Tiring week

First 3 evenings spent doing a video promo for a trekking walk happening on the 27th April. Decided to just use Windows Movie Maker due to its simplicity and ease of use. Kudos to Microsoft for having a simple video editor. Yes you cant make that many tweaks but it’s simple and functional to most degrees. Insert in those days preparing to lead CG (that happened last night) for the first time (well maybe second time) and I come back to say I have a lot to learn. There was also brochure design for Run for the World. Spent last night and this morning playing around with J2ME and realizing I have a long way to go if I want to make nice apps. Today spent doing some tutorials on how to use properly use the setup at church. I know I think to much leading me to not want to commit putting it down on paper (or more appropriately, screen) and after doing those tutorials had some drama practice. Ended up playing Call of Duty 4 post dinner for an hour. Let me say I prefer simple (i.e. no-brainer) games like CS and Quake 3 but I think that was the first dose of playing a game I’ve had for a long time. But anyhow I’m tired and drained out. There is much to be done and many aspirations to reach for. Camp coming around the corner in just over 2 months and I have to ‘finish’ up the booklets and souvenirs ASAP. Feeling a discontentment and disconnect with life. It’s times like these that help build character. I just pray that I will have the strength and support through Christ who strengthens me.

Romans 5:3-5
3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us

Brunei’s Recycling Bins

As I was going to the Survey Department I found these guys:
Recycling Bins
Recycling Bins Sponsors Details
As you can see they are sponsored by Daikyo Environmental Recycling. They have the following branches but I just wonder where else in Brunei these bins are located.

Daikyo Environmental Recycling

Main Scrap Yard: Simpang 287 Jln Serasa Muara, BT1128 Brunei Darussalam
Branch: Lot 129-87 Kp Bengkurong Masin BS1920, BSB, Brunei Darussalam
Seria Branch: Lot 4004, Jln Pangsa, Seria, Brunei Darussalam
KB Branch: Lot 4680, Jln Setia Diraja, Kuala Belait Brunei Darussalam

Update: View list of Recycling bins in Brunei

The 1 second film

http://www.the1secondfilm.com/

About The 1 Second Film

The 1 Second Film is a non-profit web fueled collaborative art project that anyone in the world can be part of, including celebrities. :)

As a community, we’re creating the World’s Biggest Shortest Film. The 1 Second Film project is built around one-second of animation (24 frames); each frame is a large mural that was painted by hundreds of people during a collaborative event.

Anyone can help produce the film by donating $1. With thousands of Producers, our end credits will last an estimated 90-minutes! During our credits, a feature-length making of documentary will play, detailing the inspiring and often absurd story behind the project.

All profits raised by the finished film will be donated to the Global Fund for Women.

The 1 Second Film is being directed by award winning filmmaker Nirvan Mullick, and is a production of The Collaboration Foundation, a non-profit art organization with a 5 Phase Plan to bring the world together, one-second at a time, using collaborative art to foster global community and inspire social change.

http://www.roadtooprah.com/

We are on a quest to ask Oprah for $1 to join the producers of The 1 Second Film. The 1 Second Film is a non-profit global collaborative art project bringing thousands of people together to make a film that makes a difference. Anyone in the world can help produce The 1 Second Film by donating $1. From Kiefer Sutherland to Kevin Bacon, thousands of producers are already participating. All profits from our finished film will benefit the Global Fund for Women. It’s the start of a 5 Phase Plan to bring the world together, one second at a time.

A crashing Enterprise Manager

Got this when opening Enterprise Manager?
Crashing Enterprise Manager

SQL Version: SQL 2000 Developer Edition DB Server
Fix:

  • Go to “C:\Documents and Settings\[user profile]\Application Data\Microsoft\MMC”

  • Rename/Delete “SQL Server Enterprise Manager”

  • Re-open Enterprise Manager

Source from www.experts-exchange.com as below

ptjcb:
I have researched this, and I do not find a direct solution.

There are issues with Enterprise Manager and XP but usually they do not let the user open EM. You don’t have that problem. Your mmc works except when checking the properties of a database.

You probably do not have problems with other mmcs (IIS Server – you can open properties, yes?). From the online reading, many discussed conflicts between the XP version of mmc and the older SQL Server version.

Solutions that have worked for others:

FROM
http://sqljunkies.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=9302

From windows explorer, browse to the “MMC” folder under C:\Documents and Settings\[user_profile]\Applicaiton Data\Microsoft\ (This is a hidden folder and to be able to view it you must show hidden files and folders in the “Tools” –> “Folder Options” –> “View” settings). There should be a file named “SQL Server Enterprise Manager”. You can either delete or rename this file (I prefer the latter). MMC will re-create this file the next time you access Enterprise Manager and should then be working properly.

FROM

Kindly install the mmc again from your XP cd and type the following in
start->run

expand F:\i386\mmc.ex_ %systemroot%\system32\mmc.exe
here f is the cd drive. There is a space between the d and
F and between the _ and %.

