Today's event

1. Help uncle Larry rip off the masking tape on the roof of the newly built Tzuchi office Hamilton branch.
2. Attend an "unofficial" graduation celebration for uncle Larry, Peter Hsieh, uncle Chen and Ryan.
3. Fix Gavin's computer - install Gavin's new network card ("crab card" from DSE) and solve the internet problem...temporarily.Still better to reinstall the whole system ASAP, otherwise that computer is damn crawling...

Test test 123...

TEST
Test
test
てすと
テスト
測試

Today's event

1. Record the result of PAE test of manuka honey (M115) on S.aureus (with and without catalysed) , E.faecalis and E.faecium

2. Have my hair cut

3. Have dinner with aunt Sanger, uncle Larry, Vincent, Jessica, Margarett and Ryan for celebrating Magarett's birthday.

Peter away

I'm told by Peter that he'll be away for holiday next week (precisely, the whole week) and will be back after 3 Jan.

Xmas is really coming there.

Today's event

Filming movie - of course, the filming company only interview Peter and Kerry, but this really has hampered my PAE work today, so I've got to postpone the work till tomorrow.

Weird blog - cont'd

I've just added up a few topics in my diary, and suddenly noticed that the layout of "Tzuchi anniversity" on 22/Oct now shows correct. -.-;

...but still, some recent posts have got weird layout...what the hell is this... :(

Ehh?! Weird blog

I haven't logged into blogger.com and was thinking of updating my diary now. Unexpectedly a notice board which says the blogger system has been upgrading to a new version and I was suggested to transfer my blog to the new beta version. It also says that the blog transferring will be executed automatically and the layout and format of my blog won't be changed. So I let blogger.com upgraded my blog.

The result, however, has proved to be a disaster. As one may find in this post and the one on 22/Oct, the paragraph layout looks odd - lines don't break where they're supposed to; some lines even exceed the width of the template whereas there's no option that I can do to this problem!! I've tried to change my template but still no joy. This never happen before... Even preview  doesn't reflect the layout it will reveals after uploading... I really shouldn't have done this troublesome upgrading... :(   Arghhhh...my blog now looks so ugly ...  :~~

Apparently other bloggers have also got heaps of problem as well. Unless blogger.com gets this problem sort out shortly, I suppose I'll switch to another blog site! :(

beta.Blogger.com, are you listening?

Campy work submitted

 Submit Campy work to Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (JAC) online today.

Fix computer

Another computer repairation today.

Aunti Sanger came to my place while I was away this afternoon. When I was back I was told by Vicky that aunti Sanger was looking for me, hence I rang her and knew that another Tzuchi member's (named "Star") computer has got weird internet, which hasn't been able to get online for ages and would like me to have a look on it.

After having dinner with Stars', we had a look on the problematic computer. It was quite slow - a common problem which can be seen on most computers. The main issue - the internet - was eventually found to be caused by the security suite (TrandMicro's product) installed in Star's computer. After uninstalling it, the internet came to alive. However it's surprising that he hasn't got any protection against spywares, virus and other attack (i.e. he's got the security suite but he's NEVER update them).

As it'd been a bit late, I just made a rough tuning up for Star so that the computer may run more smooth than before and came back with aunti Sanger and uncle Larry. Probably I'll have to go over there again in near future.

Flooding

Here the flooding doesn't mean that sort of environmental disaster or phenomenon, but refers to an artificial watering in a house - the 6 year-old baby has been extremely noughty and has made the whole bathroom, most part of the corridor, toilet, and half of our laundry flooding and still wouldn't get out of the bath. The water also gets into Gavin's room, and the carpet in children's room is also getting wet; probably the internet equipments (hub and adsl modem) on the floor are also gonna be dead. Pop has been called; Vicky in Auckland has been texted; insurance won't pay for anything damaged or infected. Fxxking bastard...!

Noise from the fan

The long time running of distributed computing may do some harm to the fan in a laptop, as I can hear some screaming from the fan in my one. I probably need to lubricate the fan sometime this weekend...

Tzuchi anniversary

I was asked to help Tzuchi foundation's anniversary 2 (or 3?) weeks ago, and today it's the day to work out.

