Xin Nian Kuai Le

HaPPy Chinese New year! busy collecting Ang Bao so i will cut it short, been a game addict for the past weeks again. Thanks to blizzard's WoW expansion, got my lvl 70 Character and my Flying mount plus Jewelcrafting skill blah blah....

As for my work, in pretty bad shape, especially last week. It's the longest and worst of my life man, WHY ? I caused my customer's database filesystem to be corrupted somehow. The database are use by 14 EMEA countries ( EURO countries). Unfortunately, we are unable to retrieve the Customer data. No idea what's gonna happen to me after chinese new year.

4 Lessons learnt:
1) Be prepared before you start doing any task, write out Action plans for ya task.
2) Always ensure backup of critical data before making any changes.
3) Move forward and list out next action rather than drilling on the past.
4) Never forget the first 3 lessons


Wish me luck

10 Bucks

**This a draft copied written in Jan might be out of date.

What can you do with $10 ?
1) Buy 5 items at 1.99 shop : Jazztures 199
2) 2 X chicken rice + 1 X duck rice + slice fish soup
3) Newman magazine + snicker bar + 500ml coke
4) Get parallel import CDs
5) Pump 6Litres of petrol
6) Cab fare for about 12KM distance
7) 10 Games of bowling frame @ plaza star bowl
8) Catch a movie @ Golden Village (HSBC + Safra discount) with a cup of butter corns
9) 5hrs of non stop gaming @ H.I.G.H
10) A day at sentosa siloso beach

blah blah blah many more.

Picked no. 8 for last weekend(well about 1month ago) , been watching movie almost every weekend nowadays. It get bored when the you keep repeating the activities and it cant keep your interest/focus on it. Most of the movie screened are just average, not much to talk about after watching.

Have you watch "Brave heart" , Passion of Christ" ?

Highly recommended "Apocalypto" !! Think the Cinema isnt screening this anymore, go get the DVDs man.

Do you use AXS

pay your monthly bills through S.A.M or AXS machine ? I have been using it for mobile bills and digital voice and misc bills. Pretty fast and easy.


Here's a story I gotten from a friend,

I was queuing behind a guy who is using the S.A.M machine an he is taking his own sweet time. But i did take a look at why is he taking such a long time, coz he keep pressing the "previous menu" button.

Then he decided to let me use first. So when i used it, the screen already show the main menu page. I proceed with my transaction and pay the bill using my ATM card. Luckily i have this habit of taking a look at my reciept, found that how come the total amount is so much. I go through the list of bills i pay and found that i have paid one that is not mine. So i turn around and look, the guy who was using before me, use the machine again, keying in the same amount. I approach him and told him, i have paid his bill. So i say wait while i call the hotline number on the machine for help. While i was on the phone, the guy juz quietly walk away, went to the AXS machine not far away.

Point to note, remember to check your summary page and the amount on the receipt.

shivering

It was 0150hrs on Monday morning, as usual one of my late nights (was doing world of warcraft raids Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj aka AQ 20 GKP, it been a long time since my last raid). Went for a bio break and saw granny's room lighted.

As I stepped into the room, granny was shivering, speaking very softly to dad, her expression look pale and restless. Touched her forehead and felt feverish, she had been having on and off fever a few days ago. Next thing in my mind was to send her to hospital. But she refused. She told us that she took the medication just now and mumbling softly, "I can endure it till morning, it's troublesome to go hospital now"

Granny is a very independent lady, despite her age of 82, she still move on her own using walking frame, bath, eat etc Be it whatever matters, as long as she still has the capability to do it, she will do it on her own. She doesn't like to voice out for help (think she does not want to trouble us but no matter how many times we told her, call for us if you need anything, she still goes back to the same way). She has been bearing the pain agony on both her legs for the past decades and taking 10 over types of tablets every single day without complaining. She kept all the pain and sorrow to herself. Sometime back, when I got my graduation regalia and purpose a family photo shot. After countless attempts, manage to convince granny to go for the shot with us at a nearby photo shop. It was a happy event but ....... granny requested the photographer to take a solo picture of herself. I felt curious initially and got SHOCKED !!! guess what's the intention of that photo ? It's sad and heart hardening, its a funeral photo =\ arghhhh

Reality of life is cruel, sometimes in my thoughts, I will wonder, does that mean she does not have anything to look forward to anymore ? No more meaning in life ?

Continuing the from granny's room, I insisted on sending her to hospital, she was shivering so badly and somehow I felt that she's in pain from her expression and tone though she did not say it. True enough, during trip to Tan Tock Seng Hospital, I discovered more ...... she's been having on and off fever for past 5 days, having headaches, abdominal pain, very poor appetite, constipation for almost a week, stain of stale blood.

