Let not the lack of updates to this poor blog deceive you though, for you bet, the semester was so jam-packed that I promptly shied away from the Add New Post button. But this blog wasn’t left idle for nothing.

We pulled through preparing a case study report and presenting it later..

Kheng Shin talking on the Da Vinci Surgical Robot

We spent hours on end building, programming, testing and programming, and programming, aaand programming a Lego robot for the Robotic Competition..

Troubleshooting robot problems while Kheng Shin snapped us

..which exceeded our wildest expectations when it secured a shiny 3rd place.

Victory

We got a taste of industrial machining when we grinded and milled a nut and bolt out of bare steel cylinders.

Forming a bolt on a lathe machine

We’d never look at music boxes in gift shops the same way again after cracking our heads implementing one in Embedded Microcontrollers.

Music Boxes are a pain to program I tell you

We celebrated our achievements in the scholarships presentation ceremony..

Scholars of joy

In a few hours time, we’d head into the halls. Where the air-cond chill and endless rows of isolated tables arranged in a perfect grid overwhelms your surroundings, as if designed specifically to thwart your confidence. As we approach our designated desks, although in sweaty palms and short, cold breaths, we sit down in dignity.

Danbo studies

For it is with dignity we make 4-months of hardship — worthwhile.

Good luck!

So — *slaps on a 3-foot-thick face* — during the mid-term break five uh, weeks ago, the family tagged along Dad to Sibu where he had official duty. We spent the night at Betong before continuing on the journey along the Trans-Borneo highway to the third largest city of Sarawak.

The famous Sibu Express Boat Wharf — 3 exposure HDR

Almost six whole hours on the road later, we found ourselves in the midst of the bustling town of Sibu. Dad took us straight to the famous express boat wharf  — a nostalgic sight I haven’t seen in some good 10 years. And boy had this laid-back town changed over the years, most prominently with the addition of Sarawak’s tallest building — the Wisma Sanyan.

Wisma Sanyan: The tallest building in Sarawak is not in Kuching, mind you.

Incidentally, our hotel was right next to this towering monolith and the country’s largest town square it looks upon. We sighed a breath of relief when Dad pulled up onto the lobby of RH Hotel, which was thankfully a universe away from the bare-boned one we spent the night in back in Betong.

The room — and my workstation throughout the stay

So this was where we spent the next 5 days.

Hanging out in the corridors

Camwhoring

Coffee?

My Sis and I was also lucky enough to find access to the executive floors one bored morning. We literally explored every corner of that 14-storey building. Funny thing was, the lift blocked access to the executive floors the next time when we tried to bring Mom and Dad up.

RH Hotel’s Executive Suites

Because the rooms came with complimentary breakfast at the hotel restaurant for two, we took turns to head down every morning for a scrumptious buffet breakfast.

Breakfast was never this good

When not eating in the hotel, we’d head out. I must say though, RH Hotel has the most strategic location. It was just a stone’s throw away from the Wisma Sanyan mall and the humongous Sibu Town Square. Not to mention, only a walking distance from countless eateries of Sibu’s CBD. Seriously, you have to be really lazy to stay hungry there.

Throughout our stay, the rain gods were kind enough to spare their lightning spears and water hoses. For it didn’t rain even a single drop in the five days we were in Sibu. The clear skies all day long eventually led into beautiful sunsets over the Rejang River. Ones that scream for you to get out and shoot.

Sister and dusk at the Sibu Town Square — 3-exposure HDR

Which was exactly what I did.

Mom and Sis at the Sibu waterfront park

We also walked over to the  really well-kept Sibu waterfront park for an even better view of sunsets.

On the last day, we had lunch at the Sibu Central Market. Dad recalled of how they display livestock for sale in the market — all wrapped up in newspaper tubes with only their heads bobbing up and down. It was a must-see.

Live chickens in the Sibu Central Market

It didn’t take long for us to find the live chickens. While initially amused at how they were left with their heads excitedly bobbing, some of these poor birds just hung their heads low — as if in hopeless despair. I felt a tinge of sympathy as I shot them through my viewfinder. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not turning vegetarian anytime soon. Chickens are..well, chickens. It is their fate, however unfortunate.

