Tuesday, November 21, 2006

I am .ppt?

I came across an unusual personality test on Digg today. I don't normally do them, in fact I hate them, but I just HAD to find out what file extension I would turn out be! I have to say, the results are pretty accurate.

You are .ppt  You present yourself well, but co-workers still find you bording and annoying.  Keep it brief and you'll be well-liked.
Which File Extension are You?

Friday, November 17, 2006

What to Eat in Singapore

The people of Singapore have two simple pleasures: Shopping and Eating. Everywhere you go you will see numerous eating places. Each and every shopping mall has its own food court which is made up of lots of different food stalls selling everything from chinese and malaysian food to indian food.

When in Singapore, you must try the following:

Durian
The durian is a thorny fruit native to south-east asia. It is unlike any you've ever eaten. It tastes a bit like custard and has quite an unpleasant smell, which is why it is banned on all public transport! Try it - you'll either love it or hate it!

Singapore Chilli Crab
This is Singapore's unofficial "national dish". Don't be afraid to use your teeth or the pliers supplied to crack open the shell and eat the crab meat. Served with fried bread.



Fish Head Curry
This is one of the local delicacies and is basically a fish head, complete with eyeballs, in curry! It is quite spicy. Don't forget to try the eyeballs. They are the best bit ;)


Other things to try are:
  • chicken rice
  • fish ball noodles
  • nasi lemak (malaysian coconut rice with egg and dried fish)
  • duck
  • laksa (noodles in curry)
  • lime juice
  • multi-coloured ice-cream sandwich

Related Posts
You may also be interested in reading the following related entries:
Places to Visit in Singapore
Places to Visit in Singapore - II

Places to Visit in Singapore - II

Orchard Road
Singapore's central, vibrant shopping area. During my stay, the Great Singapore Shopping Sale was in full swing and the streets and shops were absolutely packed with people! Great for shoppers!



Little India
Little India is the focal point of Singapore's Indian community and is packed with small Indian shops selling everything from jewellery to saris and biryani. There are also some famous temples which are worth seeing (Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple, pictured below).




Mustafa Centre
This 24-hour six-storey shopping centre stocks everything from Indian chutney and diamonds to plasma TVs and cars, all at very reasonable prices. This is where I did most of my shopping. Don't forget to have your bags checked before you enter!


Sultan Mosque at Arab Street
With its massive golden dome and huge prayer hall, the Sultan Mosque is one of Singapore's most imposing religious buildings, and the focal point of Muslims in Singapore. You can also try Muslim food and buy Arab goods along this street.



Chinatown
There are lots of stalls selling Chinese bits and bobs. This is where I bought my hand drum (which you see used in Karate Kid II). Also check out Chinatown Heritage Centre and some Chinese Temples. Pictured below are Thian Hock Keng Temple and Trengganu Street.




Funan Digitalife Mall
Funan Digitalife Mall, Asia's leading IT shopping mall, is the one-stop haven that offers the latest, most innovative, and widest range of genuine and value-for-money IT and electronic gadgets. You can also try some really good Black Pepper Beef in the food court.



Sim Lim Square
Another place where you can pick up dirt cheap electronic gadgets. This is where I bought my iPod!

Related Posts
You may also be interested in reading the following related entries:
Places to Visit in Singapore
What to Eat in Singapore

Places to Visit in Singapore

I was in Singapore on a business trip from the 10th - 30th of June and stayed at the magnificent Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore. I got a deluxe room (room number 1417) with a picturesque view of the city. The room was fully furnished with two single beds, a large LCD TV and mini-bar and cost me SGD500 per night.

Here is a list on interesting places that you must visit when in Singapore:

The Esplanade
Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay is one of Singapore's architectural icons with its distinctive twin shells. It is sited just by Marina Bay at the mouth of the Singapore River.




Merlion Park
The Merlion, the lion head with a fish body resting on a crest of waves, is the emblem of Singapore. Unluckily, it was being renovated while I was there, so I wasn't able to see it in its full glory!




