Air Ticket Vending Machine

Hey, it's me again!

This time, I am going to share more about an interesting experiment that I have done for my electrical engineering module : EE2006 Digital Design laboratory.

Basically, I am supposed to design a digital circuit that simulate a ticket dispensing machine which can allocate 15 seats. the number of seats required would be INPUT into the machine and REQUEST button will be pushed. if the seats are available, the AVAILABLE LED will light up followed by the COLLECT button. If the requested number of seats is unavailable, the UNAVAILABLE LED will light up instead.



As shown above, this is the breadboard that I have spent a total of 3 days and 3 sleepless nights wiring. hhahaa, and yes, ITS WORKING CORRECTLY!
yeah,if you don't believe me, please watch the video then =P



NICE right?!

TeamNUS Nexus 2009 Camp

this year, my Mid-term Break had turned out to be an unexpectedly busy one..
My normal routine for midterm break is just to stay at home for the whole week. period.
However, things changed..and I was forced to go for a camp on thursday (due to certain commitment ..lol)

So I thought its gonna be another leadership camp that I had experienced before...
but, its actually NOT. In fact, the whole trip was suprisingly EnjoYabLe =)
I have to say that I love all the activities planned in the camp especially the three physical challenging ones : White Water Rafting, Waterfall abseiling and Caving in Gua Tempurung.
Cant really describe the kind of excitement when we were going through the many different rapids along the river on the raft!

There are really no strangers there, only friends I've not met!

More importantly, I have made quite a lot of new friends (like 30++) in the camp =). We have bonded with each other after going through all the fun and games in these 3 days 3 nights (including 1 night in the coach).

Anyway, Now i am back to reality..midterm tests..assignment..LABs...Position Paper....Nam Wah Pai....endless tutorial questions....tata!

Year 2 in NUS

yupe, its my second year in NUS.
There is not much change with the things here except with the construction works in NUS. The on-going construction projects by NUS Office of Estate and Development will never be ending : new faculty of dentistry building, new business school, new state-of-the art building - Centre for Translational Medicine (CeTM), the list goes on and on...btw, the MRT station (Kent Ridge station) in NUS is still under construction and it should be completed by 2011, yah!

So, for this year, I am planning to join more CCAs (Co-Curricular Activities) so that i can get more CCA POINTS!!! yeah, I need the points very badly for my next year on-campus housing. T_T In fact, I need to get like 40+ points in order to continue my stay in PGPR (Prince George's Park Residence). Other than the Nam Wah Pai Martial Arts club I am enthusiastically involving with, I do not have any other commitment ,at all. Maybe I should start to find some housemates now? lol

I just watched Coco before Chanel last Sunday, it turns out to be a rather interesting French movie =) In short, the movie is about the life of a poor girl, Gabriella (Coco) who grew up in a poor, rural household and went on to become a legendary couturier as well as a classic symbol of success, freedom and style. for those who havent realised, Coco is the founder of the one of the most recognized brand in today's luxury goods industry - Chanel. Seriously, I think this movie is a lot better than the stupid Blxxdy Blood and the unreasonably sxxky Wolfhound that I had watched weeks ago.
and finally, I got my half-abandoned laptop FIXED! I bought the LCD screen on ebay one week ago. By following some guides available on the Internet, I actually managed to replace the lcd screen all by myself! However, the whole point of this troublesome DIY is about saving the cost. for a poor student like me, I definitely prefer to spend the relatively inexpensive amount of 180 SGD rather than paying 476.15 SGD to Toshiba. Thats a saving of about 300 SGD ! quite proud of myself =P

Nothing else, Bye.

P/S : forgotten sth important, I just found out that 100k coins mystically appear in my pet sociey account !!! anyone needs them? =P

my RMA experience [Updated]

hahaha, what a nice acronym for Return Merchandise Authorization!
Yeah, for those who are still clueless about the meaning of RMA, let me explain it to you!

Two years ago, jianyi bought a modem with three-year warranty. Sometime after 2 years, he found out that his modem is not working !!! so what should he do??
a smart internet user like jianyi certainly will not just dump the modem and buy a new one.
Instead, he will try to get a replacement for his modem by initiating a RMA transaction.
The procedures taken usually involve

1. First, go to the relevant website to get more infomation about the RMA services provided by the company.
   
2. End Users are then required to call the relevant customer service center to get a RMA number. Online registration for RMA has also been provided by some companies. Through the company's portal , users are usually allowed to check the RMA status for their product.
3. Users will then have to package and return the faulty product back to the company. Walk-in is also possible for some companies.
   
4. The engineer from the company will access the product so that he can ascertain if a replacement or repair is needed to be done.
   
5. After a certain period of time (usually within 1-2 weeks), the product will be sent back to the users =)

As expected, jianyi has got a new replacement for his modem after completing all the steps above.[UPDATE] I have sold this modem router to a forumer from lowyat.NET , at a rather attractive price. btw, If you have any doubt on RMA/warranty claim, I can more than willing to help you ! I had done several succesful RMA for Harddisks and RAMs as well =)

The revival of Atlee.MY

YES, atlee.my has finally came alive!!
this time, I paid only RM38 for this .my 2nd level domain..( the normal price is rm100)
for those who wants to get this domain, get it fast now!!
the promotion is available on the Exabytes website until 31st Aug 2009 :
http://exabytes.com.my/webhosting/currentpromo/ictmydomainsales
btw, school has just started this week.
I am actually quite well adjusted to the environment here (NUS) after resting/yc-ing for slightly more than 3 months at home. However, there is not much time for me to slack now..have to start working hard for my academic target of this semester..hehehe.
Just hope that I can manage my expenses better as I still don't have money to fix my laptop. sigh.
see u in the next post.

My Workstation at Home [UPDATED]

Updated with some other photos for my first overclocking attempt![UPDATE] Recently, I tried to overclock my processor. for those who don't understand anything about overclock, here's a rather rough explanation for it

In a nutshell, the term is used to describe running a component at a higher speed than its specification in an attempt to increase performance. Various computer components can be overclocked, including the processor, memory, and graphics card. And the degree of overclocking can include anything from simply procuring small gains from an inexpensive component all the way to seeking a level of performance way beyond what could even be purchased at that point in time.

This BE processor of mine can be overclocked quite easily as its multiplier is unlocked. I got myself a 3rd party CPU cooler from Cooler Master, Hyper TX-3 so that it can help to cool down my CPU while i am trying to push its limit =P.

I started pushing the CPU core frequency from 2.8GHz to 3.3GHz, with an increment of 0.1GHz each time.
I couldnt pass the stability test after 3.3Ghz...so I added a little bit of CPU Vcore. I stopped my attempt at 3.4Ghz as I realised the CPU temp is going to reach 50C when it is fully loaded (with prime95 torture test).
I really had fun doing stuff like this..going to try it again when I have rested enough.
bubye!

Interesting security features !

Recently, I discovered that our Malaysian Identity Card AKA MyKad has some rather entertaining security features.
As you can see from the picture, there is another hidden photo of mine (Young Jian Yi huh, not atlee?!).It can only be seen under the illumination of ultra-violet light from a money detector. ( I lend it from my mum's office..lol )
btw, I have blurred part of my IC number, its not supposed to be exposed =P

Actually there are also some nice things to see from our glorious Malaysian Ringgit, although its exchange rate is dropping w.r.t singapore dollars T_T
but, at least we can rest assured that a rm50 note still has a higher value than a 10SGD note...LOL
thats all from atlee =)

For more information on MyKad and Malaysian Ringgit, pls visit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyKad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysian_ringgit