Yes I’ve heard the joke, “Q: What’s the best beer in Taiwan? A: Imported”. If you believe this then pick up some American beer (1 of the 2 brands at 7-11) and then we’ll see who’s laughing. Anywho..

I generally drink Taiwan Draft because it’s a nice clean beer to drink in hot weather. However I do like to indulge in the Barley Beer from the Taiwan micro brewery Le ble d'or http://www.lebledor.com.tw/ . It’s a bit pricier than the normal beer, I picked up 2x 1Litre bottles from CostCo for 500NT, but I’m enjoying a bottle now, and it is nice.

So I've been trying to teach Violet how to use my camera. Things haven't been going so well. As you can see she keeps on putting her fingers over the lens:

Which then confuses her when she tries to frame the photo:

Potentially the camera is too heavy as she struggles a bit when pointing up and puts more fingers over the lens:

If she moves her fingers then they end up over the flash as well:

Here's some of the better results, but most have fingers in them:

She took some photos in a restaurant. While she was able to frame the picture better she still put her fingers over the lens:

For this one she worked out that she could rest the camera on the edge of her high chair and thus not put her fingers over the lens:

Sunday was a nice sunny day in Taiwan. Here's the view from Jasmine's bedroom window:

So we drove to a Gold mine town on the North East coast. Here's a couple of pictures of the town:

Here's a picture of the coast taken from within the town, the carpark on the lower left is where I took the first picture of the town from:

The town had narrow alleyways:

and a lot of stairs:

There was also a road that wound its way through the middle of the town, and was surprisingly busy:

In the town Violet got some new shoes:

The shoes were taken apart and reassembled to fit Violet's feet:

We took some family photos:

and then went to go home. It took a while to get back to the carpark because Violet insisted on walk down all the stairs herself.

Just wiped my Acer Aspire One netbook and reinstalled the operating system. Took the opportunity to try out Windows 7 RC on my netbook which I’m now running.

The reason I did this is because I got a virus on my netbook from a guy at work. I loaned him my USB flash drive which he plugged into his home computer which put a virus on it, which was new and so got past both his virus detection software and my virus detection software. Anyway the main cause of the spread of this thing is the Windows autorun behaviour, and I found a way to turn this off on this website http://antivirus.about.com/od/securitytips/ht/autorun.htm

Basically you copy this text into a .reg file, and install it:

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\Autorun.inf]
@="@SYS:DoesNotExist"

In March this year (2009) I embarked on a new fitness regime. My modest goals for the end of June were to be able to do 30 pushups in a row and jog from Waterfall Gully South Australia to Mt Lofty in under 40 minutes. With the pushups I started off being able to do 15, and with the jog I started off at 50 minutes. Mt Lofty run first: I BROKE 40 MINUTES! to Mt Lofty. In fact on Saturday I tried so hard that I actually broke 39 minutes – did it in 38 minutes 56 seconds. There is a standard run listed on the internet that is 40 seconds shorter than the run I do, so I would rank about 16th on this list of times http://www.train2max.com/sites/pt/t2m.nsf/xtraClimbUnid/8A0CD712876F230AE92574BB002B07C5?opendocument

Anyway I guess I need to adjust my goal as it isn’t June yet, so I’m going to aim for my best time ever of 36 minutes 30 seconds.

With the pushups I’m only up to 23, the interesting thing though is how many I can do in a day. I do pushups Monday to Friday, and this week I did 1052 pushups total, that’s an average of 210 per day. On Friday I did 229 pushups over 8.5 hours so that’s about 27 pushups per hour. When I started in March, on the first day I did 100 pushups in 8 hours, so that’s 12.5 pushups per hour.

So here’s the improvements I’ve made in 2.5 months:

Pushups in one stint, improved 53%

Average pushups per hour, improved 116%

Speed to Mt Lofty improved 28%

Average Power output to Mt Lofty improved 64%

So the big gain is in the sustained amount of exercise that I can do during the day. This has had quite a positive effect on my general well being. I find I need less sleep and have more energy to do more things in my spare time.

