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Step 1: Corruption
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As in most situations, greed is your most powerful ally. Alert the little monster to the contents of the angpows and if necessary, explain that money can be converted to their favourite commodity - toys. If you or your spouse has been spoiling your little emperor with material goods, then you should have an easy job.

Step 2: Deception
------------------
I’m calling this step Deception so it sounds in line with the other two, but we’re really not deceiving the child. We’re merely teaching him to deceive. If anything, we’re setting him straight by informing him that ‘Gong Xi Fa Cai’ and other wishes are the means to get to the angpows. If you’ve been telling him there are some other reasons, then you may need to undo some of that misinformation.

Congratulations, your job is almost done now. He might still be shy and reluctant, so you might need to add a small reminder every now and then. Something simple like, “Hey, Billy, want to get more angpows?” ought to do the trick.

Step 3: Intimidation
--------------------
Materialism is a powerful force, but your child’s innocence might be more persistent than usual. In such a case, I find it helps to reinforce the toy-buying reason with another incentive. Let him know that whenever he hesitates to greet or wish an uncle or aunty, he creates an awkward situation which could lead to the pinching of cheeks, jabbing of ribs or tickling of armpits.

If that doesn’t get the little bugger to comply, I don’t know what will.
I hope this helps you through the rest of the CNY celebrations and good luck for the rest of the Dragon year.
]]> http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120125-234126 Sim and See Ming Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:41:26 GMT http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/comments.php?y=12&m=01&entry=entry120125-234126 http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry111228-120353
We both agree that squabbling has been bringing out the worst behaviour in our boy.

These are the changes we want to see in each other:
I need to:
Use positive words
Stop belittling her in front of him.

She needs to:
Scream less
Stop picking on all the small stuff
Blackberry less
Spend more time talking to him
Have more patience in conversation and stop changing topics randomly, cutting other people off or finishing their sentences for them.
Stop keeping toys in her handbag to buy her way out of tantrums
Cut down on buying toys
Cut down on buying books
Start driving lessons

He needs to:
Have physical activities
Watch less TV
Expect less toys]]> http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry111228-120353 Sim and See Ming Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:03:53 GMT http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/comments.php?y=11&m=12&entry=entry111228-120353 http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry111212-013330
My wife said maybe she should make some bread today. I knew where this was going and she seemed like she was in a good mood, so I jumped ahead of the conversation.

“You know, life would be simpler if we didn’t have a bread maker. I’d just say I’ll get some bread and you’d say okay and that would be the end of the discussion. Now, we have the option of making bread, so we think we need to buy bread, but homemade bread is healthier, but then again its more work and we need to clean up afterwards, but then it tastes better, but then again it doesn’t last as long... and so we stress ourselves out bouncing between these two great choices and probably won’t have any bread to eat for a few days.”

Normally, this is when she dismisses everything I have to say and goes back to Facebooking on her Blackberry. For some reason, she stayed tuned in, so I pushed forward.

“Having more choices doesn’t always make us happier. You can see it with our boy. Our rules for him are overly complicated. For example, yesterday, I already said sit on the sofa if he wants to watch telly and leave grandpa’s chair alone. He was already wiggling his little bottom onto the sofa, but you had to offer him to sit in grandpa’s chair. So then it became: don’t sit in grandpa’s chair, but sit in grandpa’s chair when he is not around.”

She was still listening. We had recently realised that everything we say to him is full of exceptions. Eat at the dining table, but if there are no fish bones, it’s okay to run around the dining room. We have too many toys, so don’t buy toys, but you can buy one if we have a coupon, or if something is on discount, or if we’re already buying toys for some other kid, or if you find something you really want.

“Every time I’ve already concluded negotiations with him, and he’s all happy and ready to move on, you jump in and redo everything. The other day, I’d already told him ‘Max, we’re not going to bring any heavy toys today because Mama has to carry lots of things’ and he was okay with that. Then you go ‘Hey Max, how about bringing the Millenium Falcon?’ Why do I even bother putting in any effort to help you at all? Not only is it a waste of my time and energy, it confuses the heck out of the little guy. We’re always so worried that he’s being short-changed of the tiniest bit of freedom, like the pleasure he gets out of some toy or book outweighs the confusion that we create from going back and forth adjusting all the rules.”

She laughed at this and said, “Sorry, I didn’t know yo had already talked to him that time. Okay, maybe we need a codeword so you can signal me when you’ve already finished negotiating.”

