New blogs; because 1 ain't enough

To my faithful readers (yes, both of you) I've separated my blogs to tackle different topics!

http://emilgp.wordpress.com/ will be the blog for my wargames adventures, tactical training stuff, showing off my gears and stuff, and other... stuff.

http://bigbeardesign.net/blog/ is still about webdesign and entrepreneurship.

I don't know what to do with this one anymore.

King Arms, Poor Hands

I finally sold my pair of King Arms SWAT leather gloves. I've been using them for two months, but recently decided to sell it because they didn't fit well. The half-finger version and other Large gloves fit like a glove, but this pair is unusually larger than it should be. I can barely feel my way around changing a mag!

The buyer had larger hands, and they seemed to fill out the gloves nicely. I hope he's satisfied with it.

Overall this is a good pair of gloves, the leather and the paddings provide a lot more protection than those Nomex gloves. Wearing these also looks a lot more "tactical" and appropriate than the motorsports kind, that one with foam and PVS shields or whatever. Once they figure out their manufacturing discrepancies and correct their sizing, I'd consider getting another pair.

So Cooking Oil IS Flammable

An three-foot high blaze while frying your breakfast is a sure way to jumpstart your day (but maybe not the best way). I was reading the newspaper after putting the pan on low heat and let it heat for a while. I then decided to add some oil because the ham didn't look it had any fat in it, and FWOOM!

So I stood there expecting the flames to die down but they didn't, so I tried to douse it with a cup of water, and FWOOOOM!

Too bad, no pictures though.

Getting Rid of Crackling with Soundblaster Live

My Soundblaster Live 5.1 SE recently developed a crackling problem after more than two years of flawless performance. It produces random loud buzzes and crackles when playing music with high bass or games with loud gunshots and explosions. There were only three solutions available (or at least what Google can find):

1. Update sound card drivers. We're out of luck as driver support died out years ago. This might help however, if you're still using the drivers from the CD or if you're using Linux.
2. Replace the card in another PCI slot. Apparently this fixes an IRQ conflict, or moving it away from the PSU which is "generating interference" (not confirmed). This didn't work for me.
   
3. Turn down hardware acceleration. This worked, but then you could no longer use EAX and I'm afraid the CPU would be needed to compensate for the card's loss of acceleration. Not yet confirmed; this is based on onboard sound consuming CPU cycles, and those don't have hardware acceleration.

What did work for me, I set the bass and treble levels to 50% in the sound card controls (volume has always been at 50%). I then rely on the media player and speakers to increase the bass and treble. Try this out and hopefully it will also work for you.

BigBear Design

I've started a graphic design firm making websites for small-medium businesses. I'll be posting in the blog on topics about web design and development, usability, entrepreneurship, business, and marketing.

Start a Business, No capital needed

There are a lot of reasons why people wanting to start a business, can't. In a conversation of business ideas we almost always hear the line "I/We don't have the money to start", then interest dies down soon after that. Most of the time it's not really a matter of limitation in finances but rather a limitation in attitude.

Remember that capital is an important factor in starting a business, but it is not the only factor. Your products and services, marketing plan, location, are also integral to starting the business. Once you've started you'll then be presented with *heaps* of new problems, some of which won't even be concerning money. The point is, you'll only think about the starting money in the start. If you can't handle that, then it's doubtful you can handle the others that'll come your way.

• Loan money from the bank or other financial institutions. There are companies offering financial services specifically to start-ups and small businesses.
• Invite investors for their expertise, money, or both. Make sure these people can actually contribute to your business. Don't include people "just because", and avoid romantic interests and previous generation relatives.
• Use a business plan requiring the least amount of capital. Sometimes you don't need to have an office, a store, or a warehouse right away. Sell from your home, or use your garage as a workshop. Limit your market to friends and relatives at first if you have to. These people already trust you, if you need it you can ask for payment before you deliver the product.
  
