Considering where I live, to me Bali is not such an exotic destination.  I mean, Kota Kinabalu in Sabah is exotic in her own right, so Bali doesn’t excite me as much as it would if I had never been to Kota Kinabalu.

Nevertheless, today we are jetting off to beautiful Bali, Indonesia. Well, sort of.

“Oh”, you might say,  “you’re taking advantage of AirAsia’s new direct flights from KK to Bali, right?”  And I would have to say “err… no.”

Truth is, we are flying on AirAsia, and the flights are dirt cheap.  However, they are as cheap as they are because we booked this holiday last year September already.  Unfortunately, last year September there wasn’t even a rumour about the direct flights from Kota Kinabalu to Bali yet.

Actually, we were supposed to go in March, but then the Malaysian elections came up and Julia, being the award winning journalist that she is, had her leave frozen to cover it.  We managed to change the flights and we got 30 April.  Little did we know then that the new direct flights would launch May 2.

Flight changes on AirAsia being as expensive and pointless as they are, we didn’t bother to change it again and thus, this evening we are jetting off to Kuala Lumpur and tomorrow morning to Bali.

Beyond having read copius amounts about beautiful Bali, we have made no other arrangements. Yes, this holiday, we are winging it.  It suits me fine.  I anticipate no culture shock in Bali as the people and language is vaguagly similar to Malaysia, and Bali aparently more so compared to Sabah - so to give the holiday that little edge of adventure, we’re going in blind.

On the agenda we have a few nights in Kuta, Nusa Lembongan - an island off Bali - for a bit of diving, Ubut to absorb some arts and crafts and back to Kuta for a pre-return breather.

We’ll have to see how it goes, but it has fun written all over it.

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It’s 11.32pm and I just finished cleaning my house and we all know that after cleaning house, there’s nothing more rewarding than cleaning your desktop too.  I’m about to upgrade to and get a first look at the new Ubuntu 8.04 and you’re more than welcome to join the ride.

On 3 February this year I first leapt into the world of open source software when I bravely installed Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon.  I’ve never looked back since, and although I’ve had to occasionally use Windoze for a bit of graphic and video work, Ubuntu has been my main daily operating system.

I’ve tried a lot of new things too.  I installed Ubuntu Studio for instance.  A variant of sorts that ads a host of audio and video applications to your usual installation.  It changed my Ubuntu start-up with which I wasn’t too impressed, but I managed to reinstate it.

I also played with Kubuntu, which is pretty much the same operating system, except it uses the KDE environment instead of Gnome as Ubuntu does.  To be perfectly honest, I don’t know too much about the difference between KDE and Gnome, except that they look slightly different and they have different applications. Everything in KDE seems to start to a K, but not everything in Gnome starts with a G.

Anyway, hundreds of applications had been installed under Ubuntu 7.10 - all of which I looked at, some of which I understood.  I deleted some of them, but most I didn’t and you know what? It didn’t slow down my system at all.

Overall I’m impressed with Ubuntu, hence me going to the next exciting release.  I read about some interesting improvements and additions and I think it will be smoother than ever.

Preparing for the Move

There’s not much to do really.  I’ll just back-up my home folder onto a CD and poof, all my files are ready to float to the next version on Ubuntu.

So without further delay, let me get to it.  See you in Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron!

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I love registering my software. You get benefits like product updates, access to interesting little add-ons and it validates to the developers that their work are being appreciated. But on occasion registering can lead to a training overload.

Only… in the past my software hasn’t always been the most legit. At home I’ve solved that challenge when I migrated to Ubuntu and the world of Open Source (and often free) software. At work our software is all genuine, but where’s the fun in registering Windows XP and MS Office (they know you’re using it anyway).

When I acquired Adobe CS3 Production Premium I was very eager to register it. I wanted to be part of the community and I actually want to know when patches and upgrades are released. After all, my professional tools need to remain sharp.

I got some unexpected benefits for my registration efforts. Upon registrations Adobe said ‘hey, here’s a little something something for registering your software, thanks for that’. Not those words exactly, but you get the drift.

They offered me two things. The first left me wondering how many people actually opt for it. It was a specially designed, retro font and as nice as it was, it was eclipsed by the second offer. The second offer was a 30 day subscription with lynda.com and access to their video training on CS3.

Lynda and I go way back. I have a Lynda training manual at home. On Dreamweaver 2 - H.O.T. Hands-on Training from 1999 no less. I got it yonks ago for the xyf when she tried to get the hang of Dreamweaver. I had a look at it and wasn’t impressed with anything but the DHTML chapter, so it really has only stayed in my collection because I love training manuals.

Anyway, CS3 comes with a few free chapters from lynda.com already included, and I really enjoyed those, especially the ones with Todd and Chad Perkins, so I opted for the training faster than you can say ‘click here to accept offer 2′.

And my goodness! For 3 days straight I sat watching every single video on every topic I knew nothing about re After Effects, Premier Pro, Soundbooth and Encore. For three days straight! I left work every afternoon with red eyes and a sore back, head pounding cause of my brain trying to categorise, link and file all the newly acquired information about all the software.

