Added a new theme called Tunnel. This is the most bandwidth-hungry style, but it looks great even at high screen resolutions.

As planned, I watched Sixth Sense last night, and this was one movie that just blew me away. I thought Unbreakable and Signs were good, but this was phenomenal. It's one of the best suspense movies I've seen in the longest time, and the twist in the end was so unexpected, I don't believe anyone could have guessed it until it actually happened. It's even better when you realize that there were hints all along in the movie that you completely missed. I definitely have to watch the entire movie again sometime soon. It's way up there with some of the best movies ever. 5/5 from me...without a doubt.

Did some heavy-duty backend optimizations to the site code today, making it MUCH easier to manage, and slightly faster as well (yeah, I used PHP to measure load times in microseconds)


Switchable themes are also finally here, although not fully-developed yet. At present, there is a choice between the Default theme (which will usually consist of a relatively large background image file; i.e. targeted towards broadband users), and a Lite theme (which is currently just a plain color background and matching links; i.e. mainly for 56k users). E-piphany will also store a cookie on your hard drive to remember your theme preference for a year from the date you change it.

I didn't get a chance to look at Mars last night. Actually, I was too lazy to wake up in the middle of the night just to see a red dot in the sky. I wish I knew someone nearby who had a telescope so that we could get a good view of the planet. But I believe it's visible all week, so let's hope I can find something...

I watched Unbreakable with my bro today afternoon. It was a great movie. Can't believe it took me so long to get around to watching it. The finale of the movie was so unexpected. The whole movie had an underlying Superman theme to it (especially the part about the hero and the villain being good friends until they eventually find out each others' identities), so I thoroughly enjoyed it. Rohan: If you haven't already watched the movie, make sure you do. I think you'll like it too. If you already have, let me know what you thought.
Sixth Sense is next up on my list of movies to watch one of these days. That would complete the Shyamalan collection since I already watched Signs in the theaters when it was released.

WebCam updated!

I hooked up the 17" CRT monitor to my laptop, and enabled multi-monitor mode. This thing is so addictive. I mean, if I use this set-up for long enough, I might not be able to switch back to using a single monitor. It's so convenient this way! I can open up so many apps and work with them simultaneously without minimizing/maximizing a million times. Effectively, it's like an ultra-wide screen with a combined resolution of 2048x768.

I'm finally in the new house in Buena Park. The Adelphia people came and connected the service this afternoon, so here I am. Feels great to be online again (and I was off for just 2 days...I'm so addicted )

The actual process of moving all our stuff from the Irvine apartment to the house was the worst experience we've ever had. Why? Because the movers were the biggest assholes ever (excuse my language on the site, but that was the mildest word I could think of for them). Anyways, more about that later. 2 days of no internet...I have a lot of catching up to do

For all those that had my Cox email address: Delete it from your address books. It no longer exists...for obvious reasons.

I'll also try to get some pictures of the house up when all the cartons, packaging and plastic wraps are removed, and it's in a more presentable state. Hehe...besides, I don't even know where the digital camera is at the moment.

Installed and configured Slackware Linux on my brother's laptop today. Since I did it just two months ago, it went by very smoothly. The whole process was obviously much, much smoother than the first time, especially since the steps were exactly the same (he has the same laptop as I do). I didn't have to pull my hair out this time to get the network connections working etc. So now I can go through this with my eyes closed.

Not much else going on today. We did a little more packing, moved boxes here and there etc.

All the Berkeley people seem to have moved out. That's quite sad, considering I don't even know when I'll ever see them in person again. But there's always email/MSN/AIM.
Best of luck to all you guys as you start the new academic year. Hope your first semester is great, and have fun!

Whoah...the RPC security exploit in Windows 2000/XP is causing all kinds of havoc today. I've dealt with complaints from at least 5 people this morning about the same thing. Basically, the RPC server in Windows has been exploited, and a worm (or maybe more) has started spreading rapidly. A system that has been affected just forcibly reboots within 60 seconds after the RPC service fails.