• Use cheap/free channels to advertise like flyers, email (avoid sending spam though), social network websites, and word-of-mouth before budgeting for TV spots and large highway billboard signs. Having a simple website with your own domain can also help alot, there are packages available for around PHP1,000 (US$18) a year.

Being a businessman/woman requires you to have a certain set of skills. These skills, and your nothing-in-hell-can-stop-me attitude, are what will make your business a success.

They say teachers and doctors are noble as they mold our next generation and save the lives of our loved ones. But I'm sure you can also find something noble in providing 25,000 jobs. If you love it: learn it, do it, then you'll have it all.

Chkdsk Woes

Apparently, Windows' Chkdsk can't fix some errors it finds on your hard disk. I recently checked my hard drives and both failed file and directory structure tests in SeaTools, which conveniently directs me to use the operating system's tools to correct the problems. Chkdsk says unallocated sectors are being reported as used, and use /F to fix the MFT. After running Chkdsk /F (scheduled at startup) and Chkdsk to check several times, the same errors were still present. A cousin said this could mean the hard drive's electronics could be failing. Great.

Using Chkdsk /R in the Recovery Console finally worked, I hope. Why do I need /R which locates and tries to fix bad sectors, when my problem is non-physical and with the file system? Shouldn't have /F worked in the first place?

Blog 2006

This year's blog design is more, well, white. This doesn't mean my disposition is ... cleaner, but it pertains to one of my principles on web design: Less is more.

New Year Resolutions... Sooo Last Year

This morning I finally got to do one of my new year's resolutions, that was to swim regularly at our village clubhouse. No cause for much celebration though, as that was part of my *last year's* resolutions. Yep, good ol' 2005! Other physical activities I decided to pursue within the year was shooting(stock .45 caliber), archery, rally driving, Jason Bourne's martial arts (I believe it was Kali), and regular gym workouts (this was the only one I got to do).

This year I'll be taking out archery and rally driving (d**n gas prices), while adding to the list: DSLR photography, regular blogging, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and German languages. And less procastination I guess. "Don't put of tomorrow/next year what you can do today"

Good and Evil, Whatever

My father always asks "What are you learning from all your playing of PC games?!" So, as the obedient son as I am, I'll be documenting what I'll learn from games whatever format it comes in. If soldiers and airline pilots are trained in simulators similar to video games, what prevents us learning from Crash Bandicoot or Grand Theft Auto?

Experience Points gained from Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: Sith Lords.

What we immediately pick up from watching the Star Wars movies is that the Light side is good, and Dark side bad. Jedi good, Sith bad. Rebellion good, Empire bad. Then good always wins in the end. The game adds immense depth to the good/evil duality through the fallen Jedi Kreia. She shows you that a simple act of kindness of giving money to a beggar, results in his murder by an envious peer. Threatening him will scare him off, but he will pass on your cruelty and murder the other man instead. In another scene where you help a man from thugs, she explains that by helping him you deprived him the opportunity to make himself stronger, leaving him more vulnerable to another threat. How much are we really helping when we give to the needy?

The Jedi aspire to be empty of all passion and emotion, no love nor hate, distancing themselves from human nature. It is by this they believe the way to control of the Force and understanding everything. It is these teachings that led to their downfall, when the Order was split between those that wanted to help in the war, and those that wanted peace by doing nothing about it. You cannot after all, achieve peace by countering violence with violence; at the same time, millions of innocents are being slaughtered by Mandalorians. Would you side with peace, abandoning those people to death; or would you side with action, responsible for the death of thousands to save millions?

It doesn't really matter how much we do to save the world, something along the way will eventually happen and mess it all up. We just have to do our best, ignore the critics and cynics, be responsible for our every action, and just learn to deal with the sh** when it comes. Sometimes, the good things are what keeps us from being better. Freedom, for example, prevents order and unity; therefore peace is a long way behind. Or maybe us Filipinos can't handle what we have, yet still clamor for more.