Nonetheless, we headed up to the 1st floor of the market to savour some authentic Sibu food for the last time. Not missing, of course, the oh-so-overrated kompiah — dry and hard oven-baked lumps of flour sprinkled with sesame seeds. I never understood how could people eat them as-is. Other than its bland taste, its dry and rock-hard texture could seriously break some teeth.

Sibu kompiah stuffed with minced meat

But, when you slice a kompiah in half, stuff some juicy minced meat into it and deep-fry it into some golden-brown goodness — you’ve got the best delicacy 60 cents can buy you (prices may vary). It was the first stuff we ordered as soon as we sat down.

Knowing all so well one cannot leave Sibu without a large bag of kompiahs, we headed to the old Sibu Market after lunch to get ourselves some of them freshly-baked from authentic kompiah bakeries. If you’ve never seen how kompiahs are baked, here you go:

Fresh batches of kompiah in a traditional Chinese oven

The bakery workers wasn’t all that happy about me pointing my camera into the kitchen as he swiftly moved into the frame to completely block my view. As if I’m planning to copy and patent their space-age tech to mass-produce kompiahs in my mega kompiah factory. Although that isn’t such a bad idea. =)

So armed with a huge bag of steaming hot kompiahs we embarked on the journey back home with only Dad to thank for bringing us along for this trip while he worked is ass off. This is my Dad for you. Thanks pops!

Tone-mapped 3-exposure HDR of the campus

This time around though, our brilliant brains over at the Student Admin devised another tutorial enrollment method — first come, first serve tutorial registrations during the first lectures throughout the first week. Student admin officers would come in in a middle of a lecture and wreak havoc turning a class of a hundred sitted students into a stampede of hopefuls rushing to secure their names on a list of their desired tutorial group.

More often than not, scenes like that turn ugly when the slower ones were left group-less or left with tutorial slots that wouldn’t fit the timetable. Then there are moments of utter confusion of the assigned time slots, the cutting of queues, exchanging of shouts between the student admin officers and students — you get the idea.

Tutorial registration during Energy & Motion lectures in the Lecture Theater

All these experimenting of tutorial enrollment methods semester after semester left me wondering how does our parent University in Melbourne conduct their tutorial enrollments. I’m sure there’s an effective way our student admin can learn from and stick with rather than changing how we register our tutorial slots every semester, never failing to cause chaos and confusion every time.

Eggy’s pencil case during C Programming Labs

Anyhow, the dust has settled and tutorials, labs and lectures are now in full swing. This semester brings about a few rather interesting subjects other than the four boring exam-oriented ones I had last semester. There’s this Robotics Project 1 subject that includes a component on C Programming — something I’ve been looking forward to for awhile. We also have a component on Computer Aided Design which we started off with manual drawing of plans before moving on the mastering the well-known and used AutoCAD program.

Making a beeline for The Spring mall

On a related note, now that the semester has started, I’m finding it rather hard to keep up with Project 365. Not that I didn’t see this coming, but I thought I could persevere. I just couldn’t see myself bringing my dSLR to campus everyday looking for that shot. Then there’ll be waves of assignments to be dealt with, tests and exams. Blah.

I’ve been thinking hard on my decision to go on with Project 365 now that it’s been put on a temporary hiatus. Sacrificing my dSLR for my parents’ trip to NZ was harder that I thought, no doubt. But I thought it was worthwhile considering it is a once-in-a-lifetime trip and thus, are memories worth being recorded with the best gear possible.

Rest assured, Project 365 is a challenge I’m willing to push myself to accomplish — fueled both by my love for photography and you, yes you, for your support and readership — are really what that keeps me going on, be it also in praises, constructive criticisms or just plain Flickr pageviews.

Seeing chrome — taken outside The Spring — 50mm f/1.8

Until then, see you in an aeon. =)

Luckily Canon had this really, really affordable lens in the form of the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II that wouldn’t really hurt my wallet after spending on the 1000D just less than two months ago. Which, bring us to the fact that its been barely two months into my foray into the dSLR world and I’m already getting a second lens.