Did a quick registration and she was pushed into the A&E room. Oh for those who have not go through the whole process, do wait outside the A&E room and not the waiting corner outside the registration counter. (I waited at the waiting corner outside the registration counter and miss the page from the doctor, end up he rang my uncle house in the middle of the night - 0300hrs ++ well I did provide my mobile no. at the during the registration. Wonder why it was not reflected. )

The doctor collected some blood sample and urine for testing and sent granny for X-ray. Not sure what's the diagnosis outcome, got to check with the doctor tomorrow.

Dinner and Dance

Have you attended Dinner and Dance ? What were you expecting ? Food, beverages, mingling, stage play, lucky draw, entertainment shows etc which compose of the Dinner part. But where's the Dance part ?

Attended the Dinner and Dance of citigroup last month, it was held at Orchard Hotel. I was pretty impressed, first the door gift,

Simple and nice organizer with a pen.

During the guest arrival time slot, there are various corner setup to keep the guest occupied. Stalls like instant photography, agent smith shooting (using toy air gun to shoot down agent smith, haha I managed to hit all the targets Good Marksmanship huh =D), Mini casino (each guest upon entering are given 10 chips, the top 3 who walk out of the room will be given some prize. But lady luck wasn't with me that night. )

The Theme was 'Secret agent' but only a couple of them dress up for the theme, I would say less than 5%. One of the best was Austin Power thought of taking a picture with him but the instant photography stall already closed as the dinner was starting. Got to know that the guy in Austin Power suit is actually the big boss.

I was chatting with my sis a few days ago and Guess her company dinner theme .....


'back to school'

I was like OMG imagine those middle age high 30s and 40s in school uniform. Well you gonna give them a thumb up for the guts to wear it. Cant wait to see those photos.

The hosts for our Dinner and Dance are Glenn Ong and Jamie Yeo. She's awesome man ! Sunny look, sweet smile, silky hair, sparkling eyes

Dinner ended as the 1st prize winner was drawn(She got a samsung LCD TV 40 inch), guests started to leave the hall. I saw the mobile disco setting up and thought of a quick break before coming back for the Dance part. Went back in 15 minutes time and arghhhhhh 98% of the crowd have left and nobody dancing. Why should they call it Dinner and Dance where there's no Dance happening.

The mobile disco company earned a free and easy assignment man.

MSN missing contacts list

Did a transfer of laptop HDD from a nx6110 to nx7010 laptop last week. I had both laptops (issued by company) since Nov 06 but the nx7010 wasn't utilize at all as the nx6110 was able to fulfill my work and personal computer usage requirement.

Last week, I decided to swap the HDD from nx6110 to nx7010. Why ? Primary reason was the standalone graphic card (ATI 9200, 32MB) WoooO! compare to the nx6110 a integrated Intel graphic card. If you are wondering what so great about that graphic ? Try playing World of Warcraft on a laptop which has integrated and a standalone graphic card. You will observe a significant difference.

Before performing the formatting, I wanted to have a backup image of the nx6110 working Operation System just in case the unexpected happens. For those who have trouble finding norton ghost or getting free backup solution, read this post : backup solution by Arconis

*note : Do remember to view your backup image first before formatting.

After the swapped, HDD format, installation, setup of software and drivers on the nx7010, I got a HELL SHOCKED, ALL MY MSN CONTACTS are GONE!!! I was like !@#%^ !! I did not backup the MSN contact or rather it did not appear in my mind as I always thought since version 7 of MSN messenger, the contact list are store online rather than local system of users.

Once again, I LOVE the Internet, did a quick search and got my solution for retrieving my MSN contact list. MSN contact list missing

Delete your Contacts cache folder

If your contact list is empty or incomplete after you upgrade to Windows Live Messenger, the cached contact list may not have updated correctly. Before you can delete your Contacts cache folder, make sure you can view your complete folder list in Windows Explorer.

View your complete folder list

On the taskbar, right-click Start, and then select Explore. Click on Tools, and then select Folder Options. In the Folder Options window, click the View tab. In the Advanced Settings list, select Show hidden files and folders, make sure Hide extensions for known file types is not selected, and then click OK. In the Windows Explorer window, click View, select Explorer Bar, and then verify that Folders is checked.

