iQuest Studios

Good morning Hwachong. On the 26th of July, 2 teams from Hwachong took part in the Xsite web design competition held at the Science Centre. Despite facing strong competition from rivals such as Dunman High, Raffles Junior College, the team comprising of blah blah blah emerged 5th (which is actually the last place) while the team comprising of Sun Shuo from 08S6A, Jonathan Neo from 08S60, Tan Hwei Ee from 08??? and me myself, Wu Xiao Tian from 08S6J managed to emerge FIRST runner up. We would like to thank the school for its unwavering support and for giving us the opportunity to take part in this competition. Now, we would like to present the plaque to our principal Mr Ang. Thank you.

Yup, that’s right. XSite Finals was held today. It was quite fun actually, involving a “Amazing Race” style of game, where we run around the Science Centre looking for envelopes which contains clues to our next destination. In the end, my team managed to clinch the second place, losing only to the team from Raffles Junior College. Actually we could have been first, but we wasted lots of time clearing one particular station.

Coming to think of it, that station involved us debugging a file, where a SWF object could not be displayed. So, there we were poring over lines of code, trying to find out the problem. Apparently, the only problem was a simple file name error for a Javascript file, but we were “thinking too much” and looking in all sorts of places. Of course, there were quite a bit of confusion as well, when we misunderstood the game officials as well. (actually it’s all their fault. They were saying it’s a graphic file when it’s actually an animation file) But I suppose this happens when you are all hyped up from the competition.

Anyway, I think the competition had a huge sponsorship or something from somewhere. We started off by having a free T-Shirt for the competition, even though it was very plain. Then we had this little cool handphone accessory that is actually a strong LED torchlight. However, the competition was quite a waste of time. We had to report at 9AM, but we started at only 11AM. Then prize presentation was at 4PM, after another category played after us. So in the end, in between long waiting periods, we were shown movies. (2 random Jap Anime which totally doesn’t make sense, and Ratatouille which I have watched)

The prizes were good though. For the first runner up, we each got a medal, a team plaque and a Creative Zen each. The second runner up and the first teams got iPod Shuffles and iPod Nanos respectively. Not too shabby eh, considering each member got one, and there were 3 categories, so that is 12 iPod Shuffles, 12 Creative Zen and 12 iPod Nanos to give away. And there were some vouchers for playing some unglam game where you place your hands and feet on your teammates.

My Prize!

The tea reception for the competitors after the whole thing was also pretty good in my opinion. Well, too bad I got a physics lecture test on Monday and I haven’t started studying yet.

Music of the Week: Navigate Me by Cute is What We Aim For in their new album Rotation. (Personally, I like the acoustic version more, but I can’t find it on youtube)

Till next time,
cheers

Tags: Music Of The Week, Xsite

Not sure if you guys are aware of a company called Psystar, but that is the first company that is dumb enough to actually sell Hackintosh (meaning non Apple computers running Mac OS X) computers. Apparently, they have been around for a while (2,3 months if I am not wrong) and finally Apple has decided to sue them.

Let me shed a little light on this subject of Hackintosh. Ever since Apple unveiled the migration to use of Intel processors in their computers, budding hackers have been trying to get the Mac OS X running on non Apple Hardware. This is only expected given the lack of alternatives to the crash-friendly Windows Operating Systems and the user-unfriendly Linux Operating Systems. Well, they succeeded in the end. However, these versions of OS X were generally challenging to install, definitely not for the faint of heart. (Even I have tried once and failed miserably) Moreover, even after installation, the systems are not as stable as the actual operating system on Apple Hardware, due to a difference in components used. Lastly, such systems lag on older Intel Processors. Using the system on anything below Core Duo is nearly impossible (given that it was designed for Core Duo and Quad Core processors). Updates are also impossible, and everytime there is a system update, users have to reinstall the whole operating system. And yet, the project proved largely popular.

Personally, I don’t like the idea of Hackintosh. Maybe that just because I paid the full cost of an elegant, sleek, sexy, reliable (though not of the best quality) and generally powerful MacBook Pro to run arguably the best operating system available. (some people still swear by Linux distributions, but I don’t see how even the “most user friendly” distribution of Linux, Ubuntu, is anywhere near Mac OS X or even Windows for that matter) But seriously, by allowing Mac OS X to run on non-Apple Hardware is basically robbing Apple of its skyhigh profit levels. Why is that bad you might ask? Apple might lose the incentive to innovate, as can already be seen from the Snow Leopard announcement. Why spend money on hiring a think tank when people are not even going to buy your machines? Moreover, it might just welcome malicious users to come up with a virus that might upset the security that we Mac OS users have enjoyed for a long time.

Anyway, back to Psystar. They are actually the first company to try to sell computers running the latest Mac OS X - Leopard. Obviously this is a direct threat to Apple and an straightforward infringement of Apple’s copyright and End User License Agreement (EULA). I was surprised that it took Apple so long to actually sue Psystar, but I suppose their lawyers were taking their time gathering all possible ways to bankrupt Psystar, just in case they got away with a few charges.

But I supposed Psystar is going to try to attack Apple with Anti Trust Laws, probably by arguing by limiting Mac OS X to Apple Hardware only, it’s being anti-competitive. That is the only chance that they stand against being bankrupted by Apple.

Hmm, this could be interesting. Wonder how it will turn out.

Till next time,
cheers

Tags: Apple, hackintosh, lawsuit, psystar

After just 2 weeks of not running to study for block test, my running is like really screwed. Now I am desperately trying to rebuild my stamina again.

On the other hand, this is a very nice song. (Don’t bother about the video though, it’s terrible - but it wasn’t done by me. Just let the music flow.) By the way, the song is the acoustic version of the song “Scars” by Papa Roach in their album “Getting Away with Murder”.

Tags: papa roach, running, scars

Studies. Sports. Friends. Choose 2.

Clay target shooting is indefinitely fun. I am so going to join the SAFRA shooting club after end of year exams.

Time is short. Make your choices in life.

Till next time,
cheers

Tags: clay target, shooting, time