Movie Review: The Wolverine 3D

Tags

3d, end credit, movie review, the wolverine

This summer, learn more about Japanese culture with our host Logan “The Wolverine” in 3D.

I can’t help but wonder if this movie was made by Japanese Tourism board. I’m not against Japanese or anything, but a lot of the non fighting scenes looks like a Japanese tourism promotion. If you are going to watch this movie, be prepared to learn about chopstick, Samurai, Ninja, and love hotel while watching the actors awkward dialogs and forced romance.

The plot is generic and predictable. The action scenes are quite ok but nothing special. The 3D does not help to add more value either, so safe the money and watch it in 2D instead.

The best part of this movie is the end credit scene, it’s a long one and comes off early in the credit roll, so bear the 5 minutes wait.

Overall, not so much fun of a movie, but also not overly bad either. Probably can be skipped, if not for the end credit scene, you wont miss anything.

I would rate it at 6/10.

Movie Review: Pacific Rim 3D

Tags

3d, awesome, movie, pacifi rim, review

AWESOME

That is how I’ll describe this movie in one word.
Well, that is what you can expect from Guillermo Del Toro. I was afraid it will be disappointing, like Man Of Steel did. Fortunately, this movie delivers.

Of course some of plot devices aren’t making much sense if we think deeply about them, but they are forgivable as this movie does not set as a serious hyper realistic movie (as Man Of Steel does). Also, the pacing is great, not too slow or too fast. The neural bridge concept is a very clever way to cut time needed for characters development.

Action scenes are intense but not over the top and the 3D effects make them more exciting. I think the 3D is the best one I’ve seen this year so far.

Overall score : 8.5/10
Whomever you are, you should watch this movie!

Adventure Of A Poor Traveler : Siem Reap, Cambodia (Part 1)

Tags

18-55, 28-80, angkor wat, cambodia, Nikkor, nikon, nikon d70, photography, siem reap, travel

Sunrise At Angkor Wat

I was very lucky to be able to visit Siem Reap, Cambodia, home of the infamous Angkor Wat. As usual, i have very limited time and budget so before arrive I did a lot of research. I found a very cheap hotel room (USD25 per day) and the good thing is I can book via email, no need for credit card or down payment. The hotel can also provide private tour, and I book the mid priced one (USD100 one day). I don’t usually take private tour, but I realize there is too much place to visit, I might miss the best spots if I roam around myself.

The tour start very early in the morning, at 5.00 am. After purchased the 3 day pass for USD40 (needed to enter the temples around Siem Reap), we first visit Angkor Wat and waited for the sun to come up. The tour guide find me very good spot so I can take quite nice pictures.

Another Sunrise At Angkor Wat

One thing i notice, the place is very crowded! There were hundred tourist already, even at early morning. One the sun shone, most of them start to roam at the temple building. The tour guide suggested that we just go directly to Angkor Thom, before it become crowded. I’ll feature photos from Angkor Thom on part 2.

So were returned to Angkor Wat at the noon, when most of the tourists take their break. I would say the tour guide plan is very good, made me possible to take pictures without much distraction.

Here are some more photos I took at the Angkor Wat temple:

Bass Relief

Angkor Pathway

Antique Statues

Gear used:
Nikon D70
Nikkor 28-80G, plastic kit lens from film era
Nikkor 18-55G, plastic kit lens from DSLR era
(I feel that the combination of D70 and 28-80 is very magical, there is something very organic about the pictures the produced)

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy it.

Movie Review : World War Z 3D

Tags

3d, movie review, world war z, zombie

This movie is awesome. Nothing really special with the story – its very simple actually – but when the action kicks in, it brings a lot of excitement.

You should watch this movie if you like fun action with some funny comic relief thrown here and there. But if you expect “intellect” movie, then you might be disappointed.

The 3D is quite good. Not amazing, but it add more fun.

Now to the less good things:

There are shaky cam effects on several scenes, unfortunately the effect is a bit too much and combined with extreme cut making the scenes less enjoyable.