For starters you need to equip yourself properly. If you’re going to take photography seriously you need the right setup like this for example:

I bought a Ford Falcon a couple months ago, just something not too expensive that I can use to get to work and visit clients. Anyway in messing around this weekend I ended up momentarily disconnecting the power from the audio system, so then it required me to enter a security code 2728 to get it working again. The problem is that the Ford Philips Radio in my car only has 5 preset buttons. I looked in the user manual that came with the car, and unfortunately the radio in there looked the same, except that the one in the manual didn’t have the security code function. I eventually found out how to enter the code. I’ll put the instructions here because I thought it was a bit amusing as far as user interfaces go:

Programming Procedure For Security Coded Radios    Ford

Your radio has a security code feature which deters thefts by disabling the radio when removed from the vehicle. The following programming procedure is to be used to recommission the radio if the power has been temporarily disconnected (e.g. new battery installed).

1. Turn ignition switch to the accessories position

2. Turn radio on; the radio and cassette will now operate for three minutes but the letter “C” will flash every four seconds to indicate the radio still requires a code to become fully operational. After three minutes the radio stops functioning and the word “Code” will appear in the display.

3. The radio security code can now be entered by pressing button 5 to start entry (A zero will appear in the display).

4. Press the Up or Down button repeatedly until the first digit of your radio security code is in the display. Press preset button 5 to store the first digit. (The display now also shows a small “1” to indicate the first digit has been stored).

5. Repeat item 4 for the remaining three digits in order.

6. If the correct code is entered the display will show station frequency. Refer to the owner’s handbook to store your selected AM and FM stations using the preset buttons.

7. If an incorrect code has been entered “Err” will be in the display. Turn the set off and repeat items 2 to 5.

Haven’t said anything about myself for a while, so here’s a few little bits.

When I get to 100 I’ll probably look like my uncle Doug. Scary really. Here’s a photo:

I’ve been drinking a bit much Pocari Sweat lately, but gee it makes me feel good:

Went out with my friend Ian and his wife Mindi from Taiwan:

I reckon this year is the year I’m going to hit all magic 3 at once: Healthy Wealthy and Wise:

Mt Lofty run today: 40 minutes 50 seconds. The air seemed a lot thinner up there today, so I think that’s why I was 40 seconds slower than last week. On the bright side I did 800 pushups this week.

Just reminding myself, as sometimes I forget to be patient.

Just right for wildlife photos:

Dammit. I set myself a target of jogging uphill from Waterfall Gully to Mt Lofty in under 40 minutes this weekend, and I failed: 40 minutes, 9 seconds. I had nothing left in me when I got to the top, had to bend over to breathe. Next week I’m going for a 39 minutes 30 seconds. Normally I take a bottle of water with me, but this week I took a 1.5 ltr bottle of Pocari Sweat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocari_Sweat , not sure it helped much over water, but it didn’t seem to do any harm, and I did at least still feel energetic when I got to the top, just that I couldn’t breathe hard enough. Need to get my fitness up a bit.

If you are in Adelaide you can get Pocari Sweat at the Hong Kong Grocery at the Grote St end of Moonta St in China Town. Complements of Google Maps:

In general I am a hard worker. I push myself all the way at anything I do, but this last week I seem particularly driven. During the week I did over 650 pushups, but I impressed myself today jogging to Mt Lofty from Waterfall Gully. Last week I did it in 46 minutes, not a great time, but I’ve just starting doing it again after having not exercised much for 2 years. Today I did it in 40 minutes 50 seconds – I wiped 5 minutes off my time. At the time I did it, I can only describe it as feeling as if there was a vicious Tiger inside me, roaring up the hill. I feel driven, aggressive, ready to take on anything.

This entry is just about some code I came up with at work. It’s handy for me to post stuff like this to my blog so that I can just search my blog for the solution next time I come up with the same problem, instead of me working out the solution each time.

For my job I've been working on a C++ plugin for a proprietary application. The plugin had been written for something else, but had to be ported to this new application. This meant that I don't have control over what technologies are used as I am not meant to change too much.

When the plugin is loaded it is meant to spawn a non-modal / modeless dialog that is a child of the parent window, so it's like a tool window. The plugin GUI is all written in C++/MFC, and unfortunately it appeared that when the dialog was spawned, it wasn't getting any messages from the Windows Message Queue. In fact if I clicked on the child dialog, and then clicked back on the parent window, the parent window would move to the location of the child dialog, so the parent was consuming the messages meant for the child window.