A few friends were surprised that I’m already acquiring a new lens so soon. Thing is, I’m not new to dSLRs or photography in general. Even before I got a dSLR, I was already pretty sure what I wanted and had a (growing) mental wishlist of gears I’d like to have. The only thing holding me back is of course, budget. Because lets face it, photography is an expensive hobby.

The Nifty Fifty and its box

That said, Dad helped me get this one in KL during his last working trip there! This is definitely the last lens I’m gonna acquire in awhile, for a kit lens + 50mm combo is more than sufficient for me to move on. =)

The 50mm spent its early days as an unglamourous ‘standard lens’ that came default with all SLR cameras back in the 35mm film days. Its a prime lens, which means it has a fixed focal length unlike those of zoom lenses which allow you to zoom in and out of your subject. So why would you want a lens you can’t zoom for, you ask.

Fall leaves by the road

The main selling point of the nifty fifty is it’s wide aperture, which you can’t get with the normal kit lens or cheap zooms that comes with dSLRs these days. Wide aperture lens are great for shooting in low light and are responsible for the bokeh effect due to a narrow depth-of-field associated with a wider aperture.

By the road

If you really wanna know more about the 50mm and its advantages try out this article at Gary Voth Photography: The Forgotten Lens.

I don’t know but if you’d ask me. A 50mm prime is sure worth every penny. It’s very good glass, delivers stunning quality and it’s fast. My only qualms with this lens is it’s rather noisy clunky autofocus motor, but that of course, doesn’t affect image quality whatsoever.

The Nifty Fifty and Me

So yeah.

Slap on a 130g 50mm f/1.8 II (the lightest Canon lens ever) onto a 1000D body, which also happens to be the lightest Canon dSLR at 475g — you’ll get a powerful 600g bokeh machine.

Tell me that isn’t good. =P

If you haven’t yet heard about it, check out my Photoblog at http://img.tehCpeng.net!

It might be a little late already, but as part of a tehCpeng.net tradition, I’ve updated the header to reflect the festive season! I must say though, of all the header’s I’ve done this one’s gotta be the most intensive one I’ve worked on. I had much fun working on it though!

Which reminds me, I been wanting forever to update my portfolio with all that headers I’ve put up before. Not to mention quite a few websites I’ve designed over the past few weeks.

So yeah. I’m still alive.

The holidays has been.. wait for it, hectic. That’s all you hear on my blog right. Seriously though, other than the few trips to the beach and a couple of movies with friends, I’ve been busy on a few web design projects (sounds familiar?) throughout the holiday.

And as far as our home is concerned, the holidays meant household projects. First we had the relawning project which I might be blogging about when it’s done. Then we had to spring-clean the house and trust me that was exhausting. It’s still going on now by the way, I just sneaked onto my laptop for a much needed update.

Hopefully though, all work can be done before my Aunt’s family comes over from KL on Boxing Day, where we’ll be having a short trip to Batang Ai and a much needed break.

So here’s a christmas tree I guess every Kuchingnite would’ve seen by now to lighten up the festive mood around here.

Damn. I need a dSLR so that night shots like the one above can stop becoming absolute disasters. =(

Oh wait, I already have one.

Bwahahaha.

I’ve always wondered why would we humans find solace in that strip of sand where land and water meet, even when it is a 45-minute drive away. You see, we humans are a rather peculiar species.

I bet if we were fish, there would be sand resorts built on that same strip where we would flock to flip around in the sand. =\ And of course, we would call ourselves humans despite having gills and fins and whatnot.. and those dumb two-legged creatures wandering around on land would be called.. fish. Blah.

Humans being fish aside, a few form 5 classmates and I went for a three-day-two-night stay at the Permai Rainforest Resort in Damai. Originally meant to be a full-scale Form 5 reunion, the girls couldn’t make it and so they all bailed out, leaving a bunch of us guys.