Microsoft released a patch for this vulnerability on July 16th, but apparently not too many people bother downloading these critical patches from Windows Update, either because they don't know it even exists, or they feel it's a waste of time. Bad idea.

I found out that many of the visitors are being refered to this site by Google/MSN Search etc. when they search for the RPC patch, so I thought I'd outline the steps needed to protect yourself from this vulnerability and the MSBlast worm.

Ok, assuming you've already been affected:

• Boot up your computer and unplug any cables that connect your computer to the internet.
• If at any time, you see the message informing you that your computer is going to reboot, click Start>Run and type in "shutdown.exe -a" (without the quotes)
• Go to one of these pages (depending on your operating system) to download and install the patch:
  For XP: KB823980 Patch for XP
  For 2000: KB823980 Patch for W2k
• After installing the patch, block ports 135, 139 and 445 in your router/firewall configuration, to be on the safe side. You can confirm that port 135 has been "stealthed" by going to this site: GRC Port Scan
• Finally, to make sure there are no remnants of the worm, download the FixBlast utility from Symantec's site here: FixBlast.exe" and allow it to scan your system.

Even if you aren't experiencing any problems, make sure you download and install the patch, as mentioned above.
That's about it. And from now on, make sure you check Windows Update often to avoid getting hit in the future. Precautions are always good.

Arnold's going to tell the people about his decision to run for Governor tonight on Jay Leno! I already know he's decided to run, but I'm going to watch nonetheless.

I just added a page with links to sites that I think are interesting, with short descriptions about each of them. I'm sure I've missed some, but they'll get there eventually. The list will continue to be updated as and when I find new stuff.

I was just looking over the weblogs of some AOL/Netscape employees who are actively involved in the Mozilla Project, and I came across this very interesting post by Joe Hewitt in response to this article in Time Magazine.

Here's what he has to say:

Posted by Joe Hewitt - http://joehewitt.com

A friend of mine recently sent me this article in Time that claims the American middle class is threatened by the migration of skilled labor to foreign countries, particularly India. This argument is so incredibly short sighted and easy to disprove that it really frustrates me every time I see another scary article about it.

One minute, Americans cry about all of the poor, starving nations that we are doing nothing to help. Then, when one of those nations starts to educate itself and pull its own weight, we complain that they are threatening us! Would we prefer that these Indians go back to being poor and uneducated?

I am thrilled to see a class of people rising up to provide a real value to the economy. Americans may lose their jobs, but at the same time the Indians will help Americans drive bigger profits, which only puts more money in the hands of American shareholders, which creates more jobs for Americans and people all over the world.

If the American middle-class thinks they deserve a paycheck even after their skills become outdated, then the future of our country is bleak. Unionizing or asking for government restrictions on foreign labor is a nice way to save jobs in the short term. In the long term, however, it has the obvious effect of de-motivating Americans from developing new ideas and learning new skills, while simultaneously wasting all of the value that foreign countries can provide to our economy.

Damn straight, Joe!
For further comments on the matter, check out this post on his site...

I pulled off the AC plug to my laptop today to see how long it holds the battery charge, since I haven't used the battery in a long time. Got a whopping 3 hours and 22 mins. until the low battery warning popped up. That's really impressive for a desktop Pentium 4 CPU! Of course, I wasn't using anything very processor intensive, but I don't ever imagine myself cropping videos or playing DVDs on this thing while I'm on the go. Props to Dell for this 12-cell Li-ion battery pack!

New month! Wow...a month and a half left before I move to UCLA. Seems like a long time, but it's going to fly, I'm sure.

As of today, there's going to be a slight change in the layout. Only the 5 most recent posts will be displayed on the main page. Unlike before, there is now a link to the current month in the archives as well, which will contain all the posts of the month. Just makes the main page seem a little more tidy + better loading time + less scrolling.