Family outing to Hay Dairies.

Went to goat farm. Now, no more close contact with goat. That means you cannot feed them anymore unlike last time all thanks to our kiasu gahmen.

Run on 28 Feb - punggol and sengkang neighbourhood

Time taken : 1 hr 02 mins 38 secs
Distance : 9.60 km
Avg Speed : 9.2 km/h, 6min 31sec per km.

Run with punggol runners today.

Go Go Bambini!

Brought the kids to Go Go Bambini at Dempsey road for the 2nd time. Seems like they are having a good time.

Mazda 3 SP, uneven tyre wear.

Discover the uneven tyre wear of the car. It happen to the front right tyre. The inner side wear off more then the rest.



Can be seen easily here.

Run on 25 Feb - office to fort canning.

Time taken : 1 hr 18 mins 55 secs
Distance : 11.11 km
Avg Speed : 8.4 km/h, 7min 06sec per km.

Ran with Yee Tat. From office to roberston quay and up to fort canning. Did 4 loops up there and ran back by cutting through Park Mall.

Run on 23 Feb - CBD run, set Z, Tanjong Pagar MRT to Singapore Indoor Stadium

Time taken : 1 hr 19 mins 31 secs
Distance : 12.59 km
Avg Speed : 9.5 km/h, 6min 19sec per km.

Join CBD run tonight. Loop at indoor stadium.

Run on 19 Feb - run to amk library via seletar and yishun ave 1

Time taken : 1 hr 56 mins 10 secs
Distance : 16.68 km
Avg Speed : 8.6 km/h, 7min 00sec per km.

Uncharted : Drake's Fortune. - part 3.

Earned 750 Medal Points so far.

Collected the below 2 medals.

1) 30 Kills: Dragon Sniper
2) 30 Kills: M79

Left with 2 medals to collect.

Charted! - Hard
Charted! - Crushing

Run on 19 Feb - u turn at esplanade

Time taken : 1 hr 06 mins 34 secs
Distance : 9.59 km
Avg Speed : 8.6 km/h, 6min 56sec per km.

Ran with Yuen See today.

Uncharted : Drake's Fortune. - part 2.

Spend time collecting the trophies.

Earned 730 Medal Points so far.

Only left with 4 Medals.
1) 30 Kills: Dragon Sniper
2) 30 Kills: M79
3) Charted! - Hard
4) Charted! - Crushing

Random kids photos at Ah Ma house playground.

sapphire 5770 vapor x ati card.

Well, i bought the above graphic card for my new computer rig. The main reason is the cost $279, the low temperature and low fan noise. The next higher up card would be the ATI 5850 which cost about $419. I think i will game more on my PS3 than the computer.

After fixing up the computer and installing the 9.12 driver. Computer start to hang. Sometimes the error of "graphic driver stop responding and has recovered" will appear.
If the above error happens, the computer will recover after a few seconds. Other times, it will just hang and you can only press the casing reset button.

The hanging will appear at any time, sometimes just moving the mouse, normal surfing, watching some avi files. It was really frustrating to have fixed up a $1.5k computer and to face such a problem.

So i went googling and try a few method which does not work.
1) Change the windows 7 power plan from balanced to high performace.
2) Disable the audio in HDMI and display port
3) Manually change the fan speed in the ATI catalyst

Did not upgrade to version 10.1 as others have reverted that it does not solve the problem.

The only thing that works for me is as below. I just want to document it down here.

link.

Do you have problems in 2d mode (windows desktop)? Vertical lines on your screen? Not happy with your windows experience score for your shiny new 5XXX card?

I was having these issues with my Asus 5870. Very upsetting after paying so much for a new gfx card. my windows experience for gfx went down from 7.4 to 6 after i installed it!! After doing some digging, I deduced that it is due to the ridiculously low clocks the powerplay puts the card into for idle. 157mhz? seriously?

