Looking back in time

Lets get into the time machine..

Boarding the plane to India in January. Finally Air Asia serves donut on board. But it’s really sweet, even sweeter than the one we have here in the mall, make sure we smuggle lots of water in, since water on Air Asia is not for free. India… nice country.

The cat some how mingle with other male cats and got herself 4 kittens back in February! Somehow only one of them survived, one got sickness and can’t eat properly, died few weeks later. Another one got suffocated while got trapped in the fence, so sad. Another one got under the wheel of my housemate BMW, at least we did a proper burial for him. Poor thing.

March, a month of nice weather in my area. This shot was taken in the morning before I left for work.

April, a new visitor tries to join our mini pethouse. He was really skinny when he first came by, we fed him some catfood and he gobbled it down. Sometimes we just close the gate when he’s inside the compound, and he would get panic trying to find a way out. Poor thing. After a while, the owner came to claim him back. Gee. After we fed him with so much food.

Went to Bahrain for the first time in May. A couple of Oooh.. Aaaah. Nice place there in Manama. Can consider to migrate there in the future.

Farewell dinner for my colleague in June at Luna Bar and went down to Soi 23 at Menara Pan Global for proper dinner. Thai food! Yum yum.

Went to Riyadh for the first time in July. Wow, surely it is hot over there. First time sweating like mad 7 am in the morning. Gasoline price is crap cheap there, I think the taxi driver only paid the attendant MYR 4 for a full tank.

Went to Taipei for the first time in August. Lots of things to eat. Strange the people there are not fat. Malaysia has a lot of things to eat too but people here are fatter.

Attend my sister wedding in Netherlands back in September. Cold place there. People there are generally friendly. Would go back there again if we have the chance. We took the route from London – Paris – Brussels – Amsterdam – Eindhoven – London. Perhaps can try another route next round!

Went back to Taipei again in October, and sat in a fruity plane this time. This time we stayed in the Shih-Lin area, night market just right below the hotel. Very noisy.

Installed HSBB back in November. Speed is impressive until now. And the price is kind of pricey too. So far no other alternative can give us the same speed over here.

Final days of 2010

After a long December, finally we have to part with 2010. Hopefully rabbit year will be more generous to all of us.

If tomorrow is a public holiday, then today is the last working day of 2010. I don’t really like abrupt public holidays being announced, they should schedule it properly, at least like give us 1 week advance notice, in order for us to plan things properly.

Hopefully I did not schedule for an appointment with the doctor this Friday, or else I need to re-schedule for another date. But that means I gonna apply for leave on the first week of 2011. Really early to apply for leave..

Another thing is that iPhone charging is really slow. My Nokia can be fully charged in 1 hour, but iPhone is taking 3 hours at least. Gee.

Cisco VPN and Nortel VPN #2

This time we did a fresh installation and managed to encounter a new issue when both client are being installed.

http://ianding.blogspot.com/2010/09/cisco-vpn-client-and-nortel-vpn-client.html

The previous issue could be caused by McAfee antivirus/firewall as well. After we removed the antivirus from the PC, seems like both VPN client can work fine, for the first time, until a reboot, then:

The NIC will not have any IP address, it will be the same in all NIC currently installed in the PC, inclusive of USB, WiFi and LAN card.

ipconfig /renew will say that the adapter cannot be initialized or something like that.

Microsoft has told us to reset the Winsock/TCP-IP stack, still it is not fixed, some netsh script. Download their FixIt program and still it’s not working.

We have tried to remove TCP/IP protocol from the adapter properties and reboot the system and add the TCP/IP protocol again, still it is not fixed.

Then we have also tried adding TCP/IP v6 protocol and it is not fixed.

Finally, we tried to add IPX/SPX protocol into the adapter properties, and hey, the adapter is finally getting an IP.

Wondering what went wrong back there, IPX/SPX should not be used anymore nowadays, hmmph.

Ban on 1Malaysia advertisement

I just realized that we will need to throw away our Touch N Go card too because there is a 1Malaysia logo on the card. Gee. Glad that now they made a U-Turn.

Merry Christmas!

Well, this year Christmas is a bit special. Because I’ll be celebrating it in a state of extreme poverty.

Anyway, this is just a short post as I’m still at work at this hour.

Cheers peeps!

Popeye @ Wangsa Walk

Somehow I feel that the workers there are pretty arrogant or some kind of discrimination is really serious there.

I went there for a few times now and the impression I get is worse than typical KFC or McDonalds. Serve them right that they have no customer during last Saturday afternoon! Haha.

The first incident is that, I went there late evening. There was hardly any people queuing up at the counter, great, I thought. So I walked up to them and tried to make my order. Somehow the workers there just assumed like I did not exist and did not even bother to look if there is anyone in front of the counter trying to make an order. I stood there for more than 3 minutes, then come along a few girls in a group and the counter staff attend to them immediately. I left the place immediately after that.

The next incident is that, I went there again with my sister hubby, which is a Guai Lo. Wow, the staff were so attentive. 2 of the workers were attending to us. Even when I tried to speak Malay to them, they can respond in English. A stark difference compare to my previous visit.

Actually this is not a problem if other fast food chain does not exist.

At the nearby KFC beside Carrefour, their staff does not have such problem. Either we are alone or in a group, everyone get treated the same way.

Probably they need to send their staff to some kind of course or something.

Balance

No matter how good is someone, or something, there is surely a bad side of him as well, usually it’s hidden nicely until when we are really close with him, then we will find out. But then usually it’s already too late, damage has been done. Turning back would need some sacrifice as well.

Example, like a firewall device, usually what we see is that, the firewall is working fine and blocking and rejecting unauthorized traffic. Now that it is crapped up, the firewall is rejecting our own VPN traffic but allowing public traffic. While we are waiting for a replacement, we have no choice but to reboot the firewall everytime it happens.

