Defragmenting OS X

I love Macs, and people around me will find the occasional evangelistic aura oozing from my pores. However, unlike evangelists Mac Fanboys who do not recognise flaws in their beliefs are annoying as fuck, I recognise flaws to the OS X, with high memory usage (thus reducing available physical memory) being one of its drawbacks, amongst others. One of the supposed advantages of OS X is the much (one-sided) discussed efficiency of the entire system's design, thus negating the need to defrag the system. This view that Apple goes along with.

"You probably won't need to optimize at all if you use Mac OS X. Here's why: [redacted]
...
For these reasons, there is little benefit to defragmenting.
...

If you think you might need to defragment

Try restarting first. It might help, and it's easy to do.

... there's a chance the disks could be fragmented¹. In this case, you might benefit from defragmentation, which can be performed with some third-party disk utilities.

Another option is to back up your important files, erase the hard disk, then reinstall Mac OS X and your backed up files²."

In a typical Apple-isque communication, one can basically sum it up as 'the problem is there, we don't recommend you fixing it but if you want to, go ahead and sort it out yourself, its not our problem'.

With my MacBook (late 2008 Aluminium Unibody, 2.0GHz) maxxed out (7,200rpm HDD and RAM at the officially supported 4.0GB), I was satisfied but was always picking up interesting articles which could potentially enhance my computing experience.***
During one of my usual tech-blog crawling sessions, I stumbled upon a Lifehacker discussing various defragmenting utilities for Windows, with a number of comments beating an already dead-horse on Mac defragging when someone mentioned iDefrag.

iDefrag is thus far the only Mac defrag utility that I know of, and offers several defragmentation algorthms such as compact, metadata, optimise, quick defrag (online) and full-defrag.

While I won't go into all the different algorhythms, one mention worthy method which allows you to imagine its effect would be 'compact', where it shifts all files to the beginning of the volume, freeing up space. This is possibly due to files occupying half-blocks similar to FAT32 structures. I'm not a programmer or an expert in storage so I'll just leave this as it is to use your imagination to further expand on such concepts.

The problem with running most defragmentation programs is that your main disk would be mounted / online, reducing the ability of the defrag tool to defrag certain system files in use. The only defrag-algorhythm available to online users would be quick-defrag, which didn't provide much gains on personal observation.

Certain Windows utilities like O&O Defrag permits offline defragmentation, but the problem with iDefrag was that there was no user-friendly method to initiate offline defragmentation, so I had to resort to installing a fresh copy of OS X on a portable USB disk and booting to it. This kept my main disk unmounted and open to defragmenting access, and allowed me to run a full-defrag.

***After defragmenting my computer, there was a slight but noticeable increase in performance. General things that cannot be reliably measured like the time it takes to load certain programs³ were noticeably smoother. Unfortunately, in the excitement and anticipation of testing the application, I forgot to do pre-defrag tests. I am seriously a fail-blogger.

Fortunately, I found a friend who was willing to let me have a go at her computer (early 2009 MacBook 2.0GHz, 120GB Hitachi with 2GB RAM).


Pre-defragmentation. Not much you can see from the main window as it is zoomed up far too much, but do note the lower bar which indicates fragmentation. Boot up time (easiest metric to measure reliably) was about 1 minute 4 seconds.



Post defragmentation. Fragmentation is low, with only 11 files left fragmented. For some reason they could not be further defragmented, but trying to defrag those files would be just chasing marginal gains. Boot up time reduced to 54 seconds.

She later reported that her computer is now very fast, and that I am very sai lei.
***

A round up of iDefrag's pros and cons.
Pros
1. Improved load times.
2. It has a very fun GUI that shows the copy and write process, similar to Windows 98⁴. A simply and yet surprisingly and annoyingly addictive process to watch.

Cons:
1. It costs £19.95. That's a shit load of money there.
2. No user-friendly way to run a full defrag.
3. Quick defrag (only option available to general users) does not provide noticeable results.