Fountain of Wealth at Suntec City
I used to go to work everyday at Suntec City's Tower 5. During our lunch break, we would roam around Suntec City Mall.

Suntec City is designed with a lot of emphasis on Chinese geomancy (feng shui). The five buildings and the convention center are arranged so that they look like a left hand when viewed aerially, and the Fountain of Wealth look like a golden ring in the palm of the hand. As the fountain is made of bronze, it is believed that the balance of metal and water paves the way for success. This fountain is the largest in the world!




Statue of Sir Stamford Raffles
Sir Stamford Raffles – Singapore’s founder – stands tall and proud in the form of a dark bronze statue in front of Victoria Theatre.



Parliament House



Related Posts
You may also be interested in reading the following related entries:
Places to Visit in Singapore - II
What to Eat in Singapore

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Bug in iTunes 7.0

iTunes 7 is flawed. Importing music CDs into your iTunes library is extremely slow - it takes hours to import a CD whereas it only used to take at most half an hour on the old version.

I have uninstalled version 7.0.1 and gone back to version 6.0.5. However my "iTunes Library.itl" file was no longer compatible with the old version, so I had to delete it and rebuild my library again!

I'm not upgrading until Apple have fixed this issue...

Yahoo! Answers is Fun

I've always enjoyed problem solving and have actively participated in online forums such as Sun's Java Developer Forums, Java Ranch and Google Groups. They allow you to expand your knowledge, share what you know with the online community and even help you establish yourself as a bit of a guru (if you're really good!).

I especially like Sun's Forums because they allow you to earn Duke Dollars based on how good your answers are. (I am currently worth 139 duke dollars!)

Recently, I stumbled across Yahoo! Answers which is a place to ask questions and get real answers from real people. It’s fun and educational because you can ask questions on any topic—from the serious to the not so serious. And when you know what's up, you get to help people out by answering their questions. You earn 2 points for answering a question and 10 if your answer is selected as the best answer! This has really got me hooked. I mostly answer the Mathematics and Computing questions but I also like taking part in the more general categories like Society and Culture.

Here is my little answers badge which shows all my questions and answers:

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

My Bash Profile

Bash is my favourite shell and here is my .bashrc which has grown substantially over the years as I have added (and will continue to add) more and more useful aliases and functions. These are very useful because they save time and also stop you from having to type in long error-prone commands.

My personal favourite alias is ll='ls -ltr' and I don't understand why some people still type in the long form for such a common command.



###############################
# FAHD SHARIFF'S BASH PROFILE #
###############################

HISTCONTROL=ignoredups
EDITOR=emacs

set -o notify
set -o braceexpand
set -o emacs

##########
# PROMPT #
##########

PS1=\[\e[0m\]\e]2;\u@\h:`tty`>\w[\d,\t]\a\n\[\e[4;34;1m\]\u@\h:\[\e[0;31;1m\]\w>\[\e[m\]

