Daily Life: Standard Chartered Marathon 2009

It's been 3 years since i last took part in the standard chartered marathon. It requires constant training and discipline to wake up very early 3.30am on the day of race, spend cab money to go there and then run like hell, bearing pain all the way until the race ends and later in the first week.

But today, I took part once again in the race as my colleague was not able to attend so ask me if i wish to take part. I started training early but in-regular and i pay the price later in the day. My brother was kind enough to give me a ride to city hall in the morning. (I paid a token of S$10 for the fuel)

The race started at 5.30am and with 50,000 runners this year round, all i see is people and more people at the start line. The first 10k was running as usual. With 50,000 running feet, it generate enough momentum to carry me through. Halfway between 13K and 16K mark, I run into my NS CSM. I did not know he got run and we talked a little before each moving on. The next 15k was hell, I was getting drenched in sweat and in need of salt but i continue to run at a lower pace. By the 28k mark, my ankle is so painful that i cannot continue for a while so i started walking onwards for the next 8k. By the time I left east coast park, it is already 10am. This time i ran with my iphone so i can keep track of the time and take some photos on the way.

The 11am to 12am sun was killing, Singapore weather is hot and humid. I feel sticky all over and wants to fall out around the 34k mark but since I already clear so much and with many runners moving to the side to warm-up and walkers become more, I grin and started jogging. Ignoring my ankle pain, I continue until the 38k mark and took a breather.

At the F1 circuit with another 4k more, I started to jogged and was glad for the effort. I started moving ahead of the walking pack and move past pacers which i have earlier marked. There were many nice girls running and wanted to move closer to them to chat. But since this is a race and the afternoon sun is getting louder, I decided to move on. By the time I reach the finish line, its 12.18pm.

Its a very fulfilling journey and glad to know that there are many more runners now than before. Even though many walked, their momentum carried me through. My knee and ankle are so painful that walking up and down stairs become a challenge. All during the run, my stomach also gives me a lot of problem, I have to let off gas while running (to the horror of the one running behind me). My ASCIS shoes which has serviced me since 2001 for all my marathons finally give way after the finish point. It has served me well and I will continue to purchase ASCIS shoes or New Balance depending on whether they have for flat foot.

IT: First look at HP Probook 5310M

With the introduction of the Probook series, HP is attempting to engage the SME markets where brands like acer, dell etc are doing for some time. Its latest, the HP Probook 5310M is primarily design as a thin-and-light notebook for executive of SMEs with limited budget.

Below are the specs of the reviewed 5310M
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo SP9300 2.26Ghz
Memory: 2GB
Hard dis: 320GB 5400rpm
Screen: 13.3" LCD with webcam
Optical Drive: external DVD writer multi-format
Card reader: can read SD/MMC only
Graphics: Intel GMA 4500HDA graphics card
Connectivity: Bluetooth, wireless 802.11a/b/g/n, Gigabit LAN
OS: Windows 7 business 32-bit
Additional ports: VGA, display port (Apple make this infamous)3 USB
Battery: 4 Cell offering up to 2 1/2 hours usage
Weight: 1.72kg with 4-cell battery
Warranty: 1 year standard next business day

At first glance, furnishing is gloss corporate black. So oily finger marks are not so visible on the notebook. The keyboard is nothing to shout at, I think all probook keyboard have the same feel. It is very comfortable to type on the notebook.

In the next review, we will look into the performance of this notebook using Windows 7 business 32-bit.

Daily Life: How I spent my weekends

Weekends are very precious to the family. It is during these times where fathers and mothers spend some quality time with their children or elders. it is a time to relax and recharge for the coming week.

For me, weekends are time I can do more quality work. That is part of being in IT, holidays and weekends are time we can perform maintenance on servers without users scream for our blood when servers go down. But even as workaholic, I prefer to spend my weekends at home, surfing the internet, watching youtube movies or tudou movies online (current my favorite pastime) or having a game of badminton with my friends/ go running.

I seldom go shopping except for important daily items. I love visiting the library though, especially level 11, 8 and 7. level 11 is where the magazines are so i can get to know latest info and entertainment news, level 8 is the finance section where i can catch on investment know-how while level 7 contains IT reference section where I spend some time looking for some workarounds or solutions for the company.

So how u spend ur weekends? Is it any different from mine? Care to share your thoughts here.

Daily Life: Can love cure anger?

