I have recently read the book Stardust by Neil Gaiman. I had seen the movie first before the book so I already knew the story. I still enjoyed the book, but this is probably the first time I would say that I liked the movie more than I liked the book. In the book, there is no humor, everything is fantasy and serious. Also, Tristran (Tristan in the movie) had “powers” in the book, which comes from being the descendant of the royal family. He’s a pathfinder…he knows where things in Faerie are when you ask him, even if he hasn’t even heard of the places yet. Also, their time at Captain Shakespeare’s ship wasn’t detailed (oh and the captain isn’t gay in the books. He’s not a terror either). But what really disappointed me was the fact that no fight scene occurred at the end. Septimus (the last surviving son of the King) was killed because he opted to revenge his brother by burning the witch’s hat, but the witch summoned/turned into a poisonous snake and bit him. Tristran also didn’t leave the star Yvaine without any warning, as he still had feelings for Victoria. Victoria had feelings for Mr. Monday…she never liked Tristran and was set to marry Mr. Monday. Tristran also wasn’t allowed to cross the wall coming from Fairie at first. He returned to Wall only to realize that he loves Yvaine, and said goodbye to Victoria and his family. When he came back, he fell asleep and Lady Una talked to Yvaine. When she left, the witch came for Yvaine and told her that she was going to cut her heart out (the witch seemed nice!), but Yvaine said that it wouldn’t be possible anymore because she had already “given her heart” to Tristran. Oh and they got married but didn’t rule yet; they traveled throughout Faerie for years before they decided to rule.

On Sunday, after Mark’s basketball game, we watched Sherlock Holmes (last full show) at 10:45 at ATC. We also bumped into Tel who was going to watch the same movie at the same time. I enjoyed the movie! I love the whole bohemian effect to it, and the fact that it was all about logic and mysteries. It’s an old movie with effects of the 21st century, yet the charm remains and wasn’t butchered. I love how every major character played their role. It’s a bit similar to The Prestige…wherein magic relies on scientific inventions, and the secret(s) is/are revealed at the end. The only thing I didn’t like about this movie is Watson’s fiance. I couldn’t seem to like her, and had always been hoping for her to be the bad guy.

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I got my lens fixed a couple of months back, but I just got to posting some pics now. Here are some pictures from our recent trip to Vietnam.

Bullet For My Valentine
On Bu Vien Street	Embers and Envelopes
Dame Details
Hotel Sanouva	Next Chapter
Stars and Bullets
Spending like millionaires
Eiffel Post Office	Saigon Post Office Ceiling
Cyclo
Inanimate Objects in the War Remnants Museum
Inanimate Buddha
Empty Plates outside Ben Thanh
City People	Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica

1. I find it hard to search through my mail.
   • Ctrl+F (Find) only searches the current folder, and it searches for a substring that matches your keyword on the subject and sender only (there may be other fields but it certainly doesn’t search the content or body of the email). It also just goes to the email of the first email found that matches your search, and all the other emails still show up. If the subject is long, it’s hard to find where your keyword is found. Also, you have to click on “Find Next” to go to the next email found that matches your search.
   • To be able to search the body/content of your emails, you need to go to “View”>”Search This View” (also I didn’t find a keyword shortcut next to the menu, so I assume you need to really hover over that menu and click that to be able to get there). Fortunately, “Search This View” sticks to your page like a toolbar so if you like it, just don’t close it. Sucks if you want flexibility on your UI though since you can’t just hide and show it with one (or two) keys. Oh yeah, did I mention it’s amazingly slow? It takes me ten years to pull up if I have plenty of emails containing my keyword. It’s nice that it just pulls up all the emails matching my search though, and removes the other emails away from my view. But again, you’re going to have a hard time finding where the search found your keyword, as it’s not highlighted or anything. Notes uses the concept of a little check symbol next to your emails to indicate selected documents. It also uses this feature to “select” the results of your search. The bad thing is that once you click on the check symbol, your email gets unselected, and it’s automatically removed from your search results view. Boo notes!
   • I can’t use regular expressions to search. The only options located in the “More” section of “Search This View” are: Save Search, Load Search, and Search in results. Notepad++’s search functionality is way more advanced than Lotus Notes, and this makes me feel that Notes was based on the same concept as Windows’ Notepad.
2. The mail filter just doesn’t do it for me
   • Filters in Lotus Notes is pretty basic. You can create “Rules”. Rules consists of 1) Conditions/Exceptions – “AND”, “OR”, field (ie sender, subject, etc), contains/does not contain, is/is not…and the keyword. You can add or remove as many conditions as you want (or so I think). 2) Actions – move, delete, copy, forward, etc…and another field that satisfies the action selected. Again, you can add or remove as many conditions as you want (or so I think). And finally…AGAIN, you have no option to use regular expressions for filtering. But you have the option to never delete your rules…if you need them to work, just enable them.
   • The filters doesn’t work that well. I’ve had many instances wherein one day, my mail rules just stop working. I don’t know why or how, but it just stops. I had to create another mail rule to replace the old one, and sometimes that works, yet most times it doesn’t.
3. The IMAP/POP feature is disabled by default
   • I know that Lotus Notes isn’t specifically designed to handle just email, and that it is probably a great tool for collaboration for non-IT users, but I find it disappointing that to be able to access my mail using another software, ie Thunderbird, I would need the IMAP or POP option to be enabled. Since I’m not a Domino (the notes server) admin, I have no access to the configuration. And our domino server has disabled IMAP/POP, which leaves me no choice but to deal with Lotus Notes for my email.

The GUI is WTF, OMG, and BBQ

• I don’t know if it would do me any good to explain this. Too many buttons located in different menus? Too many toolbars scattered everywhere? Unconventional icons/images? Usually I don’t read manuals for software when I need to find something since the GUI is user-friendly and easy to navigate. For lotus notes? I’m a developer myself and have trouble locating features. I feel that the user-unfriendliness of the GUI is causing my productivity to be slow. It’s easier if I can locate everything without thinking about it, than being baffled, staring at the screen and trying to find something for 10 minutes.

This is not taken by me. I found it somewhere in the internet, I forget where.

Linux Symposium T-Shirt Sizes