The most important thing is that, there must be a balance between the good and bad side.

Blogging

What’s the main purpose for maintaining a blog? To impress people with your good looks? To inject some humour into the daily mundane life of people around us? To provide updated information from your current location? To show others our skill in performing something? To get noticed? To let others keep track of our daily life? To sell off unwanted stuff? To become an online retailer?

Whatever it is, everyone will find some use for their blog.

I have been blogging for 7 years now. And even though I know I’m the only visitor on my own blog, yet I still don’t get bored with it.

If you don’t appreciate yourself, nobody else will.

On flight seating

Have you ever requested a stranger to switch a seat with you before? Frankly speaking, I haven’t, only people have requested me to do so.

Yesterday on my flight back to M’sia, there was this old chap, wanted me to switch my seat with another old chap so that he can talk to his friends.

What logic is that?

If you want to be seated together, you should tell them when checking in. If you can’t get the seats together, you should just postpone your trip and check in earlier next time.

If you want to talk to them, can’t you just walk over to their seat and talk?

I have been through this a lot of times and I must say, it is quite annoying. So yesterday I couldn’t hold it anymore, and I just replied him really loud, ‘Not again!’. Even he pleaded me to change, I just told him ‘No way’.

If you don’t like where you are being seated, please speak it out loud when checking in, or do web-check-in a day earlier, you can choose the seat you want.

Since I travel alone all the time, I am really flexible with where I can be seated.

I have only switched my seat for families before, i.e. family members wanted to sit together. I would never do it for friends who want to sit together and yak.

Chinese Guy

When I was at the satellite terminal last week queuing up to buy some food at Burger King, there was this chinese guy who just walk straight up to the counter and wanted to order the food.

Service is slower than usual at Burger King but hell, I have lots of time to kill, so I could just wait.

I am sure that he saw me that I was queuing up behind the person making the order and he should just queue up behind me.

Instead, he just pretended like he saw nobody there and proceed to the counter straight.

Then when the person in front of me was done with their order, he tried to order but the cashier refused to serve him. Instead, the cashier asked me to come forward and order instead. The chinese guy just pretend like he doesn’t understand and keep on ordering. Then the previous couple which was ordering then turned back and told him that he has to queue up in Mandarin, then only he quietly walked away.

What a jerk! What’s with his manners?

This is Malaysia and we do practice queuing up!

I’m ashamed of myself for being a chinese guy as well. I hope this is not the common perception of chinese guys in the world. We need to get rid of such people in this world to make the world a better place.

Terminator, anyone?

Taipei, Taiwan

Been to Taipei for 3 times now and each time staying in different part of Taipei.

First time was in Nei Hu, seems like a new area. As all the buildings seems quite new and modern, and there are still some under construction. At least when I was there, there is a new metro line serving it already, so it is very convenient to go into the town. I went to Taipei 101 for the first time as well, and there’s nothing much to shop there except branded stuff. Went to have a cup of tea at the rooftop of ShinKong building nearby Taipei 101.

Second time was in Shih Lin area, where we were just staying right on top of the night market. Visit the night market? No problem. It’s just a few steps from the hotel. It can be quite noisy sometimes to stay near the night market but it is convenient. There is a metro station nearby too but we didn’t take metro at all. Just took cab all the time, as the customer building is very near the place.

Third time was in Ban Qiao area, seems like an old city of Taipei and the buildings are quite old and dilapidated looking. Somehow, the hotel we stayed this time is the best out of the other 2 which I have stayed. It’s called Grand Forward hotel, right beside the Fu Zhong metro station. The room is so big that I think we can put 2 double bed inside it. The bathroom has a separate shower cubicle together with bathtub on the other end. Breakfast is good as well. The room even has it’s own equipment for exercising, with ironing board, weighing scale, hair dryer, digital control (touch screen) for lights and air cond, big LCD TV and also daily complimentary fruits.

One thing I noticed in all Taipei hotels is that, all of them offer complimentary breakfast and Internet access, which is just so nice for business travelers.

Hopefully one day I would be able to go there for leisure but not work, then we can spend more time exploring Taiwan.

Salt

All the action is not so bad, but it’s a bit boring to be invincible right. Everytime when she shoots, she will hit the target. And no matter what situation, she will be the first to shoot first. Mole in both organization, wondering what is she trying to do. To become the bad guy and become the good guy again.

I still prefer her in Tomb Raider role.

Windows 7 to Windows XP

Finally downgraded from Windows 7 back to Windows XP. Still can’t get used to the interface in Windows 7 even though it has faster boot time. The problem with user profile sometimes cannot be loaded is getting on my nerves every time it happens.

Noticed some differences is that, USB transfer is faster in Windows 7 compare to Windows XP, probably it’s the driver issue.

Windows 7 with all effects turned on with Intel 915GM chipset is still a bit laggy but it’s not really noticeable for normal users.

Probably I’ll stick to Windows 7 with new PCs, but old PC should just use Windows XP.

Windows 7 running on her SU7300 with DDR3 memory is blazing fast. Guess Core 2 processors does make a difference compare to older generation Pentium M.

Excusay Muah

Nowadays I found that people are getting more and more impolite, perhaps due to their vocabulary or it's intentional. What's wrong with adding a word 'please' when you like them to do something, like 'can have the salt, please?', 'please let me through', etc etc.

And another thing worth nothing is that, when you want to buy something or order something from the menu, don't start off with 'can I have' or 'may I have', instead, you should start off with 'I like to have', because you are not asking for permission to order the stuff. The stuff is made to be purchased/ordered so asking for permission is like so weird right.

Robot

Doing the same thing over and over again. I know it’s inevitable in work but doing the same thing year after year is not something desirable either. But still we need to work in order to make ends meet.