The hormone imbalance didn’t spoil the fun tough, for it became an all boys trip (save for Zhi Xian and his girlfriend) armed with boys toys — four laptops, PSPs, games and whatnot. Armed also with five whole kilos of marinated chicken wings for BBQ, beef patties, hotdogs, snacks and instant noodles, 10 of us set for Damai in two cars.

We checked into Cabin 4, a single-storey two-room cabin with a capacity of six. It wasn’t long before all of us were on our way to the pool for a dip before we headed to the sea. We came back all wet and soggy only to find out that apparently, the Resort had this policy of charging 10 bucks per head to those who brought in outside food for BBQ if you don’t opt to get your chicken wings from the Resort cafeteria.

So we had to pay up RM100 extra just for that. We spent 15 bucks a person for our own BBQ food and now we have to pay 10 bucks extra per person for not getting food from the Resort. Awesome.

Not wanting to fork out a 100 bucks extra, Ah Bin demanded that the manager call us back, who 5 minutes later came knocking on our cabin door. We tried to reason with him and threw everything onto the table but he didn’t budge with the extra charge, adding, “I know that there are more than six of you staying in this cabin, the extra four of you would have to be charged RM20 per head and will have to leave immediately”

Double whammy.

We froze and decided to buy time to extend the manager’s ultimatum for the extra of us to leave to 30 minutes later. We almost decided to call the whole trip off when weighing our options. We headed for the check-in counter and discussed our options with the manager, this time, rationally.

In the end, we returned to the cabin with an upgrade to a 9-person capacity two-storey cabin and 50 bucks cut off from the BBQ food fee.

That night, we had a bloody good BBQ dinner despite being a tad bit more expensive having to pay an extra of 5 bucks each.

The breakfast could be better though. But because of the complications regarding the room arrangements, we exploited the extra breakfast coupons and had extra helpings of omelets. =P

And so we spent much of the time there down at the beach where the waves were humongous-ly fun. The waves were so huge they literally sweep you off your feet.

We took precautions though and didn’t go far out. And no, there were no sharks. =D

The weather throughout our three-day stay was perfect — cloudy. Which meant zero sun burns. =)

Baywatch Permai Version.

Before

We had dinner the second day at Buntal’s Lim Hock Ann Seafood Restaurant. Nothing’s better than seriously good seafood fresh from the sea.

After — in not more than 2 minutes

The food was so good, the bunch of us must’ve looked like cavemen when we wiped freshly served dishes sparkling clean in 5 minutes tops.

After a buffet breakfast the morning of the last day, we took another group photo courtesy of a waiter. It might not appear to you so but we were actually looking up from the balcony a floor below where the waiter took this photo. =D

James and I in Dennis’s

By 12pm, we checked out and headed back to Kuching in Dennis’s car at 90km/h windows-down.

It was definitely a fun three-day stay despite the scare on the first day. Perhaps that’s what that make trips to the beach fun.

We humans, after all are a peculiar species.

Seems like it was only yesterday we were prepping our battleguns. If only tomorrow would seem like the holidays already!

The past week though, was grueling. I’ve never had a worst study week.

It’s a period of seven days where your mind floats between crushing exam stress and the sunny post-exam holiday paradise. On one hand, you’re frantically worrying about circuits, integrals and whatnot. The other, you’ll be drifting along the freeway at 190mph steering your 370Z around sharp bends in Undercover and how to tackle that backlog of games and movies after the exams.

The only thing keeping my will to live on during this dark period are these:

SERIOUSLY.

If I’d manage to secure results good enough for a Merit Scholarship this semester, Kinder Bueno’s would single-handedly hold full credit.

No other wafer bars come close to these absolutely creamy milky heavenly bites. RLC Circuits are suddenly so darn interesting. So here’s another picture to keep you salivating.

Wish me luck! =)

The wonders of a three-week-lack of updates.

The next few weeks will be crucial to both SPMers, STPMers and university students as we charge head-on into the exam season.

Best of luck to all.