I thought about this a moment, but I genuinely suck at thinking up names and words. I suggested, “How about Blackberry?”

“No, that doesn’t make sense. It has to be something that will signal to me that negotiations have ended.”

“You pick it then.”

“No, you pick.”

“How about ‘keep it simple’?”

“That’s not a word, that’s more like a phrase, plus it’ll just blend into the general conversation. It has to be something that will shock me into realising that you’re giving me a codeword.”

“Like what?”

“Something like, I don’t know, abracadabra or something”

“How about abracadabra then?”

“No, not abracadabra!”

“Why not?”

She thought for a moment and gave up, “Um, okay, abracadabra.”

I don’t think she realises what she’s done. I was out at work most of today, so I’ve not had much chance to exercise it yet, but I walked around the whole day feeling like I’ve gained a superpower. I can’t fly, I’m not bulletproof and I can’t turn invisible, but from now on – every once in a while, when the conditions are just right - I can cast a spell to make my wife stop talking. I’m going to get some weird looks for sure, but I think I can get used to it.

]]> http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry111212-013330 Sim and See Ming Mon, 12 Dec 2011 07:33:30 GMT http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/comments.php?y=11&m=12&entry=entry111212-013330 http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry111129-031207
Yesterday, the boy was beginning to show signs of getting well again. I told my wife that she was doing a great job and to keep keeping all the cold food and drinks away. Today my wife fed him another full serving of ice cream. He loves ice cream but he knows he isn't supposed to eat a full scoop all by himself. He doesn't ask for it unless someone offers it to him and even then, he'd ask for permission from a parent, so I know he's egged into it every time. Now his nose is runny again. My wife says that has nothing to do with the ice cream. Maybe, maybe not, but I don't see why we had to put his health at risk.

So my question is why would a mother do this to a son? Can someone explain this sort of behaviour to me? Is it out of spite? Is it a science experiment? I just don't get it. Am I being too careful? ]]> http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry111129-031207 Sim and See Ming Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:12:07 GMT http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/comments.php?y=11&m=11&entry=entry111129-031207 http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry110701-080810
Step 1: Make sure the carton is really empty


Step 2: Push in one of it's sides. Do the same for the other side.


Step 3: Press the carton flat


Step 4: Fold the bottom of the carton like so.


Step 5: Admire your handiwork. The carton now takes only a few cubic centimeters of space in the garbage bag, rather than a full litre.


Hope that helps.

]]> http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry110701-080810 Sim and See Ming Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:08:10 GMT http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/comments.php?y=11&m=07&entry=entry110701-080810 http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry110629-015501
It all started a couple weeks ago when the network at work started disconnecting from the Internet periodically The wireless strength meter would stay at the full five bars, but the yellow exclaimation mark would pop up, meaning no Internet. At first we thought it was just Telekom messing with the internet lines across the country, which they admitted they were, on an automated message they made you listen to every time you called them for anything.

I asked around about these Telekom upgrades. When talking to friends about service problems, it's never easy to judge how much exaggeration to take into account, since complaining about connectivity has always been in fashion since the birth of the Internet. Anyway, after weighing everything, I figured nobody was suffering any frequent disruptions to their services, so the problem was likely on our end. It was either the modem or the router. I figured I'd try replacing the router first. There were several reasons for this. One was that the router was the cheapest thing to replace and if it didn't work, I could keep it as a spare. Secondly, in my experience, broadband modems are generally quite durable while wireless routers start to get finicky with age. The third reason was that I actually saw the router lights go off as I walked by one day. I figure that maybe it was overheating.

A few days later, I passed by a computer shop and picked up a wireless router and that was the start of my ordeal.

Day 1
-----
As usual, I didn't like moving things around, so I just plugged in the new router (an Aztech N router) and brought a notebook computer over to configure things. The modems from Telekom usually take the default gateway address of 192.168.1.1 so to keep things simple, the first thing I did was change the default gateway of the router to 192.168.1.2.

Then, I just made sure the router knew the username and password (written on an old modem box in the store room), and chose the old network key, but on WPA2 encryption instead of WEP. Let's see, what else. Oh yeah, type in the network key again on the notebook and everything works fine.

I went to my colleagues’ computers and neither one was connecting. They just stayed at "Waiting for network to be ready" for a goodly period and then "Not connected". As always, anything Windows had to say about repairing and diagnosing were completely useless and pointless but I tried them anyway. After some poking around, I noticed that the wireless network was detected as WPA2 on the notebook but just WPA on the PCs. I figured it was something to do with the notebook being on Windows 7 and the older machines being on Windows XP. I tried looking for updates and apparently they were already updated and should be able to recognise and work with WPA2 encryption.

