Avoice

I just learned about the new browser on the block - Flock.

Flock is built upon the firefox source code base. It’s different because it’s more integrated with websites like Facebook, Gmail, Flickr, Youtube and blogging websites.

It has a built in blog editor and I am typing this blog in the editor now.

The interface is not as clean as a normal browser where all you want is browse. The interface may seem a little noisy initially but after spending 10 minutes on it, it feels natural.

So go and download a copy and play with it.

It’s often difficult to get back to the routines of life after a vacation. Some vacations are for the sole purpose of sightseeing and visiting new places. Others are merely for catching up with friends and family. The last 10 days of my life was like a time travel. I met friends I have not seen for 20 years. I attended a wedding of a girl who used to be 6 years old in my memory. It’s difficult to sync up reality and memories.

It made me realize that I have aged. It’s true. Time waits for no man. You know you are old when the kid you babysat gets married.

I realize that some relationships just drop off if I am not deliberate about them. I took pictures of these old friends. I don’t hope to wait another 20 years to see them again. How many 20 years do I have?  

I spent many sleepless nights due to a terrible jet lag. My body clock is somewhere in the European zone. In those sleepless nights, I wished I was with my family. I can really sympathize with those who suffer from insomnia. In spite of all that, it was a wonderful trip. Attending the wedding of Jacqueline was such a blessing to me. It really made me treasure the time I have with my own kids - cause it won’t be very long before they start their own family.

I am more convinced that relationships and friendships keeps humanity going. At the end of the day, it’s not about the wealth you have acquired, it’s not about the great inventions; it’s about how many lives you have touched personally. We have 1 life, let’s be deliberate about the relationships we have - let’s go make that phone call that is at the bottom of your to-do list.

It’s 4:22 A.M local time in Singapore. I am wide awake.

The Journey

Amazingly, the 18 hrs flight from LA to Singapore was not bad at all. They served dinner immediately after the flight took off. I then proceeded to watch The Bourne Supremacy. It was entertaining especially if you like Jack Bauer kind of "do whatever to me and I won’t die" kind of show.

After the movie, I slept. I was exhausted and I just wanted to sleep. I had a pretty good 7.5 hrs of sleep. There was a lounge area at the back of the plane, so I just hung out there for an hour or so talking to different people and drinking plenty of fluid. It was very dry on the plane. I met 2 Americans who were on their business trip - they have been doing this for quite a while now and they told me they absolutely loved Singapore.

I returned to my seat and continued the Bourne Trilogy - The Bourne Ultimatum. What can I say - Jason Bourne just never dies!

The Arrival

As I stepped out of SQ37, everything looked familiar yet not quite. There was this sense of being home - a sense that I know my way around even though the physical surrounding is not familiar. It’s intuition at it’s highest form.

I have always been amused by the concept of home. What makes a place home? Is it the people or is it the place? Or is it both?

I am on a Delta flight to Atlanta now. The clock reads 7:29 A.M. All I can hear now is the sound of the airplane’s engine. I knew I needed one of those noise canceling earphones. No, not really, but it would have been nice.

I was surprised to see that there were a lot of early fliers on a Sunday morning. Don’t you just hate early morning flights? Your body is not ready, your emotions are still sleeping and they fire you into the air.

I am on my way to Singapore via Atlanta and LA. Normally, I think I would have been super excited but since I am traveling alone and my family is not with me, I am feeling a little numb.

Flying alone brings back some childhood memories. Unpleasant ones. I left Malaysia to study in Singapore at the age of 8 ½ . I would return home during the school holidays. And when the holidays ended, I would fly to Singapore alone. The flight from Sabah to Singapore was 2 hours. I would be sobbing through the whole 2 hours. It was painful for a kid to leave his family. Very painful. The crying stopped when I was 15.

In this media age, we can numb those feelings of sadness with media. Just watch a couple of movies? Play a few games? And all your sorrows will be gone?

I can see the sun just outside my seat window. It’s absolutely beautiful seeing the never ending balls of clouds below. Ok. They don’t quite look like balls, they just look like fluffy cotton. Don’t you just wish you could stand on these clouds? Would teleporting be possible someday? If that was possible, I could live in Singapore and work in the US.

Picture of Martin Luther King, JR taken at Atlanta Airport

Khloe made this Good Bye box for me

7:58 A.M – Oh ya. I almost forgot to mention that the Buckeyes are playing in the BCS Championship game. What a pleasant surprise as West Virginia and Missouri both lost. What are the chances?

5:17 P.M. - I am sitting in one of the terminals in LA airport. Just paid $9.99 to access the Internet for the next 24 hrs through T-Mobile Hotspot. I still have to wait for another 6 hrs?

