We're Moving!

We're actually moving! But it may not be what you think...You can view our new site at...

www.LifeontheSpot.com (beta)

So add that to your bookmarks cause this is only going to get better. We're moving from here to our own Spot in the World Wide Web.

FireFox Beta 1

If you're a Firefox user and can't wait for their release of Firefox 2, then probably a Beta version of Firefox would probably do. If so, grab their Beta 1 release on the FTP site. I've installed in just minute ago and one significant change for me would be the X button on every tab you open instead of it being on the very far right as before. This is great as often times, when closing tabs, one has to go to the other end click that Close button. I haven't really noticed other visual changes but everything seems to be ok. I haven't tried IE 7 Beta as I've gotten used to using the tab browsing of Firefox since last year and I'm sure MS Beta as buggier than most so I'd rather stay away from that esp. IE. Anyway, for those of you who haven't tried Firefox yet, try it and I'm sure you'll love all the functionality and the plugins you can add into it. And I can wager that it's better than IE.

What's On...the Xbox and TV

Here are some of the shows we’ve completed watching the past 2 months (No Spoilers). Yeah, the Xbox, PC and TV were quite busy working together to bring us these. 24 Season 5 – He’s back; Jack Bauer. Great pacing and great plot. We both think this is the best yet although Season 4 comes really close. We finished 24 episodes in 4 nights! Can’t wait for them to start Season 6. Moral of the Story: Never argue with Jack Bauer. Prison Break – Michael Scofield gets jailed to get his brother out of jail. Not exactly your 24-kind of pacing nor Lost’s rich characterization but gets the job done. Actors are believable and great at what they do. Some plot lines are obvious and reflect some other TV Series. Moral of the Story: A tattoo is not just an art form. Amazing Race 8 – A first in the Amazing race as families travel around the US and South America to receive 1 million dollars. Great fun but challenges are a bit less exciting as the producers tamed them a bit for the younger family members. Moral of the Story: Leave the children to your parents when joining the Amazing Race. Amazing Race 9 – TTAO! The Frat Boys, MoJo, The Hippies, The Nerds, The Double DD’s and more. With all the twists and turns, no one could ever expect who’d land first on the pit stops and who get eliminated. Amazing! Moral of the Story: Luck would always be a factor but brains with luck is what it takes to win. SmallVille Season 5 – Overall, it is a great season but not for Clark. It just keeps pouring and we don’t even get to see a glimmer of light at the end of the season. Moral of the Story: Stay away from anything that comes from Krypton. Lost Season 2 – Things get messy in here. With the opening of the hatch, Pandora’s box is opened. Along with all your theories about the island (The Others, The Monster, The Island itself), confusion sets in as more people and plot points are added. Still, if you want to know what the Island has in store for Jack, John, Kate and the rest of the gang, Lost 2 has them covered. Moral of the Story: Never travel with Oceanic Air. Iron Chef Season 1 – The Secret Ingridients; Flay, Batali and Morimoto. You can’t imagine how these guys cook all 5 dishes in an hour to salivate your taste buds. Moral of the Story: Don’t under estimate Batali.