Delete your Contacts cache folder

After changing your Windows Explorer settings: On the taskbar, right-click Start, and then select Explore. In the folder list on the left-hand pane, navigate to the folder C:\Documents and Settings\Your Windows logon name\Contacts\Your Messenger email address. Delete all of the files within the folder Your Messenger email address. In the folder list on the left-hand pane, navigate to the folder C:\Documents and Settings\Your Windows logon name\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows Live Contacts\Your Messenger email address. In the Your Messenger email address folder, delete the real and shadow folders. Close Windows Explorer and try to sign in to Messenger again.

Msn Chat Snapshot

Little chat of our "Puppet Master"

Source: Gonzo Journal - Hidden Master

You want to be the second ?

Are you a broadband user ?
Are you you using a wireless network ?
Do you use msn messenger ?
Do you surf net ?
Are you aware that you can see open wireless network under your window's network features ?
Will you consider tapping those open network ?

If you answered 'yes' to all the above, CONGRATULATION, you have won the possibilities of becoming the 2nd person to be charge !

His mum told him not to use the Internet but subject known as Garyl, determined chat with his friends (maybe GF). He left home with his laptop around 2 am and wandered around the estate in search of a wireless network to tap

He manage to find one open network and logged on to the network. It was a bad day for him, got scolding from mum and he was spotted by this passing by driver who confronted him.

Later on, Garyl was arrested and became the first person in Singapore to be charged with encroaching upon someone else's wireless Internet connection under the Computer Misuse Act.

PS : He could have drop by a 24hr Mcdonalds( locate 24hr McDonalds around ya area) man. Or register for Wireless@SG
Read more on CNA, first to be charge

Hub is the way to go

Which broadband service did you subscribe ? If you are a MaxOnline supporter like myself, will share a piece of good news with ya.

Remember some time back where there's a basic plan from MaxOnline - 1500kbps service? As technology evolved, all subscriber under 1500kbps was upgraded to 2000kbps.

Thereafter, Internet service provider start to change their marketing strategy and offer freebie such as networking solution package, desktop, laptop, camera etc when you sign up new plans or renew your existing contract trying to grab a larger market share.

I m not sure about Singnet but MaxOnline provide a free upgrade of the 2000kbps subscribers to 4000kbps some time back (think it's last year or early this year) at NO ADDITIONAL COST!

Here's the GOOD NEWS,

Are you ready ??

Speed upgrades for FREE on MaxOnline!

All MaxOnline customers will enjoy an automatic speed upgrade. From 28 December, MaxOnline 4000 and MaxOnline FlexiSurf 4000 will be upgraded to speeds of up to 6,000Kbps. MaxOnline 6500 will zoom at speeds of up to 12,000Kbps. Absolutely free!

This is yet another speed upgrade which we constantly bring to MaxOnline customers to support your evolving broadband needs.

Simply power off your cable modem and back on again from 28 December to enjoy the free boost in bandwidth.

OMG !!! Isn't this a good christmas gift from MaxOnline ? =D

Information taken from Starhub MaxOnline 4000 upgrade

Catchy

Well seeing actresses in bra isn't a big deal nowadays, if she has the 'asset' and put it off well, it will add charm and confident in her.


It bring me back to one of the star awards in 1996, she caught my attention totally man well it was like 10 years back. She wore a black see through top


Ops think Fann Wong was wearing something similar too?

WoW honor farming

Been busy lately, doing PVP (Player VS Player) in World of Warcraft after new 2.01 patch has been released.

In the past, getting those stunning looking and superb attribute PVP armour & weapon seem nearly impossible for casual gamers. Why ? The requirements for the best armour & weapon is nearly insane! You need to be the highest rank - Grand Marshal for alliance and High warlord for Horde in order to make the purchase. To attain that rank, well, you need tones of honors per week and you need to keep your ranking at the top for consecutive 3 weeks in order to reach the highest rank.

With the new PVP system, those awesome armour and weapon are available for purchase using honor points earned. Each armour or weapon have a price tag and you can only purchase using the honor points you have earned.

Out of the 3 battlegrounds, 1) Alterac Valley 2) Arathi basin 3)Warsong
Both Arathi Basin and Warsong, give you very minimum honor point if not zero upon losing the game.
Only Alterac Valley will yield you the highest honor points gain regardless your fraction or victory.

Want to get your PVP armour & weapon in the easiest and the cheapest way(no engaging of farmer to grind on your account) ?
Tried of queueing for battleground ?
Want to spend time on other stuffs and get honor points simultaneously ?

Thus my Alterac Valley honor farming research begins.....