As I'm not the member of the foundation, I don't know very well (nor want to know) about this society. I'm not a volunteer of them either, and also have got no plan to attend to be a member of them in future. What I've been doing with them these days is just give them a hand where they really need when I can, and actually there's nothing much I can do for them. Even today I felt I didn't do too much for them as well.

Well...this on the other hand might mean they've got really lots of member in this group.

OOo extends its competition

I've noticed on the mailing list of OOo that someone suggest extending the submission due date of Documentation Project Template/Clipart Competition as Oct 13 is just too rush for many people, and obviously the OOo has now extended the submission day, which is now from September 20, 2006 to October 31, 2006 at 23h59EDT (GMT-4). I believe this is a good new to every submitter (including me). I've got some ideas but was thinking the time was just too short, and now I've got a bit relief. :)

Helicobacter pylori gram's stain

It's strange that the Helicobacter pylori cells have got different formations when grown on different media, and even on the same plate they may also look different: I. Urea agar: Columbia blood agar base + 7% fetal bovin serum + HCl + urea + phenol red + antibiotics (vancomycin + amphotericin B + polymixin B) II. CHBHP: Columbia blood agar base + 10% horse blood + antibiotics (vancomycin + amphotericin B + polymixin B) They're all gram negative so this time gram positive cocci have been removed (or suppressed), but as they've got several looks and some of them look different from what I know about helicobacters, now I can't really make sure if they are exactly Helicobacter... :(

Typhi in the Waikato ?!

Rat disease hits (on Waikato Times) I remember there occationally are some mice running around in our house. Not quite sure if the fleas from rats would also be spread through mice...

Helicobacter contamination (still)

My helicobacter looks still contaminated by other cutlures; from the gram's stain, many gram positive cocci can be seen (I guess enterococci). Now I'm using urea agar (columbia agar + serum + HCl + urea + phenol red) and trying to get single colony for recovering helicobacter, but honestly I don't expect too much on it now... :( Ray told me that I could add vancomycin to get rid of enterococci. Actually this has been included in the urea agar plates, so give them a few more days and see what'll happen. If these stock cultures are still unrecoverable, I reckon I'll need to re-order another copy of helicobacter type strain from ESR. In the photo Ray said the faint pink organisms (the gram negative ones) should be helicobacters but I doubt it; they look too fat as helicobacter.

Medical examination

The (stupid) immigration had changed their rule of applying student visa last year, thus now I got to do full medical examination every 2 years (Geez...). Today is the day I have the examination. The medical centre: Victoria Centre (abbreviated as VC) Examed items: X-ray Blood Urine Eye-sight Height, weight Physical checks (?) Fee: ...expensive Waiting before proceeding examination: > 40 min Result: need 4 working days (i.e. Tuesday week)

Laptop batteries fire (...how many time is this anyway?)

Flaming LAX laptop was a ThinkPad (on CNET.com) Lenovo probes Sony laptop battery fire (on CNET.com) Lenovo...IBM...Sony... :( ...and here is a topic which may have something to do with Japan: Japanese fret that quality is in decline (on CNET.com)

Huh!! Laptop explodes!

Don't get me wrong...it's not mine. Dell battery explodes at Yahoo HQ, hundreds evacuate (on engadget.com) ...and the laptop looks disastrous: When Laptops Explode, side view It doesn't say where the battery is from, but I guess...sony again?

OpenOffice Template/Clipart Creation Contest

OpenOffice.org is holding the Documentation Project/Worldlabel Template/Clipart Competition recently. It's from September 13, 2006 to October 13, 2006. (Ouch! It's been running for 1 week) and the awards will be announced on November 1, 2006. It looks interesting, and also the prizes are quite attractive: PRIZES FOR TEMPLATES: 1st Prize USD750 2nd Prize USD300 3rd Prize USD250 4th and 5th Prizes USD200 100s of Tshirts and other Openoffice.org goodies for templates which will be part of the Documentation Project. PRIZES FOR CLIPART: 1st Prize USD750 2nd Prize USD300 3rd Prize USD250 4th and 5th Prizes USD200 100s of Tshirts and other Openoffice.org goodies for clipart submitted which will be part of the Documentation Project. I may try to submit some of my works. :)