April 2008 Archives

I got to see the doctor today (finally), and got some prescription medicines for my naggy cough that wouldn't go away...  500mg tables of antibiotics, and cough suppressant fluid.  And yikes were they expensive!  Antibiotics works out to be 70+ Cdn, and cough suppressant fluid works out to be 35+ Cdn. (For those that don't know, Canadian currency is almost 1 to 1 with American USD these days)  Good thing the insurance company covered most of the fees and I only had to pay 20 some odd dollars for the two of them.

While the antibiotic tablets tasted bitter and is nothing special, I must say, however, the cough fluid tastes exceptionally nice.  The prescription was "Dimetapp-C", and upon google'ing, I was able to locate this webpage which offered some details about it:
RxMed.  Apparently, this particular medicine is known for substance abuse, and so it now requires prescription... and I can see why! :)  Well, I'm not going to abuse it... its too expensive for my income...

Anyways, update is brief today because I'm still coughing non-stop, I guess the medication doesn't kick in that quickly.  I'm gonna hit the sac and get some rest... Hopefully things will be better by the time I wake up (Yay for placebo effect and magical medication?).

As mentioned earlier, I will touch base on some of my active projects, explain what they are, what they do, why I created them, and what not.  Today, I bring you one of my most distinguishable project -- Repo Source.

Why did I start the project?  Several moons ago, during the launch of the product known as Apple iPod Touch, I pre-ordered an iPod Touch thinking it was "the thing" to have ... turns out, I was wrong, but that's a whole different story.  Shortly after jailbreak and what not, I became relatively involved with the iPod Touch / iPhone scene, and I noticed a serious issue.  Installer, an application that is used to allow end-line users install third party applications on their iPod Touch / iPhone, is awfully slow when it needs to keep track of multiple repositories, and especially so if certain repository(ies) are down,  unreachable due to network issues, or out of bandwidth.  This, at first, was not an issue; however, with every 14 year old insisting on starting their "own repository" and steal applications from other repositories, as well as software developers insisting on housing their one and only application on their own repository, it became a serious issue.  When end-line users with up-wards to hundreds of repositories in their Installer database, the likely-hood of someone encountering a down/slow/dead repository grew, and load times are often upwards to 10 or 15 minutes.  When I saw this problem, I started designing a meta-data repository system which allows users to select and filter their contents to custom tailor their needs, as well as drastically reduce their Installer's loading time.   And in time, Repo Source was born.

Well, although I am done with school, I still need to wrap up any possible closures.  For example, our final project -- BlueTooth powered cellular multiplayer role playing rhythm game (quite a mouthful isn't it?) -- still needs to be put on a CD/DVD for instructors to grade. (I'll talk more about the project at a later date)  I'd also need to head in at one point to make sure everything is fallen into the right place, so my graduation application actually gets approved.

As such, I intend to head into campus on Friday coming up.  Why so long from now?  Well, I'm unfortunately hit with the regional flavour of the month disease -- commonly known as flu? -- which is keeping me away form sleep, work, and entertainment.  I wonder how I pass my days.  Things are getting better, thank you for asking.  My sore throat is wearing down, and I can finally focus on typing for 5 to 10 minutes without having to cough my lungs out. 

On Friday, I should be able to arrange the required disc, as well as pay career planning office to see about getting a job locally...  Let's see how things play out.

If you haven't already read the about section, I'll quickly recap for you.  I've recently completed my post secondary under-grad degree.  I figured that now is a good time to start blogging and publicly record what I am doing with my life after graduation.  As such, this blog will contain things I feel worth-while of reporting.  It will probably not be too important, but in case if I ever get popular one day, it serves as a purpose of book keeping of how I got there ;)