Offline Blogging with Qumana Blog Manager

While collecting some resources for my next post, I was painfully reminded of the fact that I would eventually attempt to do that post offline. Yep, still no Internet at home (not planning to fix one anytime soon!) So usually I write up my posts in Kewlpad (Alternative to Windows Notepad...yes yes...nothing says geek more than using .txt files, drives my bosses nuts!) and where picture or other media are involved, I use my custom made "[Insert Media Here]" placeholder. Lots of posts have been written that way. But that method of blogging is kinda lame. What I reeally needed was an offline Editor that will prepare my post and upload it when I'm online. Picture uploading was VERY High on my list. Technorati tags were an effort that I gave up using a long time ago so, tagging wasn't really all that important to me.

So I scoured the InnerWeb and came away with Qumana. I had previously tried out w.bloggar but it didn't excite me to even try bloggin with it. Qumana on the other hand was a different experience. First the software made an attempt to connect to my blog and that went rather smoothly. It retrieved my 10 last blog posts and from the looks of it, everything looked ok. Then I fired up a new post (this one) and started typing. I noticed that when I pressed 'Enter' and started a new line, the font went back to 'default' and even changing it back to Helvetica didn't change the 'Default Font' setting. So I had to copy-paste my last line into the new paragraph and overwrite that. Which brings me to my next issue..limited fonts. Only 10 are supported and I like using Verdana or Trebuchet most times in Blogger. Ah well, someone will fix that sometime. I like its linking capabilities in that I can copy a link elsewhere, come back to my Qumana post, highlight the word I want to "urlify" and the link I just copied appears in the box. Magic! Obviously I haven't test driven all of the software yet so look out for more to come in the future.

Meanwhile, this is my 99th post! Whats in store for 100? Nothing. No dancing monkeys, nothing. I'm going to try uploading this post now and maybe I'll assess how good this software is in the next post. Oh by the way, that next post I wanted to do has to do with these guys...

NB: I had to go back to Blogger and upload this image... cus it was in my hard disk and Qumana no do images from my hard disk... :p

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Really BIG Nescafe Ais & Coffee Bean Freebie Story

Wifey had cravings for my home made lamb chops the other day (if you're thinking what yer thinkin...you're right...) But it was a weekday and Lamb Chops take time to make. So took her out for some in a nearby shop.

Ordered some Nescafe Ais (Can't have freshly brewed coffee there right?) and man! it was HUGE! Chilli Sauce squeeze bottle pictured for comparison. Yes...I did finish it (I'm a thirsty child..)

Eh? Just came back from buying a bag of Sumatra Dark Roast Beans from Coffee Bean. While I was there looking at what's new, along came the over-zealous staff-behind-counter... "Try the Viennese beans -lah Sir..." told her that I had and I didn't really like it.

Anyways, I went ahead and got the Sumatra Beans when she came up to us (Khalis followed as well.. ) and handed us 2 cups of Vienna coffee.. Nice way to try to push some not-so-great coffee to us "discerning" (;p) coffee drinkers but hey, I'm not one to look at the gift-barrista-in the mouth so thanks indeed... free cup as pictured next to yummy Sumatra Beans below:

Why did I post this?...er..no particular reason... blogspamming on a slow-slow slow day...

coming up next week, Lamb Chops Paul David style!

Evil Paul?

Never knew I was evil....

Wrongly provoked?

LLB students (and previous English law students like me) will note with interest that there's a new movie out soon called Provoked starring the ever-luscious Aishwarya Rai and Naveen Andrews (he of the English Patient and recently, Lost fame).

I won't really spoil the movie that much but its based on an actual case in UK about an abused wife who decides to er..fan the flames of matrimony again. She gets charged for murder and has her sentence mitigated to manslaughter based on a plea of provocation (hence the title of the movie)

[note: the punishment for murder in the UK is life imprisonment and manslaughter, which is a lesser form of the said crime carries a lower prison sentence]

However a veritable hornet's nest has been violently stirred up in the wake of the movie. The Southall Black Sisters who got involved in the actual case of R v Ahluwalia by helping Kiranjit Ahluwalia defend herself have roundly criticised the film. Apparently, the film is full of "factual and legal inaccuracies".

Now I haven't seen the movie yet and have no idea about these "inaccuracies" but tell the truth, she didn't get a reduced sentence based on a plea of provocation. Take a look at the case summary over here and decide for yourself. At the end it was "diminished responsibility" brought on by "battered wife's syndrome" that mitigated the charge from homicide to manslaughter. I can't wait to see the movie and tho it would have "factual and legal inaccuracies", I couldn't be bothered. Its a retelling of a story that is loosely based on the life of Kiranjit Ahluwalia. Its a movie. Get over it!

A Wallet from Keyboard Innards?

http://www.instructables.com/id/EU0DY6QKNCEZ7BHEZ0/?ALLSTEPS

Yeah. So I did what every other geek (yes i admit to being one!) would do. I made my own. Must warn my loyal readers that this wallet won't really hold much but its a good idea when you want make like a secret stash of cash (poetic as usual!) in case ya get robbed in KL.
err.. for some reason I didn't take any pics of me makin it. But here be the final results:



Cool transparent effect dude!



You can do this yerself in a couple of minutes. Not difficult at all. You just need to find a broken/spoilt keyboard. Tune in next time when I discuss a little bit about Dvorak keyboards and how I hacked my own USB keyboard to make me a Dvorak Keyboard. Ta!