Sometimes people have the misconception that work will get easier as they grew older. No, not anymore. In this new century, the job just get tougher as you grow older. Sure the organization can give you a pay rise, but their expectations out of you will be higher. No organization will pay you more if they want you to do less. Unless you are working for yourself, you are the boss yourself.

I’m glad that some people can be happily working, they found joy in work. That’s the correct attitude. Those who can’t find any joy in their work, they should just quit and go beg for money instead. Working on something without any interest at all is plain torturous, why would they want to torture themselves?

Harry Potter

Just went to watch Harry Potter in the afternoon before start of really busy job schedule in coming weeks.

Personally I feel that it is not bad, but still lacking some depth in the story line. Can’t blame them as they are just following the book.

Watching the movie is only for enjoying the special effects and also relaxing.

Everybody has grown up now, Harry Potter is finally shorter than Ron, well, they started from the same height at least.

The plot goes like this:

Ministry of magic has fallen and there is no more people to defend against the evil. Harry and the gang continue to find for more horcrux and trying to destroy them one by one. So in this episode, they only succeeded in destroying one more horcrux only, guess there are a lot of horcrux to be destroyed in the next episode.

Shook vs Fisherman's Cove

Somehow I find that Shook is serving better food than Fisherman's when they are having the MYR 3.6 promotion. Fisherman's garlic bread is as hard as rock! Okay, it's not that hard but harder than normal bread a lot. I wonder if we can request for a softer bread.

Another thing about Fisherman's is that, we order our pasta together with the table beside us, and the table beside us get the pasta first, fine, and we waited for 30 minutes more, still our pasta hasn't arrived yet. It is exactly the same pasta. Note that we are one of the first few tables to make the order, there is no queue in front of us! Were they really that busy or they have just forgotten?

Somehow I read in somebody else review that Fisherman is serving the best food.
Guess it's just wrong timing for us.

ORA-27121 error

Running Oracle and suddenly sqlplus cannot login anymore?

ERROR:
ORA-01034: ORACLE not available
ORA-27121: unable to determine size of shared memory segment
Linux Error: 13: Permission denied

To fix this, there are many methods, one way, is to change permission for the oracle binaries in the bin folder of $ORACLE_HOME:

# cd $ORACLE_HOME/bin/
# chmod 6751 oracle

# ll oracle
-rwsr-s--x 1 oracle dba 74016776 2006-05-25 09:54 oracle*

Cheers!

Enabling remote acess for Oracle XE in console

Just installed Oracle XE on Ubuntu 10.10 server but found out that remote user cannot manage the database using Web. Most of the guide out there are suggesting to use the web to allow remote access, but since Ubuntu servers by default does not have any GUI install, we can just forget about web.

Here's the command in sqlplus:

EXEC DBMS_XDB.SETLISTENERLOCALACCESS(FALSE);

Then try to access using web from remote again.

Get them moving!

Motivation talks, motivation camps, everything about motivation is important. We cannot expect our employee to work for us forever naturally. There must be something that is driving them towards their goal, driving them towards the right direction in the company.

Human will get tired, human will get disillusioned, human will get bored doing the same thing over and over again.

Even if you can pay them a lot of salary, the working environment must be right. Heck, with the right working environment, we don't even need so much salary to begin with.

How to make your Internet faster

Here, drink a bottle of TM brand mineral water. Can't be bought anywhere else. Guarantee to increase your Internet speed and reliability.



Note: Does not apply to Digi, Maxis, PacketOne, UMobile, YTLC Yes, Jaring, Redtone and the rest of the minority ISP subscriber.

Changing of video card

Previously I was using GTS260, man, it's churning out hot air at approx 70 celcius as soon as windows has finished booting.

When I was folding, the temperature could go up to 80 celcius. I tried once to let it fold through the day when I went for a trip, when I reached home at night, the whole room feels like an oven! Even hotter than the day.

Now I have switched to GT430, the temperature is only at 43 celcius. Much more comfortable.

Not sure if I should continue to use Windows Vista or should I switch to Windows 7?

www.yes.my

Sure there is a lot of hype, creating high expectations. Well, can't really say anything for sure until they have launched. I still firmly believe wireless can never beat wired for raw speed and response time. But I won't mind trying if the company is willing to sponsor us to try.

Unifi 20 Mbps

Do you know how fast is it? Doing moderation on forum.lowyat.net is like no waiting time needed. Just click, and the page will load fully. Streaming Youtube videos is like, finally it can load faster than you can watch, craps, even if we stream 3 videos at the same time, it still stream faster than we can focus.

Downloading from Hotfile/Fileshare is like.. so unusual. Usual download time of 1 hour has become like.. 10 minutes? The only crap thing about Unifi is that, sometimes the web host has limited bandwidth/throughput available, like I was downloading Fedora 13 from the mirror list just now, non of them can give me like 10 Mbps speed, max is only like 4 Mbps, 5 Mbps.

The VOIP phone supplied can make free calls to all land line, inclusive those from other states apart from KL, but not free to mobile or international call.

They also provide an IPTV box, but all the channels are craps. I am not demanding much, give me Discovery, NGEO, ESPN, AlJazeera International, CNN, Bloomberg - I'll be happy enough.

Be careful when paying next time

I nearly got conned yesterday when making payment at the cashier.
Even though it's just 5 cents, if they have 1000 customers a day, 1000 branches around the world, you can imagine how much it will be.



At the rack, the price stated is 2.30 bucks.

However, when I went to the cashier.



They charged me for 2.35 bucks!

Logitech Wireless Keyboard - Shift key stuck

This morning we encountered a very strange issue with all the Logitech wireless keyboard which is being used in our Windows system, it's the same with Windows XP, Windows Vista & Windows 7, but not in Windows 2003 and Windows 2008.

The shift key is stuck! When we just click some icon on the desktop, it will select a region automatically. And when we just do nothing, sticky key alert will prompt out.