Notes:
1. Bad Apple, going back on your words.
2. Backing up and restoring your entire hard disk probably allows the system to rewrite all files in a structured manner, permitting better file contiguity.
3. Being a student, the 3 most frequently used programs would be Excel, PowerPoint and Word from the Office Suite. These programs take excruciatingly long times to load, but has since improved noticeably.
4. Windows 98 Defragmentation Video

Boys are dirty

I was talking to Joanna one fine day, and referring to Secret Garden's plot (I swear to you, I don't watch that stuff), I wondered what would it be like if I were to swap bodies with a girl.

Being a stereotypical vulgar male, the things that I listed included, but were not limited to:
1. Play with my (new!!) boobs
2. Have sex
3. Pee squatting down

I was getting really excited blabbering on about what I would do if I had a girl's body, and realised I never asked what would she do.

"Shower, wash properly and all first".

WTF.

How to choose a boy/girl-friend

I was having a conversation with Cheryl, a fatass who stays near my place my neighbour, where I discussed the drawbacks of getting married to a naggy spouse.

[redacted]
C: Wow, say until like you're going to get married to her.
H: Yeah, I'm 6 years older than you and any relationship goals at this point of my life are long term. Now imagine if you get married to someone who goes "dear don't do this, don't do that, don't cum so fast" I WILL shoot my own ears off.

The conversation steered away from naggy spouses, to my perceived age vs. my actual age peppered with with a large amount of teenage exclamation along the lines of "omg I can't believe you're 24!"

H: At this stage, my idea of 'seeing girlfriend' sitting in the garden in the evening talking, and later dinner with parents. No clubbing, and I aim to buy a house within the next 3 - 4 years.
***
Interestingly enough, I encountered a woman who seemed to be a very active henpecker. Thus began my conversation with Joanna. Joanna is a former client of mine way back from my Nuffnang days, she is also very cute.

H: Wow, I just saw this bitchy looking woman at the bank. One look you know she dominates her husband in the relationship.
J: Isn't this usually the case, one person will dominate the other?
H: Well, I'm sure there's one person in the relationship with a stronger personality but I think outright dominance is just plain mean.
***
Here are some points to prevent / mitigate poor decision making while choosing spouses, with the basic assumption that your spouse is the perfect person.

1. If (s)he nags a little, ask he(r) to stop. Explaining what's wrong with nagging (i.e. its fucking annoying).
1.1. If (s)he doesn't stop, screaming at him/her won't help because its built in them to tell people what to do all their lives. Revel in the fact that they will be excellent JKR foremen, and your marriage will enjoy income via pencen upon his/her retirement.

2. Subject to #1, if (s)he doesn't stop, it's going to get worse after you get married. Bail the fuck out or you'll be living a sad married life, seriously. I've been in a naggy relationship and it wasn't fun because
2.1. If you're free spirited like me, I didn't enjoy being bossed around and I rebelled to show that I could do things my own way. I'm sure she didn't enjoy the fact that I didn't want to listen to her as it went against the basic rules programmed in her. This step is counter-productive, as you'll probably be doing things the wrong way to spite him/her.
2.2. If you're spineless, you'll be living the rest of your life knowing that there'll be someone telling you: (a) how to fly a kite, (b) how much Milo powder to put in your drink, (c) how to take care of your dog, how to be careful when attending a debaucherious house-party.

3.1. Something that most people are aware of already but I'll just state it: you date his/her friends in your relationship.
3.2. Something that most people would never have thought of: In-laws. I'm not saying that anyone's family is bad, but given how each family operates in a different manner, there are bound to be different paradigms. If you think the conflicts are manageable (read: tolerable; NOT mendable), by all means go ahead. If you think that they're a bunch of bad motherfuckers who deserve to die a horrible death, imagine your life with a similar outcome to Pt. 2- 2.2. The only difference is that it'll be the in-laws ruining your life and you probably can't do anything about it.
3.2.1. If you really really really want to spend the rest of your life with him/her, revel in the fact that your parents-in-laws are easily 30 years older than the both of you. Combine that knowledge with statistics on mean life-expectancy available via your local ministries of health, you can revel in the fact that the final x-years will be in-laws free.
3.3. How well does (s)he coexist with your family.