As I disconnected the notebook from the network, one of the PCs automatically connected. I got back on the Internet to do more reading and apparently, it's possible to set only 1 PC to connect at a time on the DHCP part of the router config. I checked everything and as far as I could see, it was set to accept several computers. As if to confirm this, the PC stopped connecting to the network. Nothing I did could get it to work again. I had to leave the office so I plugged back in the old router for everyone to use and called it a day. I was still convinced the router was only allowing one computer on at a time.

Day 2
-----
I had to run in and out of the office a few times and leave early again, but in the 1 hour I was there, I kept trying to get one of the PCs to connect. It was a real pain having to keep disconnecting the 1 computer that could connect (the notebook) to test, and the reconnecting it to get to the configuration page. Nothing worked.

Day 3
-----
Okay, maybe my colleague and I were hallucinating and I was on completely the wrong track. Maybe the problem isn't that only 1 computer could connect, but that the WPA2 either didn't work with the Windows XP or their network adapters (although everything I read on the Internet reassured me that this was not the problem. The latest complaints about these things being a problem were on forum threads dating back to several years before we bought and installed these old computers and their network adapters. Even 802.11b adapters were working with WPA2, and ours were 802.11g adapters). I stayed up late and the more I read, the less idea I had on what the problem might be. I decided to stop looking for what might “likely” be the problem and start busting possibilities one by one, Sherlock Holmes style.
The first obvious thing to test was the security encryption. I removed it entirely and Bingo! Everything worked perfectly. With no security encryption, everything was awesome - everyone was connected, the disconnections were gone and the speed was great, so I left it running for an hour or so while everyone caught up on their emails and browsing. There were smiles all around, but everyone agreed that having no encryption is bad. I won't go into why, but you can look it up.

So strong encryption (WPA2) doesn't work and no encryption works but isn't desirable. Let's try a little encryption (WPA or WEP). The router doesn't even have regular WPA, so it's down to WEP, but I got a warning message about how WEP is not recommended if running the router in N mode (150Mbps), since something called Draft 11N doesn't like WEP. I tried it anyway and after a lot of tinkering and rebooting the router about two dozen times, figured out that it was never going to work in N mode. It took me some time to figure out how to change from N mode to G mode (54Mbps), which was the max speed of the old router (being a G router).

Okay, lower encryption, lower speed, but no worse than the old router was giving, and everyone was connected. Great! I gently unplugged the redundant router to notebook cable (no longer working anymore anyway after I made the mistake of dialing up the broadband provider with it and I have no idea why), coiled it up, gathered up the old router and its power adapter, eased my butt off the seat, and was ready to leave. But things still looked a little messy. I pushed the router back neatly into the corner of the table and... Poof! One of the PCs was no longer connected.

I tried to click back on the wireless network icon on that computer and this time the message was "Detecting network type" and it stayed there for awhile before saying that the router was out of range.

It couldn't be out of range! It's almost exactly 20 feet from the router! You could see the blinking lights of the router if you peeped over the top of the monitor! I tried moving the router back to where it was, and then I tried moving it all over the table, but it was no use. The love was gone and now the router and computer just refused to talk to each other.

I went home defeated again.

Day 4
-----
Did some more reading and apparently, it's possible to have the router too close to the computer. The computer can get into a sort of blind spot and not pick up the signals. There are only a few complaints on the Internet about this and invariably the computers were right next to the router, so the most popular solution is to run a cable to the router and forget about going wireless. As far as the Internet forums were concerned, other than me, nobody on the planet, in the whole of history, has had range problems when their computers were 20 feet away from the router. It was, as far as I could tell from reading, about the perfect distance to get a strong and reliable signal.

My colleague was already getting withdrawal symptoms at this point, so she had already connected the old router back up when I walked into the office. In her haste, she'd plugged the power adapter for the new router into the old one. It was working fine, but the disconnections came back.

I let her surf the Internet in relative bliss for a few hours and then said, "Let's try something different today." I unhooked everything and looked at the specs on each power adapter. The output on the new adapter was 9V and on the old one was 5V. Maybe we were lucky not to have fried something (or unlucky depending on how you felt about routers). I wired the new router back up and put it on the floor instead of the table. Guess what! It worked! The router was sitting on the carpet, ready to be knocked out of connection by the cleaning lady the next time she had to do some vacuuming. I was really tempted to leave it there but thought, "Oh heck, this is stupid." I gave something else a try, which was to put the router back on the table and tilt it up with a CD box behind it.

