Richard Hsu's website

Removing useless preloaded applications from Asus laptop

richsu — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:26:02 +0000

My friend fell victim to a computer virus(The Bad). After my standard approaches to remove the virus (including MSRT, online solutions) failed, I resorted to factory reset for the Asus laptop. Factory reset was simple and convenient (compared to installing Windows followed by drivers etc.) and completed successfully(The Good) but then I had to spend another hour removing useless preloaded applications(The Ugly).

Shame on Asus for making their customers suffer these ‘bloatware’/'crapware’ .

If I did not have the below guide, it would have taken me more time (Thanks David)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/380681-asus-utility-bloatware-guide.html#post4838868

Inverted attire

richsu — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 03:07:55 +0000

Yesterday, I was at the India Visa office to collect my passport. As one would expect, the majority of people in the office at the time were Indians and also as expected, everyone was wearing typical winter clothes: down jackets, sport jackets, coats etc. In short, the clothing was typical western winter wear. But there was one lady that was stood out. She was wearing a sari, Indian jewellery like bangles, rings and even had a nose stud that is common in India. There were about 30 people in the office including staff but she was the only one who was not wearing typical western winter attire. But that is not the interesting part. The interesting part is she was a white lady! So, in an India visa office filled with brown people wearing typical western winter wear, there was this one white lady wearing traditional Indian clothes and jewellery. What an inversion!

Aiden learns to cycle

richsu — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 04:48:43 +0000

Today, on the 3rd day of trying, Aiden was able to cycle himself on two wheels. On the 2nd day, he was able to balance a little which was encouraging but was not able to pedal and ride by himself. He was able to ride by himself about 30 feet towards the end of today’s attempt. Caroline and I enjoyed watching him balance and pedal by himself first a little bit and then a little more and more. We are both proud of him for achieving this small but significant milestone in his life. I still remember the first day he wanted to try without the side training wheels and struggled a lot eventually giving up. When he finished, he told me to put the training wheels back on and did not seem happy when I said it cannot be put back on and that he cannot give up and have to try and try again. On the 2nd day (after a gap of few days) he was willing to try again without the training wheels and I remember him telling me many times that he cannot give up. Although he did struggle again, he was able to go very short distances by himself and balance a little. While I could see him improving, it came as a pleasant surprise to me today when he finally got it.

Look forward to cycling with him soon around the neighbourhood.

Ubuntu 11.04

richsu — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 20:33:27 +0000

As with previous Ubuntu releases, I downloaded 11.04 releases yesterday to try it out. I followed instruction and created a USB boot disk with 700MB of ‘disk’ space for session persistence.

So far, I am very impressed. With every release, Ubuntu is getting closer and closer to being an alternative to Microsoft Windows as a consumer desktop OS. I believe it is already as good as Microsoft Windows for business.

1) Skype
I remember having to do a lot of tweaking to get Skype voice call to work in previous Ubuntu releases. The last time I tried Ubuntu, Skype did not have video calling or screen sharing. So I was pleasantly surprised when I was able to install Skype and have video and voice working flawlessly without any tweak! I did not get a chance to try screen sharing yet but I don’t expect any problem with it.

2) UI
I like the UI of the Ubuntu 11.04. Overall, it feels minimalist compared to Microsoft Windows. No thick border around all application windows. Love it! The default scroll bars look good as well.

3) Application install
The new Ubuntu Software Center is very user friendly and the overall application install experience is good.

This is exciting. I will use it as an OS on the laptop and see how long I can go without moving back into Microsoft Windows.

Victoria Memorial at Bing today

richsu — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 16:10:25 +0000

Victoria Memorial at Bing

To my pleasant surprise, Bing’s background image today is from Kolkata!

American Idol 2011

richsu — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:09:08 +0000

Have not been following American Idol 2011 as closely as I did for previous years. Could be a function of life style changes. I did watch the Top 12 performances on the website and my favourite this year is Casey Abrams.

Magnotta pronounced as ‘beer’

richsu — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:31:54 +0000

Aiden is learning his A, B, C… now. To test him and help him practise, I often ask him to spell words we see.

The other night, we had ice wine with dinner. The one we had was made by Magnotta. Pointing at the wine packaging, I asked Aiden to spell the word ‘MAGNOTTA’ (he has only learnt upper case). He goes ‘M’, ‘A’, ‘G’ (I was impressed as I had half expected ‘C’), ‘N’, ‘O’, ‘T’, ‘T’, ‘A’ and then he says ‘beer’!

This is typical of him where he associates all wine and alcoholic looking bottles with ‘beer’. Another case, he spelled MONOPOLY correctly but pronounced it as McDonalds (we got the board game at McDonalds and it had the M logo and colour scheme).

American Idol 2010

richsu — Thu, 27 May 2010 14:14:24 +0000

While my two favourites did make it to the final. The only song that stayed with me is “Leave Right Now” by Will Young (winner of 2002 Pop Idol). His song would play week after week when contestants are voted out and they show a video of their “journey”. He also performed at the finale which prompted me to buy the song from iTunes!

Its just my taste I guess. Or maybe, the live versions you hear on TV does not sound as good as studio recorded songs. I will look up the performances in iTunes later. I might like some enough to buy them.

Along with ending of American Idol 2010, my other favourite TV show 24 also ended. That should free up a lot of time for me in the summer.

Moved

richsu — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:32:32 +0000

We just moved into a rental apartment leaving Rainbow Village. Its been a memorable and happy ~3 years at Rainbow Village. The 2 bedroom apartment had a good balance of convenience and luxury. I will miss the view from the living room and the good people in the building who helped, cared and supported us while we called it our home. The Lin family has played a major role in our lives so far and will continue to do so. We continue along our journey hoping that the next residence we settle in will be worth leaving the comfort, convenience and luxury of Rainbow Village.

View from Living Room

Another photo from one of the bedrooms.

At last, I get the bokeh machine

richsu — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:04:40 +0000

I finally got my first Digital SLR camera. As expected, it’s a Nikon D40 body with the 35/1.8 DX lens. It does exactly what I wanted: Make good photos indoors with available light. But it has also started me on another more philosophical thing.

When I started making photos, my goal was to capture a moment in a frame, as is. No manipulation, no artistic touch (as if I have any). All these years, my goal has been to reproduce reality with photography. So the photographs I upload are exactly as it came from the camera (with cropping applied if needed). The bokeh, color and light I get with the DSLR makes the photograph look good but quite different from reality. This has got me thinking about the artistic aspects of a photography.

I’m not trying to reproduce nature. I encourage people to be creative. I personally use any sort of artificial anything I can to create the look I want. I’m expressing my imagination, not trying to duplicate reality. — Ken Rockwell

So, this year, I will start to apply more than just cropping to “finish” my photographs.

Another thing I will do more is take photo of people rather than only things.