In a jiffy, a jiffy I tell you, I had acquainted myself with new features and new software. Premier Pro I have previous experience with, After Effects I’ve only seen, but never used before and Encore and SoundBooth I never even heard of before CS3. But three days later I was awestruck buy what I learned I actually have in CS3 and thanks to lynda.com and Todd and Chad Perkins (who do free lessons on their site too), and Bruce Williams from audio2u.com, who presents SoundBooth’s Essential Training, I now know my way around all of the software.

I have another 3 weeks left to go through all the ‘essential’ sections and the ‘beyond the basics’ sections of each programme, so there’s a lot still to do. And then there’s Flash, Illustrator and a hand full of other programmes I’d also like to get to know better, so there’s a serious learning curve up ahead.

Time to shut my mouth and open my mind. Information incoming!

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Well, the weekend before last the Bristleheads went to KL to attend the Malaysian Ultimate Open. And I’m still tired.

Anyway, on Thursday I typed a press release which Julia proofed for me, faxed it off to all the newspapers and it got picked up by 5 newspapers. Three of the English papers and two Chinese features the Borneo Bristleheads going to KL for the MUO. I’m not sure how many people actually noticed it, because I didn’t receive any emails. Clearly we’ll need to do much more marketing for the sport.

As expected, we got our butts kicked at the MUO, but we had some exceptional experiences and met some great people. My only complaint was that it wasn’t as social as we’ve hoped, but now that we know the lay of the land we’ll do better next time.

As a team from Sabah we were well keen to win the party, as Sabahans (and by extension, those who live here) are known to party. However, on Saturday night our entire team was wiped out and tired, and most of us went to bed by around midnight. Only one of our team partied till dawn; Chris. Kadazan. Hardcore partier.

Saturday just took it out of us. Our very first game was up against Freak Show, and damn those guys are serious. Kudos to them for taking their game seriously serious, and they are considered one of the best teams in Asia, but wow, stern man. Anyway, we had loads of fun when we scored 1, and only 1, point against them.

Our second game on Saturday was against Wild Cats, a team we thought we had a better change against, because they weren’t testosterone charged. Nevertheless, our inexperience and clear lack of skill saw us only score two points against them.

By our third game we were seriously ready for action. One of our games got cancelled due to an electric storm, so we had some time to rest. Game three was up against Shiok, another serious Singaporean team who knew we were green and had the attitude to remind us of it. We dug deep and scored four points against them, which grinded them no end. We were chuffed.

On Sunday morning, much earlier than any of us wanted to be awake, we played against a team of mostly expats called Satu Lagi. They were top contenders, but a lot more fun to play against, because although they were serious they still had some time for silly buggers. We lost against them too, but we enjoy it.

Our next game was up against Dengue Fever, featuring the CEO of Air Asia X, and intense man who takes his Ultimate ultimately serious (he would not have stood out in the Singaporean teams). We scored a triumph of sorts, because even though we still lost against them, we managed to cap them, or prevent them from scoring the maximum of 13. The end score was 11-5, so a good result for us.

Our last game was really a friendly, the two bottom teams pitted against each other. Pirates was as near to our level as they had at the MUO and if we weren’t such soft asses who where all injured and tired, we might have been able to give them a run for their money. Instead, we lost 13-4.

Pirates had an uptight-kilt-wearing-finger-waving-rule-mongering captain who made the game memorable for his being pedantic and rubbing our noses in a fundamentalist interpretation of the rules, but as a game of Ultimate it was ok.

The fields were basically grass floating on mud. On the one hand this led to lots of injuries; sprained ankles, twisted knees, it was ugly. On the other hand it encouraged laying out, which meant lots of action as people flew across the field and after the disc. It was tiring though.

Not to mention dirty. I had to scrub my socks and shirts to get the mud out. Some of my clothing will never be the same again. But it’s all in good spirit.

In the end the Borneo Bristleheads, that’s us, won the Spirit Award. I guess when you play as poorly as we do, the only thing you can do is have fun. And we did. And the other teams noticed, so they decided we should win the Spirit Award. Thanks guys.

So now that we know the level of competition that we’re up against, we’ll prepare wholeheartedly for Singapore. There’s a tournament there in August, I think, and this time the Bristleheads will go to win one.

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After what has been way too long, I finally paired the Sony HDR-FX7 with Adobe CS3 Production Premium for our first test run. And it didn’t work…

The message at the top of the capture box says “Can’t Activate Recorder. Try Resetting Camera”. Not the most encouraging error message ever and what I know about error messages, that doesn’t bode well.

What is encouraging though is the fact that I can play, forward and rewind the camera from the software, so obviously they’re talking.

In what seems to be a 24-hour period of duh! moments though, I discover that I’m obviously doing something wrong.

See, the HDR-FX7 can record in HD and SD, and wanting to wield the power of HDV, that’s what I recorded. Meanwhile, back in the studio (I like to pretend), I initialised a project using SD DV.

Wow, I’m dripping noviceness.

In order for Adobe’s CS3 Production Premium to talk to the Sony HDR-FX7, CS3 has to know what the Sony recorded. In lieu of a nose, CS3 sniffs this through the project you start. And if you’re starting a SD project, then don’t go and try capturing HDV, because, as illustrated, it just doesn’t work.

The solution thus to my little conundrum, was to simply start a HDV project. It also helps to set the device control settings to Sony, and as they don’t have the FX7 on the menu, Standard is apparently the most apt choice.

Right, let’s go capture some HDV.

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