We tried rebooting the PC, change the keyboard batteries, disconnect and reconnect, re-sync between keyboard and the controller, disable USB port and enable again, and it does not help at all. After that, we almost wanted to reinstall the driver and if it's still does not work, we were planning to reformat the PC and install a new one on top of it.

Then we saw a genius comment in one of the troubleshooting website, press any 2 alphabets together in the keyboard to disable this behaviour. We tried it in all the problematic PCs, and the problem is gone!

Who would have thought the solution is so easy. Thanks for the guy who posted it up.

But stuck keys on keyboard is no fun at all. :(

Hanuta & Giotto - Heavenly Ferrero products

Malaysians like poor me have only tried the Ferrero Rocher before in my life, when I first got this from my girl's sister, I was quite curious, what in the world? Another type of Ferrero? Ferrero Rocher is already quite nice, since it's only available at a premium price here and everybody likes to chew nuts.

This is what I got from her:



This is one of the man's greatest creation!
Wondering what skill and knowledge has been bestowed into the person who thought of combining nutty chocolate filling with crunchy waffer.

Once you have tried it, you will be addicted to it.

No doubt, if it's available here in supermarkets or grocery stores, I'll raid it everyday until it's out of stock.

But a bit of googling shows that Hanuta is only sold in Germany, which is much to my disappointment. And a lot of people have been trying to get the distribution rights for the other countries.

Man, whoever that got the rights to import these things into Malaysia, they will become millionaire in a year.

Anyway, we shall plan for a trip to Germany next time no matter what, just for this!

Next, is the smaller cousin of Ferrero Rocher, Giotto!



It is just like Rocher, with chocolates covering nutty fillings, but the taste is at least 2 times better!

Rocher is bigger than this and this is cute and petite.

Between Rocher and Giotto, I would prefer Giotto. It fits just nice in the mouth and it has more nutty feel.

Easier to keep it in small compartments for quick snack too.

I'm feeling hungry already from all these.

Information vs Time

Information, nowadays we can get it almost everywhere. All powerful Google search engine, the informative Wikipedia, Google Maps/Wikimapia, Blogs, Online news portal, Social networks, and the rest. It is no longer important that if somebody has the information but somebody else doesn't. Even if somebody does not know about it, just give him Internet, he shall be enlightened in less than an hour, or probably even less than that.

Information nowadays is not valuable anymore, the more important aspect of the information is the source of the information, and also the time of the information. A piece of information is only valid if it is from a source that is proven. Wikipedia, as far as I know, it's not a proven source of truth, there are some users without any creditability who are also adding information into the online encyclopedia. Science is one way to prove things, but not all things can be proven using scientific method.

Time of the information is also very important. What is compiled back in 2009, might be already not true anymore by now. Information will also depreciate with time, and at a much faster rate as well.

Lunch

Managed to spend 10 bucks on lunch today.

5 bucks = Curry mutton rice
1 buck = 2 glasses of chinese tea ice

And the rest...

Donation to one guy who was holding some pictures of home for the disabled.

Considering I haven't been making any donation for so long now..
I guess it's alright.

If only

If only everyone practise selflessness in work, work place can be such a nice place.

If only we only need to work fixed number of hours in a week, hell I can finish a week's job in 3 days.

If only we won't feel tired after a long days work, we can actually work for the whole night long.

If only everyone can see the need for teamwork, I believe all of us can be happier in the long run.

Fame and friends

Fame is a food that dead men eat,—
I have no stomach for such meat.

In little light and narrow room,
They eat it in the silent tomb,

With no kind voice of comrade near
To bid the banquet be of cheer.

But Friendship is a nobler thing,—
Of Friendship it is good to sing.

For truly, when a man shall end,
He lives in memory of his friend,

Who doth his better part recall,
And of his faults make funeral.

An old poem by Henry Austin Dobson (1840-1921)

Fame and fortune can never be compared to the true friends we have by our side.
Spent a lifetime chasing fame or fortune, is not meaningful compare to a life spent making friends.
When we die, fame and fortune can help us nothing, but true friends will be able to take care of the things we left behind.

A word of wise from the past.

Finger nails

Mine is growing way too fast. I think I need to trim it every 2 weeks, or else it will start to get in the way and it's either breaking off somewhere, or scratch myself or others, or get a lot of dirt stuck inside (hey, I wash my hands all the time).

I wonder if it's caused by my diet. I eat vegetables too. But I like fish. I can eat fish all the time and won't feel bored with it. When Popeye came out with fried fish fillet fast food, I guess I was one of the happiest around. Steamed fish is nice to go with noodle or rice. Deep fried fish, where the bones can be chewed like crispy stuff, is equally good too. I don't know if I'm too carnivorous or what. Hey, I don't eat chicken that much.

Last week we went to a restaurant named Samosa cafe near Kakee corner there. The food is really good, especially the grilled stuff. Can't wait to be back there again.

X301, Elitebook, E4300 or Z?

Last when I saw an offer for E4300 for MYR 3k only, but it's cherry red colour and it's refurbished unit. While I was hesitating to buy, it was sold to someone else. It's light and funky, backlit keyboard and all. Looks good but I think Dell is going to replace it soon with some new model, why not wait for new one?

Saw someone selling Elitebook for about same price, but it's 2nd hand. Well, we should avoid 2nd hand stuff unless we know the stuff inside out right? Comes with lots of HP utilities.. do we really need all of them?

Z is probably most stylish of all, but the price tag is also a premium above average. Lets wait for some time and see if her Sony is working fine in long term usage.

X301 is the like the cream of the crop. The hefty price tag also requires a lot of consideration and re-consideration. Plus, not many people will use this kind of baby so it's a prime target for theft!

Fedora upgrade to Fedora 13.

It requires 500MB of boot partition space. How absurd is that.
Previous release only created a boot partition of 200MB.