Fire off more points in the comments section.

WTS iPod Touch 32GB

An iPod Touch 32GB for sale.


Purchased on 2nd of January 2010 from Apple.com


Just a quick rundown of the specs.

3rd Generation 32GB iPod Touch
600MHz processor
256MB RAM
320 * 480px resolution
Nike+ enabled

Battery life is rated at 30 hours (audio) and 6 hours (video) at new. Battery life is still good as I only use it for some light web browsing and playing music when I'm driving.

Item is engraved with my name, however...


...with the bundled casings (one Griffin, the other unknown) it shouldn't be a problem.

If there is ever a worry that someone would accuse you of stealing it from, I will provide a lifetime worth of moral consultation to 3rd parties. This service is provided by default, with the sale of this item.

It also comes with a complimentary dock with lineout. Lineout is great if you enjoy playing music on a home theatre system, which means you don't have to manually max out the volume every time you plug it in.


I am asking for a reasonable RM650 for this well taken-cared of unit. There are some light scratches on the stainless steel backing, but it is mainly from inserting and removing it from the casing. I am willing to try to buff it out if you indicate serious interest.


The item also comes with its original packaging and accessories. The headphone is a new and unused unit from my iPhone 4 as I gave the old one away.


Interested parties may contact me at tanyeehou@gmail.com, or call/SMS at 017 - 366 0933.

BBM Conversation with Chris Tock

A little bit of history behind this: Chris and myself call each other 'baby'. In spite of that, I am slightly homophobic.

Me: Baby I'm having bacon+cheese omelette
Him: Ya I know I saw (on twitter)
Me: Are you jealous?
If yes you can come over
I put chicken eggs in your backside then you sit down and you can feel it crack
Then after that I'll eat it when it flows back out.

Something tells me that my mind hasn't recovered from my 2 girls 1 cup adventure, which incidentally I have yet to finish.

Trauma sial.

Boogers

I was having lunch with Royal Gold when I discovered an annoying booger stuck up my right nostril. It wasn't the normal sort of boogers you would nonchalantly discard, but rather it was the flat kind which held on to your nasal hairs like a Jew assigned to Auschwitz. It just simply refused to come out. What made things worse was that it was strategically placed on the roof of the nasal canal, making it harder for me to remove it.

After some forceful and acrobatic digging, I finally removed the offending booger and left it on the floor of McDonalds SS15. The conversation turned to eating boogers when we were younger.

"Eh, you know arr? Earwax is bitter one."

I am liking Royal Gold alot more, really. I think we should start dating or something.

Old Photos (Nuffies) Pt. 2

Look at the size of that ass! Mummy Goon and Doria (owner of said ass) went down to tapau mee sua, soul food that kept us going.


A picture of a prepaid berry. Guess the user!


I think by the time this photo was taken it Waffle and Carol's relationship were in the open already. See! Sit so close somemore!


Patrick put on his baju melayu and we would all head to a Halal place for lunch on Fridays. We would always go late because we had to wait for him to return...ahaha fuck you if you believed that! This particular incident saw him buying boxberries because he liked the flavour. It was a cute image.


Uhhh, this took me out of work for close to two weeks so I guess it fits in here hehee.


Doria (large rear in first pic) tapau-ed kolo mee for us when she went back. It was nice.


KY calling for the waiter during one of our many Friday Halal lunches at Shanghai 10.


Err wtf, Wobb-Wobb letting me trim his kalatai mou. "You gay shit!!" I used to yell that at him all the time. Sexual discrimination lawsuit coming my way T___T

Old Photos (Nuffies) Pt. 1

Am supposed to be studying right now for my paper which starts in about 5 hours time, but fuck that.