My solution to this was to spawn another thread, create the modal MFC dialog, and then process all the messages for that thread. I've seen a few forum posts where people got stuck on this issue, so I thought I would post my solution here.

Here’s the code in the .cpp and .h files for this example. You’ll have to do your own resource file.

// ChildWindowTest.cpp : implementation file
//

#include "stdafx.h"
#include "resource.h"
#include "ChildWindowTest.h"

// CChildWindowTest dialog

IMPLEMENT_DYNAMIC(CChildWindowTest, CDialog)

CChildWindowTest::CChildWindowTest(CWnd* pParent /*=NULL*/)
: CDialog(CChildWindowTest::IDD, pParent)
{
}

CChildWindowTest::~CChildWindowTest()
{
}

void CChildWindowTest::DoDataExchange(CDataExchange* pDX)
{
    CDialog::DoDataExchange(pDX);
}

void CChildWindowTest::OnParentCreated(HWND parentHwnd)
{
    static bool firstPass = true;
    if (!firstPass)
        return;
    firstPass = false;
    AfxBeginThread(CChildWindowTest::OpenChildWindow,parentHwnd,THREAD_PRIORITY_NORMAL,0,0,NULL);
}

UINT CChildWindowTest::OpenChildWindow( LPVOID Param )
{
    AFX_MANAGE_STATE(AfxGetStaticModuleState());
    HWND parentHwnd = (HWND)Param;

    CWnd* parentCwnd = CWnd::FromHandle(parentHwnd);
    CChildWindowTest* childDlg = new CChildWindowTest(parentCwnd);
    childDlg->Create(IDD, parentCwnd);
    childDlg->ShowWindow(SW_SHOW);

    BOOL bRet;
    MSG msg;
    while( (bRet = GetMessage( &msg, NULL, 0, 0 )) != 0)
    { 
        if (bRet == -1)
        {
            // Error Occured
        }
        else
        {
            TranslateMessage(&msg); 
            DispatchMessage(&msg); 
        }
    }
    return 0;
}

BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP(CChildWindowTest, CDialog)
END_MESSAGE_MAP()

// CChildWindowTest message handlers




// ChildWindowTest.h
//


#pragma once


// CChildWindowTest dialog

class CChildWindowTest : public CDialog
{
    DECLARE_DYNAMIC(CChildWindowTest)

public:
    CChildWindowTest(CWnd* pParent = NULL);   // standard constructor
    virtual ~CChildWindowTest();
    static void OnParentCreated(HWND parentHwnd);
    static UINT OpenChildWindow( LPVOID Param );
// Dialog Data
    enum { IDD = IDD_CHILDWINDOWTEST };

protected:
    virtual void DoDataExchange(CDataExchange* pDX);    // DDX/DDV support
    DECLARE_MESSAGE_MAP()
};

Pushups are one of those exercises that are good for quickly building up your upper body strength. This weeks I bought some $5 pushup bars at cheap as chips, and from Tuesday started taking a 30 second break every now and then at work to do some pushups. Here’s this weeks pushup progress:

I announced the first proper release of Stewien Filters on the Paint.NET forum here http://paintdotnet.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=29359

This announcement also appears on the forum plugin publishing page here http://paintdotnet.forumer.com/viewforum.php?f=16

Here’s a copy of what I posted:

Stewien Filters is a Paint.NET plugin project I’ve just started working on. I’ve got some background in image processing in the medical industry, and I wanted to apply some of that experience to creating Paint.NET plugins. Although what I’ve done so far is pretty simple.

I’ve put up some documentation and sample images on a web site with separate web pages for each filter. This is the first release (version 1.2) and instead of releasing all the filters as separate DLLs and hard coding the parent menu into the filters, I’ve instead included an XML file that allows the user to configure which filters are visible, and which parent menu the filters come under. The XML file goes in the same location as the DLL. If missing the DLL will create a new XML file with default options.
Let me know what you think about this configuration method.