It worked, but the signal strength on the other colleague's computer went from Excellent to only Very Good and then everything slowed down. After awhile, we concluded that the speed was just unbearable, so we're back to the old router, for now.
]]> http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry110629-015501 Sim and See Ming Wed, 29 Jun 2011 06:55:01 GMT http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/comments.php?y=11&m=06&entry=entry110629-015501 http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry110517-075121
Edit: Man! That was easy. My old web host (Hostpro2u.com) was expensive, unreliable and uncommunicative. At some point, they no longer even bothered to informe of the changes I needed to make to keep up with their server migrations. The site might have been down for a few days while I wasn't looking. This blog pretty much stopped working after one migration and I wasn't motivated enough to exchange the half dozen emails with them to figure out how to get it working again. Instead, I signed up with hostgator.com, moved everything over and it looks like things are working again.

Might still try out Wordpress on one of the newer blogs (the machining one most likely) but glad that the content can at least start flowing again.

I need to pinch myself. I'm not used to things going so smoothly.]]> http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry110517-075121 Sim and See Ming Tue, 17 May 2011 12:51:21 GMT http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/comments.php?y=11&m=05&entry=entry110517-075121 http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry100409-114630
My new notebook seems to be a good machine too, but it runs on Windows 7. I've heard some great things about Windows 7, most of which I didn't understand and mostly from Windows Vista victims. The general impression seemed to be good, so I was looking forward to trying out all the new features.

The first thing I noticed was my notebook had a fancy touchpad interface now which fully intergrated with Windows 7. I could "pinch" to zoom, scroll without using the scroll bar, rotate pictures, plus sometimes unexpectedly bring out a neat looking eye icon that doesn't seem to do anything other than interrupt my cursor movement (I can only do it unexpectedy, I tried doing it intentionally but it cannot be done). I suspect it could be the eye icon is for hitting the back button on your browser because I accidentally hit back on the browser a few times while writing this entry and lost everthing I wrote. This is actually my third try and I'm writing it in Notepad and pasting it into my blog textbox later.

Anyway, let's not sweat the small stuff. On with our story. The first day or so on a new computer, I need to load up all my old apps. My notebook didn't come with a CD drive, so I just plugged in my old workhorse BenQ usb external DVD writer (you had to put one of those together in those days). It got recognised and the driver installed itself within a few seconds. Sweet! At this point, I usually just stick in my old CD's and load up my old apps and drivers. All of these are 32-bit apps, so of course some installed and some didn't. Of those that installed, I know at least 1 that isn't working properly (Canon Camera Window). Anyway, I spent two more late nights looking for replacements for all my old stuff that didnt install (PHP editors, FTP clients, drivers and apps for phones, cameras).

At some point, I dont know when, Windows 7 stopped recognising the external dvd writer. I went into the Devices and Printers menu to look at it and it said it had a problem with the driver. After clicking around for awhile, I found one help menu that reassuringly said I could right click on the device icon and troubleshoot. All my past troubleshooting menu adventures have always ended up in tears, but it seemed like the most risk-free thing to try at that point, so I went ahead. After a few short minutes of detecting problems, diagnosing problems, attempting to solve problems, my computer helpfully informed me that sorry, I was out of luck.

I wanted to get on the internet to find help, but then of course my internet service provider (Telekom) decided it didn't want to provide any internet services for the night.

This morning, when the service came back on, I looked and quite a few people had the same problem. CD-ROm worked for awhile, then stopped working. You had to go into the system registry and edit one of the driver registries (the last time I heard of anyone having to do that was in the late nineties).

So now, that's done, I'm waiting to go home and try and plug in the external dvd-writer to see if I'm back on track.

Meanwhile, Canon Camera Window still doesn't work, but I discovered I could remove the SD card from the camera, plug it into the computers built in card reader, and have Canon Zoombrowser (which thankfully does work) load it up. It actually downloads faster this way, but I would still like to get the old method working as well, just to feel complete. After that, I need to test out all the other apps and drivers that seemingly installed properly, to find out what else doesn't work. And perhaps after that, I will have to live for a period with the nagging fear that any number of apps that do work may stop working at some point.

Microsoft's tagline for Windows 7 is "Your PC, simplified".]]> http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry100409-114630 Sim and See Ming Fri, 09 Apr 2010 03:46:30 GMT http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/comments.php?y=10&m=04&entry=entry100409-114630 http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry100112-140541 check it out . There's new-ish reviews and build ups.

