A place to hang

My father built a small balcony on the back wall of our house. My mother said our house doesn't have a space for hanging and drying our laundry and my father is not keen on having them hanged and dried on the front lawn.

So he enlisted some help from a contractor, an Indonesian pro who has become a family friend, to build a rather simple and small balcony, using concrete as its building material, metal bar as railings and a transparent plastic sheet as the roof. Structurally and architecturally, it is very simple and small.

The balcony is built it at the back of the house because this is the side that faces the sun as it rises. It makes the clothes dry faster.

I estimate that balcony's area would comfortably accommodate three sitting adults of average-size. While it sounds like a nice place to spend a breezy afternoon, the balcony does suffer from one major drawback. It is facing an abandoned house. The house behind ours hasn't been lived for a few years now. And it hasn't been cleaned.

One crowd however doesn't seem to mind this at all. They couldn't care less about the view or the size. We haven't heard a single complaint from them, ever. They really dig the balcony. In fact, they would come hang out here everyday.



And "they", in case you haven't figured it out yet, are the neighbourhood cats.

(Photo by L@ura*)

The search for proper quotation marks

Ah, the quotation marks. Have you noticed how the default quotation marks is different (and a lot less attractive) from the actual quotation marks?

I've been trying to get Inkscape to show the actual quotation marks for some time now.

The solution I tried was to use a word processor, replace the default the default quotation marks with special characters. In this case, actual quotation marks. Not all fonts offer special characters, we need to check the font set first. And paste everything back into Inkscape.

But I just learned that there's an easier way of doing this, simply by pressing Alt and a few numpad keys.


Actual quotation marks look way much better the default one, don't you think?

(Source of the quote above, here.)

My new desktop

UPDATED!

Some time ago, I wrote about my efforts to declutter my desktop. I used a small software called Jedi Concentrate to basically hide my desktop items. That was a workable method, but not a very good one.

Now, after about two years later, I've stumbled upon a better method. The result can be seen above. What do you think?

First of all, this method is a fairly simple one. I can't take credit for it because it is a simplified version of other people's desktop makeover methods. You can have a look them over at Lifehacker (see Most Popular Desktops of 2008). My method is a very, very simple one that require a few downloads and some tinkering here and there. By the way, I'm using Windows XP.

If you're interested, here's the basic explanation:

• The windows taskbar is set ot auto-hide
• A wallpaper.
• I downloaded and installed Rocketdock, and it sit the bottom side of the desktop
• Fences, to manage and hide my desktop items

The method in details:

Set taskbar to auto-hide: Right click the taskbar > Properties > On the Taskbar tab, check the "Auto-hide the taskbar" box.

Set the wallpaper: Personally, I prefer large-sized wallpapers. To change the wallpaper, simply right click on the desktop > Properties > Go to the Desktop tab > and click browse to select the wallpaper you like.

Download and install Rocketdock: Rocketdock is a better way of handling shortcuts to your favourite folders and files. Spend some time trying it out. I set my Rocketdock to be at the bottom, but it can be set to appear at the top, left or right side of the desktop. It can also be set to auto-hide.

Download and install Fences: Oh, Fences, where have you been all my life? Fences does two things that I love. One, it groups desktop items like files and shortcuts together. This really helps declutter any messy desktop. Two, by double clicking on the desktop (but outside Fences), it will hide everything on the desktop. My desktops items are properly managed and they remain hidden. So cool.

Well, there you go, my simple desktop makeover method. The effect of implementing this has been positive so far. I can tell you that looking at it sometimes makes me forget that my PC is already 7 years old!

Bendera putih buat Puan Woolf

Tak upaya nak faham.



Mrs. Dalloway. Saya mencapainya waktu zaman saya mencari karya-karya klasik. Ini lebih kurang satu tahun setengah yang lalu.

Tak lama sebelum itu saya ada terbaca sebuah artikel tentang 'fadhilat' membaca karya-karya klasik. Ujar penulisnya, pembaca karya sebegini biasanya mempunyai kesedaran sosial yang lebih tinggi berbanding orang lain. Karya klasik lama mendedahkan seseorang kepada keadaan sosial yang berlainan. Mereka dapat melihat bagaimana orang pada zaman lain hidup serta bagaimanakah keadaan sosio-budaya mereka.

Ada lagi kelebihan-kelebihan lain tapi saya dah lupa. 

Saya pilih Mrs. Dalloway, oleh Virginia Woolf, sebab kedegilan saya untuk mendekati karya klasik lain yang lebih dikenali umum. Macam Shakespeare. Masa itu hati juga cenderung untuk mencuba Jane Austen. Tapi Woolf yang menang, sebab harganya RM8. (Austen RM12.)

Beberapa hari yang lalu saya mengambil Mrs. Dallway dari rak dan mula membaca. Hingga ke mukasurat 30 lebih. Dan saya berhenti. Saya patah balik ke mukasurat pertama. Baca perlahan-lahan.

Selepas beberapa percubaan, saya berhenti. Termenung.

Saya tak faham cerita ini. Saya selidik di Internet, mencari petunjuk.

Mengikut sumber yang dijumpai, Woolf menggunakan kaedah arus kesedaran (stream of consciousness) dalam menulis buku ini. Maksudnya, macam orang yang cuba mengingat sesuatu tapi ingatan bercampur-campur dengan ingatan tentang benda lain. Sekejap berada pada masa sekarang, sekejap lain secara tiba-tiba kembali ke masa silam. 

Saya angkat bendera putih. Hari ini, Puan Woolf, saya tak berjaya menghadam karya Puan. Mungkin lain tahun kali.

Dalam hati saya ada sedikit rasa kecewa sebab gagal. Keupayaan intelek saya mungkin belum sampai ke tahap mereka-mereka yang mampu merasai kenikmatan karya-karya klasik. Perlu diusahakan lagi.

Namun, kekecewaan saya terubat sedikit. Masa saya memperolehi Mrs. Dalloway, saya turut membawa pulang buku ini.



Alhamdulillah, yang ini saya (kira) faham(lah jugak). Dubliners ialah sebuah eksperimen sastera, antologi cerpen-cerpen James Joyce yang berlatar belakangkan kehidupan masyarakat kota Dublin, Ireland.

Pengajaran yang dapat dari pengalaman ialah apabila membaca sesuatu, khususnya karya klasik, jangan paksa diri untuk faham. Lagipun ini sosio-budaya yang berlainan daripada sosio-budaya kita. Kefahaman akan datang perlahan-lahan. Bersamanya insya-Allah, kesedaran sosial yang lebih tinggi.

Dan kesedaran sosial tidak akan datang secara dipaksa-paksa. Sabar, Wak, sabar.