I will be writing sporadically about ICT4D, development, etc. so stay posted. You can also follow me on twitter @btshin where 140 character musings are much more commonplace.

Disclaimer: this site will be changing frequently over the next few weeks. It’ll be mostly cosmetic.

I’m getting inspired by a lot of friends out there, so this is just another way to keep track of everyone.

I’m also updating my blog-roll so watch out for the Humber ID section!

• packed malls full of neurotic parents
• eating dinner after dinner of turkey and tryptophan
• Christmas CDs on infinite repeat
• bitter winter weather with -20C windchill

And I propose one more: Christmas cantatas and the pain of out-of-tune choruses.

So this past Sunday I went to People’s Church to watch their Christmas concert. Dread. That’s all I felt leading up to it. And a bit of sleepiness. To my surprise it was thoroughly entertaining. A bit slow at parts, but fun. It wasn’t just singing (yawn), but they did choreographed dance along with a full live band. Too bad something like this would be too “revolutionary” in our Chinese church circles. I think the grannies and gramps would have heart attacks.

I’m just looking into the realm of possibilities. It’s still a ways away, but maybe I won’t sleep at my next Christmas concert when I return home.

She’s using Movable Type hosted on our tshin.com domain. Since all our Movable Type blogs are administered together, I realized that my old blog was still in the database, just not published. So I imported it here. Partly for nostalgia, partly for testing.

Go ahead and read some back posts from 2002 to 2004 in the brain drain.

[NOTE: I haven't edited anything except for dead links.]

Anyway, for those wondering: Timothy Appnel writes a manual for Movable Type (a blogging tool like Blogspot, WordPress, TypePad), so he’s just defending his turf. And for good reason: I didn’t really do my homework about SixApart and the Movable Type open source vs. “closed source” debate. Then again, even with 2 years experience in the software industry, I still don’t know much about the difference between GPL and other licensing schemes. But I’m glad he does.

Kudos to everyone who slogged through his comment. If anything you learnt something: “MT was never open source so far”. But kudos to Timothy Appnel who actually read my last blog entry complaining about Movable Type.

We took a look at something on her site and she complained about how tacky or boring it looked. I think it was still using the original design style from Movable Type. So being familiar with WordPress and blogs in general I know that it’s relatively easy to change styles since it’s all in the CSS. So we find the thing to choose designs and off we go. But for some reason MT messed everything up with the sidebars.

I am my sister’s tech saviour. I provide hardware (i.e.: Canon PowerShot A560, Western Digital Passport 120GB, et al.), software (Windows & Office) and most importantly movies and TV shows (i.e.: Ugly Betty, Prison Break). So now I am my sister’s blog saviour.

I’ve used MT on my previous blog, and my brother currently [nominally] uses it as well. The gripe is the user interface (or user experience) for MT3.33 is clunky, static and just plain yuck. WP2.3 just seems light years ahead. I feel like a geek to say it, but WP is just better web.

But that’s not the big issue. The main issue is open source software. SixApart, a for-profit company) is the primary developer of MT. So they took the originally open source MT2.x and made it “closed source” for MT3.x. Lots of Movable Type developers fled and created WordPress.

Now look: MT4.x is once again being released as open source (Movable Type Open Source). And now SixApart is playing catch up. Too bad. Movable Type was a pioneer, but WordPress is the new king of the playground. Just don’t mention Google and Blogspot/Blogger.

So my mini-task for this week: migrate my sister’s blogs from MT and Blogspot to WordPress. I pray for clear skies and strong tailwinds.

This week has been so much about birthdays and birthday celebrations. Of course, part of that is because of mine and now Joeie’s. But November is the birthday month. I’m not biased: just off the top of my head I count twelve. And that’s from a relatively small circle of friends and acquaintances. I blame whomever that Valentine guy is (or according to Wikipedia, numerous Valentines). Funny thing is that most non-November babies don’t realize: February 14 + 9 months = November! We joke about Valentine’s Day conceptions, and it’s likely exactly true.

So November is now super packed with dinners and parties for either my birthday or hers. I should have planned ahead because the week before I had sushi buffet (excellent), Korean BBQ (too much food), and prime rib steak. So having birthdays back-to-back is going to be hectic each year. But it’ll also be a super fun week of just having a good time!

Unfortunately, anybody having a birthday in these two weeks doesn’t get much time to even say “Happy Birthday” to themselves. First, you don’t have any say in when you pop out of the womb. And second, you don’t have any more say in when exams are scheduled. I pity some friends who’ve received exams as birthday presents.

So Joeie: Happy Birthday. Just remember that your birthday present from York is Christmas break starting on Tuesday. And also all things pretty and shiny!

Strange thing is that everyone is using Facebook these days to remind themselves of birthdays. So there was a debate about whether to show or hide birthdays. It’s shown by default. But then I thought: “I hate it (or is word too strong??) when people only remember your birthday because some social networking tool (i.e.: Facebook, MySpace, Friendster) reminds them. If they were real friends, they’d remember!” So I hid it. For all of two days. Although Facebook is as superficial as it is, it’s always good feeling when people wish you a happy birthday. Would I rather have random people wishing me a happy birthday or random people wishing me a crappy birthday? The answer is obviously “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”.

Going back to remembering birthdays: I always forget. The only way I used to remember was because Outlook would flash a reminder at 11:45pm the night before. But now I stopped using Outlook simply because gMail and Google are so awesome! So no reminders. I could import all my Outlook birthdays into gCalendar, but it’s too much work since Google doesn’t handle Outlook .pst databases. That’s right. I might be unemployed, but somethings are still too much work.

I didn’t feel bad when Jeff forgot. We had lunch with Rebecca (who I guess also forgot), played squash (I can’t believe I lost that third game), hung around his place. And in the usual Wong manner, he asked if I was staying for dinner. “Nope, I’ve got dinner in Richmond Hill.” “Oh, what for?” “My birthday…” “OH? Right, it’s the 26th today.”

So here are the four ways to forget your friend’s birthday:

1. You get the day/month wrong: “Your birthday is today? I thought it’s the 28th!” (Or “I thought it’s October!” This doesn’t apply if you get both day and month wrong. Then that’s blatantly wrong.)
2. You get it mixed up with someone else: “Your birthday is today? Wait, then who’s October 26th?” (This is worse than #1 because that means two birthdays were missed.)
3. You know their correct birth date, but you don’t know today’s date: “Wait, is today the 26th?”
4. You never knew in the first place:
   • You never bothered to find out.
   • You don’t know the person THAT well. (Here’s where Facebook helps too much.)

So next time you forget, find out which way forgot. If it’s #1, #2 or #3, you probably looked stupid on your friend’s “happy day”. But don’t worry: Hopefully someone else already wished a “happy birthday” so chances are they won’t get cranky on you.

Jeff forgot through #3. Unfortunately I forgot his in September because of #2 and #3. Now that’s just inexcusable. So I take back my isolationist threat: you’re all forgiven. But only for this year.

This is my first post. But really, it’s been a few years since my last blog: the brain drain.

This blog is about me.

I have decided not to name my blog. No fancy names that change every two months; nothing catchy that describes my life in five words.

I hope to be unrefined. There is a tendency of mine when writing essays, emails, blog posts, cards — pretty much anything — to want my words to be concise and with a minimum of words. Elegant writing. But that is a standard too lofty for my achievement. Ironically, the title of my last blog meant precisely the opposite. Besides I’ve always preferred unrefined rock sugar to the bleached snow white sugar.

So this is it.