I've earned 0 cents so far. My wife says I'm several years too late. We'll see. I got some fresh (I think anyway) ideas for informative content with regards to my hobbies - RC cars and machining. If nothing else, it'll keep me working on the site to keep it from delapitating.

You don't see ads on this blog and Max's blog because I'm not sure if the scripts will jive with the rest of the code and frankly, I can't be bothered to find out.]]> http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry100112-140541 Sim and See Ming Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:05:41 GMT http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/comments.php?y=10&m=01&entry=entry100112-140541 http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry100106-032146










The day Max was born, my wife and I realised that being parents is mostly about worrying. When you have a newborn in the house, you never really let yourself forget how fragile they are. I was told to make sure he slept with his head to one side, so he wouldn’t choke and drown if he vomited. This made perfect sense, yet I never would have thought of it on my own. I wondered what else I didn’t know about taking care of babies. Just carrying him seemed like something that I could mess up badly, so I made up this habit of reminding myself to support his neck, lest I forgot and broke it.

I remember the first night he came home with us. We had bought this little barrier to put on our bed, so he could sleep in the middle without being crushed by either of us. I remember waking up to check that he was still breathing, and it always seemed like a minor miracle that he still was. I’d never been responsible for anyone in my life. I’d taken care of pets and plants before, but even then, I often mishandled them – watering too much, not watering enough, feeding too much, feeding the wrong things, not knowing enough, knowing enough but doing too much. Yet, here I was, in charge of a person - one so tiny and weak, he can’t even turn his head, and I’ve been taking care of him for several hours and he’s still breathing!

It must have been around this time that I told myself things would get easier. He would grow bigger and stronger and I wouldn’t have to worry about him then.

He took his time, but he did grow bigger and stronger. Soon, he was starting to crawl around in bed. We worried that he might fall off the bed when we weren’t watching so we put some pillows around him. Soon, he got strong enough to climb on top of the pillows and promptly proceeded to fall out of bed.

After that, we stopped letting him sleep alone. Chores and errands just about came to a halt as someone always had to be on falling baby duty. My wife was still working at the time, so we had a nanny during the day. She had the foresight to train Max to climb down from the bed as soon as he was able to stand up. We thought that was brilliant - he would learn about the height of the bed, and about falling and about being careful and he’d be safe again. Things would get easier then.

He did eventually learn to climb down from the bed by himself but he never did learn to stop rolling off the bed in his sleep.

About a month after his first birthday, he got quite ill. He’d had bouts of runny nose before, but the pediatrician always put off prescribing medication and he was always able to shrug it off on his own, with help from mommy’s milk. But this time, the flu got worse and he started coughing and making this frightening sound – a sound no child should ever have to make. He needed several trips to the doctor to use the nebuliser, which he naturally hated. Feeding him his medicine was an exercise that required two strong adults and plenty of washing up after.

Another thing that became apparent about this time was that he was getting quite heavy. Both me and my wife had tired arms and sore backs from carrying him. I told her not to worry, as he’d be walking soon anyway, so we wouldn’t need to carry him much longer.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before he took his first step, but it wasn’t so much a walk – more of a drunken stagger. We were busier than ever, stooping over him with our aching backs, trying to keep him from putting his eye out on stone steps and table corners. It was just a short phase, I told myself. Soon, he’d be walking steady. Things would get easier then.

Before long, he was walking and running. More running than walking, and mostly in the direction opposite to where we wanted to go, so we started having to run after him whenever we took him out. Shopping trips started taking twice as long and became three times as tiring.

You know what I said then? I said things will get easier when he starts talking and we’re able to communicate with him.

Now he is almost two and a half, communicating well, and stubborn as an ox. He’s resistant to potty training, impossibly resistant to weaning, sits on the floor when we ask him to walk, runs all over the place when we need him to sit down, insists on eating with his hands, doesn’t like drinking water, doesn’t like drinking powdered milk or fresh milk, gets upset when he’s hungry, refuses to eat when he’s upset, only wants to wear his smelliest pair of shoes, doesn’t want to wear socks, doesn’t like to take baths and doesn’t like coming out of baths.

Still, I’m sure, things will get easier.
]]> http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry100106-032146 Sim and See Ming Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:21:46 GMT http://www.bigbigplanet.com/blog/comments.php?y=10&m=01&entry=entry100106-032146