Was digging through my cobweb encrusted *sneeze* camera folder on my phone and found a collection of memories, presented in the order they were taken. I'll start with the Nuffies first.


Hui Wen on one of the trips up from Singapore in Feb 09. She looks constipated. I just bought the phone the day she arrived and this was the 3rd picture I took.



One of Waffle's trips down to KL before he shifted here. I remember his relationship with Carol was hush hush at that point, so Carol chose to stay back at the office while the 3 of us went down for dinner.



One of Carol, where we went as judges for TGIF's Mardi Gras decoration contest. It was fun as we had free dinner and wrapped up the night with free (keyword ok?) drinks. The downside was that I was hit on by a gay man, which made me inch closer to Carol for some XX protection.



Andrea, who interned with us. This photo was posed, but if you click on it you'll see her taking out a bottle of Tabasco, because she's a Tabasco junkie like that.



Myself failing badly at the gangsta look. Went shopping at Sg. Wang with Hui Wen and Nic before the Maxis Music Bash.



Unrelated to work, but this was during a little break I took at Cameron Highlands, where Mummy Goon was incidentally there as well. Was supposed to drag her lazy ass up the mountain to look at the sunrise but because she was lazy her parents thought I looked liked a perverted fucker, so yeah. Well thankfully she didn't go up lah cos I wanted to miang her up there one wtf.



One of Penton sleeping. He used to be (secretly) the butt of our (Nic and myself) jokes because of his name. Penton Penton panti....oops. We later made things abit more open and I would call him things like 底褲 wtf


Breakfast with Nic before a morning meeting. Wahh like gahmen servant like that, eat before we work wtf. This was on the day before Carol's birthday, and we bought her a bra for her birthday. Here's my side of the story

After finishing the meeting with the client who owns a dingy rundown mall, Nic and myself were heading back to the car when we spotted this pasar malam-ish lingerie shop and the idea was hatched. The point where I got really embarrassed and decided to let Nic continue with the purchase was when he pointed out at the particular bra that we bought and told the sales girl "我要這個" (I want this one).

I went out and stood guard in case the client happened to walk past and saw these two horny fuckers buying bras. We later discussed this and wondered what would happen if the client said "I also like to play these kind of things" if he actually came across us mid-transaction.

Read up on what Carol had to say about it here. Go read it, I feel so mean on being reminded that I teased her mercilessly on buying flowers for herself to up her market value. I'm sorry Carol.
Total cost: RM4
Memories: Priceless lah even Mastercard can go fuck off


Mell being a total bimbo, the way we love her.


I don't know why were there cake, it must have been Tim's birthday or something?

Well, that's all for now. Time to hit the books.

What do I love about the Blackberry Torch 9800

This is THE Blackberry Torch


And this is my mobile set up. A Sony Ericsson P1i, and an iPod Touch.


Looking at their combined features they aren't too bad. One has a physical keypad, which is helpful for typing, and a small touchscreen; while the other has a large(ish) screen, which is good for browsing in bed before I fall asleep at night.

Now, what if you were told that you could combine both of these, to get the best of both worlds?

Well there's a Blackberry Torch if you want to give the rubberband/velcro option a miss.

Why do I want a Blackberry Torch 9800 from Celcom?
Hardware
I have a (semi)smart phone, released in 2007, based on a dead OS (UIQ3) that nobody uses anymore.

The problem doesn't come with connectivity, but rather, the lack of apps that I can use on this platform.

Twitter, check. But it uses Fring so I cannot get my mentions/DM stream.
Foursquare? On UIQ3? Haahaa abit funny hor?
Facebook will probably crash on this little thing. Either that or I won't see any pictures.

It does come email, but I've been using this phone for close to 2 years and I've yet to successfully get it to work. As far as smartphones go, mine's in the dumbphone territory, sans the no-crash guarantees.***
The iPod Touch has lots more compared to my phone, but lacks a physical keypad (try typing on glass, its honestly quite annoying), and proper connectivity. Try searching for a free WiFi channel to hook on to each time you're out.