Recently maybe due to working pressure to perform plus other issues with other sites, I feel that i get angry very easily. Take today for example, I am supposed to be on leave but due to a server issue, I decided to get back office to resolve the problem. The manager that reported the problem to me got whack by me.... Of course the problem did not lay with him nor do i not know the company culture. What cause me to be angry is the users suggest the the previous support staff just switch on/off the server and the problem went away.

I was totally blown off after this comment as 1) the support staff is no longer with the company 2)what he did no one knows else him and the problem does not gets resolved. it just get side-track and pile up into another issue by itself. I first hand saw what damage the ex support staff did and people who knows the truth know that I have every reason to be angry.

But as a infrastructure engineer, I know that with the problem faced by the manager, there is no way for his dept to perform effectively and it will directly impact MIS and give people more reason to 'screw' us up. I managed to identify the root cause and resolved it before 10.30am.

Since I am on leave, I went home after that and went for a 6-lap run (a lap around my estate is about 600m). I feel de-stress after that. But how long I can last like that I wonder? Somebody say love can smooth a wild beast, I doubt any girl is willing to take the risk..... to save.....

Well lets take a day as it goes and keep in mind that I need to keep calm.....

Daily Life: What's ur favourite subway sandwich

As I normally work on Saturdays, I try to give myself a treat on that day. All weekdays I will be taking normal hawker food like laska, chicken rice, mixed vegetable rice, fishball noodles and others. Sometimes if my colleague is having lunch with his wife, I will ask him to help me buy Mac cheeseburger. Not that it is healthy, but it is the cheapest burger I can afford @ $2 a piece.

So with the money saved (S$10 per day for meals is not a big deal in Singapore context but to me it is...), I will balance it with a subway sandwich on Saturdays. Why subway? well, it has good bread like my favorite, hearty Italian and lots of vegs. I love vegs but cannot live without meat yet.

My top three choices are subway melt, cold cut trio and italian B.M.T. Except for onions, I will take all vegs and have honey mustard as the sauce. When I am very on the ball, I will take only olive oil if they do have.

Whats urs?

IT: Windows 7 hype or the real deal?

Windows 7 was launched worldwide on Oct 22. Its the replacement for vista which unfortunately is a failed product since XP. Vista's heavy memory usage plus security orientated settings though good, failed to win the hearts of many XP users including business like my company.

Despite deployed successfully Vista business on some workstations and desktop in production environment, our testing conclude that Vista business even when locked down, does not provide the stability nor performance of XP Pro. so when Windows 7 Professional (not the RTM version) is available for us 2 months before the Oct 22 launch to test, we decided to test it out.

To my surprise, it's 1) fast to install when compare to Vista business and provided most of the device drivers, more than XP Pro. We tried both a upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 & a fresh installation of Windows 7. both result are the same: good! 2) its memory demands is low, we test on a Core duo machine running on 512MB ram and it performs like XP Pro, stable and fast.

Its interface needs to get use to; users of vista OS should not have any problem with Windows 7. We also tested our existing applications like Sophos AV, SAP, engineering software like UG NX4 etc on windows 7 and do not encounter any issues despite that these applications are designed more for XP Pro.

I like the User Access control (UAC) which was a nightmare in Vista OS. Windows 7's UAC is less noisy and provides the necessary protection we are looking for.

On the whole, I think Microsoft do address the shortcoming of the vista OS with the windows 7 OS. Looks like I have to work out the migration plan to change some if not machines to Windows 7.

IT: Review on MSI X340

Today we will look at the MSI X340 notebook. Its design is a copy from the Apple Macbook Air n Dell Adamo. Like the apple and dell models, it does not have a built-in dvd writer and uses a standard USB external drive.

Its strongest point is its price, retailed at S$1300 for a standard base unit, it is at least 35% cheaper than its peers-in-class while keeping the same weight and thickness.

Below are its specs
Intel Core 2 Solo U1400 1.4Ghz
2GB Ram
320GB Hard disk
Full sized keyboard
1.3M Webcam
2 USB ports
1 VGA port
SD, MMC media reader
Intel Wireless 5100N adapter
Boardcomm Giga-E Lan adapter
56K Modem (Do people still use it???)
13.4" LCD
Windows Vista Home Premium
1.3kg for weight/w battery, Dimensions: 330 x 224 x 19.8 mm
Warranty: 1 year international, 2nd year local