Working Girl

One of my favourite movies of all time is Working Girl, which I first saw just after I finished college. I remember I was supposed to catch a flight back to Sarawak that night, and after a whole day of packing, I decided to just go and catch a movie. Back in 1989, there was a cinema in Ss15 Subang Jaya that specializes in showing reruns.

I just finished my pre-u studies, and I knew I was going to do badly in the exams. While my college mates were busy choosing which uni they wanted to go to, I was wondering what my dad will decide to do with me.

When I came out of the cinema, I knew I wanted to try again. And my dad did indeed give me another chance, which I am very grateful till this day.

The theme song "A River Runs Through It" was my constant companion when I re-sat for my pre-u the following year. Even today the song never fails to raise goose pimples whenever I hear it.

Let The River Run

We're coming to the edge,
running on the water,
coming through the fog,
your sons and daughters.

Let the river run,
let all the dreamers
wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem.

Silver cities rise,
the morning lights
the streets that meet them,
and sirens call them on
with a song.

It's asking for the taking.
Trembling, shaking.
Oh, my heart is aching.

We're coming to the edge,
running on the water,
coming through the fog,
your sons and daughters.

We the great and small
stand on a star
and blaze a trail of desire
through the dark'ning dawn.

It's asking for the taking.
Come run with me now,
the sky is the color of blue
you've never even seen
in the eyes of your lover.

Oh, my heart is aching.
We're coming to the edge,
running on the water,
coming through the fog,
your sons and daughters.

It's asking for the taking.
Trembling, shaking.
Oh, my heart is aching.
We're coming to the edge,
running on the water,
coming through the fog,
your sons and daughters.

Let the river run,
let all the dreamers
wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem.

Windows Vista? Nah....

At the time of writing a worldwide campaign is underway to enlighten folks everywhere on the delights of Vista, M'soft's much delayed OS.

For those of you who balk at the price tag or do not have a PC spec'ed high enough to run it, you can actually get a feel for it by installing the Vista Transformation Pack. I tried it for a few weeks, and, well, the only thing I felt would make my life easier is the Aero glass effect. Sometimes I need to refer to another document while I'm typing, and by overlaying the two documents on top of each other, I find that I could get a lot more done than if I tile the documents vertically. Alright, those of you who own 19 inch LCD monitors, you can stop snickering now.

The gadgets sidebar concept is not a new one, I've seen its potential since the days of Borland Sidekick, but unfortunately to date no one has done a good job of implementing it. Call me when you get some really useful gadgets to dock to the sidebar, will you? A clock to tell the time? That's what I wear watches for, mate.

Apart from eye candy, from what I read there's not much else that would compel me to rush out and buy one. What I really want from a new OS would be these:-

1. Much faster boot up time. On average, it takes a minute for my XP log in screen to come up, and another good 2 minutes to get everything started up after I've logged in. The Amstrad CPC 6128 I used 20 years ago booted up in 2 seconds flat, including monitor warm up time. Come on, after 20 years and umpteenth generations of Windows OS's, you can't get this fixed?
2. A much easier way of getting to my stuff. I have a lot of stuff on both my home and office PC's, and I do mean a lot. Getting to them is just a pain. Sure, I can create shortcuts and there's the Recent Documents list, but its still difficult to quickly zoom in on stuff that I do not access frequently. Google Desktop also helps to a certain extent, but I will hail the day when I can get to any stuff I want in 5 seconds flat.
3. Easier way of setting up things. It still requires a postgraduate degree to get things set up. Don't believe me? Pop quiz: Why can't I connect to a Wifi network at my branch office when everyone else had no problems? Answer: because the network uses the same name as the Wifi network at the HQ, therefore the system tries to automatically reconnect using the HQ Wifi's settings, which was saved to the notebook's Wifi Connection properties. Now how many of us are gonna be able to figure that one out?

August 1995: I went out to get a copy of The Times in a small town called Ballynahinch in Northern Ireland, and was bewildered when the newsagent refused to accept my money. "It's free." Huh? After looking at the paper for a few seconds it dawned on me that it was Windows 95 launch day. Microsoft had bought up the entire print run of The Times on that day. I was filled with much excitement and anticipation, sure that this new fangled OS would let me do wonderful productive things as I start my IT career. 11 and a half years later, much has changed, and much still stayed the same.