Hisashiburi! My Journey to Data Engineering

It's been 1,006 days since the last post on this blog. To say that a lot has happened since the last post would be the biggest understatement of my life.

To keep it short and efficient, here's the bullet list of milestones in the last 3 years:

1. After living and working in Singapore for 7+ years, I moved to Ireland. 
2. I've been living in the "Emerald Isle" for almost 2 years now (September 2020 marks my 2nd year of officially relocating here)
3. I've completed a short diploma course on Python programming from a school here in Dublin (which proved to be of absolutely zero, nada, zilch use to me in my career move, but more on that further in this post)
4. I'm no longer in Customer Service and now in Data Engineering, which means....
5. I've finally found what I want to do in life 😃 at least for the time being, until the next "adventure"

And that would be the focus of this post: how I found what I want to do in life and landed the related job. Hope this is something useful to someone out there.

Totally unnecessary context (skip this part if not interested): I went from language studies, translation, didactics of languages. It was a constant exploring or simply an "excessive and aimless wandering" of person without direction in life. 

That not so long winding road landed me in customer service. You must know though that job was not my "shining moment". Let's be honest: What introvert would happily claim that talking to strangers is something he/she particularly finds thrilling, let alone being the outlet of their complaints (and I assume their family's complaints, their neighbors' and their neighbor's family's complaints as well)? 

If I could statistically describe what quality time spent with loved ones is, then the chart below would be somewhat accurate: 

• ~20% actual talking to each other and 
• ~80% being together as each one minds his/her own business, in quiet solitude

And by "loved ones" I refer to people I profess to adoring to bits and pieces and would sell any and/or all of my internal organs for! It's bursts of joking, suddenly belting out concert songs scattered in the vast periods of quietness. I enjoy letting people talk so I can listen and respond (if I have to). 

Note to strangers: If I am too chatty voluntarily, it's mostly defense mechanism for fear of socially offending someone. On the flip side, however, if our interactions are mostly stretches of time wherein I'm in dead pan silence while you're in "blabbering non-stop till you drop" mode without it being awkward, then you most likely have first dibs on one of my kidneys or part of my liver, and everything else on my person, a.k.a. I wub you to the moon and back!

Anyway, we're going off tangent. The point is that that I don't have the natural disposition of wanting to be always talking to people and listening to them vent when they don't have first dibs on any of my biological parts. 
It's more likely that just like any typical Asian / Filipina, I had to be pragmatic and so chose the path that allowed me to earn as much as I can to more easily give back to my family back home in the Philippines. And thus came to be that a good decade of my existence, was spent working as customer service specialist.

And the reason for this post is the happy news that I got out of customer service and into data engineering this 2020. Actually, the official title is Data Analyst which on paper seems to point out to front-end stuff; mainly visualization (yes, charts and graphs!), creating web app dashboards, and reporting.

However, almost all my tasks, I've discovered, are always creating data pipelines, creating/maintaining data base tables, lots of Python, SQL - and all the flavors we have (vanilla, Hive QL, Presto), the odd R now and then, creating DDL schemas, a bit of statistics K-means, K-medoids, etc, working or wrestling - whichever you prefer - with Github, and tons of lurking in Stackoverflow (of course! any self-respecting programmer will say that's the "secret sauce"). In summary, the "behind the scenes" / back-end stuff. To take the analogy of a watch, it's those tiny gears that move the dials or the circuitry that drive the data displayed on the screen you see on your wrist that I take care of. "Engineering" bits and bobs.

So how do you score the job and make the career change?

• Do your part and develop the necessary skills. 
• The best way to ruin your life is to believe you're entitled. That the job offer will be served to you on a silver platter with icing and cherry on top has a probability value close to zero. Or if it does get served to you, it's most likely an aberration to most if not all laws of nature, meaning you're probably from an alien species and belong in outer space anyway. Or that you've got connections in high places. One of the lucky ones!
• You get only as much as you put in. I can only speak from what I've done personally. I actively sought means and invested the time to learn how to code. I remember hoarding the living room TV to watch instructional videos on how to code much to my family's chagrin as it meant they couldn't watch their favorite shows. That was during Christmas break in 2017, when I decided to get serious in learning to code, and in one of the few days I get off work. I was doing exercises on my mobile phone while we were on the road, traveling to family reunions. There was one time I was working on a Django web app following a tutorial book on a weekend last year 2019, and it meant skipping my 1st St. Patrick's Day in Ireland in exchange for getting closer to accomplishing the goal of moving jobs. Priorities, gurl. There's only a finite number of hours in a day and something's gotta give. *It was probably a stroke of luck that I chose Python as the first programming language to learn. I just thought its syntax is prettier than Java's or C++. Turns out, it's actually "the" language to learn if you seriously want to get into data. To be fair, you can use any language but the vast majority of powerful libraries for data wrangling were developed first for Python. There's R of course for hard core statistics and Julia as well, but Python is a staple for venturing into data - you don't drive without a car, or get a car out without the wheels after all.

• Admitting you know nothing is the beginning of real learning
• Rewire your brain or thought process. To be completely honest, the pivotal moment where things just finally "clicked in my brain" in terms of learning to code was when I had to do a project that had real-life impact. Not from a text book or from class. The project was work related: automating case routing in Salesforce. Thinking of how to solve that one problem trained my brain to think logically. I had to learn how to "pseudo-code" first, how to break a vastly bigger concept into the simplest parts, then code those parts and put them together to build the whole, working solution.
• Be willing to be Jon Snow ("You know nothing!") and have the courage to still dive in, head first into the unknown. Another challenge for that project was that I couldn't do just a simple "pip install <insert package name here>" in the terminal. My scripts were throwing errors. Even if I still vaguely thought "functions" worked like magic and knew nothing at all, I tinkered with a python library called "simple salesforce" (API that allowed manipulating Salesforce objects). The root cause of the error? It was that the URI for our company's Salesforce instance didn't match the default one on the package. I almost had a major brain meltdown but in the end, I managed to reverse engineer the API and in the process, gained a foundational knowledge that transcends all programming languages, not just limited to Python: HTTP protocol implementation. Also it bagged me a recognition award from work (it was working!!!) and most importantly, it was another item to add on to my CV as part of my coding portfolio.

• Continue to improve those skills as you build a portfolio
• A certificate does not a programmer make. Though it's true that I chose to get a diploma in Python programming from CCT college of Dublin, that was not how I really learned to code. I believe to this day, that I learned more from a 10-dollar (USD) course in Udemy about programming  and just finding more things to automate or build, to practice coding over the last 2 years or so, rather than sitting in those night classes after my day job.
• Collect a repertoire of projects that solve real-life problems.
• List all those projects in your CV and present them in such a way that matches closely the job requirements in the posting. You have higher chances of getting hired for a job where your prospective team mates and manager can see that you already do or know how to do the tasks involved in the job: "...you're the team member that they haven't just hired yet" ~Python Programmer Youtube Channel.
• If the job is a technical one, an exam might be inevitable. But you can prepare for it by practicing; applying what you know in your every day life. In my case, I had to do a time-limited online exam with 2 parts, first Python and then SQL, each with 4 sub-modules of about 10 questions. It was the most grueling 30 minutes of my life and I only got through to the 1st sub-module of the SQL part. And boy was I glad to have put in those hours of practicing in Jupyter notebooks: I could've resorted to using normal means to create reports that I had to submit for my then current job but I'm glad I chose to transform them into  practice opportunities. The recruiter revealed to me that I did well on the Python part (pandas library); my score was one of the highest and so it didn't matter that I didn't finish the exam.
• Practice. Code, code, code. Having practiced means you get almost second nature knowledge. The more significant part of the interview process were potential team mates peer-reviewing my code - my portfolio. They asked questions like "what did you use to store the values - list or dictionary - in this section here of this script? why?". If you didn't code those lines yourself, you'd have to go the "fake it till you make it" route. All I can say is good luck to you. You might have more chances of finding water in Mars, while still stuck in earth, than making it alive out of that situation with your dignity and integrity still intact.
• A roll of tissue could sometimes be more valuable than that certificate you cherish. They never asked to see any certificates from me. I even had to volunteer to the talent recruiter to submit mine (yep, that Diploma I got in Dublin) and to which she replied "You don't need to submit that..." with an undeniably puzzled tone, as if I had suggested the most horrendous of ideas like sending over my baby photo album.

• Check for job postings and determine which one you're sufficiently interested in. 
• Do your research, keep your eyes peeled for job openings. This circles back to the "entitlement point". Opportunities don't really come waltzing your way. Sometimes they knock on your door, but you still have to make the effort to actually stand up and open it. Also, aside from external job sites, why not watch out for postings in your current company? There's good reason why you stuck with them thus far and they've probably taken care of you quite nicely; maybe you can continue to be of service to them, but in a different role. Continue the lovely working relationship.
• There's no such thing as a perfect job. I would've preferred to do only web or desktop apps, in Python only, and never touch any Microsoft application for the rest of my life on earth. But this is the real world where there are only real companies willing to take you on if you're equally willing to help them solve their real world problems with whatever tool or app is available. So when they ask me create a SharePoint list that gets automatically synced with a .csv file from a server using Microsoft Flow and Excel, then I get down to working. Even if I absolutely abhor Excel and would rather give up my first born child (that I probably won't ever be pregnant with, woah, immaculate conception!??!?) rather than work with a nasty bit of vlookup, I move on and get on doing stuff.

• While waiting for that elusive opportunity, do your utmost best in your current job.
• All job experience is still experience. Even if you feel you're not cut out for the current job you're in, just suck it in and give it your best shot still. The natural disinclination does put you at a disadvantage because your brain just refuses to learn. But you just have to grit your teeth and work hard despite and in spite of things. Surprisingly, my decade long stint in operations (customer service) actually meant I understood the business side of things "the why" in those technical spec requirements that engineers or BI developers don't necessarily get. For someone who prefers being left alone but was doing a job that required being on the call for people needing help; it really did feel like  pulling tooth out every day, all those 8+ years! Imagine, It took me maybe 4 training sessions for eStore - one of the many work streams in my previous job - and a good 3+ years before I could handle a customer call / case. And I felt my coworkers thought of me a stupid bimbo, they had every right to do so.
• What you lack in process expertise (or just plain interest) make up for it with an impeccable work ethic. It's a way to show gratitude you have a job that pays for food on the table, roof on your head, and clothes on your back - and your family (for Asian / Filipinos like me hehehe). Make yourself easy to work with and a delight to your direct reporting manager and you'll find out it's not hard to get those references for your CV. Things can be worked out with a willing team player and someone who's a joy a to work with will almost always be preferred. Even if you're this genius super-talented person but "does not spark joy" in the team, you're most likely be booted out the way Mari Kondo doesn't even bat an eye lid when discarding things to avoid clutter

By the way, the thing that "sparks the most joy" for me in the new job is that, setting aside the 15-minute "daily stand ups" and other short necessary meetings, I get to spend the entirety of each working day staring intensely at my computer screen(s), without as much as flinching or blinking. To the point one would think I was brain-dead or a zombie, the only indication of a still cognizant nature being the frantic typing noise on the keyboard and the occasional frustrated exclamations of "Why does that throw an error?!!" or "Arrrgghh!! Can't catch that bug!!"

 Ah...heaven! 

Of Batch Files, Double-Quoted Comma-Delimited Text Files, and VBScripts

Hello World!

It's been such a long time since the last post. Almost 2 years! Time does fly.

Why the sudden resurrection of this blog? Let's just say it's the desire to learn has been rekindled!

I'd mentioned on several previous posts (I think I did at least) on this blog that I used to work as a technical translator for a software dev company back in the Philippines. The team I served with my language skills (greatly diminishing instead of improving - I cringe at the multiple and redundant grammatical errors my posts here contain!!) were Java developers. They tried to teach me how to code in Java. I remember that "Beer Song" exercise which when I'd resolved it, I dropped Java like a too hot pancake in my hands. Since it had splattered on the floor already, why bother picking it up? There were other more interesting and yummy confections at that time (ehem - like the HP Mini 311 Darwin Project at InsanelyMac.com) to bite into!

I remember explaining to my then team mate and close friend (who's a freakin' awesome Java programmer) that I just couldn't accept why some stuff (methods? classes? etc.) must be declared first. On retrospect now,  perhaps there was just the general lack of a motivation for me to force my brain to wrap itself around the proclivities of decent Java coding: i.e. the need to make things work.

For I now realize I did end up dipping my elbows in code when I was finding my way through the cog works of hackintoshing, specifically DSDT patching. I was surprised to be informed of my the techie team mates that it involved, in fact, coding at a much much lower system level than say the commonly known object-oriented programming languages like Java, Python, etc.. Java worked inside the Operating System and interacted mostly with the files and file system therein, while dealing with DSDT meant interacting with the BIOS. (More info on DSDT here).

Now what was different from this machine gibberish from Java when they're both code? There was a requirement - specifically a personal need - my dream of experiencing having a Mac ^_^

I had to patch my own DSDT to make sure low system level processes like wake-up from sleep triggered by mechanical actions like closing the lid, hibernation, fan speed, etc. for my own hackintoshes because most of the hacking guides available were for North America models of said machines and I was in Asia. I had to do a lot comparison and reading the code lines of those other hackers posted and looked out for patterns. Some object names would differ by one character between those posted codes and the actual DSDT extracted from my own Asian release model laptop or netbook.

It was trial and error, testing, and squeezing out comprehension (read the original post from 2009!) from cryptic lines as the example section below:

Pebble Time Round

I've always been skeptical about smart watches. Don't we have loads of variations from Apple and Android wear manufacturing companies that dole out the features included in this devices supposedly tiny and to live on your wrist? To me, it's another complication to add to my life plus, they all seem to scream out "smart watch! look at me!" from the get go.

I don't need a ton of features from a smart watch; those are what my iPhone should do. What I want from a smart watch are 2 things:

• A reliable watch
• Some smart features like notifications and fitness tracker

Then Pebble released Pebble Time Round and it fits the two demands I spelled out above just nicely.

It's a stylish watch with an always display thanks to its e-paper technology. Works perfect with the ample ambient light inside the office - I don't have to flick my wrist or fibble with the button to turn on the back light to see what time it is. Using e-paper meant that it's even much brighter and easier on the eyes in direct sunlight where other OLED based smart watches would leave you scrunching your eyes to check the time.

I opted for the 14mm band because I didn't want the hour markings along the white bezel that the silver 20mm version had. Although the 14mm band was just right for my wrist and the 20mm would've swallowed up my wrist whole, I'm still worrying about finding a good strap replacement. Most replacement bands are available in 20mm.

Currently, I'm still loving the stone colored soft leather that comes with the watch by default but I'm on the look out for a silver Milanese-like mesh loop in 14mm.

People would say the Pebble watches are too low tech compared with the other offerings already available and at around the same price point (I got mine during the holiday sale with USD 199 instead of USD 249). However, I do believe that the Pebble Time Round still holds its ground and delivers adequately and beautifully.

Due to Apple's locking down of its watch API, features on notifications interaction are more limited for iPhone users than Android users.

It doesn't claim to the "be-all-do-all" niche that most other smart watches seem to try to accomplish, having an identity crisis in the end: "Am I a smart watch or a phone?". 

What Pebble does is clearly define what it wants to be and do, and then it makes sure it ticks all those items nice and squarely, even the buttons on the watch give off a satisfying tactile click and pressed.

If you're looking for a gorgeous watch that functions flawlessly as a watch, comes with ample battery life, and performs perfectly on notifications and some added features to get organized and fit, then look no further than the Pebble Time Round.

Pipo W4

I'd like to take this oportunity to pay respects to MacBook Mini; the HP Mini 311 I purchased on a 12-month installment scheme back in 2009 or something, when all the rage was on netbooks. I'd installed Mac OS X Snow Leopard on that little machine that I loved and even created a blog - this very blog - so that I could spout sonnets to the whole world about that love.

I'm grieved to announce that MacBook Mini has passed away. It has been acting up on my dad for quite some time now, shutting down when its fans whirred away, unable to tolerate the heat that would build up over a period of use that shortened as days went by, until one couldn't use it without blasting at least a fan towards its direction. Well, I blame myself partly because I subjected it to hackintoshing. Ok, I don't think I would've bought it in the first place if I couldn't hackintosh it. Me thinks it's the fact that the DSDT may not have been optimal for the hardware in terms of CPU throttling and heat dissipation. Add that to the fact that it's just so very hot in the Philippines and the HP Mini 311 was not getting any younger.

Although I did try to remedy the situation by installing Windows 7 on it, believing that the heat issue will be addressed by giving it to the OS it was designed to run in the first place. True enough, it did happily chug along after that and I was able to give it away to a young university student who needed to have a laptop for school. I was certainly convinced that heat issue was gone. Low and behold, only a few months with its new owner, HP Mini 311 breathed its last.

I'll be forever thankful for the wealth of hackintoshing knowledge I garnered and now have forgotten through that machine. However, the pressing issue remains: What will the university girl (which my mom and dad along with their Bible study group support through college) use for school now?

To find the solution, I racked my brain and thought: What if I were back in university - what gadget would I appreciate? Now, I certainly love working with the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 and now that is has a Zaggkeys Folio case, I'm really enamored by the portability and the added productivity I get with Microsoft Office 365 (thank you to my current company who gave each of its employee a good license bundle which allows me to install Office in other mobile devices aside from my office laptop). In fact, I wrote this entire post from my Note 8.0 + Zaggkeys Folio.

I just knew that giving "our scholar" anything less than that same convenience I now enjoy is not the answer.

She has to have a tablet for portability. But one that can let her write her school papers and create powerpoint presentations for class projects and stuff and install other full desktop applications. Android and iOS are already out the eligibility list.

That leaves one option: Windows tablet. And I have just the right soluion for that: Pipo W4

It's an 8" tablet with Windows 8.1 and Office fo 1 year. And I got a great bargain from Lazada Singapore at only S$99 (free shipping). It's the perfect size for her to carry around for consuming media and stuff.

How about the productivity part? Obviously the 8" screen won't offer the best experience for a student who will juggling several applications side by side, very unlike the way I use my Note 8.0 now.

Remember the Motorola Bionic Lapdock I bought for my Raspberry Pi experiment, which sadly didn't bloom into the coding heaven I envisioned partly because of my lazyness to learn coding seriously? We'll it's got everything to turn the Pipo W4 into a decent laptop.

Keyboard. 11" screen. Trackpad (serviceable but one is better off using a mouse instead). 2 additional normal-sized USB ports (female). Headphone jack. Micro HDMI (male). Micro USB (male).

Unfortunately, the Micro HDMI and Micro USB ports are oriented the wrong way on its cradle connector section and do not match up wit the Pipo W4's port arrangement. It's a good thing that I already have a micro USB extender cable and a micro HDMI to regular-sized HDMI cable as surplus from my Raspberry Pi experiment.

I only had to get an HDMI to micro HDMI adapter (S$1.69) and voilà! The Pipo W4 is now an 11" laptop.

I'm wrought to part with the Motorola Bionic Lapdock because I consider it my handy partner in Pi experimentation since it provides me the screen and input I need. But then, is it healthy for a 30 year old woman to be still playing with toys??

Android Love Affair

I will always be a Mac girl at heart. It will always be my default go-to machine, my choice of a daily driver. That is, if I were given a choice. My office machine is a Windows 7 Dell laptop which is company issued so there's really nothing I could do but use it 5 days a week. Not that I have any personal (and might I say, unjustifiable) grudge over non-Mac / Apple gadgets - I am long past that phase as a geekette - so I'm very much open to all platforms.

In fact, I do like tinkering with Android quite a bit. The toys, err hardware, involved are way much cheaper than the equivalent Apple ones. Let's just say I'm much more ready to risk bricking my Xiaomi Mi4i than my Apple iPhone. Although for some reason, even up to the individual cells in my body believe that I could never brick the iPhone. I would liken it to trying to customize one's fridge to turn it into a fridge with frying abilities, only to find out that the customizations one is able to reach are really just skin deep - like stickers - and well, that fridge remans a fridge, unable to fry anything, in the end.

I did buy a Galaxy Note 10.1 N8000 about 2 years ago, in late 2013. It's now with my parents who use it hooked to the TV in the living room where they stream Korean dramas with an app. The Note 10.1 was just way too bulky and heavy for me to integrate it in my life. (cue: dramatic background music).

Then, in 2014, I realized there was a hole in my tech existence which could only be filled by a tablet but I knew it couldn't be a 10" screen one. So along came the Galaxy Note 8.0. You guessed it right, the compelling factor was the S-pen. I'm an old-school-note-taking kind of girl so the integrated Wacom digitizer lured me in. That meant I couldn't get an iPad even though the polish of iOS and the hardware were tempting. Plus, being the geek I am, I just had to get something of a different platform since I already had an iPhone.

More than 18 months after purchasing the Note 8.0, which was released late in 2013 itself, I'm now stuck with a gadget that's more than 2 years old. Without any valid hardware upgrade from Samsung, I couldn't find a replacement : 8" tablet with a stylus that worked magnificently. Yes, you could say there's now the Tab A with S-pen but the specs of that are cringe-worthy. If only Samsung would release Lollipop and slap in a recent version of their TouchWiz UI for the Note 8.0, I'd be a happy camper. 

But a geek does what a geek does in times of trouble. With the warranty period over, I therefore proceeded with rooting my device in hopes of customizing it. There are plenty of custom ROMs for the Note 8.0 but sadly, the N5120 or 4G LTE version that is so prevalent here in Singapore is always left out of the supported devices for this wonderful development efforts of the Android community. I only see the WiFi versions being more actively worked on.

Nonetheless, I'm still quite happy to go on with my little Note 8. Thus I souped it up to better equip it as my writing machine on the go. Enter: Zaggkeys Folio.

What's great about still owning an outdated gadget which was once famous is that a few years after your purchase, you are able to get accessories at super low prices as resellers dispose of their old over stock of the item. The Zaggkeys Folio for Note 8.0 originally retailed at USD 99.99 or around SGD 140. I got mine at SGD 61 shipping included. Actually, the keyboard case itself cost me USD 24 on ebay but the shipping was exorbittant as always.

                                         

And it's got a backlit keyboard too!! I think Amazon has more offers for even as low as USD 17 - shiping to US only or shipping may add considerably more to the price.

No Pibow Coupé For Me (For Now)

I talked to the reseller here and got $20 quote for a Pibow Coupé Flotilla case for my new Raspberry Pi 2. For the benefit of those who are not familiar with this case, below is a picture to let you understand why it got me into this dilemma:

from modmypi.com

Super slim and slick right?

Anyhow, good thing we were busy at work since it's the end of quarter and it was all bout getting sales booked so I didn't have time to meet up with the reseller and buy the case. But then I was itching to get my Pi out of the generic clear or frosted case I got from Element14 Singapore which resembled a soap case.

Looks like I got the soap dish from the shower and stuck it on the back of the Motorola Bionic Lapdock

Well, I hated that and I felt it wasn't time for me to fork out yet another $20 in the name of geeking out. Thus, I decided to turn this into a case:

I bought 4 or 5 of these from my last trip to Hongkong - just had to spend the loose HK$ change which I couldn't change back to S$ anyway. That one last empty box I found in a corner of my office desk drawer.

With the help of a sharpie to mark the cut outs, a utility knife and X-acto knife from Daiso, I ended up with this:

Sitting beside a 1" 3M clear tape, we can better appreciate how thin the case ended up:

I'd say not bad for a first foray into case modding!

And for the more substantial updates:

• I've solved the issue with the RTL8192cu WiFi dongle (the same one that Adafruit sells). I followed the steps from Adafruit and added a line to disable power management and USB auto-halt for the dongle. Very decent download and upload speeds now! In the terminal:

echo "options 8192cu rtw_power_mgnt=0 rtw_enusbss=0" | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/8192cu.conf

• I'm now using Ubuntu MATE with modest overclock at 800MHz (the Pi 2 runs its quadcore @700MHz) without sdram and core freq changes. Anything higher than 800MHz and with sdram and core freq changes, the power supply from the Motorola Bionic Lapdock won't be sufficient to power the Pi and the WiFi dongle which I ended up sticking to the Pi's main board - no longer the lapdock's 2 USB ports.
• Bought licenses for the MPEG-2 and WVC1 codecs from RaspberyPi.org

All in all, it's a nifty little machine that has delighted me and I can't wait to tote it off somewhere as a proud owner of "Monster". It's a great blogging / writing equipment :)

Although now I have doubts on it being a good idea to give my 16 year nephew a Raspberry Pi. I don't think he'll like the idea of turning the HDMI TV in his and his brother's room into a slow computer that cannot even run their favorite video games. They're a generation of kids who got the best and wouldn't get impressed easily.

I was like: "A credit-card size computer! Wow!" 

They would be more like: "So what? I got a PS 4 and iPad and a smartphone that can run Youtube without issues." 

Raspberry Pi Lap(dock)top

Mechanical links work to splice USB cables without soldering and I have a Raspberry Pi Laptop

The initial process took about 2 hours and it includes:

• shaving the extra plastic material in the cables and adapters
• actual splicing (without soldering)
• micro SD card installation of Raspbian
• 1st boot up

Additional tinkering on the config file to get the Atrix's speakers, resolution, RTl8192cu WiFi dongle, and the correct system locale and keyboard layout work ate up another 1.5 hours or so. I was watching a drama via live streaming on my other laptop so I guess my concentration wasn't that great.

At any rate, here's my new baby - I named him "monster" (M):

Monster says "hi!"

 Raspbian installing. I had downloaded the entire 750MB+ .zip before hand to the download is not included in the count. The installation on the micro SD card rounded up at 15 minutes or so - while I changed my beds linens to fresh ones.

 My handy "cabling work". I didn't have any electrical tape so masking tape should do for now.

Here's the mess at the back. The HDMI extender (30 cm) hasn't arrived yet from Hongkong so I'm connecting the Pi's regular sized HDMI to the Atrix's mini HDMI with an adapter that also functions as propping tool

Issues:

• Raspberry Pi 2 on Raspbian is not fast enough for me. Either I had unrealistic expectations from the reviews I read before hand or the micro SD card I purchased wasn't really a class 10, but a lower rated one.
• Adafruit RTl8192cu was super slow - 50kbps in the terminal when I install via apt-get. But it's an 802.11n rated WiFi dongle. According to the forums, it's most likely a power management issue - this particular WiFi dongle is very sensitive that it won't go on max performance with sketchy power source.
• Hence, slow browsing and no impossible Youtube even with the Chromium + PeppaFlash workaround
• So it goes back to the first issue of slowness. I did manage to install Libre Office from the Pi Store. The download and install took a lot of time but once installed, launching the word processor app took only 9 seconds and the typing experience was alright - I can probably use this for writing.

I must say though, I'm loving this project. Looking forward to a better case for my Pi. I'm torn between just getting a Pibow Coupé Flotilla since I've already found a local reseller or if should just hack some plastic thing I can get my hands on make the slimmest profile Pi unit I can envision.

I'm also undecided on whether I'll end up sticking the Pi on the back of the lapdock by velcro or if I should let it sit on that phone tray at the back, like it does at the monent, while I wait for the short HDMI cable I ordered.

Today Is the Day!

July 28, 2015 : which day could be more exciting than this one?

A Raspberry Pi 2 of my own is on its way :

And the Motorola Atrix Lapdock is also joining in the fun:

Only a few more components missing to complete my Raspberry Pi "Laptop":

• 16 GB Strontium Class 10 micro SD card I got from a deal - I have to collect this little guy from the physical store in the city center one of these days
• HDMI extender (30 CM) - which should arrive from Hongkong - I'm not counting on it to get into my hands before I leave this island for a vacation

Oh, and the fun actually started yesterday when I got this in my mailbox:

Lovely, just lovely!!

A New Adventure

Geeks will always be geeks. Nerds will always be nerds. I say "Cheers to that! and they're absolutely happy to stay that way.

What makes them excited?

New stuff to tinker with.

It's a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B!

Technical Specifications:

• Broadcom BCM2836 Arm7 Quad Core Processor powered Single Board Computer clocked at 900MHz
• 1GB RAM
• 40pin  GPIO
• 4 x USB 2 ports
• 4 pole Stereo output (doubles as Composite video port)
• Full size HDMI
• CSI camera port for the Raspberry Pi camera
• DSI display port for the Raspberry Pi touch screen display
• Micro SD port (push-push)
• Micro USB power source

Yummy like its namesake fruit, indeed!

This one goes to my nephews in hopes of encouraging them to get into programming and maybe even robotics. I wouldn't mind a automated coffee maker that I can ask to brew my faves from a connected terminal - my phone would be best :)

I'm excited to see what they'll come up with. Let their creativity flow and sky be the limit to what they can achieve. Learning is key.

As for me, another Raspberry Pi project is in my radar right now. Just waiting for some parts and pieces and it will get me busy as a bide time before I can go home the Philippines and be with the family again.

Hopefully, I'll tote with me a Pi Laptop.

Nothing really fancy - just some USB cable splicing activity that will hopefully get this ol' gal warmed up and back into shape for nerdiness galore.

I'd really like to learn soldering. Not sure if I can get a cheap soldering set here in Singapore though.

A Fork On the Road

It has been more than 3 years since my very first post. It has been 3 happy years writing about what my geek heart is passionate about - geeky stuff.

I started this journey, documenting each step first as a hackintosh noob and then becoming not-so-newbie hackintosher and then finally quite knowledgeable hackintosher (in my own way at least ) perhaps let's rephrase that to a "seasoned hackintosh experiment participant who's always willing to present her netbook as specimen." 

Now, after moving to another country for work - I admit, the idea of more *dough* to spend on new netbooks was a huge factor in taking this decision to uproot myself from home base at first (not anymore) - and after neglecting this beloved blog, I've come to realize that I've come to this inevitable fork on the road.

I have to be honest that I most probably won't be updating My MacBook Mini as I don't do hackintosh anymore. 

My love for writing and technology will remain for as long as I am me perhaps so I'm thinking of not letting go of Saving For A Mac where I'm planning to write my "tech-lusting". Well, ok, I'll be honest again - I just don't remember my GoDaddy account details and can't figure out how to stop them from billing me yearly for automatic domain renewal (stupid me, really).

Also, there's this CloudWalker 360 thing that I recently started that talks about Autodesk 360 (Autodesk's "play-catch-up-with-the-rest-of-them" cloud offering). Don't get me wrong! I don't have grudges against the company itself but it is my hope that it can surprise and make everyone hold their breath with what it can do with its Autodesk 360. At the moment, it's still under development.

Let's just say, rather than being obliged, that I'm given the "chance" to self-learn and document this service offering from Autodesk.

Oh and I forgot, I'm now a mother of 2 violins which make me (pleasantly) occupied recently (but perhaps irritatingly disturbing to my 2 flatmates and HDB neighbors) and my babies take most of my time off work now.

Meet "Aubie" and my youngest "Rius":

Aubie

"Rius" - because he's a Strad patterned fiddle

Next Step

So after more than three years, I finally have my first Mac. I think that this really is the right time to get one: Core i5, MacBook Air and I also get to enjoy what I've always loved about netbooks - portability - so I and my 11" MBA are more than made for each other.
The question now is: What's next? What happens now to MacBook Mini?
I stand guilty of leaving MacBook Mini, though not neglected (it now shares MBA's Techlink Anti-bacterial MacBook Cleaner), untouched in a corner (actually, I transferred it another desk - my housemate's) for a week now.
Aside from running torrents, I don't think it would serve anything more as having been spoiled with Core i5, SSD and 4G DDR3 goodness even for only a little more than seven days has rendered me unable to go back to that Atom N280 abyss.
With the extra project initiative at work involving lots of Excel fiddling on top the papers for my masters that I just have to write using Word, I now admit that I do need my productivity software Office 2011 for Mac after all.

The sluggish performance of Office 2011 on the HP Mini 311 running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 had prompted me ever since to take care of my Microsoft Office needs with a Windows PC at home in the Philippines. And now, here in Singapore, I've found myself lugging my office issued HP EliteBook whenever I've needed to write my school stuff.
iWork is just not a viable option for me given the strict conditions specified for paper formatting for my MA.
And after discovering how MS Office 2011 for Mac works so effortlessly on the mid-2011 MacBook Air, I finally can leave that vile laptop in the office as it belongs there and not inflict torture on my scoliotic back.
My cousin will be coming here in Singapore and she'll be needing a laptop. I'm considering giving her the HP Mini 311.
Yep, that's not the MacBook Mini. She'll be using the machine primarily for editing her CV and tracking her online job applications. And though I'd totally love to infect her with that Mac or hackintosh fever, I just couldn't because she's an MS Office person and MS Office for Mac on the HP Mini 311 running Snow Leopard is just a pain in the @ss to use.
But before I reformat MacBook Mini (that's in March so there's still a lot of time), I hope I can update that installation guide to include THeKiNG's latest (and last, I think) development.

Apple Store Goodies

Remember that delivery for my MacBook Air got delayed for one business day?

The Apple care rep that got my call that last Friday when I had called to ask why my MBA was showing as stuck in a heliport in Hong Kong, called again on Tuesday, after I got my MBA on Monday.

He politely checked whether I did get my package and if I was happy with my purchase. He also mentioned again what he had said in passing that Friday; that they were giving me a gift coupon to compensate me for the wait. This time, he confirmed how much they were gonna give me: S$ 65

I should've upped the ante a bit more because he did ask me if S$ 65 was okay. Stupid me; I almost automatically quipped "okay". I'd like to chalk it up to that being the first time I was ever offered anything to compensate for waiting.

On hind sight, yes, not getting my MacBook Air 11" on Friday as indicated on the "ships by" info was an inconvenience. I now see the rationale as "what if I really needed the machine in my hands before the weekend?". I guess it's just that I've been inconvenienced all my life and so MacBook Airs that don't deliver on the communicated date has become the norm for me.

Perhaps my Singapore life will teach me to become more of those customers that are ever more irate and impatient by the day. "Wha' you wan' lah?!? You waisti' time lah!"

And so, without further ado and illogical paranoia of the gift coupon's March 16 expiration date, I present to you my Apple loot, procured with the help of that S$ 65 gift coupon:

To name the 3 items (clockwise) :

1. TechLink's "Keep It Clean" Anti-Bacterial Notebook Spray and Cloth - S$ 17
2. Moshi 11" ClearGuard Keyboard Protector for MacBook Air - S$ 39
3. Speck 11" SeeThru Case for MacBook Air (2nd Gen. - Clear) - S$ 69

Yep, if you think of it, that S$120 I saved by getting my MacBook Air during the Red Day Sale is more than reclaimed by Apple's sales through this S$ 125 spent on accessories. Since I got that S$ 65 coupon, my total spending was lowered down to S$ 60. 

I think I still can get that external hard drive if I want to. Not that I already need to; I've transferred all the files that currently live on MacBook Mini's internal hard drive to the MacBook Air and my SSD use is still showing as:

Plus I still have around 30 GB free space on my Seagate Free Agent Go 320 GB external hard drive where I keep movies, complete episodes of my fave K-drama and other chunks of files whose value to me I don't even remember anymore.

MC - Medical Certificate

I didn't get good sleep last night; my allergies were killing me. Before it takes on a full-blown asthma attack, I'm taking this issue to Dr. Lie at the neighborhood clinic. He's very accommodating - so much so that I get to diagnose my own self after the consultation. One time, I'd been running high fever coupled with colds for two nights and one day and when I went to see Dr. Lie, he just let me ramble on about my symptoms and we ended up like so:

Me: Do you think that I already have infection?
Dr. Lie: Yes.

And then he scribbled the usual doctor's scrawl on his prescription pad, paused, looked at me and confirmed that "You want a MC, right? I'll give you three days."

Well, today, I'll be seeing him again. I guess I should read up on asthma and aligue or seafood. I'd better be prepared or where would we be if I didn't take this initiative?

But that particular episode is for later. Being the good geekette that I am or aspire to be, instead of using this opportunity to study for my masters (yes, finally, I have my equivalent of undergrad diploma from Sorbonne - Paris 3 and am officially eligible for graduate studies, I'm on M1 now), of course I'm spending the first half of my day, well, geeking out.

First up, Geekbench


I've had my svelte little mid-2011 MacBook Air 11" for about 3 days now. My productivity apps are all installed (thank you to my previous company who gave me a free copy of Office 2011 for Mac), dropbox synching away happily in the background, in short everything seems like I've always had this particular MacBook Air all my life. Err...with the exception of my iTunes library and settings which I couldn't quite figure how to transfer over from my HP Mini 311 running Snow Leopard - I didn't use and have never liked Migration Assistant as I prefer starting fresh always.

My two housemates also sync their iPhones on the HP Mini 311 and we have successfully set up sync over Wi-Fi. I really want to just transfer those user settings over to the MBA, without using Migration Assistant, so we won't have to erase and re-sync all 3 of our iPhones.

Anyway, using Office 2011 for Mac was sluggish on the HP Mini 311 and so I've developed serious negative opinion about that Microsoft productivity suite. But that soon changed, in fact just 2 days ago. I was pleasantly surprised that Office 2011 for Mac was very very zippy on the MBA.

Curious, I thought I had to have a numerical representation of that difference in user-experience. Geekbench downloaded from Primatelabs, I ran the application on both computers. Here's the result:

1st Run:

I wasn't expecting the hackintoshed HP Mini 311 to beat the MacBook Air; it's a given that the outdated low-profile Atom N280 (though seemingly clocked higher at 1.67 GHz) is no match for the Core i5 (1.60 GHz) but I didn't think it would score lower than it ever did.

If you look at the HP Mini 311's Geekbench scores from a year or so ago, you'd see that disguising itself as a MacBook Pro 5,5 averaged at least 1,040 and now, it can't even get past the 1,000 mark. I can't help wonder what caused the change.

Is it my current hackintosh setup? I mean, it's no denying that there's been quite an overhaul from when MowgliBook was heading the development and when THeKiNG stepped in, that plus several other factors such as Mac OS X Snow Leopard itself; we're now running 10.6.8. And maybe even Geekbench's new version has something to do about the results - a lot of things could've contributed to the change in scores.

Made For Each Other

And fate, err DHL, has finally brought us together

>> Click here to read the story here :D

I'm So Excited. That I Just Can't Hide It..

And can't help blog about it.

And can't help but go on "addictus mode" and monitor every activity over at Apple's site and now DHL:

I may get feverish later for all I know.

:">

A dream come true. Finally.

I've just run out of words.

Surreal.

Oh, I so love the Lunar New Year from now on.

Xīn Nián Kuài Lè!

新年快乐

SingPost

And thus my hypothesis is tested and the experiment given conclusion: the Singapore Post is way more efficient than the Philippine Post.

Alright, that's a given truth and so needed not be proven in the first place.

I ordered an extra battery pack on eBay for USD 28.99 with free shipping worldwide last November 11 and here I am, just 3 weeks after I placed the order, testing the new battery pack for the HP Mini 311.

Imagine the joy of someone who was used to waiting at least 8 weeks minimum.

Placed side by side, the two battery were identical. The replacement battery pack (one without the distinctive black "replace with HP spare" sticker) was surprisingly well built. The plastic is quite on par with the original one, although it didn't quite match that of the original's glossy parts.

As for the more substantial part of this description, the capacity differs in between the two packs even though both contain 6 cells.

Indicated on the battery itself:

1. Original HP 6-cell : 4910 mAh indicated
2. replacement 6-cell : 5100 mAh indicated 

As detected by battery management utilities, I'll let you just look at these screenshots:

1. Original HP battery : 5100 mAh

2. Replacement battery : 4400 mAh 

(but apparently currently extended to 4567 mAh)

The description on the seller's page on eBay on the other hand remains honest and lists 4400 mAh.

If you're interested to check it out, you can visit this link on eBay.

NVidia Ion 1st Gen or GeForce 9400m

It is no big news that the HP Mini 311's NVidia Ion graphics chip is basically the GeForce 9400m. While that is true and tested while I was on the Windows side - 720p .mkv files would play fine, as I remember it - it doesn't seem to be that way on the Mac OS X side.

Earlier this year, my worst experience with playing those HD video files (I was watching "Iris", yes, it's a Korean action drama), was that there would split-second freezes here and there but no green artefacts littering VLC's video window like I see now.

Perhaps it's CUDA driver related? Maybe. I should get some time to test whether that's the root of evil. It's either that or the 512MB rated for the Total VRAM is only eye-candy.

Update: Nope, it is not eye candy. Use Plex player for Mac OS X and you'll see that the Mini 311 can handle 720p .mkv quite smoothly.

Battery Battery

We've been together for almost 2 years and it's only now that I get to know what's happening deep inside you :D

And it reads:

"Your Apple notebook battery is designed to retain 80% of its original capacity at up to 300 charge cycles. Your battery capacity is currently at 89%, and you have already overcome 300 cycles (you have done 371 cycles)."

Wow...

Linux, Linux, How Do I Love Thee?

Linux, Linux, how do I love thee?
Let me count the ways;
I love thee with a love that makes Ubuntu a permanent resident in my USB flashdrive
With the depth and height of Grub that is able to boot Snow Leopard on /dev/sdaX
When Chameleon is out of sight...
I love thee to the level that I might consider a dual boot with 10.6.8
Most quiet need, by dd if=boot1h of=/dev/sdaX that distroyeth MBR (but then I remember, I'm on GPT so giveth what?!?)
I love thee with a love that seems to lose
ultimately to no one else but a hackintosh. :D


It's amazing that even though I sabotaged Chameleon on my internal hard drive trying to update to 10.6.8 and apply THeKiNG's 09032011 pack, I only needed my trusty Ubuntu 11 USB stick to boot OS X up. Of course, it's a given that the necessary files are installed correctly - most importantly those kexts to be put in /System/Library/Extensions. There just was not anything "broken" on my system aside from the boot file installation on my hard drive.