There is a strange thing happened with the zombie concept. At the beginning, the zombies are portrayed as some kind of power enhanced (they are strong, move really fast and jump very high.) But toward the end the zombies become just “normal” zombies, not slow, not fast, and no power enhancement. Maybe the script was written by more than one person? Or someone changes their mind?

Overall score : 7.5 of 10

Fixing Windows XP Reboot Loop

Tags

computer, computer thingi, problem, reboot, Windows XP

Note : Scroll down to summary if you don’t like to read long rant

Hell yea, there are still plenty computer running Windows XP this day.
So several days ago, one of my clients run their computers on small electric generator genset. Apparently this generator is faulty and suddenly it shut down without warning. To make the matter worse, some of the UPS are not functioning so the computers are dead instantly.

After they switched to new power source, as usual they switch the computer back on. As these computers were not shut down properly, Windows asked for they action users want to do (Safe Mode, Normal, Last Known Good, etc.)
Naturally the users choose “Last known good configuration” option.

While most of the computers are working normally after this point, two computers refuses to do so and keep rebooting after the Window logo appear for seconds on the screen. So the users then panicked, as dead line approaching and no backup available (typical). So they call me to see what can I do to help them.

First, I tried the “Safe Mode” to see if I can at least log in to the Windows. But the computers still rebooting after loading Mup.sys
From this clue, it appears to me that it’s a hard disk problem.

So I grabbed one computer that works normal, and then I put the hard drive from the faulty computer as secondary drive on the working computer and then start the computer.
After I logged in to Windows, then I do chkdsk on the faulty drive from command prompt.

Its very easy, just make sure you know the correct drive letter of the faulty drive (in my case it was F:).
To go to command prompt: click Start and choose Run, then type cmd followed by enter button.
Once the black window of command promp appears, type chkdsk f: /f followed by enter button.
Windows then proceed to scan the drive and fix any error it encounters.

When the process finished, then I installed the faulty drive back to its computer unit. and viola! it wooorkkkssss!!!!

However, the other one is not that easy, its still doing the reboot loop after the disk scanned, so i repeat the process but this time i use the chkdsk f: /r command. This is the same as chkdks /f but it do additional task to try to recover data from bad sector, so it will take longer time than (in my case it was a bit more than one hour) but it worth the wait, because after this the computer is back to work normally.

I pointed out to my client that they need to do regular backup and install some good UPS to avoid the same problem to happen in the future.

Summary
If you have reboot loop after improper shut down on Windows XP computer, try the followings to try to recover:
1 Find another Windows XP computer that works normally.
2 Remove the hard drive from the faulty computer and install it on to the working computer as secondary drive (make sure both computers are switched off and disconnected from power source)
3 Switch the working computer on
4 After sucessfull login to Windows, find out the drive letter of the faulty computer (for example F:)
5 Go to command prompt by clicking Start>Run
6 Type in cmd and press enter button
7 On the black window of command prompt, type in chkdsk f: /f and press enter button (replace the f: with the correct drive letter), and wait until Windows finished fixing the drive.
8 Shut down the computer, and remove the faulty drive and install it back to its original computer unit.
9 Pray to your God (optional step)
10 Turn on the faulty computer and wait till it load Windows.
11 If you still have the reboot problem proceed to next steps.
12 Swear (optional step)
13 repeat from step 2, but on step 7 change the /f to /r so in this example the command will be chkdsk f: /r, the rest are the same.
14 So if you still have the reboot problem, then its time for harder tasks, maybe reinstall or even harddrive replacement.

So I hope this can be a help of you encounter the same situation.

Man Of Steel 3D Review

Tags

man of steel, movie review, superman

I admit I had a very high expectation for this movie because of Christoper Nolan involvement. Boy I’m disappointed.
Okay, special effects are great and the fight scenes also well done… but the movie logic is too weak and the main protagonists and their concepts are not interesting. Actually, the bad guys are a lot more likeable.