A bios flash might have fixed it but apparently the newer Asus 5870's can't be flashed. Bummer.

I think I found a solution. My windows experience for the gfx is 7.8 after this simple tweak.

I came across this solution that forces the card to idle (2D) at a higher clock. I had to set it to a clock speed that Windows 7 would be happy with. (For me this was 400 when idle, and the stock 850 when running games)

Steps:

1. Open CCC

2. Unlock and Enable Overdrive if they aren’t already.

3. Go to Options/Profiles/Profiles Manager. Create a new profile. Under composition make sure “ATI Overdrive” is checked. Save and Close, DO NOT ACTIVATE.

4. In windows go to: C:\Users\{yourusername}\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\Prof iles (you will need to have “show hidden files” turned on for this)

5. Open the xml document with the name of the profile you just created (notepad is fine)

6. Change the values of the Clock and Memory speeds to look like this (these specific values are what worked for me and my card, use judgment) EDIT ONLY THE BOLD VALUES.



Feature name="CoreClockTarget_0"

Property name="Want_0" value="40000"

Property name="Want_1" value="60000"

Property name="Want_2" value="85000"

Feature

Feature name="MemoryClockTarget_0"

Property name="Want_0" value="90000"

Property name="Want_1" value="90000"

Property name="Want_2" value="120000"



7. Save and close. Go back to CCC and activate the profile you just created.

Uncharted : Drake's Fortune.

Completed the above PS3 game. My third PS3 game. Really like the game.

Started on Feb 2.
Completed Normal difficulty on Feb 18.

Played for 13 Hours 2 Minutes
Collected 61 Treasures
Earned 480 Medal Points

Run on 17 Feb - u turn at esplanade

Time taken : 53 mins 20 secs
Distance : 9.12 km
Avg Speed : 10.3 km/h, 5min 48sec per km.

First day at work.

Ran with Eddie and Yee Tat. Did a touch and go at the esplanade and purposely stop a few hundred metres before the normal ending point. Eddie GPS registered 8.88km. A lucky distance.

Kite flying.

Running milestone - 3501 km.

Reached another running milestone.

Total since 28 Dec 07.
Duration : 406 h
Calories : 322293
Exe. Count : 352
Distance : 3501 km

Run on 15 Feb - run to punggol mrt

Time taken : 1 hr 06 mins 11 secs
Distance : 11.13 km
Avg Speed : 10.1 km/h, 5min 56sec per km.

Tiger Year first run. Did a round of Sengkang and Punggol. Was intending to be an easy run, but ended up maintaining an average of sub 6 for the whole run. Good run to kick off the year of the tiger.

First time did weighing before and after run.
Weight before = 69.6kg
Weight after = 68.7kg
Loss about 900g for the 66 mins run.

Running milestone - 351 Exe. Count.

Reached another running milestone.

Total since 28 Dec 07.
Duration : 405 h
Calories : 321396
Exe. Count : 351
Distance : 3490 km

Singapore's first casino at Resorts World Sentosa opens its doors

News on the Resort World Sentosa.

Taken from CNA.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1037471/1/.html

Singapore's first casino at Resorts World Sentosa opens its doors
Posted: 14 February 2010 1720 hrs

SINGAPORE: Singapore opened the first of two casino resorts Sunday, part of a multi-billion dollar bet to transform itself into a hot tourist destination and reduce the economy's reliance on manufacturing.

The casino at Resorts World Sentosa welcomed its first punter - a middle aged Singaporean woman - at the auspicious time of 12:18 pm (0418 GMT) on the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year.

When pronounced in the Cantonese dialect, 12:18 sounds like "prosperity".

The first bettor was followed by an initial crowd of about 200 enthusiastic gamblers and within hours of the opening, hundreds more were queuing up outside. Ushers gave out free bottled water and ice cream in the sweltering tropical heat.

