewhat entertaining)
- The Man in the Iron Mask (i liked how the plot went)
- Beautiful Joe (watched partially, didn't fit my taste)
- Drunk Punch Love (this film got me glued to the tube simply because it's an Adam Sandler film, I didn't get to appreciate to film until about halfway through and I think that being patient does pay off).
- Johnny English (light and funny. I love Natalie Imbruglia)
- 25th Hour (I didn't think about watching as I have not heard about it. But since it was just about to start - it followed Johnny English immediately on the same night, I thought I'd look it up on the net to see what it's about. Then I realised it's a Spike Lee film and it stars Edward Norton and Barry Pepper, so I watched. I was never disappointed. Best film from the list here and highly recommended.)

With just a little over half a month to go, I'd probably be keeping myself busy watching a few more 'free' movies. Bad Boys 2 to be shown tomorrow and saw that Matrix Revolution is in the schedule as well (not that I like the The Matrix - The Matrix Reloaded rates pretty low for me - but that I'm interested how the story goes and needed some sort of a closure.. arggghh). Looking forward to other films like Jackal and Matchstick Men as well.

Harry Potter (1 and 2) are both available free on-demand. How nice...

Depending on what is showing in April, I might just get premium access. We'll see...

Virtual Girlfriend

A Hong Kong company, Company is called Artificial Life: Artificial Life, developed a game involving a virtual girlfriend for 3G (2.5G also available) subscribers. The girlfriend named Vivienne will be able to interact just like a real person it claims. She can carry out conversations and can be flattered by virtual gifts purchased with real money!


This is Vivienne, she's 21 years old, stands 5'2" and weighs 98 pounds.


Vivienne is her other outfits.

$6 a month just to flirt with her seems like a steep price to pay. Also makes her somewhat of a virtual prostitute doesn't it? Even though she doesn't engage in any virtual sex.

According to the article, she can also do translations, so if you ever need to order food in cantonese (or another language that she speaks) just send her the word or question and she'll say it out.

Sounds a lot like it's a game for losers. Then again wouldn't it be great to have Vivienne as a personal secretary whom you can ask to get some real work done like book your flight tickets, reserve your table at the restaurant or ask her to remind you of people's birthdays with gift suggestions?

Now that's something I'd pay for :-)

Read the full CNet article here.

Moodle 2

After 2 days of trying to get Moodle to work, I found myself tinkering about with the irs mailing/notification functions. Took me one whole day to figure it out and it all boils down to RTFM! The Moodle install FAQ had the answer all along and it's an add-on NT service.

Now everything should be working fine. Just have to fill it with some useful content and test all the other functions. Can't wait to get this done and over with so I can move on and try the community server.

Would wanna spend some time on the Darwin Server and Asterisk too.. sigh so many things to do but so little time...

Sandbox Moodle Online

I've started playing around with a new script called Moodle recently and finally got it to work after 2 days. I got stuck with the installation script because of two main incompatibility issues, one with the PHP version I'm using (I switched to version 4.1.3 from php5) and the other was with Moodle's installation script not being able to connect to the MySQL database because of an incompatible password format used (luckily I found the solution from the forum stating that the database can be set to accept old password format which worked).

Moodle is basically a content management system primarily designed for online course content creation. From the Moodle site, it's called a Course Management System (also CMS), Learning Management System (LMS) and Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). There are nifty tools like scales and grades as well, which makes it a nice tool for schools as well as any company wanting to put up training information online.

You can visit my Moodle page at http://sbox.fdns.net/moodle. I've yet to fully test it and if you are interested to have a look, I can get you a content creator account . Just drop me an email or message me over msn.

The official Moodle site: www.moodle.org

Weekend On The Slopes

I went to Hakuba-Iwata (白馬岩岳) for the weekend snowboarding. It was my first time and the experience was such a blast. I've taken a number of photos and divide todays's entry into two parts: Day 1 and Day 2.

Day 1

Took off at 12:00 AM on my buddy, Takeshi's electric blue Honda Fit.




Here is Takeshi filling up the tank.


The whole trip to Hakuba-Iwata is aobut 3.5 hours but since we were up since 7 AM Friday, we had to stop over for a little nap.




Me, buried under a blanket in the front seat.




Sunrise and we're still an hour away...




Finally arrived at Esquina, our roosting ground for the night. This place is interesting, all the guests walk around the halls barefooted. Shoes are not allowed inside and no slippers provided either. Other than that , the service is great , room's clean and comfortable (i love tatami mats) and there's a public bath too.




The slope. Weather not too good, foggy and low visibility.




Me in my bright yellow Salomon ski jacket and my rented Volki board.




Takeshi's been snowboarding for more than ten years.


Since this is my first, I found myself falling all over the place and in every direction imaginable. I think I must have fallen like a million times from the peak to the foot of the slope. On one decent, I accelerated too fast, lost control and hit myself in the jaw with my knee when I fell.. Ouch! Hurt big time!

Luckily I did managed to learn to get from point A to B on the board and also to switch directions zigzagging down the slope. It wasn't graceful but hey I finished the course. I do need help with my form and technique so I decided to take lessons the next day.

Day 2

Energised by a good night's sleep and a hefty mixed Japanese (rice, natto and miso soup) and western (ham and egg) breakfast, I was ready for another take at the slopes.