Not having a camera annoys me too.

The BB Torch sorts all the earlier mentioned problems out.

BBM, so I get to sext people like gRobb teehee without anyone knowing because its all encrypted!

Endorsement
I never looked very highly upon past US presidents, but Obama has this certain draw to him.


PacMac

He uses a Mac, he's black, he's cool... and he refused to give up his Blackberry for this ugly piece of thing the Secret Service calls a phone.


No wonder why the previous presidents were technologically inept, because they did not want to be seen in public with this ugly thing! Seriously I'll rather use a public phone than to carry this thing around with me.


Oops, because presidents do leave their phones on their laps too.

Now, if I managed to lay my hands on the Blackberry Torch 9800, I can BBM Obama and tell him "yo bebeh sorry can't make it for dinner tonight. see you tmrw cool?"

Now, if this doesn't convince you that you need a BB, I don't know what else will. He doesn't want to give it up!!

Data & connectivity
One of the things preventing me from moving to a Blackberry is the insane charges my current carrier (I'm on a family plan here) would impose upon me for its BIS services.


Celcom Exec 50 starts from RM50 (as the name suggests). Its fairly easy in terms of its calculations because all calls are at 15cents/min. No more worrying about calling a friend on another carrier costing you more, and fretting until your phone bill comes along at the end of the month.

Of course, the more you use the better rates you get. It sounds vanilla and all, but considering the low 15cents you are already paying, a further 30% off does sweeten the deal alot more.

Free 1 month's broadband access with every sign up. Again, this kills the WiFi search problem.

Now Celcom & Nuffnang, gimme my BB Torch so I can be one of the Crackberry users out there. Thanks love you.

You can also pre-register for the BB Torch here

Lorong Selamat CKT

I was tempted to start this post by saying "The Lorong Selamat char koay teow stall that needs no introduction", intending very well not to introduce anything but then I realised that I would probably have to introduce the Underling who stands beside the Overlord who does the actual frying.

This brings me to something slightly off topic here. Why does everyone write so-and-so needs no introduction, perhaps as a passe way of spicing up press releases, before proceeding to introduce that said so-and-so. Not sien one meh? In all seriousness, if it doesn't need introduction you won't be writing about it. Information asymmetry yo.***

I was in Penang over the weekend visiting Michelle with a couple of friends, and we vowed to have a go at cafe Heng Huat which was a subject of a call-to-boycott (seriously, fuck you). We arrived about 1030 in the morning on Saturday to an empty shop and placed our order (5 big, 3 medium for 6 people) with the tanned underling who stands beside Red-Hat helping her fry. Being the only person who speaks reasonably fluent Chinese, the ordering was left to me and I was the only point of contact with Underling.


Underling is the one in black in the background. Regulars would probably recognise her.


She later asked me: 你的朋友，个个都不会讲华语？ (Your friends, none of them can speak Chinese?)
H: 只有我一个人读堂书 (I'm the only Chinese educated one here.)
U: *pointing at my chick friend* “她很美哦!" (She's very pretty.)
H: 美啊？韩国来得，你要吗？（PRetty hor? She's from Korea, you want arr?)
U: Aiyerr 女子我不要！ (Aiyerr, girls I don't want)

A friend observed her reaction as being knee-jerk in nature. Perhaps she's not entirely accustomed to cracking lesbian jokes.

Now, does anyone know if she's related to the Overlord or is she just a worker or something? Her proximity to overlord (thus potentially enabling some scrubbing of knowledge) indicates that she MIGHT be related.

Nah, my Gook friend, 美吗？你要吗？

***
Amongst the more memorable meals of the 2d1n trip include 芽菜鸡 in Ipoh, double char koay teow and assam laksa, some cendol and some other food not worthy of my mentioning.

We also tapau-ed 28 packets of laksa, of which 14 packets were allocated for consumption in this glorified household.