The filters are open source and are hosted on SourceForge as part of my StewienMisc project. The binary DLL, and xml file are in a zip archive that can be downloaded from

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=208437

The filters included in this version are:

Dilate (see http://stewienfilters.com/Dilate.aspx)
Kuwahara Filter (see http://stewienfilters.com/KuwaharaFilter.aspx)
Kuwahara Filter Modified (see http://stewienfilters.com/KuwaraharaFilterModified.aspx)
To Angle (see http://stewienfilters.com/ToAngle.aspx)
Transparency By Color Subtraction (see http://stewienfilters.com/TransparencyByColor.aspx)

On the Sunday this weekend I went to the 2009 Adelaide Clipsal 500 V8 Supercar Race. Here’s a video I took: 

Normally I would buy Gold Seat tickets for the grandstand, but for the best seats I would have had to buy them back in July 2008, and I didn’t know I was going to be in Adelaide this March. In fact I wasn’t going to go at all this year, but a friend of mine got some free tickets to the General Admission area on the Sunday, so that’s where we went. I must say I didn’t care for it much, this was the first time I went to the Clipsal 500 without having a Gold grandstand seat to sit in, and the experience wasn’t quite the same. Still it was a nice day out, got to drink some beer, watch the cars a bit, and hang out in the sun, although I did get a bit burnt:

I seem to be doing well in the self motivation stakes at the moment. This showed up in my jogging effort to Mt Lofty, but more on that later. I finished coding up the next version of Stewien Filters (version 1.2) which can be configured to have user defined parent menus for the filters, and allow the user to turn filters on and off, and I finished coding up a plugin for Desktop Sidebar that displays Currency Exchange Rates. I still need to announce the new version of Stewien Filters on the Paint.NET forums, and I need to create a mini installer and announce the Desktop Sidebar plugin, but all in all I think this was a pretty good effort for the Saturday.

The jog up to Mt Lofty was particularly testing. Last week I had done it in 46.5 minutes, this week I was aiming to beat 46 minutes. This was on the Saturday which was a very hot day, and it was humid and muggy. I got to the quarter time point in 9 minutes. My aim was a bit slower than 11 minutes. To get there in 9 minutes was actually a bad sign because it meant that I had done the first stint too fast and hadn’t left myself enough energy to do the rest at a reasonable pace. Being aware of this I was pushing myself harder to make sure I didn’t drop too much time over the rest of the jog. I got to the half time point at 23 minutes, so I was good for a 46 minute jog, but at this point I was starting to overheat and run out of breath, so I was particularly worried that I would be slower in the second half because I was exhausted and overheated – so I pushed myself even harder. The second half of the jog is steep – my legs were starting to go numb, my toes were curling up in cramp, the sun on my back made me feel like I was standing in front of an open furnace, I was feeling dizzy, my eyes were filling up with salt from my sweat, my lungs felt like they were going to collapse, and my breath was burning my throat, but I was determined not to be slower than 46 minutes. I pushed on hard, getting close to the end I felt like I was going to die and it felt like the grim reaper was choking off my breath, but eventually I made it, and I beat 46 minutes…by 1 minute! Yes I got down to 45 minutes this week. So next week I’ll need to aim for quicker than that, hopefully I’ll pace myself correctly in the first quarter such that I complete it in 11 minutes.

On the Sunday, here in Adelade, I jogged from the car park at the end of Waterfall Gully Road to Mt Lofty Lookout. It’s an uphill climb of about 3.5km. Took me 50 minutes up, and 40 minutes back down. Years ago I set a personal best uphill time of 36 minutes, 30 seconds. I think it will take me a while to get back down to that time. On the Monday I did it again, but this time I was more mentally prepared. This time I did it in 46 minutes, 30 seconds. Here’s what I looked like when I got to the top:

It’s not an easy jog, here’s a Google Earth shot showing the Waterfall Gully car park, and the Mt Lofty lookout:

I’m in Adelaide at the moment for work as I’ve picked up a nice government contract here. The duration is meant to be about 4 months, but they are already asking me if I can take on a follow-up contract…we’ll see. Anyway, while I’m here I’ve got some videos and stuff I’d like to share with my parents, unfortunately it’s not really convenient for them to look at a computer, so I need to convert everything to DVD so that they can watch it on their DVD player. In particular I had some High Definition stuff in .mkv format that needed to be down converted. I tried a few things, but one really nice open source tool did it all: read all the file formats I could think of, allowed subtitles to be added, allowed joining of videos together. This tool was DVD Flick. Here’s a list of features:

Features