A change for the better. Sunday was so different from the previous day..




It felt great getting through this segment. I managed to decend without hitting my face or butt in the snow. As they say in Japan 'YATTA!!!'




A breathtaking view from the slope. I took this mid way down the slope while resting my knees.




A view from the gondola (the ski lift, cable car).




Taking a ride on the lift is quite an experience in itself. Up 30~40 feet, board on one foot and no harness. I couldn't help but hold on to the bars with both hands.




Had lunch at the peak where the SkyArk is located. It's basically a mess hall. It has a very university cafeteria feel. Oh the university days...


After lunch, my 2-hour private snowboarding lesson starts.

There are basic 3 ways you can slide with a snow board:

The first is to have the board in line with the slope, This slides down the fastest and is actually what I did when I got too fast for my own good and hurt my jaw.

The second which I learned on day 1 is to have the heels press against the snow, this way you move down the slope with your back towards the slope. By far the easiest as all you have to do is lean back and put your weight on your heels to control decent and direction.

The third I learned on day 2, through my instructor, which is the exact opposite of the second. Instead of putting your weight on the heels, you put it on the toes and balls of your feet (this is the spot on your feet where your toes joins the rest of the feet). The decent is done with your body towards the slope. Took me several tries to get it right. Changing directions requires adjusting your weight from one foot to the other.

Combining the 3 above, one can create a symphony of movements across the slope in style. I managed to learn just one move and that's the curve, shifting from back towards slope (#2) to body towards slope (#3) while doing S-shaped curves. I felt so high doing it over and over. It was a very productive afternoon.

And of course I have my intructor to thank for all these.

Another thing I've learned is that like all other things, panicking doesn't help.




Me and Imai-san（今井さん）, my instructor for the day. Imai-san is a B-level snowboarder which is just one level below the top-level of A. Under B are levels 1-5.




Me in action. The red vest I'm wearing tells other skiers and snowboarders to stay clear of the novice :-)


Left Iwata with a headache from the cold air blowing in my head, an aching body from all the falls and an extreme experience to remember.




A pic of our rides, on the road and on the slopes.




Another shot of the view on Sunday.




Always wanted to take a shot like this.

Lunar New Year in HK.. Great to be home.

It's been sometime since I last blogged. I was in HK for a week during the Lunar New Year. Sure was great to be back home after 3 months in Tokyo. Never realised that I would miss home that much... sigh

Every Lunar New Year, there would be a fair called 花市 (literally means flower market) where mainly flowers are sold (obviously). But through the years it has evolved into a sort of flea market where you'll find almost anything from vacuum cleaners, kitchen tools, toys, health food and lots of useless stuffs. I took some pictures of my discoveries.



on one of the main avenue in the fair ground.



水仙 (suisin) are common during this time of year and homes would usually have one or two pans of such. According to dictionary.hk.yahoo.com 水仙 is known as Chinese Sacred Lily in english.



Another common potted plant sold are mandarin oranges (柑桔). The word 桔 (gut or kut) sounds like the word 吉 which means luck or good fortune. This year's sales is not good though I heard, largely due to the fear of the red fire ants that could be present in the pots.



The whole 花市 is just like a carnival (minus the rides).



She's selling health enhancing tea if my memory serves me right.



Even the local Catholic Church gets its own stall.



Yikes! They're everywhere!!!



Not to be outdone, political personalities like Long Hair 長毛 (real name 梁國雄) also made their presence felt during the celebrations.



I pretended to be a tourist and asked them to pose for this pic :)



Took this pic coz it's so interesting. Reflects the presence of Japanese consumer brands in HK.



Of course coming to HK means meeting up with the gang. Thanks guys for such a wonderful time! Some guys missing in the pic.. u know who u are. Thanks!!!

GNUPG

I've heard about PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) for a while. I never really bothered since I don't have a need nor paranoia to encrypt my files. Today however, is an exception, my colleague wanted me to find him an encryption software and since I'm an open source fan I opted against using winzip's encryption feature and searched an opensource alternative instead.

Googling for "encryption software" I stumbled upon GNUPG (GNU Privacy Guard). It's available on a number of platforms including Linux, Mac and Windows.

Downloaded the binary, followed instructions in a related online tutorial and voila! I got it working under 10 mins. I'm sure others will get it under 5 mins.

PGP works using a private/public key pair (aka asymmetric encryption). In a nutshell, one would use a public key to encrypt a message or file and use the private key from that pair to decrypt it. A practical example would be, say you want to send me a confidential message. You'd encrypt the message using my public key which as the name implies is publicly available (either I publish this on the web or sent or made it beforehand) and sent via email or any electronic means.

Upon receiving the message, I as the recipient will use my private key to decrypt it. The algorithm employed is quite clever in that the key pair works such that one can only use the private key to decrypt a message encrypted with a public key and not when using one key alone (i.e. you cannot use the public key to decrypt a message encrypted using that same public key, same goes for the private key). If you were able to, that would be called secret-key or symmetric key encryption which is quite different ;-)

I tried to paste my public key here but the blog engine isn't displaying properly :-(

GNUPG for Windows instructions can be found in:
http://www.glump.net/content/gpg_intro/html_onepage/gpg_intro.html

GNUPG can be downloaded from:

http://www.gnupg.org/(en)/download/