Category: Simple Feelings

about:sleep (or lack thereof)

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I’m kinda embarrassed to admit this, but this is the best time I’ve managed to track so far.

One of the most useful things for me with the Xiaomi Mi Band is the sleep tracker. I check my sleep data pretty much every morning, and it helps me figure out if I got enough rest the night before and what to do if when I haven’t.

I’ve known for a long time that I usually don’t get enough sleep at night, and I’m not exactly proud of it. I find it way easier to focus at night because it’s so peaceful and calm. While some of you “early to bed, early to rise” folks might not get this, I’m sure the night owls out there totally do.

But whatever your sleep style is, we can all agree on one thing: not getting enough sleep comes with some serious health risks. Seriously, Google it right now! You’ll find tons of research showing how bad sleep deprivation can be. I was gonna link some articles I’ve read about this before, but googling them flooded me with a bunch more. I skimmed a couple, and it freaked me out so much that instead of finishing this post last night around midnight, I went straight to bed!

Anyway, I’ve been tracking my sleep for a few weeks now, and I know I need to step it up. Don’t get me wrong, I always knew I wasn’t getting enough sleep, I just didn’t have the hard numbers… or maybe I was too lazy to actually track it. That’s why the Mi Band’s so helpful, it does all the work for me. Now I know I usually get between 3 to 5 hours a night, around 3 if I stay up too late, and just over 5 if I hit the sack a bit “early.”

Now that I’ve got a clear picture of how much sleep I’m getting and what I need to fix, it’s one less thing to stress about. And honestly, if you saw my numbers, you’d see I don’t have that much to tweak. Since I work from home all the time, I can sleep whenever I want and wake up whenever I feel like it. Some of you who have to get up early to commute might think it’s tougher for you to fix your sleep, trust me, it’s not! I’d argue it’s actually harder for me ‘cause I don’t have that nudge to stick to a set schedule. I end up staying up too late and, for some weird reason, waking up earlier than I should.

My point? Whether you can pick your wake-up time or not, there’s almost always a way to carve out enough sleep (and if there isn’t, you need to rethink what you’re doing, because you’re probably better off alive). I’ve been slacking on this for way too long, but I’m set on changing that now.

So how do we pull this off? Easy! track your daily sleep habits and adjust accordingly. Sort out your schedule ‘til you’re getting at least 6 hours (maybe 7, depending on how you feel). I totally recommend grabbing a sleep tracker. Because it’s been a game-changer for me. I tried some Android apps a while back, but they didn’t cut it. I don’t like keeping my phone that close to me in bed, and I’m not even sure how accurate they are. So, get a real sleep tracker (I mean, $20+ for a shot at better health is a steal =) ).

Once you know how much sleep you’re getting (or how little, if you’re like me), figure out how much more you need for a healthy amount and set up a schedule.

And most importantly, stick to that sleep schedule like your life depends on it. ‘cause it probably does!

~SeeJay

Make blogging great again!

So yeah, I’m tired of not having a proper place to post my rants. And I certainly don’t think I’m accomplishing anything by posting stuff on Facebook (Twitter, I’m still in love with, but there’s only so much you can do with 140 characters).

So a few months back I decided to blame Blogger for my laziness and switched to something better. I went with Pelican because it was written in Python and also it was really good. But after a few weeks, I realized that having all those moving parts (Static site generators, how ironic!) really gets in the way and you end up managing the site rather than posting anything. And I decided that I needed to get back to the one true blog platform!

And today I’m rocking a super cool WordPress installation on my blog. I imported all the content from the old Blogger site and fixed the URL structure. I’ll be hunting for a good theme in the next few days and hopefully keep this blog up to date again, just like the old days.

~SeeJay

Don’t mess with my Internet!

sobrave The coolest thing about the internet? It’s ours! all of us, No matter who you are or where you’re from, we’ve all got the freedom to steer it where we want. But now, the U.S. Congress is messing with that, pushing laws that could wreck the internet’s core setup. Tech giants like Wikipedia, Mozilla, Reddit, Google, and tons more who actually give a damn about protecting the internet are fighting back. But of course, there’s a pack of greedy politicians gunning for these laws, all to prop up a few groups who’d rather trash the internet than fix their outdated business models. That’s straight-up evil, and we’ve got to hit back hard! That’s why everyone who cares about keeping the internet free needs to spread the word and get people clued in to fight the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). If either of these passes, it’s game over for the internet as we know it. Don’t let anyone screw with your internet! Jump into the fight against SOPA/PIPA. Read more at: SOPA Strike SOPA FAQ Tim O’Reilly interview What Experts think InfoGraphic (Picture courtesy of reddit)

Playing with pligg

So I had this idea for a small (I guess) project that uses a Digg-like voting system. I started with the Pligg CMS and messed around with it for a bit, but after two days, I decided to switch to its well-known Drupal-based rival, Drigg. Don’t get me wrong, Pligg’s a solid CMS, and I’m not saying folks should steer clear of it. But for me, it felt a bit too cluttered. 😐

What bugged me about Pligg? The code’s not super clean, you’ve got to tweak a dozen spots just to do something basic like swap a theme. The development’s not as lively as Drupal’s, which has a huge, active dev community. The karma calculation isn’t very transparent, which could be a real pain later. And the user support? It’s “known” for not really listening to feedback 😛 (though I didn’t run into that myself).
So, I jumped to Drigg, and I’m happy I did 🙂 It’s built on Drupal, and you can feel how tidy the code is. Sure, if you go for a manual install, it takes a bit to set up the modules and get Drigg running. You’ll need some Drupal basics too, but it’s honestly kinda fun to figure out, even if you’re totally new to Drupal, it’s not that tough to pick up.