Now where's my Live CD when I need it the most.

VMWare Player and Cisco VPN client issue

I suspect that the VM created by VMWare Player, no matter the VM is running Windows or Linux, Cisco VPN client will not be able to run inside the VM. The client can get connected successfully, but when we try to send some traffic over, the traffic is not getting through to the tunnel.

I'll dig further into this and get back to you guys.

Update

So it is confirmed, it is not possible to dial out using Cisco VPN inside a VM when the VM is running in VMWare Player/VMWare Workstation.

When I get the chance, I shall test it in the bare metal platform, VMWare ESX/ESXi

Cheers!

Update
Alright, finally found out the real issue.

When the network is set to NAT mode for the VM, it is not possible to use the VPN client to connect by default.

When the network is set to Bridged mode for the VM, then the connection using VPN tunnel is successful.

There must be certain port in the NAT which we need to fix for the VPN client to go out. It is likely that there is a solution. Shall dig deeper and update again.

No space left in the boot

After upgrading from Fedora 7 to Fedora 10, the /boot partition is now 88% used up. Well, I think it would not be able to fit the upgrade from Fedora 10 onwards.

[root@localhost vpnc]# df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted On
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
55636348 7711344 45098764 15% /
/dev/sda1 194442 161763 22640 88% /boot
tmpfs 451172 76 451096 1% /dev/sdm

Will need to edit the grub.conf and empty the boot folder later.

This is the downside of installing using default installation option all the time.

Update

Gee, so we don't have to edit the grub.conf manually.

I just issued a yum remove kernel-* (old ones) and the /boot partition is cleared automatically.

Cheers!

Update further

If you are using a laptop/machine with Radeon Express 200m graphic chipset, do not attempt any upgrade to Fedora 11.

It has a major compatibility issue with Fedora 11.

Definition of stress

Just heard it from my colleague a while ago:

S.T.R.E.S.S = Saya tidak rasa emosi saya stabil

That's why stressed people always get angry easily.

Are you stressed or not?

Schmidt Sting Pain Index

Wondering what kind of insect can jab you with the most painful stings?

1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.

1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet and reaching for the light switch.

1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.

2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.

2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.

3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.

3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic and burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.

4.0 Pepsis wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.

4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.

I think I don't want to bitten by any of these though.

Game of life

It is always good to encounter failures earlier, which turns into valuable experience later. No one can maintain perfect record of success in life without experience. Some might get far with luck, how many lucky person can we get in every moment?

One of the most important lesson which I always keep in mind is that, when we are angry, do not act, and when we act, do not be angry. This is because when our mind is filled with rage, angst, we are no longer ourselves. Sane mind is teetering on the edge of insanity. Often when we act when we are angry, idiotic actions will follow. Some will live to regret it, some won't.

I wish everyone will be able to keep this in mind, lets make the world a nicer place.

God helps those who help themselves

Last time I always thought that it is easier to teach someone new and inexperience to adapt to the standard that we want them to reach. Somehow, I guess this is one of the biggest mistake I've made.

I thought all human would be able to do self-learning by themselves when they are idle. Apparently, not all of them are like that. Some are lack of initiative, they just sit there and do nothing until somebody whack them at the back. Some are simply just good in acting and downright lazy, they can be hardworking when we are right beside them, when we leave them, they just do nothing and fool around. Some are taking things for granted, they thought they knew everything and just take things easily. Some are just too stubborn to listen, we tell them to do stuff number 1, but they do stuff number 2.

Of course hiring inexperience staff is cheap. But the time needed to train them to the level we want them to be at, is priceless unless the staff himself would be able to learn by his own initiative.

It's never too late to get rid of a staff, better than letting them bleed the company resources.

Jakarta - How 'macet' can it be?

I took a 300k IDR cab from the airport to the customer place in Kebagusan area near the Nestle building, in Pasar Minggu region. The cost is still acceptable compare to other country rate, but the time taken is.. way too long. Almost 2 hours and 30 minutes! It is also pricey because I took a private cab.

Then during my way back to the airport, the cost is approximately 200k IDR (cheaper!) because I took the Blue Bird, where you can find almost everywhere in Jakarta, but the time taken is still approx 2 hours.

KL 'macet' is nothing compare to the Jakarta 'macet'.

Hopefully we don't have to endure this kind of traffic while we are in KL. Phew.

You know there are even motorcycles used as cab over there, as motorcycles can avoid the traffic pile up everywhere, just that motorcycles is a bit inconvenient when we have a big luggage to haul along.

I tried once in India, taking tuk-tuk from airport to the city, that is no fun. It's hot, humid, dirty (polluted by smokes and dust), and congested!

Tekken

Console games can never be successfully converted into a good movie. Except for Resident Evil, I guess.

Just downloaded it though, thought it was showing in the local cinema not so long ago, but I was busy preparing for travel then and did not have to time watch any movie.

It's all about fighting and stuff. And there is no plot at all. Good guys and bad guys can be identified already in the start of the movie.

*Yawn*

Even popcorns won't help in this kind of movie.

Microsoft Outlook and IMAP issue

Sometimes when the email is too big, outlook will freeze while retrieving the email, causing us unable to use the email client totally for a few minutes.

Outlook 2003 has an archive file limit of 2GB, when it reaches that size, we will need to move to a new archive file. When manually moving the emails (drag and drop, copy and paste, etc), there seem to have no limit on 2GB, I have experience going up to 2.5GB and we still can copy emails over there in the new *.pst file, well, I stopped at 2.5GB just to be safe.

As IMAP is fetching headers only from the mailbox, generally IMAP is faster than POP3 protocol in searching for new emails. And especially if we get a lot of large emails and we want to delete them without downloading it, IMAP is the way to go. Especially on cellular network where each bytes of usage would cost some penny, using as little volume as possible is important.