1) Initially I manage to make the process semi-automated, I had to manually queue for the battleground and autojoin the battleground using a addon, 'Asmo Honor Role' from curse-gaming.
a) After my character got into the game, I thought of two method to prevent my character of getting AFK out.
One : autorun into wall -> fail
Two : putting physical object on the 'forward' key of my keyboard -> fail

Well, there's actually a way to bypass the AFK mode after some observation with some try and errors.
2) How do I automate the whole process, auto queue > auto join > anti afk > auto queue again and repeat the cycle ?

You could use marco to automate the above process but there's a certain rules and exceptions that you need to add or aware in order for the whole cycle to repeat without fail to farm those Juicy honor!

Drop me a note if you wish to find out - How I automate the farming of honor in WoW.

Delicious

Anyone going Taiwan soon or saw this in retail shop in Singapore ?


From the outside it look just like any other instant bowl noodle.
So what's the special stuffs ?

It's a duck flavour instant noodle !!
And ? Flavouring isn't a big deal.

It has 4 packets of seasonings.
hmm common stuffs.

**drum beat....... IT has a packet duck meat !!! and it's UBER DELICIOUS!!!

Ta .... Da.... The duck meat instant noodle. The duck meat are those in brown chunk

I got this from roger and he was saying, "it's the best instant noodle I had ever eat, after eating this you won't eat other type."

Hmm agreed with he's statement with slight difference, "it's the best instant noodle I had ever eat, after eating this you won't forget it. But where to buy ?"

World of Warcraft Burning Crusade Collector's Edition

oh my god, I know good stuffs get snatched away real fast once they are release in store. But this is way too much.

I wanted to get my hands on collector's edition for World of Warcraft Burning Crusade expansion. Thought a month before the official date of release would be enough to make the pre-order purchase but I was wrong.

First I make the pre-order via a friend's friend in mid October, once the acknowledgment came, I was happy(no searching high and low). One month later, the seller told my friend that he's unable to get the Collector Edition only the normal version. arghhhhh

Thus my search on the web began, went to a few sites like gamespot, amazon etc, the item was listed there but "sold out" man. Did a check on eBay and expecting the price to be higher than retail. Yes indeed, someone putting it for USD 219.99 which is like

219.99 USD United States Dollars

=

338.899 SGD Singapore Dollars

The price is ridiculous.

The search continued ......

finally found one site which might still have the stock.
HMV.co.uk They are selling for

39.99 GBP United Kingdom Pounds

=

121.171 SGD Singapore Dollars

Here's the product and it's content :





• World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade on both CD and DVD
• World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Behind-the-Scenes DVD
• The Art of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Hardcover Art Book
• Exclusive In-Game Pet: Netherwhelp
• Two World of Warcraft Trading Card Game Starter Packs, plus Exclusive Cards
• Map of Outland Mouse Pad
• World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Soundtrack CD

PS : Those who are interested WHY 5 Million people are playing World of Warcraft, I still have four 10 Days trial CD-key invite. Drop me a note.

2 Factor Authentication

I think most of us will have a bank account the only differences - bank, type of account and the amount inside =D.

Online shopping, fund transfer, bills payment, bank statement etc are services which combine the power of Internet and banking function.

Do you use Internet banking ? And what are the measures you took to ensure that personal information like Internet ID and pin are safe ? Some of the things I take note,
1)only use Internet banking on my personal PC/laptop.
2)Manually type in the Internet banking link on browser
3)clear history and cache of browser after usage.
4)ensure that your PC are spy ware and virus free
5)have a up-to-date antivirus program running

Here's another layer of security, ever hear of 2nd Factor Authentication ?
What's that ? and how it works ? Questions like these might pop and here's the answer.

Normally, you just need your ID and pin to access the Internet banking services from your bank's website. If anyone get to know about your personal information through some means, he would be able to gain access to your account.

With 2nd factor authentication, Internet banking user are require to provide a additional pin aka the OTP (one-time password, which is generate from a personal device you owned and it stays valid only for a few minutes after it has been generated, and it cannot be used more than once.)

Every One-Time Password (OTP) is unique and can only be used in conjunction with a user's Internet Banking Access Code and PIN. So even if a hacker gains access to your Access Code and PIN, the 2nd level of authentication prevents further entry because the OTP can only be obtained via a personal device (2FA Token) owned by you.

If someone manage to get your OTP device without the account information, he won't be able to do anything too.

With all the above, it bring me back to what I learnt during my Uni days, Security comes with complexity. But users does not want too complex stuff and want the maximum security.

As a DBS user, I m issued with a OTP device 1 month back. Not much hassle getting use to a additional device. But here's a problem for those who use Internet banking outside eg office. You will need to carry the OTP device around even though it about a USB thumb drive size.

As OCBC user, I m given an option to pick 3 method of 2nd factor authentication.