My Lappie and Dual Core

With my old trusty laptop breaking down, that meant no torrent downloads, no chikka messenger service, no posting on the blog, no chatting, no skype-calling and no internet surfing. The laptop is not that really old. We bought it in Saudi on December 2003. It's a Packard-Bell configured with a P4 2.8 desktop processor, 512mb RAM and 64 mb built-in graphics accelarator, all for SR6250. Remember that it was 2003 then so prices were relatively high although the processing speed was quite good for my graphics need. I've captured and edited our videos, did development work, made my presentations, used Photoshop, Flash and Illustrator with it. As for it's weight, well, Mavis never did like chugging it around as it is almost 10 pounds and becomes a 20 lbs. monster the longer you carry it. It was a laptop which had been in great service and never really gave me any problems till last week. Mavis and I decided to get a desktop instead of another laptop as with the almost 24/7 "need" to be online, a desktop would be best fit to assume that role as well as it would be faster than any laptop there is in the market without crashing your bank account. We went to Jarir to look at the ready-configured branded machines. We also went to the Sofitel Area to get quotations for your own configured machine. Of course, a higher priced- branded machine is more trusty in terms of stabiliy of the peripherals, good quality control and you get good service (that's what we're supposed to think) while a purpose-built machine is cheaper and you get a better configuration at that. I chose to get the "Sofitel" branded machine...he he he. Yup, cheaper(?) yet faster one. Here's the configuration: Processor: Intel 3.0 ghz Dual Core (4 mb Cache) Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-81945G Pro Memory: 1 Ghz DDR2 533 Hard disk: 200Gb SATA (Western Digital) DVD: Samsung DVD +- R/RW Double layer 16x Video: Intel Graphics 950 128mb (built-in) Audio: 7.1 HD audio (built-in) Network: LAN 100mb/1000mb Case: Gigabyte with ATX 300W power supply Front USB and audio connectors 1 Year Warranty Free: Surge Protection Extension cable Price = SR2925 Samsung F13n 17" LCD (3 years warranty)- SR 875 Dual Core. 2 processing power in one chip. Twice the amount of data that can be processed in parallel. All this power at a price. the chip alone costs SR1350. Way higher than buying it in the US. Still, you can never get this configuration from branded desktops at this price. I got the beast yesterday and already halfway in installing my programs. I already noticed a great significance in performance.I'm a multi-tasking freak and I usually have about 3-4 Internet Explorer open as well as a Firefox window with 2-3 tabs for surfing, 1 explorer window open, FTP program for my Xbox transfers, Chikka and/or Yahoo messenger, and Azurues downloading in the background. There were some bottlenecks in some instances as along with all these programs running, I was also installing and updating some programs but overall, I think using this machine would be fun for multi-taskers like me. I need to see how fast it is with Photoshop, Illustrator and flash opened at the same time. I'll probably finish setting it up on the weekend.

I'm being plagued

First up was the car breaking down. I had to ask somebody to take me to and from work for one week and eventually shelling out 1350 for my car to get fixed. Second, my laptop broke down last week. After it shut down of overheating and me, trying to clean up the insides, it suddenly went to sleep mode forever. I mean literally. It's like something got stuck that made go to sleep mode everytime you start it up as the sleep indicator lights up when you boot it. You can hear the harddisk whine a bit when booting and then it stops. The monitor doesn't even show any sign of life at all. I've tried bringing it to Jarir Bookstore but they only deal with Toshiba laptops while friends adviced me not the bring it to the sofitel Area. I've surrendered it to a colleague who may be able to fix the laptop so we'll see. But since we need a computer, we decided to get one (read related blog - Dual Core in Qatar). Other than these breakdowns, I've been losing things right after the other. I lost my house keys the other week and then I lost my keycard two days after. Just last night, someone came knocking at our door. When we opened, it was our neighbor asking us we know who owns the wallet he was holding. It was mine. I don't actually remember if he found it inside the building (the stairs) or outside, where I park my car, as my head was already in a rush thinking how I lost it. Thankfully, everything was still there; credit cards, money, ids and all. Hopefully, that was the last of it. I need to be more careful, I know.

Warning - ENGINE FAULT

We've been without our beloved Citroen Picasso for almost a week now. As the system of the car is electronic, it flashed a warning lamp for the engine and displayed "WARNING - ENGINE FAULT" when I turned it on one day last week. It was still running but everytime I hit on the brakes and halted, it doesn't accelerate the next time you push the gas pedal. You have to turn the car off and restart for it to respond again. That means that I had to turn the car off on every corner and every stoplight. Luckily, this happened while we were close to our flat. I was supposed to bring it myself to the Citroen Service Center but Mavis convinced me that I just dial the number for the Citroen Service center for them to tow the car. An hour later, a guy was hauling the Picasso at the back of his tow truck. When I went back inside the flat, my wife asked me if the guy gave me any receipt or anything that would say that my car is with him. I said none and I didn't even ask the guy for anything. He told me that the guys from the service center would call me in a while once he gets it back to the shop. I trusted him. I guess I'm more trusting of people in Qatar that in the Philippines. It's just that I don't hear news about cars being stolen, "chopped" into pieces and being sold off to the gray market. After about 2 hours, I did decide to call the Service Center. I was told that they we're not able to call earlier as they were too busy with other stuff. Fine as long as my car is with them. I was hoping that my car would be fixed and serviced in two days time as I don't see a lot of Citroen cars in the city. But apparently, my car is in line with other cars being serviced or fixed. Now, almost a week later, I'm told that the engine problem has been fixed but they still need to road test it again and have the service for 15,000 done. For the meantime, I've been able to call a private driver who takes me to work and back everyday for SR25. Cheaper than renting a car. Hopefully, I'll get the car today as we've spent the whole week at home aside from the Rafael's helping us do some grocery last Saturday night in CarreFour, City Center. 06/27 Update: Got the car back and paid SR1351. They said it was a pressure gauge in the engine that they replaced.