Cheers!

iPhone 4 mini review

Well, can't say much since I have been using it for only half a day (exactly 12 hours, minus 3 hours of sleeping).

The network reception is really bad when we are holding it like how we hold Nokia cellphones all the time. Maximum signal we get is 1 bar or 2 bar only. But when we hold it using finger tips, avoiding contact with the phone, then the signal can go up to 4 bar or full signal reception.

Touch interface is new to me and the on screen keyboard is a challenge to me, since I'm used to normal physical keypad, and recently, the QWERTY keyboard on Nokia E series, which allows us to type so much faster. One nice feature is the automatic correction for most of the English words, so when we make one or 2 mistakes, the automatic correction tool will fix it for us, as soon as we move on to another word. I know this is an old feature, but somehow I feel that the iPhone tool manage to guess most of the words correctly, compare to other text editor application.

The phone is fast, no visible lag when switching from application to application. Maybe the phone is still not loaded with application yet, therefore, the performance has not taken any hit yet. Probably we need to benchmark again when it is heavily loaded.

Touch and glossy surface would mean, lots of fingerprint! Screen protector is a must if we want to keep the phone as clean as possible. Or else, just get a case to hold the phone. I doubt if anyone will use the phone without any additional item to wrap the screen. Touch touch.. ewwwww.

That's all for now. Shall update more later peeps.

Thanks dear for the phone!

Virtual Network Editor in VMWare Player

After deploying a lot of VMWare ESXi, deploying VMWare using VMWare Player seems like so cumbersome, there is no advance networking tool like virtual network editor in the free VMWare Player!

Hopefully, VMWare does bundle the virtual network editor together with the installation package, just that when we choose the GUI installation, we won't get the tool installed somehow.

It is still possible to extract it, like this:

If the VMWare Player setup program is named 'vmware.exe', just invoke the command prompt and type this

C:/Temp/vmware.exe -e C:/Temp/vmtemp

All the installation files will be extracted out to the C:/Temp/vmtemp directory.
There is one *.cab file we have to extract, that is the network.cab

Open the compressed archive with any zip/unzip sofware, like WinZip, 7zip or WinRAR, etc.

There you go, the file vmnetcfg.exe is the Virtual Network Editor tool.

The virtual network editor tool is very version specific, when we are using VMWare Player 3.1.2.301548, we will need to extract the vmnetcfg.exe out from the exact setup package. Any other vmnetcfg.exe will not work.

Cheers!

Cisco VPN client and Nortel VPN client issue

Used to have a configuration that works in Windows XP with Cisco VPN client version 4.8 and also Nortel VPN client version 5.

Now some of our customer have upgraded to new Nortel VPN version, and the client version would need to be upgraded too.

Recently we installed Nortel VPN client version 8 into the Windows XP machine and poooooof, Cisco VPN client failed to work - with the reason like unable to initialize the virtual adapter.

I am trying to think of the best way to keep 2 VPN client in one PC without further tweaking everytime they release a new version, right now I have a temporary workaround, that is to install 2 different Windows on top of my current Windows XP running on VMWare (VMWare Player is free) and install Cisco VPN client in one of the VMWare and Nortel VPN client in the other one.

The downside is that, we need to purchase 3 Windows license instead of one, perhaps Microsoft should release a Windows license for VMWare usage only.

And also, the time needed to boot all 3 machines up, it's not that bad, takes approximately 20 minutes.

Guess this is the safest and most future proof method for multiple VPN clients.

Rules in Public Water Closet

Click on the image to zoom.

Surely their imagination is good.

Group of people raising their hands when peeing. Wow, who would have thought of that.

Surely they have been through a lot of come up with these stuffs.

Bruce Lee

Click on the image to zoom.

Taken from:
http://kr.news.yahoo.com/cartoon

Presentations

Bah, I hate preparing these slides.

Now I have just reached 61 pages, still thinking of ideas to add more stuff.

Ideas ideas come to me please.

Bak Kut Teh

Finally, we went back to Sem Kin after a few years of absence. The uncle which was cooking last time, is still there. But now I think his son - a young chap - is helping him in the shop.

It is not as nice as the one we had in Pavilion or in Connaught there, and they have also increased the price a bit.

Still it is a satisfying meal.

Looking forward for more Bak Kut Teh in the future!

Crazy schedule has arrived!

Last time when I was in Jakarta, I did not sleep at all for 3 days straight. Booking of hotel seems to be wasted, the only time I went back to hotel was to change to a new clean set of clothes and also to take a shower, then I'll go out again.

This time round, there won't be much difference, landing at Cengkareng airport at 8 am, will proceed straight to customer office at south of Jakarta, then on 2nd day, flying out of Cengkareng airport at 8:30pm.

Will be taking Air Asia this time around, it's time to buy overpriced water again.

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity

When there is a a difference between their real and their declared aims, they will blurt out long reasons and excuses, like a squid squirting out black ink, to prevent us to pursue them any further.

What is the desirable ability in politicians?

It is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.

Confusing questions

For example:

Have you stopped beating your wife?

Well, if we answer 'yes', we admit we were doing it.
If we answer 'no', then we admit we are still doing it.

What were you doing on Independence day?

We were busy catching trains from Paris to Brussels, and from Brussels to Amsterdam.

Just watched Resident Evil last week, storyline is so-so, some minor fighting scenes, it's ridiculous that in the beginning part, they fired so many bullets, not a single one hit or even scratch the skin of the protagonist.

I missed out on The Expendables, I'm wondering if it's good.

Phua Chu Kang sucks big time, too short, plot is too obvious, not funny and their acting failed. Oh well, maybe it's just that we are growing up too fast.

Mandarin Grill

The price is comparable to Prime in Le Meridien and the main course too.
Dessert is bit lacking and they don't give free tap water!
More variety of side dishes but not all are equally tasty.