###############
# COMPLETIONS #
###############

shopt -s extglob progcomp cdspell

# Make directory commands see only directories
complete -d cd mkdir rmdir pushd jd

# Make file commands see only files
complete -f cat less more chown ln strip nedit emacs

complete -f -X '!*.@(zip|ZIP|jar|JAR|exe|EXE|pk3|war|wsz|ear|zargo|xpi)' unzip zipinfo
complete -f -X '*.Z' compress
complete -f -X '!*.@(Z|gz|tgz|Gz|dz)' gunzip zcmp zdiff zcat zegrep zfgrep zgrep zless zmore
complete -f -X '!*.Z' uncompress
complete -f -X '!*.@(gif|jp?(e)g|tif?(f)|pn[gm]|p[bgp]m|bmp|xpm|ico|xwd|tga|pcx|GIF|JP?(E)G|TIF?(F)|PN[GM]|P[BGP]M|BMP|XPM|ICO|XWD|TGA|PCX)' ee display
complete -f -X '!*.@(gif|jp?(e)g|tif?(f)|png|p[bgp]m|bmp|x[bp]m|rle|rgb|pcx|fits|pm|GIF|JPG|JP?(E)G|TIF?(F)|PNG|P[BGP]M|BMP|X[BP]M|RLE|RGB|PCX|FITS|PM)' xv qiv
complete -f -X '!*.@(ps|PS)' gv ggv
complete -f -X '!*.@(ps|PS|pdf|PDF)' fmerge
complete -f -X '!*.@(dvi|DVI)?(.@(gz|Z|bz2))' xdvi
complete -f -X '!*.@(dvi|DVI)' dvips dviselect dvitype
complete -f -X '!*.@(pdf|PDF)' acroread gpdf xpdf
complete -f -X '!*.texi*' makeinfo texi2html
complete -f -X '!*.@(?(la)tex|?(LA)TEX|texi|TEXI|dtx|DTX|ins|INS)' tex latex slitex jadetex pdfjadetex pdftex pdflatex texi2dvi
complete -f -X '!*.fig' xfig
complete -f -X '!*.@(?([xX]|[sS])[hH][tT][mM]?([lL]))' netscape mozilla lynx appletviewer hotjava
complete -f -X '!*.tar' tar
complete -f -X '!*.java' javac
complete -f -X '!*.idl' idl idlj

# user commands see only users
complete -u su usermod userdel passwd write groups w talk

# bg completes with stopped jobs
complete -A stopped -P '%' bg

# other job commands
complete -j -P '%' fg jobs disown

# readonly and unset complete with shell variables
complete -v readonly unset

# set completes with set options
complete -A setopt set

# shopt completes with shopt options
complete -A shopt shopt

# unalias completes with aliases
complete -a unalias

# type and which complete on commands
complete -c command type which

# complete hostnames
complete -A hostname ssh telnet rlogin ftp ping traceroute

###########
# ALIASES #
###########

alias ..=cd ..
alias ...=cd ../..
alias ....=cd ../../..
alias .....=cd ../../../..

alias cl=clear
alias cla=clear;la
alias cll=clear;ll
alias cls=clear;ls
alias clal=clear;lal

alias rmdir=rm -rf

alias d=date
alias ff=find . -name $1
alias h=history

alias l=ls
alias la=ls -a
alias ll=ls -ltr
alias lal=ls -al
alias ls=ls -F
alias sl=ls

alias more=less
alias mroe=more
alias m=more

alias r=fc -s
alias igrep=grep -i

#############
# FUNCTIONS #
#############

#kill a process by name
pskill()
{
if [ -z $1 ]; then
echo -e \e[0;31;1mUsage: pskill [processName]\e[m;
else
ps -au $USER | grep -i $1 |awk {print kill -9 $1}|sh
fi
}

#jump to a directory
jd()
{
if [ -z $1 ]; then
echo -e \e[0;31;1mUsage: jd [directory]\e[m;
else
findresults=( $(find . -type d -name $1) )
count=${#findresults[@]}
if [ $count = 1 ]; then
file=${findresults[0]}
cd $file
else
if [ $count = 0 ]; then
echo No such directory
else echo Ambiguous: $count directories found
fi
fi
unset findresults
unset count
fi
}

#display directory tree structure
tree()
{
echo -e \033[1;35m

(cd ${1-.} ; pwd)
find ${1-.} -print | sort -f | sed \
\
-e s,^${1-.},, \
-e /^$/d \
-e s,[^/]*/\([^/]*\)$,\ |-->\1, \
-e s,[^/]*/, | ,g

echo -e \033[0m
}

#mkdir and cd combined
mkcd()
{
if [ -z $1 ]; then
echo -e \e[0;31;1mUsage: mkcd [directory]\e[m;
else
if [ -d $1 ]; then
echo Changed to $1.;
cd $1;
else
mkdir $1;
echo Created $1;
cd $1;
fi;
fi
}

#######
# END #
#######

mesg -n
echo -e \e[0;31;1m$USER logged in to `tty` on `date`\e[m