Dad gave up navigating the 3rd-mile maze of four-storey shophouses. All dressed in formal and in our very best, we were due to be at the My Wedding Collection studio for a photoshoot appointment at 4.30pm. Nobody knew exactly where was it, only a vague idea that it could be in 3rd-mile.

The clock ticked 5.30pm. Regretting he hadn’t made sure of its location beforehand, Dad rang up the studio.

“Hello? Is this My Wedding?”

Sis and I let out a chuckle.

“May I know where is your studio located? Near Hung Hung Inn? Okay.”

Which is, of course, nowhere near 3rd-mile.

So we made it to Hung Hung Inn but the studio was nowhere to be found. As if things couldn’t get any worse, it started raining really heavily. The 5pm rush hour traffic wasn’t of much help either. So we circled the area scanning every nook and canny for the studio while Mum tried frantically to call the studio to reaffirm their exact location.

Desperate, I used Dad’s phone to do a Google search on the studio’s address but found nothing but negative reviews of My Wedding Collection on a few discussion boards. Little did I know I’m gonna write one myself.

Because, guess what, we must have called them a good 20 times or more but nobody bothered to answer. Even the answering machine got sick of trying to get the point across that nobody’s picking up.

Frustrated, with a good two hours after the appointment time, tired, hungry and worried with the negative reviews of the studio’s service on the Net, we aborted the photoshoot and headed back home. We never heard from My Wedding Collection studio ever since that day.

The set at the Hollywood Bridal studio.

The next day, Mum managed to arrange another appointment. This time with the Hollywood Bridal studio, who were good enough to update my mom on a free slot available when they earlier said they were occupied for the rest of the week. My Wedding Collection studio didn’t even bother to contact us considering we didn’t show up the day before. Go figure.

So for the second time in a week, we dressed up in formal and all. This time taking no chances, knowing fully well the location of the studio and departing well before the appointment time.

Look at what my mum’s standing on!

So screw My Wedding Collection.

The photos turned out so good, we have only this to say to our experience the day before: Good riddance.

The Family.

A week later, the photos were ready for collection — two 8R prints, a 4R print and two 4R-sized soft copies.

The sister and yours truly.

Damn, my sister’s catching up with my height. Can’t..Lose. Gotta. Eat. More. Grow. Taller! =(

The prints were a nightmare to scan though, as they came with a bloody matte textured surface. Photoshop couldn’t be of much help.

That’s what you have to resort to when they charge a whopping 20 bucks each for a soft copy. =\

I’m so gonna run a photo studio with that kind of moolah!

It’s been more than 72 hours of exhaustion.

Short story: My blog was down for more than 72 hours due to a massive DDoS attack on my host. It has since been resolved and hopefully won’t reoccur again. *crosses fingers*

Long story: It was Wednesday night, 3rd September when tehCpeng.net wasn’t loading anymore. I reached my host via WLM and was informed of a DDoS attack on the server at 140mbps.

So began the long and exhausting ride over the past few days of pestering my host on the status and hoping the attacks would somehow alleviate. After 48 hours, all helpless and frustrated, I posted a lengthy support ticket ranting about how slow their IM support seems to be replying and hesitating to fill me in on the details.

The support team made a rather quick and prompt reply, reassuring me of the situation and detailed the measures they’ve taken to block the attack. That calmed my frustration a little, but the attacks went on and on yesterday afternoon, 6th September, my host cited the attacks were still incoming at 500mbps. Bloody hell. By the time, tehCpeng.net has gone down for about three days.

Which totally sucked. I understand the amount of pressure my host is going through to get their network back up. But you just can’t help feeling frustrated over a helpless situation.

All sorts of measures were tried, including moving my blog to a US-based server and yet, to no avail. The DDoS attacks were too persistent.

Fast forward this morning, more than 72 hours after I last saw my blog, I found the attacks still ongoing. I checked back on a lowyat.net thread on the attacks and found that my host were updating the domain IP’s one by one to pinpoint which domain is the problem. They updated mine and ended, rather instantly, the longest ever downtime I’ve experienced.

I can only hope that this frustrating experience would be my last. It’s been a long week. =\

*exasperated sigh*