Lobster bisque is a bit too thick and urgh, I don't like it at all.

Bread is hard, like biscuit.

Lighting is very bright and it's hard to see outside, especially at night. It's wasted to have a window seat then. Lighting level in Prime is just nice to have a romantic dinner.

Parking is MYR 8 per entry from 7pm to 7am, ample parking space.

It's my birthday treat!
Thanks Ms. Jesslyn.

Eid Mubarak

To all our Muslim brothers and sisters.

After the heavy rain yesterday, weather today so much nicer.

Hari Raya is coming!

For those who will be traveling back to their kampung, hope you will have a safe and pleasant journey. Even though our holidays is just 2 days compare to those Arab countries where usually they have from one week to 10 days of holidays, well, more work and less slack will make us smarter somehow.

Since my mom is not in Malaysia during this holidays, guess I won't be going back as I have no place to stay.

从以前我就很怕华文的科目，因为它的笔画很多，觉得很复杂。
所以就专攻英文，对华文不理不睬。
一阵子就过了几十年，头发也开始白了。
忽然间想想起来，能明白华文是多么的好啊。

When we were in Paris, there was a metro station name George V.
They would pronounce it as jeojhe-san.
French is a nice language.

Adjusting back to GMT +8

After been in GMT timezone and GMT +1 timezone for about 1 week plus, it seems really strange to be back in GMT +8 timezone.

First thing I noticed is that, our old Putra LRT train here is so short here compare to theirs. Gee, no wonder our train is always so congested all the time.

Another thing is that, our sky gets dark really early. Over there, the sky is still like normal daytime at 8pm.

Time to drive again after walking and sitting/standing in tube/metro for more than 1 week.

Shall take a day off now to adjust back to the weather here.

Lots to catch up in work.

:(

It is possible to hold 2 country passport after 18 years old?

I heard from a friend that they can actually keep the passport for 2 different countries as long as they don't tell the respective authorities that they have the other country passport.

Hmm. Don't they have some kind of database to check? Although between different countries might be difficult, and it is also depending on the diplomatic relationship between 2 countries. We can't be expecting country like Malaysia to have some kind of cooperation with North Korea right?

Time flies

Last time when I was still in college, we seldom visit any malls, let alone the cinema. During my college years, I have only been to places like One Utama once or twice only. The only time we went for movie is when our friends came down to KL during their school break.

There was once we went to Midvalley to watch the movie "Day After Tomorrow", to avoid the crowd, we went really early in the morning, trying to catch the 10.45 am show. In those days, there's no Internet booking. We can only buy the tickets when we are there physically.

Since it's early in the morning, the cinema itself is really cold. Guess they turn the air conditioning to full blast and there are no other people around. The whole cinema is only like 20% populated.

As we arrive there late, we did not have sufficient time to go into the washroom to relieve ourselves before we enter the cinema.

As the movie goes on, it's getting colder and colder in the cinema. I was shivering like mad but I see none of my friends complaining, so I just force myself to sit there and continue to watch. As the movie is like winter themed, showing extremely cold weather everywhere, somehow I think our mind is being influenced by it and cause our body to feel extremely cold.

Some of us did went to the washroom in the midst of the movie, but some of us did not want to miss any part of the movie, so we have to hold on.. hold on.. until the movie ends.

When it's over, we have to rush to the washroom like no tomorrow.

I think I spent more than 10 minutes peeing then...

It is still very cold even after that.

In fact, I felt kinda cold for the whole day itself. Guess it is just our mind playing trick.

Midst of changing culture

Everytime when I get back from Middle East, it just feels so strange here in M'sia.

When the taxi driver requested me to sit on the left side, I thought he wanted me to drive the taxi! Then only I realized that in M'sia, we are driving on the right hand side.

Even the hottest weather here in KL would not be able to match the weather there during summer. Compare to their weather, this is like so heavenly!

Food here in M'sia is served is so small portion, I can have 2 plates anytime. Usually over there, I can't finish my food, they are serving it with generous portions.

Reaching a toll gate here after some time of driving is just so annoying, over there, toll gate on highway, it's almost non-existent, they have some, but not as much as we can see over here.

Smallest common car there would be like Corolla or Civic, nobody would drive a Vios or City there, because it is just too small. Most of them will be driving those 2.4 or 3.0 or 3.5 litre cars, because gasoline is so cheap there.

The malls there, will never be as populated as our Midvalley here. Probably they don't really like to hang out in malls.

And also, it feels super safe over there even when we are there all alone, probably due to strict Islamic law where thief will have their hands chopped, and also an eye for an eye rule.

A lot of Malaysians are working there especially in those countries where dinars is used.

So when is your turn?

Ramadan Mubarak

Today is the start of a month of fasting for all our Muslim brothers here in Manama.

Poor thing.

But they get to leave work earlier too.

KFC

I have tried KFC in Manama and Riyadh.
Man, their KFC sucks big time compare to our KFC here.

Even their hot and spicy is just so different than our hot and spicy.

It is either I'm addicted to our KFC here, or it's their KFC that is missing some ingredients.

Guess each country KFC recipe is proprietary eh.

Losing 50 bucks.

I think I gave the money changer additional 50 bucks.
Silly me.

That's one of the reason I hate traveling.

Wondering if that time was worse or this time is worse.

Riyadh

Welcome to Al-Faisaliah Tower, one of the tallest building in Riyadh.

Superman

Suddenly I remember about a scene in the Superman movie that he actually flew around the earth in a very fast speed in order to turn back time.

Didn't know superman is all about time travel as well.

This morning when I was queuing up for the toll payment at the highway, the car in front actually gave the collector 50 bucks and pay for the rest of the cars behind. How kind of him, but when it reached my turn, the 50 bucks is no more. :(

Rainy days~

When will it stop?

