Life 15 | I am Danny Foo

Spring cleaning my workstation

Okay. Not wasting my “company break” I’ve been filling my time with some wedding stuff and other things I needed to get off my to do list. One of it was to spring clean my workstation so I did it today.

And trust me, when you’ve not done it for awhile it can get rather dusty in there. All the black dust balls occupying the heatsink of your hard working coolers.

So I spent a good amount of time removing the parts of my computer from the processor to the hard disks and case fans. Then toothbrush-ing the fans, wiping them down and re-applying a new layer of thermal compound to my processor.

Once that was done, my computer looked much better internally and it felt much better. I could finally feel some airflow with my bare hands. Plus, temperatures look to be more stabilized now. Hooray!

But I didn’t end there for today.

I’ve been meaning to properly clean my old Logitech keyboard ever since I replaced it with the Razer Black Widow which I won at a press event. I bought the Logitech keyboard in 2005 and it was still in good condition until now. Just a little dirty.

I’ve tried using cleaners like Gif and I highly do not recommend it because it’s too strong – it eats away the keyboard letters. Instead, I used soap water this time. Only thing I did different is plucked out a key at a time to thoroughly clean it – top and sides.

I can’t say if you can pluck for all keyboards and I dare not try it on my Black Widow. Though speaking from this experience, plucking and cleaning key by key was very effective.

My memorable April Fools

Y’know what everyone. Blogging has been always a part of me. It’s been an extension of my thoughts. However, like growing up, we come to a crossroad in our life to decide what we would want to do now. I even play less computer games now with other activities occupying my daily time, like exercise, reading and work. I’ve also been blogging less frequently with less spark to ignite my burning desire to write about my day. It’s just come to that time to bid adieu. Thank you…

By the way, April Fools Day. And I’m here to stay, still. 😉

So my still memorable prank was back in primary school. I was a prefect back then and call it abusing my power, but I guess you can’t help from being a kid on this day. What I did was what 1 of my friends did to me.

I told another friend (not a prefect) that the disciplinary teacher was looking for him. Being a prefect, he believed me. So I guess he was quite pissed off when he got back and found out it was actually an April Fools joke. :p

One of the more worst pranks my friends have pulled off though is putting pieces from a ping pong ball into a small foil wrap, light it and let it smoke. The smell was horrendous. This was my first encounter with what was known as the stink bomb.

Ah, those were the days of being a kid without sense of responsibility to your actions. Lol.

The day ruined

Ever had one of those mornings where something happens, you don’t think too much of it and for an unknown reason, it turns out to be not a good day. Well, mine oddly started with a ballpoint pen snapping its hook piece which I’ve amended before. And I thought nothing of it since it was broken and glued it back before.

Then came my morning business meeting with a client. I’m not going to reveal or talk a lot about this matter to maintain a level of professionalism. However, what I would say is my day was ruined from that meeting onwards.

It was so bad, I tweeted that I felt like punching something and breaking my arm. Though I guess I’m lucky to have a friend always nearby – like chewak. Thanks for trying to turn the scenario around.

My whole being was so stressed from this morning that I could’ve just broken down. Even when I got home, I didn’t have any appetite. I just ate Maggi mee for the sake of knowing I’ll need to eat.

Then as much as I wanted to join Ariel for dinner with her colleagues, I couldn’t lose this feeling of being suffocated by this darkness. I felt like even if I forced myself to go, I’d be such a killjoy without much emotion. So I just told her, I wanted to be alone for awhile.

Though I did manage to get some work done and the darkness isn’t as heavy anymore, I still feel a pressure on my chest.

It was really a day ruined. FML.

DIY Unifi cable gutter

The few things I did before installing Unifi was visit my cousin who had it already and had a look at the wiring. I know that the technicians will pull a Unifi cable from the telephone post behind your house. But I wanted to make sure what else they may have to do.

tm-unifi-telephone-pole-box — TM Unifi box

As far as I know, landed properties with telephone poles behind or in front of the house should have this if Unifi is in your area. For high rise buildings, friend of a friend shared it’s cables running through the electrical cabinet or something like that. For commercial or business areas, there’s a flatter box (in that colour) stuck on your wall – most likely near your mailboxes.

My cousin said their TM Unifi involved some drilling because technicians had to pull the cable into the house to where your STB (set top box) for the HyppTV is placed. I chose not to configure this yet during my installation because:

We already have Astro.
I rarely watch TV and Astro.
I’ve no interest in the programs HyppTV offers.

Anyway, technicians still had to pull the Unifi cable to the 2nd floor of where our router was placed. The cable ran through the window and no hole was drilled. Apparently, they didn’t have the tools to do it either. *shrug*

Now, here’s the part where I made a cable gutter at the window. Simply because I was worried if the fibre optic cable bent too much, it’ll damage the cable later. God knows what’s the cost of doing the rewiring work again.

So I’ve made a small gutter. The cable won’t be damaged in the long run after being grazed by the window now. Tools used were a small hacksaw, chisel and hammer. After which I took some wiring tape to stick the wire down.

Sorry to say that if your window is the casement type.

You may need to put a hole in your wall for the wire to run through.

Or, if you’re a Unifi customer or installer with these windows, please do share how you worked around this. 🙂

The Recesky Twin Lens Reflex camera kit

Not so long ago, friends of mine bought me the Recesky twin lens reflex camera kit of my birthday. And not so many days ago, I finally assembled it and to my surprise, it was orange! Woot!

For those who didn’t know, orange is one of my favourite colours. Beats me why orange, it just stuck. And yes, that’s the camera front completed. Also, I’d like to add turning those 2 knobs where the lens is located is tough. After prolong turns, my fingers felt like I carried heavy durians bare handed.

This is a classic camera where the viewfinder is at the top. Though the focus is more manual by turning those front knobs, I’ve so far measured the focal distance to be approximately 30cm. Though reading online, some say the distance is capable of 60cm?! 0.0

No hawt chic nearby so Danboard had to do

When I first completed the camera, me and Ariel thought whether this camera could really be used because the translucent plastic protecting the mirror inside made everything really blurry – until we noticed it had to do with the focus knobs on the front.

I’ve turned the front knobs as much as my fingers could tolerate, ending up with a fixed 30cm focusing distance now. All that’s left is to buy me some film and experiment with this camera. 🙂

Here are more angles of the Recesky twin lens reflex camera kit: