One of my resolutions this year is to read 100 books. It's already a little over halfway through the year, and so far I've read 44 books. Looks like at least one of my goals will be reached this year. The best part of it is, I've spent relatively very little on buying books this year. All thanks to the Knowbetter Lending Library. It works just like a normal library, except they serve ebooks. You can borrow up to 2 books at a time, for anywhere from 3-14 days. You can search for books according to genre, title, author and sort according to customer ratings, size of book (in number of words AND approximate time to read) and availability. Like a real library, Knowbetter keeps a limited number of books If the book that you want is not available, you can join the waiting list. You can see where you are in relation to the list, i.e. how many people have booked the book before or after you. The bestselling (best-rated books) are sometimes booked for months! Knowbetter uses Mobipocket as the delivery mechanism. The good this about the Mobipocket Redaser is that it's available on Windows and most PDAs. The books you check out are automatically encoded with an "expiry date". For example, if you borrow a book for 10 days, you won't be able to open it on the 11th day. They have a lot of SF and fantasy classics, so if you're into that kind of thing, this is perfect. I've rediscovered gems by Heinlein, Niven and Asimov. I've found new favourites like Bujold. And at only US$20/year, what's not to like?

I was driving to work this morning, thinking about getting away from it all. Then this phrase came up in my mind : "Operator, I need an exit". Nothing happened.

Ericsson update

I'm sending in my Ericsson t39m phone for firmware upgrading. It's being done as I write this - sent it to Ericserve at Amcorp Mall. It's going to take 45-60 minutes and will cost RM25 (US$8). In the meantime, I'm at the Starbucks outlet on the ground floor, having coffee and connecting via the Timezone hotspot. There are six people with notebooks right now, excluding me. Everyone else is using a Windows notebook.

Yesterday (7th July) was my 6th wedding anniversary. Bad & I went to Genting Highlands. Stayed at the First World hotel. It's the largest hotel in Malaysia, with 6,300 (!!!) rooms. If you want to stay in Genting, I would recommend the other hotels (Genting Hotel, Highlands Hotel, Them Park Hotel) over First World. There were literally thousands of people checking in at the lobby; even if you have reservations, it could take hours to check in. Room rates are relatively cheap (cheapest was RM62/US$16 per night) compared to the others (approx RM200/US$50) but the rooms are very small. Since we already went to the outdoor theme park last month, we played shoot em ups at the indoor arcade. Watched Terminator 3 as well. The cinema was small - two screens, maybe 200 seats each. Price of movie was reasonable (RM9) and popcorn was ok (RM2). Verdict on Terminator 3 : not as bad as expected. I like twisty endings, and it was good to see Claire Danes in a mainstream movie.

I bought a CD today. Significantly, it is the first CD that I have bought in 3 years. Movie VCDs and DVDs are so much better value than music CDs. Anyway, the CD is Blue Note Trip : Saturday Night / Sunday Morning. It's a double CD, and at RM38 (US$10), it's a good deal. Saturday Night is fast and funky, Sunday Morning is slow and groovy.

Last week, I needed to grab some tools for network scanning and monitoring. I settled on Ethereal, and discovered Fink. I've since installed many other Unix goodies on my iBook, including ntop, nmap, and the bluefish editor. Fink Commander is a good graphical interface for Fink. It makes it easier to choose, download and install applications. Three days ago, I decided to install KDE. I'm still only halfway through compiling it!