Trip to Bahrain might be postponed to early August.. :(

When I was in King Khalid Airport in Riyadh when entering Saudi last week, I have some problem communicating with them, because they speak limited English and I don't speak Arabic.

Few days later, when I was leaving Saudi, the immigration guy knows how to speak Chinese even, first he asked for passport, but I didn't get him, then he suddenly said 护照. Wow..

Flying

No matter how many times I fly, I just can't get used to it. I hate flying~

Happy fathers day

To my late dad. Another fathers day without my dad. I did not pay much attention to him before in the past fathers day, guess it is too late now for me.

Please try to spend most of your time with your family.

Toy Story 3

It is more like an action movie now, except it has no blood and gore.

Had dinner in Ichiban Boshi just now, it was packed to the brim. Not sure why there are more people in the mall on Friday itself than Saturdays and Sunday.

Lots of people still in the mall just now at 11pm watching football. It's world cup fever huh.

Bought bubur caca from an uncle behind Bangsar LRT station today. Instead of putting sugar, he put sugar cane into the bubur caca and it taste a bit different than usual, but it's good!

Sending someone off is always sad

No matter they are close to you or not.

I feel like crying myself everytime I see someone else crying.
The reason behind those tears, we won't be able to find out most of the time.

But crying does not mean that we are sad.
Often I can see in television that even happiness can cause someone to cry as well.

Festival de Cannes 2010

KL Sentral

The only place where western food is cheaper than normal mixed rice.

The coney dog I ate, served with mashed potatoes and coleslaw cost only 4.9 bucks.
While I took curry mutton with white rice, it is 5.5 bucks.

Maybe it is just that cashier has calculated wrongly.

Age of information technology

There is no boundary in what we can learn. The common logic that experience comes with age can still be true to certain extent but wisdom and knowledge does not adhere to the rule anymore. When we are dealing in IT, people with 10 years experience might know more things than a person with 30 years experience. This is because the whole process is constantly evolving, the old software and technology available 30 years ago is no longer the same now. Heck, even software and technology 10 years ago is already outdated. In other fields, it might be possible to learn at a much slower rate once we have completed our education, but it in IT, there is no such thing as pause or rest. Hiring an employee who has stopped working in IT field for year is as bad as hiring a fresh graduate. Learning process is a liability to the company, heck, we don't pay our employee to learn, we pay them to work! Of course it's bonus if they can learn and work at the same time.

High metabolism

You know you have it when:

- No matter how much you are eating, you just won't get fat.
- You can eat continuous every one hour, even though you are not feeling hungry.
- Muscle can be developed easily with just a bit of exercising.
- Easier to get tired compare to others.
- Heart is beating a bit faster than others.
- Capillaries in the eye-ball is often engorged and makes the whole eye become red.
- You can wake up at any hour and don't feel tired.
- Your reaction is fast.
- Your veins appear bulging out from your limbs.

Well, probably there are more but there is one thing that I want to emphasize..

- Your life will be short.

High metabolism will surely increase the aging rate which the body is going through. Because the cells work harder and die faster, and the rate which the new cells has to be regenerated is also higher, and also, the organs generating the cells would need to work harder too, and in turns to feed this activity, it will absorb more energy and the energy is mostly taken from food and air, therefore, more food is needed all the time and the heart is beating faster to accommodate the intake. In turn, this will cause everything to break down sooner than usual.

It's sad, but it's true.

As the guy from "Blade Runner" movie mentions:

"The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long."

Rainy weather

And the sponge is not dry yet even after 2 days!

Time zone woes

Current timezone of the customers which we have to deal with:

GMT +12 (NZ)
GMT +10 (AU)
GMT +8 (TW)
GMT +7 (ID)
GMT +5:30 (IN)
GMT +3 (SA, BH, JO)

So basically, to cover the office hours of these guys, we have to wake up at as early as 5am and sleep as late as 10:30pm...

Working in Plaza Sentral

The downside is that there's nothing much to eat, the LG1 foodcourt, Sooka, opposite 1Sentral, or opposite the road at Brickfields.

And also parking is quite far. If I walk really fast, I can reach the office in 3 minutes, but I'll be sweating like no tomorrow. If I walk normally, then the trip is about 6 minutes, I guess, usually it takes about 10 minutes.

The good thing about here is that, if we arrive in KLIA during daytime, we have no excuse not to come into the office directly. Last I heard that they are going to put WiFi into the KLIA Express train.. guess they want us to start working even in the train already. :(

The loaf

The bread :(

The soup :| (No comment - can be more spicy)

The main course

i) Mutton curry :( (Too many bones)

Drinks

i) Ice tea :| (Just normal)

Increasing

My waistline...

My junk collection at home...

Spendings...

Number of employees in the company...

Payable income tax...

Pressure...

Workload...

Expectations from boss...

Clearing up the office spaghetti

We just cleared up the lab table, it was full of wires, power cables, network cables, USB cables, some other identified cables, almost one inch thick. It seems a bit tidy now. Wondering when can we clatter it up again?

We need to work harder

Took the wrong turn this morning. Suppose to go back to somewhere near Pasar seni after fetching her to work, but turned into Jln Kuching instead. Had to make a big turn at Jln Duta before reaching my own work place. At least now I know now where to turn tomorrow.

The car is complaining nowadays when doing some sharp turn because the shoe has worn out. We had estimated that it needs to be changed before end of last year. It is already a new year already and we still haven't changed it yet. Guess it's good to change it as soon as possible before going for any long trip.

So fast another year has gone and nothing has been accomplished. Oh well.

Petaling Street

He used to park the car nearby Bangunan Maba while we walked all the way to Petaling Street to look for food and going to the Popular bookshop over there as well. I have only passed by the same way once ever since I came here, and sure it was nostalgic.

I still cannot come to terms with his departure..