Abby and Win’s Blog

Archive for May, 2008

We’ve been playing with our Wii Fit since the day it came out (May 21, 2008). So far we’ve been exercising with it about 30 minutes a day. We’re on our sixth day and have unlocked a couple of the new activities. My favorite activities so far is the ski jump, yoga, and the hula hoop. Abby seems to like the aerobics, hula hoop, and the ski jump. I think she’s more focused on beating my scores instead of exercising.

We were worried that it will sell out since it’s a new Wii accessory. So what we did was check out a couple of Walmarts on the way to work last Wednesday since they opened at 7am. A couple of the regular Walmarts didn’t get their shipment in yet. So we decided to go to the super Walmart in Baldwin Park. They had around 10 there. We bought 1 for us and 3 to sell on eBay. During lunch we went to a nearby Best Buy to check their inventory. They had one on demo right by the entrance. We asked if they had anymore, they didn’t. I’m glad we picked ours up early.

The Wii Fit is wireless and is powered by 4 AA batteries which are included. Every time you begin your training, it will determine your weight and BMI and compare it to the last recording. The setup is similar to Brain Age. It will graph your progress and try to make suggestions and tips based on the results. If you have a Wii, this is a definite addition to your collection.

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I finally got our Flickr account set up. At first I was having trouble with how to configure it. We both have Yahoo! accounts but if one of us will have the Flickr account, it would mean one of use would have to keep logging in and out of our accounts while browsing between Flickr and Yahoo! mail. I ended up using my account on Flickr since I will be doing most of the uploading.

Anyways, so far the experience has been great. I’ve barely started uploading our pics. So far I’ve uploaded over 2,200 pics today. My work has T3 connection so uploading is fast.

Go ahead and check out our new gallery at Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/w1n78/sets. Remember not all our pics have been uploaded, so keep checking back.

We are currently using Phanfare as our online photo gallery. They have been great for the 1+ years we’ve been with them. They have unlimited storage, allow full quality photos, we have access to the original files, and video uploads. Recently, they upgraded my account over to their new version 2.0. My biggest complaint is our gallery is only accessible to Phanfare account holders. I wrote them an email about it and was informed that they will implement the ability for non-account holders view access again but in June. So I spent some time today looking at other companies out there that provide similar services.

SmugMug looks great but I felt the price was too high. PicasaWeb would’ve been great but they don’t have an unlimited storage. Snapfish, Shutterfly, etc. looks like a giant advertisement and I didn’t see them storing full quality photos as part of their services.

So far Flickr is leading the pack. For $25 per year I’ll be getting most of what I am now. I will be missing the following things from Phanfare:

• allows me to upload videos that are longer than 90 seconds
• an application where I can edit photos and albums and have the changes update on the website
• templates of albums are more personal

But the advantages for moving to Flickr

• they seem to be more Mac friendly
• lower cost
• more features like adding notes, map the photos, groups, online photo editor
• more APIs available

Even after the email they sent me I’m still considering the switch since the my advantages outweigh what I’ll miss. But we’ll see if Abby will like the new stuff. Until then, we are disabling our photo gallery until we have decided on what service we will use.

Hey Everyone! I have shared my story when I passed the test back in Jan this yr. http://abbyandwin.net/blog/2008/01/
I noticed that in most forums they really discouraged forming a group base on race, as reasonable as it is, sometimes we would still want to talk specifically to somebody who we can relate to.
I am dedicating this page for those who will be taking their Foreign Pharmacy Graduate Equivalency Exam who are Filipino and who would want to share their experience or perhaps for those who may have some inquiries. Feel free to help anybody or blog about your experience. My goal here is not to discriminate rather than to support those who are having difficulty getting information. Hopefully I can help in my own little way as well as those who will be blogging and visiting this site.
I have shared my experience to this site since I myself took the FPGEE too last Dec 2007. We have a group in LA (all Filipino) that help each other to make the review easier. Its not a formal review with a guideline of what to discuss per week but nevertheless it has been most helpful. There are some who made a comment already after I posted my experience back in January, but really the reason why I had that post is chiefly to share how I am feeling at that time I got the result. But now, I am opening this to help our kababayans who will be on the same process.
I am studying now for my TOEFL, hopefully everything will turn out good so I can start my internship already here in CA.

Some Books I suggest you read before taking the test:
1. Comprehensive Pharmacy Review by Leon Shargel- this is a great book but I think it is not enough to use alone for the FPGEE, as the title says this is a review so there may be some topic in which you have to browse to the basics again. But if everything is still fresh on your mind then it would be easier to study this. In my case, I graduated 10 years ago so, there are things that I forgot already that didn’t stop me from my goal of being a pharmacist. So I supplemented other materials for the test.
2. Manan Shroff- I bought the whole set 5 books and cds. I will say that it is a good supplement but start with other material first since there is quite a number of errors in this book. Thus, if you have prepared well already you will be familiar with those irregularities. Generally, there is still a lot you can learn from this book. I know somebody who passed the test, she took a risk and just used this material. The main purpose of her taking the test is just to familiarize herself. Risky but she made it. I wouldn’t suggest it though. It is still better to be prepared in a battle. The Pharmacy Management and Pharmacoeconomics are really important as well for the afternoon part of the test.
3. Dr Dutta Pharmacy review I have never used this, but I have heard good reviews about this because it follows the FPGEE blueprint. So if anybody has used this please share what you think of the book.

I am a person who use book as my security blanket, thats why if I feel what I know is not sufficient enough I borrow books from the library. 10 years of not dealing with the basic pharmacy subjects is a long time, although I am a doctor our study is more on diagnosis and management, in contrast to making a drug work to be used for the diagnosis and treatment. I borrowed several books from the library like Easy Way books of different subject matters, Organic Chemistry, Anatomy, Physiology, and I also got an Immunology book. I bought a separate book for General Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Calculations. I am not saying this step is the right step to partake to be successful in the exam since everyone of us has a different study pattern and habits. I just want everyone to know that even if I am a doctor I still went through the same process as most of the test taker has gone through, back from scratch since I was not expose to the work field of a pharmacist. More or less if you are able to answer the 1000 question and answer from Manan Shroff(80%), it gives you an idea on how far you have gone to your study. Just don’t take the basic subjects for granted cause even if it doesn’t have the same bearing as the major subject has like those of the Phar Cal or Phar Chemistry, everything counts since we don’t know which questions are just being used for evaluation for the next exam.

Good Luck to Everyone who is Taking the test this June 28th!

I’ve been using Piclens for a couple of weeks now and it’s amazing. It takes photos from your website and turn it in to a 3D gallery for viewing. I recently got an update message for my Firefox browser. I updated the plugin and viewed the Piclens page again. This time their demo includes video. It’s pretty cool. If you want to see how it works, just install the plugin from their web site and visit Flickr, YouTube, Friendster, or any other sites they mention. I also played around with it and made this. Remember you must have the plugin installed on your browser for it to work. I still haven’t gotten it to work with Safari for OS X yet.