FROM
http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=68097&whichpage=2

Go to the Run from the Start menu and type mmc and press enter to open an empty console. Under the File menu select “Add/Remove Snap-in”. Click “Add” under Console Root and select the “Microsoft SQL Enterprise Manager” snap-in. Close windows until you are back to the mmc, and you can rename the “console1.msc” to default name which is “SQL Server Enterprise Manager.MSC” and save it under C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\80\Tools\Binn (Default location of SQL Server 2000).

If all else fails,

There is a new MMC.exe 3.0 for XP.

http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=61FC1C66-06F2-463C-82A2-CF20902FFAE0&displaylang=en

***
You can try these solutions. Again, I do not see any solutions for your issue exactly. I also read the list of hotfixes after SP4 and did not see anything that addressed the issue.

flv Retriever

Ever had the moment where you have a friend how asks you how to save Youtube videos or any other videos online? For those who know there is Video Downloader which is available as a web service or even Firefox extension / Opera Widget. But sometimes this can be a bit challenging for some people who can’t remember the website / don’t you Firefox or Opera so here I have a little project called flv Retriever. It is available as a Windows GUI application, command line and DLL and was developed in C# with the help of #develop a.k.a. SharpDevelop (an Open Source IDE for .NET./Mono including a GUI editor!!) and Visual Studio .NET 2003 (only for the DLL creation, if anybody knows how to create a DLL with SharpDevelop let me know).

March 26: Celebrate Document Freedom Day

Document Freedom Day banner The world’s FIRST Document Freedom Day has come.

It came to me as a surprised as I was checking my RSS feeds today and found in on Ubuntu Tutorials – What Are You Doing For Document Freedom Day?. Go spread the word. For freedom!!!

In a world where records are increasingly kept in electronic form, Open Standards are crucial for valuable information to outlive the application in which it was initially generated. The question of Document Freedom has severe repercussions for freedom of choice, competition, markets and the sovereignty of countries and their governments.

The Document Freedom Day (DFD) is a global day for Document Liberation with roughly 200 active teams worldwide. It is a day of grassroots effort around the world to promote and build awareness for the relevance of Free Document Formats in particular and Open Standards in general.

http://documentfreedom.org/

Singapore Trip 08

As soon as I touched down and had a look around on the 6th things looked more or less the same but feels different. 1.5 years is relatively a long time and the pace of life seems to be much faster and the crowd bigger. It has indeed been a few busy days getting stuff for people and getting my own stuff. It’s been great meeting up with old friends and having my first taste of podcasting on 65Bits. I guess so far what I wanted to achieve out of this holiday has not been fully attained. As I’ve been telling everyone this 1 month is going to be a time of rest, relaxation and more importantly reevaluation but so far on this trip I think I’ve only had some relaxation. Doing the ‘mandatory’ mom-thinks-I-don’t-have-enough-clothes shopping yesterday was a bit of a bore but the more I look at the computer stuff I can’t get back home the more I want to buy all that I can =p

Custom Search Engines: Opera vs Firefox

**Updated with new easy way below**

Opera

Preferences > Search

Firefox

  1. Create .src and icon files and put it on a local server. Example of Google.src:

    <search>
    name = "Google search"
    method = "get"
    action = "http://google.com/search"
    >
    <input name="q" user="">
    </search>
  2. Create HTML page to load Javascript action to add search engine. Example:

    <html>
    <script type="text/Javascript">
    function addEngine()
    {
    if ((typeof window.sidebar == "object") && (typeof window.sidebar.addSearchEngine == "function"))
    {
    window.sidebar.addSearchEngine(
    "http://localhost/google.src",
    "http://localhost/google.png",
    "Google Search",
    "Web" );
    }
    else
    {
    alert("Mozilla M15 or later is required to add a search engine.");
    }
    }
    addEngine();
    </script>
    </html>
  3. Load page and add accordingly

Conclusion

Is it me or is adding a custom search engine for Firefox just way too hard? It took me a good 20 minutes just to get mine to work. I tried not having to use a local server by using relative url’s for the src and icon file but that didn’t work, it just gave me an Install Error: “This search engine isn’t supported by Firefox and can’t be installed”. Yes I know there extra search engines already provided but the issue I had was that the inbuilt Google search was redirected to the Google Brunei search with text in Malay and would not recognize English words to use with the definition feature (where you can click the search word in the top right of the page to find out the definition). So with that I provide Custom Firefox Search Engine page. It’s not much but I may probably add more custom search engines that I use there and begins some what of my Firefox tweaking and stuff.

P.S. Anybody with a better, i.e. easier way of adding a custom search engine to Firefox do let me know thanks.

** Update **
Found a quicker way here: Create Search Shortcuts. Thank you revision3
Basically all you have to do is..

  1. Right click ANY text box with a button next to it, i.e. a search field
  2. Select “Add a Keyword for this Search…” (Firefox) / “Create Search…” (Opera)
  3. Fill in the details name and keyword (Firefox) / just keyword (Opera)
  4. Click Add / Ok and start using it!