Too many things in this movie that i cant suspend my disbelief to (one thing that bothered so much me is the fact that Kryptonians speaks English.) I can ignore this kind of flaw on fantasy movies that are not meant to be a realistic movie, however Man Of Steel is a movie that trying too hard to be realistic so there you have it.

The 3D is not worth the extra money, better watch it on 2D.

Overall score : 6 of 10

.NET (C#) Fixing DateTimePicker Problem : Another Text Won’t Update Issue

Tags

.net, c#, computer, datetimepicker, headache, problem, programming, software, windows

Okay, this is a strange behavior of DateTimePicker.
I have this scenario here:
– Normal windows Form is created
– DateTimePicker added to that form
– Form displayed with ShowDialog
– DateTimePicker will automatically display today’s date by default.
– Form is closed
– Set value of DateTimePicker to other date programmatically
– Form displayed again with ShowDialog
– DateTimePicker still showing today’s date

This is quite frustrating behavior. Luckily the solution is simple (but took me some researches).

To fix this issue, the DateTimePicker.Checked properties need to be set to True before changing the date. In my case, setting it right after creating the DateTimePicker object did not fix the issue.

So the fixed workflow should be like this:
– Normal windows Form is created
– DateTimePicker added to that form
– Form displayed with ShowDialog
– DateTimePicker will automatically display today’s date by default.
– Form is closed
-Set DateTimePicker.Checked = True
– Set value of DateTimePicker to other date programmatically
– Form displayed again with ShowDialog
– Viola, DateTimePicker now showing the correct date.

Singapore Photos – Part 2

Tags

d7000, nikon, photography, singapore, temple, travel

Hi whats up? Currently I have *almost* no internet connection, but today I have the chance to stop at shop with free wifi (woohooo,,, bless you wifi free shop!!!!111!!one1)

So because internet is hard for me now, this will be the last part of Singapore Photos. I was planning at least 3 parts, but well, nobody read this blog anyway hahaha.

Singapore is a country with a great culture diversity. You’ll easily find at least one of Chinese, Malay, or Indian culture signature on every corner of the country. On my last visit, I went to Chinatown and took some photographs at Buddha Tooth Relic temple (Chinese culture) and and Sri Mirriaman temple (Indian culture). I did not take any photos of Malay cultural signature simply because I don’t have the chance. So here are some of the photos.

Photographs taken with:
– Nikon D7000
– Nikkor 105mm AF-D Defocus Control
– Tokina 11-16mm ATX-Pro

Singapore Photos – Part 1

Tags

architecture, cityscape, marina, night photography, nikon d7000, photography, singapore, tokina 11-16mm, travel

Marina Bay

Singapore is an aesthetically excellent city. So you can have a lot of good “cityscape” photography, especially at night. It so easy to get decent photos, I ended up overdoing it. So here you’ll find some generic night photography of Singapore.

Marina bay is one of the most popular photo spot there. Being a poor traveler, visiting Marina is a very logical choice for me. Its free to visit (outside of transport cost to get there) and you can hop from one point to another by just walking.

Helix Bridge

Move a bit to get different framing:

No Title

Another good spot is on the Skypark, but it’s not free. Entrance fee is SGD20 and tripod is not allowed. From Skypark, you have a very good view of the city.

View From Skypark (1)

View From Skypark (2)

There are a lot more good spot for night photography. They are too many to mention (read: I’m too lazy to write them) so here some night photographs at some random spot:

Decoration Light

Christmas Decoration

Universal Studio

Photo gears used:

– Nikon D7000
– Tokina 11-16mm
– Nikkor 105mm DC

C# : Late Binding Excel Interop Tutorial – Part 2

Tags

.net, c#, excel, interop, programming

This is part #2 of a series of tutorial focusing on how to generate Excel document from C# with late binding technique. Note that my WordPress theme is not code friendly, so my apologize in advance.