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New Year’s Resolutions 2009 – Follow Up

Ben — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:51:14 +0000

This is a little late. I remembered I posted a few resolutions last year, so I thought I had better at least follow up on those resolutions.

Become a Better Programmer

I probably have become a little better just through work, but I don’t think I’ve followed through on what I proposed. Work was hectic this past year, but circumstances have changed and I think I can do it this. I’m going set aside sometime for reading that big pile of programming books stacked up behnd me.

Listen to More Music

I did ok with this one. I’ve expanded my music horizon a bit more this year. That was apparent when a friend asked what sort of music I listened to and she had never heard any of the bands I mentioned. Will have to keep at this one.

Be more organised

I put a lot of effort into this one. Not sure if I’ve improved, but I certainly learned a lot about being organised in the past year. I’ve recently started trying out The Pomodoro Technique, so I’m heading in the right direction.

Ubuntu 9.04 Fresh Install Checklist

Ben — Sun, 10 May 2009 03:32:26 +0000

What I’ve install so far on my fresh Ubuntu 9.04 install.

NVIDIA drivers – Drivers for NVIDIA video card
VLC – Media player
Gnome Do – App launcher (like Mac’s Quicksilver and Win’s Launchy)
CompizConfig Settings Manager – Config for visual effects
VirtualBox – Virtualisation software
Adobe AIR and TweetDeck – Twitter client

I’m sure this list will get longer before the day is done. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackolope

Ben — Sun, 10 May 2009 03:07:46 +0000

Currently enjoying my fresh install of Ubuntu Desktop 9.04. Ubuntu is looking more and more polished with every release. If I were Microsoft I would be shaking in my boots. Who’s going to pay for $500 – 600 for Windows and Office when you can download this for free.

Windows Fresh Install Checklist

admin — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 02:33:40 +0000

This morning I’ve been setting up a fresh install of Windows on a new HD. I’ve been setting up Windows a lot lately, so I thought I’d create a checklist of the things I usually do when I first login.

Install hardware drivers – motherboard, network, video, sound
Install service packs and updates
Avast! – anti virus
Firefox – web browser
- Install add-ons: Firebug, Web Developer, Twitterfox, Ubiquity, Delicious
Launchy – app launcher
Notepad++ – Notepad replacement
7-Zip – archiver
Filezilla – FTP
Keepass – password manager
DropBox – file sync
Change the orange flower user picture to something less girly

Firebug 1.3.0

admin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:39:54 +0000

Web developers rejoice! Firebug goodness has been updated.

Firebug 1.3.0 Final Released

Happy New Year

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 09:34:53 +0000

Hope you have a great 2009.

Merry Christmas

admin — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 07:57:17 +0000

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope you all have a great day.

I’m Ben Wong

admin — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 07:54:03 +0000

Hello. I’m Ben Wong. And this is my blog. I haven’t quite worked out what I’ll be writing about on this blog yet, but I’m hoping to work that out eventually.

For those who don’t know me, I guess I should introduce myself.

When people ask me what I do for a living, I say I’m a Web Developer. Officially, I’m a Senior Web Architect at Orli-Tech in Brisbane, Australia. I’m not much for titles, so I stick to calling myself a Web Developer.

Orli-Tech is traditionally a Microsoft shop. So I mainly work with ASP, ASP.NET and SQL Server at work. At home, I’m much more open-minded about technology. I’m powered by multiple Macs (Macbook Pro, Macbook and Mac mini) and a PC duel-booting Windows Vista and Ubuntu.

As you can tell, I’m a bit of a geek. But I’m the moderately sporty and adventurous type, because I play basketball, cycle, hike and travel the world whenever I can. I’m also a bit of a shutterbug.

Well, that’s about as much I want to write about myself for now. And I think that’s enough to get you going.