Right now, I’m tinkering with the site, and I might write a post about setting up Drupal+Drigg if I find the time. Oh, and yeah, I’ll spill the beans on this project I’m working on 😛 If you’re into Free Software, you might actually dig it, heehee. But we’ll see how it goes… 😉

~SeeJay

Why I unlocked my HSDPA modem (and why you should too)

As usual, it’s old news to my Twitter followers that I’ve unlocked my Huawei E220 HSDPA modem, which I got with my mobile broadband from Dialog Telecom. It was operator-locked, meaning it only worked with Dialog. I’ve got to say, I loved mobile broadband. The idea of having internet wherever I went was awesome. But Dialog’s been doing everything they can to mess that up. When I signed up, they promised 3.6Mbps, but I’ve never seen anything above 1Mbps. And sometimes their DNS servers crap out, making the connection totally useless.

“They’ll get their act together eventually, and we’ll see decent speeds someday,” I told myself. Man, was I wrong.

A few weeks ago, I noticed Dialog quietly “updated” the mobile broadband speed to 1Mbps on their website. Hold up! What about the connection I bought? What happened to the “super-duper fast” (yeah, I know, hilarious, but that’s how they sold it :P) internet that was supposed to hit 3.6Mbps???
My first thought was, “WTF! Who do they think we are? How do they think they’ll get away with this???” The answer’s simple. They knew they couldn’t deliver 3.6Mbps from the start, but they lied. Why? Because they’re the mighty Dialog Telecom, and we’re just helpless customers in their eyes.

“They’ve already paid, so why care? They can’t switch providers since it’s locked,” – that’s probably what Dialog’s big shots are thinking.
Well, Dialog, I’ve got news for you: anything that can be locked can be unlocked! at least with this HSDPA modem you sold us 😛 And that’s exactly what I did. Now I’ve got a fully functional Huawei E220 HSDPA modem 😀

Unlocking it was pretty straightforward, and no, I didn’t shell out cash to some company to do it 😛 I handled it myself after some solid Googling (shoutout to OpenDNS! Web browsing is a nightmare with Dialog’s junk DNS servers. If you’re still using them, switch to http://opendns.com you’ll thank me later :P).

The first question I got on Twitter was, “Are you switching to Airtel now?” My answer? “Nope!”

I’m not ditching Dialog just yet. Why not? Because I signed up for six months, and I’ll stick to that deal. So why unlock it then? Easy! after six months, I’m free to do whatever, but they’re banking on me being stuck with their modem and not switching. They don’t care. Now that I can hop between networks with this same modem, they know I might, and that’s what keeps greedy companies like Dialog from screwing us over. It’s why we should all do it! Teach them to respect their customers.

There are tons of guides out there for unlocking HSDPA modems. My next post, which I’ll write tomorrow morning, will be a step-by-step on unlocking the Huawei E220, the most common HSDPA modem in Sri Lanka. Most of my friends have this one, so chances are you do too. Let me know if you’ve got a different model, I’m always happy to help.

Don’t get it wrong, I’m not some Airtel shill or out to take down Dialog Telecom (LOL!). This isn’t just about Dialog either, it applies to Mobitel, Airtel or whoever there is! My point is, we customers deserve the freedom to pick a network that actually delivers decent service. If they won’t give it to us, we’ve got to push back! I just took the first swing.
~SeeJay

Wanna learn GIMP??? (!!!)

Me too!!! 😀 We’ve got to build this website for our Internet Techs & Apps module this semester, and I’m supposed to design a slick header and logo for it. Well, the whole site, really. I’ll be handling all the coding, but my group mates are killing it with gathering the data, sketching layouts, and all that jazz. That stuff’s the hardest for me, so I’m super, SUPER grateful they’re not making me deal with it.

But here’s the kicker, I’m terrible at graphic design! 😛 Well, not totally. It’s just that I haven’t had time (ugh, not that excuse again!) to mess around with it. Graphic design’s never really been my thing. I barely touched Photoshop back in my Windo$ days either… But now that I’ve got to step up for this project, I figured it’s a good chance to try out GIMP. Hoping it’s easy to pick up since I’m not hooked on those evil proprietary tools like… you know… Photoshop (yep, I said it! :D).

So, I’m scouring the web for GIMP tutorials and stumbled across some cool sites so far. I’ll stash them in my scrapbook for whenever I need them (err… scrapbook??? That’s a story for another post, hee hee…).

gimp-tutorials.net

gimp.org tutorials

YouTube GIMP tutorials

gimpguru.org

gimp-tutorials.com

OK, that’s it for now, folks! Hit me up if you know any awesome GIMP tutorial sites. I’ll keep the Links section updated as I dig up more goodies.

~SeeJay