New template

I have scrapped the previous 6j header and came up with a new template. This one is mixed with a simple mech and a grunge style with brushes. Mostly uncompleted. And the picture is compressed, so the diagonal pattern in the background cannot be seen. I am taking this as practice for the new blogskin for my blog. Please click to enlarge

6j template

This is the newer piece with added machinery parts as a border to give a more rigid feel. Please comment on whether the border should be more opaque or a transparent render is good enough. Current opacity: 65% Thanks for comments on improvement

Another Photoshop showcase

If you are interested, go to www.photoshoptower.com. I gained quite a lot of my PS knowledge from their tutorials, though I have already exhausted their (14 pages?) supply of tutorials. Enjoy!
Spent quite a number of hours on this mech design I made exclusively for PSP. Res 480X272, perfect fit. I had to create a whole lot of shapes with the polygon tools etc and then style them. I can say this piece is my current best, though it doesnt look much.


This piece is real easy. I just decided to do something abstract for my sister's blogskin so I zoom-blurred a render of clouds and used my old ps design made by brushes to blend in. Chose red this time as the dominant hue as I have been using blue too much. Spent about 30mins.

Photoshop is FUN!

Was playing around with Photoshop today and spent quite a few hours on these three designs. Please have a look!


This one is my first, a header for a website complete with navigation bar. Spent a lot of time on the Polygon Tool and Layer Styles.


This is an abstract faux-3D studio design. Relatively simple.


In my opinion, this energy ball is the best piece and also the last that I have completed today at 12.54am. Also relatively easy to make, thanks to the very handy Colour Balance Adjustment layer. I tried to mimic as closely as possible to the turquoise of Jue Dui Superstar. Hope you all have enjoyed these. Feel free to save these pictures, but please do not remove the xgamesterz logo. There will be more to come, and eventually, my new template. Good night, or rather, Good Morning.

Vivo City Not So Vivo

2 days ago I went to the much-talked about Vivo City. I can say that I was utterly disappointed in the selection of shops and overall design and quality. The only shop suitable for me there is Best Denki, though Esprit might be a contender. The architects had probably designed the mall to resemble a ship, evident from the curvatures and floor-to-ceiling windows all over the place, though I'd say the interior was too plain with only a small number of neon light structures on the ceiling and ground. The workmanship isn't too good either. Rough edges can be spotted if you look closely at ceiling lights. Floor tiles appear too cheap and old-fashioned, and the designers gave a flimsy coverup by ordering sparkly tiles. Not my idea of a mall designed with a modernistic approach. Maybe some black/white marble tiling and wall features? I'd say the shops look much better than the mall itself, especially those high-class ones that I know I will never step into. The Promenade seems to be closer to my expectations, with a unique snowman statue and small stretch of ornamental pools.
Obviously, I had spent the greatest amount of time in Best, playing the new thin PS2s on display. Nintendo DS is real cheap-and-plastic-looking, lightweight but does not give a sense of quality.

Dinner was the best, as we ate in Food Republic. It is the coolest(and largest) food court I have ever been to. The theme is fantastic, one that depicted the olden Singapore times in the 1960s. Food was a tad too expensive; my beef horfun cost$5 when I could have gotten a even tastier plate at hawker centres for $2.50. But that is expected from high rentals. Overall Vivo City for me = 6/10
For girls probably 10/10. The adolescent females in this current age all seem to display extraordinary muscle strength and stamina in legs.

Will post pictures as soon as my sister gives the camera back.

Illegal, schmegal

I am fed up with the recent news on a 17-year old guy in Singapore charged for using an unprotected wireless access point without prior authorization from the owner. I suppose the person who owns the access point has nothing better to do other than to sue people for using his wireless point, when he did not even encrypt or place any protection on his access point in the first place. Article: http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=57512
Btw: this article described that war-driving is another web term for piggy backing, which is incorrect. War-driving means driving a vehicle around a neighborhood to find wireless APs to use. Piggybacking is taking advantage of an unprotected wireless AP. Slightly different.

Piggybacking on an unsecured wireless network is actually rather hard to justify on a legal front. In the owner's perspective, so long as other people are using his wireless without his permission automatically equates to illegal, and therefore he shall sue the person because he has nothing better to do. This judgement is not wrong, but it can be disputed.

First of all, merely using the wireless access point on a technical viewpoint is not wrong, as the technology is merely behaving the way it should: broadcasting a radio signal created from a packet and then being received by a network card or wireless adapter. This can only be deemed illegal if the person in question is doing illegal acts on the network(eg. watching child porn, trading body parts or accessing the owner's computer)

Lets say that I am the person using open wireless points without "authorization". Ethically speaking, the owner would argue with a common metaphor: Accessing my access point can be likened to entering your neighbour's house when the door is open. Also ethically speaking, I can counter-sue by arguing that the electromagnetic waves broadcasted from the wireless router were trespassing on MY property (house) and therefore I have all the rights to use the waves to access internet. According to the metaphor, I can enter my neighbour's house if his house is in my house and his door is open. In addition, the prolonged exposure to electromagnetic waves might also adversely affect my health so I am also risking my own health by using the owner's wireless. I was not hunting down the owner's wireless, I only switched my computer on and found that the owner's network invaded my house so I had to do something about it.

Also technically, the fact the access point being open alone is already enough for me to claim that my access is authorized, as my access was not stopped by any encryption or protection means (WEP, WPA, PUK etc.). This point can be further illustrated by this equation:

If
Access stopped = unauthorized entity
Then
Authorized entity = Access given

And also because the router was setup in "open" authentication, if I had established a connection, it means my adapter had requested permission to use the access point, and the access point had given it authorization.

In addition, the definition of cracking is:

Cracking a wireless network means defeating the encryption so that you can establish a connection without being invited.

In other words, if the encryption is not present, you are invited(technically) to establish a connection. Simple as that.

Have I proven my point?

Even so, users should be aware of the possible dangers in using open APs. Since you are on the same platform(network) as the owner, it would not be too hard for him to access your harddisk by spreading trojans that create backdoors or keyloggers that log your passwords and credentials when users travel across the net. Likewise the user can also perform the same acts against the owner and in addition, slow down connection speeds by hogging up their bandwidth when streaming data (eg. downloading video).

To obtain strongest possible signal strength from access points, one must take note to place the adapter on higher elevation and not near metals or against walls. The best barriers that radio waves can travel through are glass. Try not to stay between solid concrete walls. Of course you can also modify a small satalite dish to take in radio signals to be decrypted by your network card, but that is practically not feasible. In case you are interested, they can be purchased from Simlim or eBay. If your neighbours are all stingy enough to place encryption on their wireless routers, some default passwords can be tried on default SSIDs such as linksys, belkin, motorola, netgear. Try admin, 1234 or guest. For a complete list: http://www.phenoelit.de/dpl/dpl.html

Though I am not entirely sure this is legal, I definitely do not indulge in these evil ways.