Livin' the life...

Nice piece of FREEware. I definitely recommend..

Quick Media Converter is a powerful and very complete Free video and audio conversion software. Converts to and from formats including: flv, avi, divx, xvid, mpeg4, ipod, iphone, psp, 3GP, 3G2, AVI, DIVX, XVID, TS, DVD, VCD, MPEG, MPEG2, MP3, WAV, amr, m4a, mp4, vob, mov, h264, h263, wmv, wma. Resizing Cropping and also Web Cam or DV Cam fluxes capture to avi divx . Batch Conversions supported, desktop activity recording. (Source)

Download here.

Just got back from watching Hancock and I must say, it wasn't that bad at all.

It definitely rates higher than I Am Legend, both in plot, acting, and action (see my review of that). Plus, it has a few twists that had me somewhat impressed. And, with its happy, albeit ideal ending, I recommend it as a movie to add to your shopping cart when strolling through Blockbuster.

In total, I think 7/10 is a fair score.

The next movie for me will probably be either The Incredible Hulk or The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

For some reason, I've never managed to get the native Vista weather gadget to work. I always get "service not unavailable" no matter what location I put in. Because of that I've downloaded and tried Met Office Weather gadget, and even though this works great, it does not give me an option to put in my exact location-I guess that clearly Leamington Spa, furthermore Coventry are not big enough for coverage.. ?

Anyway, today I report that I've found a great gadget that works lovely for weather. It is from Weather Underground and displays current temperature (F and C), the day's max and min, location, and also gives a nice pictorial representation of what it looks like outside (e.g. clouds, sunshine, etc).

I recommend you check it out! Also worth noting is that it doesn't seem to restricted to one country, thus far I've tried out UK, Barbados, Paris, USA and India.

It's that glorious time once again, i.e. time to learn new software. The software choices are mainly 'required' for my research so it's nothing too fancy. They are:

LaTeX is a high-quality typesetting system; it includes features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation. LaTeX is the de facto standard for the communication and publication of scientific documents. (Source) [To use LaTeX on Vista, I first installed Basic MiKTeX 2.7, then TeXnicCenter. proTeXt seems like a good option as well but I'm yet to try it.]

Eclipse is an open source community whose projects are focused on building an extensible development platform, runtimes and application frameworks for building, deploying and managing software across the entire software lifecycle. Many people know us, and hopefully love us, as a Java IDE but Eclipse is much more than a Java IDE. (Source) [To use on Vista and Linux, I downloaded and installed Eclipse IDE for Java Developers.]

If you know any good tutorials on any of these, it would be great if you could share, thanks! :-)

lol, i luv lolcats. The photo above was sourced from here.

"Will I ever get this right?". This is what I asked myself this morning, as I managed to confuse myself for the second week running, about exactly how communion would be administered to me at church. See what going overseas for a bit, then returning home can do to your brain? lol.

Anyway, I ask myself this same question a lot in my walk as a Christian. Often I go through trials and problems and often I must admit that I waver. Even though I don't fully doubt, I feel a weakness in me, a weakness that probably would not be there if I trusted in the Lord completely like I should. Then, in the end, once things have passed, of course everything works out fine, sometimes I even see why the Lord let things happen as they did, and I aptly exclaim, "Wow! That's some divine planning! I hadn't a clue that other situation was important!". But then the question hits me, "Will I ever get this right?".. Will I ever do what is right and fully put aside what I know to be wrong? Will I ever trust in God completely even when things are as clear as mud? Will I ever be the Christian that God knows I can be?

To be honest, these questions usually make me cringe! Sometimes however, on a lonely, quiet day, they catapult me into deep thought, which usually leads to critical self-evaluation. After all, to be a Christian means to grow, to learn more, to move pass what we were, to aim higher, and ultimately, as Paul alludes to in 1 Corinthians 11:1, to imitate Christ.

In summary, the life of a Christian isn't easy, or is it to be taken lightly - this we all know. It is hard work, sometimes we will falter, but the important things is to  immediately put things right. Self-evaluation is also necessary, and personally, I think it's a wise process to do often. In times where the question "Will I ever get this right?" arises, let's hold strong and reply, "With the strength of Christ we will!" After all, Philippians 4:13 in my Bible states, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me".. and I think we have the same Bible. :-)

Have a blessed week my friends.

One thing I like about Yahoo!, it's a one-stop-shop, and arguably the best portal to the Word Wide Web. Whether it's day-to-day news from around the globe, or big events such as the World Cup, Euro, or the Olympics.

This time I'm writing about the Olympics and Yahoo!'s photo coverage of the opening ceremony. In my opinion, it's a pretty good slideshow and I recommend you view it here.

Well, the Beijing Olympics has now (i.e. today) officially started and what an Olympics it intends to be! The official site states:

Program of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad - The Games will take place August 8-24, 2008, in Beijing. The Games will play host to the 28 summer sports currently on the Olympic program. Approximately 10,500 athletes are expected to participate in the Games, with around 20,000 accredited media bringing the Games to the world.

Out of all the sports, my favourite ones are diving, gymnastics, and water polo. I would watch these all day long!

Below there's one of the many photos of a Lego Sports City (apparently created by the The Hong Kong LEGO Users Group within 100 hrs), aimed at recreating the 2008 Olympic grounds.

As a past lego-maniac myself (I actually still have a box full of past 'projects', lol), I fully appreciate this Lego Sports City. Very cool and well done!

Anyway, let's all hope and pray that things go well this Olympics with regards to security, natural disasters and athletes doping up.