1) a hardware token
2) a token application which can be downloaded and install into your mobile phone.
3) SMS token - I think this will be the most convenient way.

We live in Singapura

Wanna have a quick glimpse of Singapore history ?

check anmiation. Might take awhile to download (5mb)

We live in Singapura

Time never seem enough

Have you ever encounter the feeling that 24hrs a day isn't enough ? Everyone have 24hrs a day it's actually how you use it. If you divide the 24hrs into 8 hrs blocks.

8hrs for sleep
8hrs for work
8hrs for eat, bath, transport, family, personal time

well some might be able to sleep as little as 4-6hrs daily and wake up with full drive the next day but most of us will be dozing on desk...If you are those who have tips for sleeping less and feeling energetic the next day, please share =D

Work, if you are an employee you would not have much choice of cutting ya working hours but if you are a workaholic, chances are high that you easily spent 10-12hrs working. I would not categorize myself under this group but for the past few days I have been working 12hrs daily arghh. Felt so exhausted and moody. By the time I reached home, dinner, wash up etc, follow by tracking of stuffs I missed during the day(emails) as I was in the data server, surf a little on news and blogs and pooooh...foooo time for bed! If you are self-employee, the more you would want to maximize your earning and you would spent more time finding the ways and means to reach your goals.

Lastly, the final block for bath, meals, transport, family, personal. Lets see lunch and dinner will add up to about 2hrs(if you are doing the cooking and washing which is very time consuming, this may easily be 4-6hrs). As for the transport, normally it's 2 hours from source to destination and vice versa. Left with only 2hrs for family and 2hrs for personal.

24hours a day really seem so short and time does not stop and wait for you.

Traffic

Some analogy by bill from Amasci : "Merging-Lane Traffic Jams"

He's solution:

<<<<<
Normally, drivers who pack themselves tightly together whenever the traffic comes to a stop. Nobody can merge except the end of the jam. Note their speed.

>>>>>

Drivers with unusual behavior will encourage others to merge ahead of them and maintain large spaces ahead. This way, the merging is EASY. Compare the speed with the right.












Traffic jams on highways are often triggered where two lanes must merge into one, typical example CTE on peak hours. Lanes of cars move slowly to merge as there's hardly any gaps between cars. Therefore, drivers who create large gaps between cars will ease this type of traffic jam.

Here's the problem, this solution require effort of all drivers. How to make it work ? Get traffic police to draw a proposal for this and make it as a traffic rules ?

Shocking flashlight

What do you normally expect from a flashlight or touch light ? Or rather when do you use it ?

Like most people, I used it for seeing dark corners or see my way in the dark etc.

But check this "modified flashlight" wooo la la



Multi-function flashlight!! But beware of where you shine IT =D. I wonder if he had used special batteries.

Backup solution

I was actually looking for norton ghost software a few weeks ago. Why? Wanted to make a backup copy of my laptop OS with all the driver settings. Touch wood, if something happens (remember I had a pretty bad virus + trojan infection some months back) I was a painful thing to get rid of the invasion. Worst,

1. reinstallation of OS
2. software installation
3. updates of OS and software
   
4. drivers
   
5. email settings
6. profile/desktop settings
7. browser settings
8. msn settings
9. software settings
10. directories and folders management

blah blah was very time consuming, it took me about 3 days to restore everything.

Found out that Acronis actually provide a solution to the above hassle :

Acronis True Image 10 Home creates the exact copy of your hard disk and allows you to instantly restore the entire machine including operating system, applications, and all the data in the event of a fatal system crash or virus attack — no reinstallations required!

With the new version you also can easily back up your music, video, and digital photos, as well as Outlook e-mails, contacts, calendar, tasks, and user settings with just a few mouse clicks!

• Copy your entire PC, including the operating system, applications, user settings, and all data using our patented disk imaging technology.
• Backup your music, video, and digital photos!
• Backup your Outlook e-mails, contacts, calendar, tasks, notes, signatures, news folders, e-mail rules and user settings with just a few mouse clicks!
• Restore all the settings for Microsoft Office, iTunes, Windows Media Player and dozens of popular applications!

Wonderful! Pampered by technology and I will be more lazy. But I like it =D

For the version 10 you will be given trial period and pay thereafter, here's a free version of Acronis True Image 7 just need a email registration. Check your junk mails, it actually landed up there for my case.

Click on the email link and sign in with the password generated. Thereafter, clicked registered products >>download installation file.

Nokia N93

Five lucky trial users will be able to hold and behold the multifaceted N93 for one whole week.

Register for free trial on Nokia N93 and stand a chance to walk away with it.