The flight from Atlanta to LA felt so long. And it was only 4.5 hrs, how would I survive the 18 hrs flight?

The in flight entertainment system on the Delta flight was pretty bad. They had to reboot the system at least twice because it was NOT working for majority of the people. As it was rebooting, I happened to notice that it was running a Linux system. So much for how great Linux systems are.

They had a trivial game where you play against everyone else on the plane. There was this person JJ - he won pretty much every round. Pretty smart guy/gal.

Back view from where I am sitting at LA airport.

I am going to look for something to eat now. I am feeling hungry.

It’s Thanksgiving Day today. One has to understand the why to truly appreciate this day.

Thanksgiving Day was started by the pilgrims who first came to America. These forefathers had a rough life. You can imagine the long rough journey on the Mayflower. And things did not get better when they arrived in Plymouth. It was winter and it was cold. Half of the people died. Things only started getting better when Spring arrived. They had a great harvest that November. What did they do? They had a huge party - they invited the Indians and they partied for 3 days straight. They sure knew how to party.

With all the hardships they endured, they could be truly thankful when things started getting better. They chose to be thankful instead of complaining over their earlier misfortunes. Thankfulness is a choice.

Sometimes the road to cultivating a thankful heart is filled with thorns and bumps.

Do you have a thankful heart?

I don’t know why facts like - What are the top 5 countries with the highest population? - escapes my mind all the time.

So here they are - in case I forget again.

1. China (1,317,431,495)

2. India (1,129,667,528)

3. United States (301,967,681)

4. Indonesia (224,481,720)

5. Brazil (186,771,161)

Source

I have avoided it for so long. I have been more convinced lately in doing a masters in Computer Science. And that means I need to take the GRE.

I found these resources for high frequency words that are helpful for the GRE exam.

Barron High Frequency Words

Kaplan Top GRE Words

Combination of both lists (Barron and Kaplan)

Here’s a question posted on microsoft.publc.dotnet.framework.drawing

I’ve got a picture box inside a picture box.  I would like to be able to
move it and scale it.  I’ve got the moving part down, and currently have a
“make bigger” and “make smaller” button that scale the image by some fixed
number when clicked.
Is there an easy way to allow the user to grab an edge and resize?  I’ve
tried a few different things, but with no luck.

A normal top-level window can be resized and dragged. The OS (Windows XP/Vista here) already has a mechanism for doing that. Since a picturebox control is a child window (a window with a parent), we should be able to resize it and drag it during runtime.

The trick in asking the OS to resize a window is sending the window a WM_SYSCOMMAND message. The following are parameters you pass in the message to specify how the window should be resized.

public const int SC_DRAGMOVE = 0xF012;
public const int SC_DRAGSIZE_N = 0xF003;
public const int SC_DRAGSIZE_S = 0xF006;
public const int SC_DRAGSIZE_E = 0xF002;
public const int SC_DRAGSIZE_W = 0xF001;
public const int SC_DRAGSIZE_NW = 0xF004;
public const int SC_DRAGSIZE_NE = 0xF005;
public const int SC_DRAGSIZE_SW = 0xF007;
public const int SC_DRAGSIZE_SE = 0xF008;

Usually, in your OnMouseDown method, you would delegate the job of resizing to ths OS. The code below does just that.

NativeCalls.SendMessage(hwnd, NativeCalls.WM_SYSCOMMAND, NativeCalls.SC_DRAGSIZE_S, ref nul);

I have attached a sample program here that allows a user to grab the edge of the picturebox and resize it.

Enjoy!

I have a goal to visit all the 50 States of America. By visit, I mean, I have to stay in a city of that state for at least 1 day.

Here is a map of all the places I have been.

Matthew 11:28-30 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)

28″Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus says “Come to me”, and here might be some of our responses

1. Lord, thanks for the invitation, maybe later.
2. Do I really have to?
3. Lord, I am too tired to go to you.
4. Forget it! I have been disappointed before.
5. Why should I? Why don’t you come to me?

Jesus is giving an invitation here, He does not force us to go to Him. The reward for going to Him is rest. Don’t we all need some rest? I need rest; Physical and emotional rest. Life is hard, if you are not careful, it knocks you hard and may knock you out.

The picture I have is someone who has been walking for hundreds of miles with this huge and heavy bag on his back, he comes to the throne and puts down his bag and he just sits there. He sits for days and days resting his tired legs. And when he finally stands again, he is amazed at how light he feels and how strong his legs have become from all the walking and carrying of this heavy bag.