Post-Convocation

IMU convocation for the M2/03 batch was just over.No,I wasn't there.But that's the only thing that I can think of for the title after going through others' blogs.I am here in cold weather of Melbourne,preparing for my coming Finals in a week time.~~Sigh~~What a life...Gotta blog some shit today after which would be back to the books. Hmm......this convo word seemed to stir some memory in the time leading up to the EoS. A fellow batchmate would be remembered for her outstanding academic achievement in times to come.Like in 2020,people might be heard saying,"Wow,that's the girl who got the gold Medal.You know her?" Well,I thought I did quite a good job carving my name in another way.There are many ways to fame.I didn't do it ala some Paris persona style,of course.Who knows,in 2020,while strolling along the street,I might heard,"Wasn''t the guy who got the biggest temper in university last time?"If they can recall my name then,I might be elated.If they don't,I will prove why I got the title then.......

W for wolframium

Wolframium is another word for Tungsten. That's why Tungsten's symbol is W in the periodic table(Remember chemistry?) Thanks to wonders of internet,I can have that information in matters of seconds. Anyway,I won't be talking about the Tungsten that is used to make the bulbs filaments. It is about time to provide some insight into PDA usage. I am talking about my Tungsten T3 - a PDA,a personal digital assistant. Of course, I would much prefer an assistant that comes in "better packaging." *cough cough* I won't say my T3 looks great,it has experienced some quite rough use under the previous owner, but it sure does works great so far. I have to admit I quite like the sliding screen of T3 myself, compared to the new Palms which feature equivalent sized screen but non-slidable. I don't know I would trade a T3 for those bulkier looking PDAs. Of course,money is another problem. I have noticed Hehe... Like those PDAs-enabled-medical students, I have put it some medical studies related softwares. Currently in my PDA are

1. Harrisons 16th edition - well, I am not sure about the usage of Harrisons Principles of Internal Medicine elsewhere, but here, in Melbourne, it seemed to be the main source of reference for anything. I can't remember the umpteenth when in a PBL, the words "Oh,you will find it Harrisons";"I remembered reading in Harrisons....." and etc. What I have got in my PDA is not the full version of Harrisons. It was a concise version of it. It is handy to recall the facts you HAVE read in the bigger Harrisons. However,it is most handy when I need to sleep at night. On the PDA, read for a few minutes, and voila....a good night sleep ensues.
2. Oxford Handbook of Clinical Med 6 - Remember those yellow small Oxford books we always try to bring to postings and trainings in hope that if any unforeseen problems crop up,we will able to refer to it. I still haven't got around navigating the PDA version of it,seem to be quite an hassle. However,it has quite an interesting feature in Palms, the ability to add a personal topic. Thanks to Dr. House and broadband, I have added a new topic to mine - Naegleria meningoencephalitis, partly for the fun of it. Of course, nothing gives you better sense of security other than holding a hard,rather thick and concise clinical book in your sweaty hand when you are confronting a mean-looking consultant in the wards.
3. Dorlands - Medical dictionary,enough said
4. A2Z Drugs - when you need to refresh your memory about drugs and its actions, provided you knew them before of course.
5. 5 minutes Clinical Consult 2005 - recently installed, I personally don't use it much. I normally fall back on my books and the Oxford I had in my PDA.

I have been trying to utilise the PDA to help me with my studies. I used to have scribbled a lot on papers but as I am not a good organiser of my things, those papers where I have written some measly few critical notes,are sure hard to find at times. I still use paper and pen of course. PDA input,no matter how, is still slower than pen and paper. But the greatest thing I think you can do with my T3 is the voice recording of those sleep-inducing-insomnic-therapeutic lectures. That definitely beats the input of pen & paper provided there is not too much audio interference. Record, move it to my laptop and listen to the lectures I have slept through and....sleep again. PDAs, I tell you are quite evil at that, lull me into sleepiness in lectures because back in my heart I knew I won't miss much of it. At the end of day,when you playback the lecture you "missed",what you didn't realise is that there is a guy next to you who is having a bad time with his throat and coughing every now and then. Time to buy a friend lunch.....for lending you his notes. Okay,I know,all of us, at one time or another, have bought PDAs for entertainment on the pretext of "organising" your life.Hehe.... So far, I have only put in TextTwist and Sudoku into my T3 to make sure there is something to pass my time while waiting for friends or next lectures. My T3 could have doubled up as an MP3 player if I have space to spare of course in the 128mb SD. It's really time to get a bigger SD but things are quite expensive here as compared to Lowyat. Must tahan till end of year...... Since it is a second hand model I bought, I am considering to invest in a new battery. Palm as far as I know, don't have replaceable battery for T3. In fact,it should not be replaceable. So you got those dunno-what-company making batteries for T3,it will involve a little bit of screwing and unscrewing on your own to get it done,hoping that in the process of doing so, you didn't leave any damage to its innards. I just realised T3 has a volatile memory as compared to the newer Tx and T5.Volatile memory means the data stored inside the PDA(PDA storage and your SD card storage are 2 seperate storage) would be lost if it runs out power.Newer models won't experience that. Wonder what problem could have happen if I replace the battery. Maybe I shouldn't do anything to it ......yet.....

Deleting zero bytes files

Had a couple of botched downloads sitting on my desktop. They somehow turned into zero bytes undeletable files. Finally found a way around it thanks to google. 1. Close all open programs. 2. Open a command prompt. 3. Right-click the taskbar, and select task manager 4. On the Processes tab, select Explorer.exe, and click the End Process button. 5. Minimize Task Manager, but don't close it. 6. At the command prompt, use the delete command to remove the file, and close the command prompt. 7. In Task Manager, go to File | New Task (Run). 8. In the Create New Task dialog box, enter Explorer.exe, and click OK. 9. Close Task Manager. Hope this will help those having the same problems.

My "New" Companion

Just got myself a "new" companion - a Palm PDA. Well,it is not really new, I got it off ebay,so yeah,it is a second hand Tungsten T3. Been bugging YP with all sorts of questions about it,well she used to own the same model. Thanks a lot YP for your patience if you are reading this. It's been 4 days of "hotsyncing",frustations,googling and learning how to scribble all sorta characters on the tiny transflective screen.Just managed to link my laptop, handphone and T3 via bluetooth the other day.(Refer to previous post) There seems to be a lot of things this tiny rectangular gadget can do. Probably,like the rest of the medical students, I have installed some medical softwares into it and will see how it will assist me or my rather forgetful brain.Seems like 128 MB is not really enough. Looking at upgrading it to 512 mb or probably 1GB SD card. Will see how this little electronic companion complement my brain.......hopefully not the other way round...

Test

Test post from Tungsten T3

Test

Test post from Tungsten T3