The opening - to be followed within months by a second casino resort built by Las Vegas Sands in Singapore's business district - is part of an ambitious plan to transform the city into a key destination for casino high-rollers, business executives and families.

"I'll probably play jackpot. I'm willing to wager around a hundred (dollars) in it," said Tiong Tak Si, 60, a retiree from Brunei.

Resorts World Sentosa, which is on Sentosa island, a former British garrison linked to the main island by bridge, is owned by Malaysian gaming giant Genting Group.

"We have waited a long time for this. Today's opening of the casino is a milestone for Resorts World Sentosa, for Genting Group and for Singapore," said group chairman Lim Kok Thay.

The construction of Resorts World Sentosa, together with the Las Vegas Sands' casino resort, Marina Bay Sands, is costing more than US$10 billion.

They will also offer visitors a range of glitzy hotels, restaurants and luxury goods shops.

Genting's casino complex includes a Universal Studios movie theme park, which it opened Sunday for sneak previews ahead of full operations.

Singapore, host to thousands of multinational corporations, is already a major travel draw because of its reputation for safety, cleanliness and efficiency, as well as man-made attractions such as top-end shopping malls.

However, it is a tiny island which lacks the white-sand beaches and breath-taking scenery found in neighbouring countries like Indonesia and Malaysia and the government is continually searching for new ideas to create a buzz about the city-state.

In 2008 it made sporting history when it hosted the world's first Formula One night race.

It has built the world's biggest observation wheel, the Singapore flyer, and an arts venue and has given its prime Orchard Road shopping belt a makeover.

Now it plans a landscaped area called Gardens by the Bay near the Marina Barrage built in 2008.

The city-state is aiming to get 17 million visitors a year generating more than US$21 billion by 2015, up from 9.7 million visitors last year.

Analysts expect the casino resorts to help the city meet those targets.

"There is clearly a push to add to the range and depth of attractions here and that is important for a place like this," said Robert McIntosh, an executive director with CBRE Hotels Asia Pacific, a consultancy firm.

"They (casino resorts) are a massive boost to overall tourism to Singapore," he told AFP.

Lim said he is confident the resort will meet its 13 million visitor target annually.

"As you know we are running a sequence of openings, going back as far as a month ago, when we first opened the hotels namely the Festive hotel, followed by the Hard Rock, then Michael and then the Crockford's tower," he said.

"We have created 8,300 jobs and that number is still growing. Seventy per cent of the jobs have gone to Singaporeans. Resorts World Sentosa is the latest addition and the crown jewel in our chain in Integrated Resorts."

CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, an independent brokerage firm, said Singapore's casinos are expected to generate revenues of US$2.1 billion this year, rising to US$3.5 billion in 2011.

Singapore in 2005 agreed to go ahead with the two casino resorts after a rare public debate.

Opponents feared gambling would threaten the city's "family values" and put it at risk of becoming a centre for money-laundering.

But the government has put in safeguards, including imposing a S$100 entrance fee for Singaporeans and permanent residents and banning anyone declared bankrupt from the casinos outright.

Last month it launched a dedicated police unit to investigate casino-related crimes.

- AFP/yb

First and second day of Chinese New Year.

2nd Day.

Chinese New Year reunion dinner at Mother place.

Had the Chinese New Year reunion dinner at Mother place with Brother's family.

Hoot Hoot! Microsoft Wireless Desktop 3000.

Just hooted the Microsoft Wireless Desktop 3000 at AMK Courts.
Total damage = $65.90

Run on 13 Feb - yck rd, lentor rd, utr, sembawang hill food centre

Time taken : 1 hr 41 mins 09 secs
Distance : 15.32 km
Avg Speed : 9.1 km/h, 6min 36sec per km.

Last cow run of the year before the year of the tiger arrived.
Run with Soo, Yee Tat, Cheong and Teo. Run a shorter route, the rest of the runners ran through Old Upper Thomson Road.



From soo cam.

Random family pictures.