My NTU Blog is On!

It's been 5 years since I graduated from NTU.

Apart from a tiny little certificate, which only been shown a few times when I went for interview, it left me a precious & wonderful memory, mission to contribute my real profession, and an email which I would proud of keep myself update of NTU by receiving several campus epapers.

Now, even better with the generosity by NTUCC to open it's Weblogs service to alumni, with as much as 500MB available space to spend. (email only 100MB)
Perhaps I'm amongst the 1st oversea alumni to try this Wordpress-based service out.

Now mine is activated. 1st come 1st serve. The major topic for this blog is pending but for sure it'll serve with Chinese.

Do Some Good Deed With reCAPTCHA

Ever seen image with curvy phrases with strikethrough, or perhaps just random numbers or string on internet?
We keep seeing this while submitting form or comment, or any other process which needed to be confirmed
that it's done by intentional, thoughtful human's mind, not robot's arbitrarily messy job. You bet with CAPTCHA!

Although CAPTCHA is not invincible in filtering spam due to the advancement of some brute force and OCR hacks, it's definitely a good discriminator of behavior between human and machine.

Now the even better idea came by an assumption that people will help to digitise books:

 

That's not the end.
For those who are afraid of exposing their emails to spammers, you can utilise this technique to hide email from the unwanted eyes.

So here's my email.

A Gift From National Day

31st Aug 2009 will definitely be a day to remember, as soon after this joyous day the drivers from all over the country will have to pay more for their millage.

Wonder how the authority predicts the international petrol price.
As announced by the authority months ago, the RON97 petrol unit price will raise up from RM1.80 to RM2.00 per litre.
Meanwhile, a new grade of petrol will be introduced to the market, that is RON95, RM1.75 per litre, while RON92 may be ceased.

So, 2.00 v.s. 1.75, sure we'll pick the latter.
But not all the vehicles benefit from this.
Luckily MTM just updated their article The RON List for reference.
All in all, only Honda Civic Type R, Mitsubishi Lancer Evo., Range Rover (Only manufacturer's name not model name?), Skoda (Can't forget it's rather weird logo), Suzuki Swift Sport are being affected. But guess the rich owners won't bother this.

There's also an older version of RON List with RON92 compatibility I received earlier with email.
Gosh! I used to fuel in my lovely New Saga with RON92!
Well, according to Caltex RON FAQ, only some lag in performance.

Now that I noticed from the Proton New Saga Owner's Manual the recommended fuel for New Saga is Unleaded RON95.
Ha, who will read through all those words, if nothing happens?

MS Virtual PC 2007

I've been using this for months to experience the notorious Vista.

Virtual PC is a platform that allows you to use an guest OS right inside your existing OS.
For instance, you can use Windows Vista right inside your existing Windows XP without having to mess up with the partitioning or re-installation. What's more, you can use and switch between several OSes at the same time.
This implies a great saving in cost & time as no need to prepare a testing kluge as well.

Official intro: If you are running Windows Vista or Windows XP on your physical machine, you can still use Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 to run multiple operating systems at the same time on the same physical computer. Switch between virtual machines with the click of a button. Use virtual machines to run legacy applications, provide support, train users, and enhance quality assurance.

Oh! Forget to mentioned VPC is just like other great software acquired by MS. It's been purchased from Connectix Corporation more than 5 years back.

Sealed this up.
Let's take a glimpse:

Upon executing, there's a main console where you can choose guest OSes.
For this instance, I have only Vista added.



However, the list is empty by default.
You have to create a virtual machine with the step-by-step wizard:



After a few dummy-proof steps, you'll stuck here:
{I'll explain this later}



{I'll explain this later}




DOWNLOAD:
MS VPC 2007
There's also a hacked Chinese Simplified version around the internet which no installation is needed.

Windows Live Messenger in x64 WinXP

For more than a month my Windows Live Messenger BETA refused to function properly.
It pops up an error message telling that it can't connect then closed automatically with error report.
I didn't pay much attention on it until I really need to use it.
There's an easy way to solve this, which is only to delete folders with random numbers,
under Application Data\Microsoft\MSN Messenger (or Windows Messenger),
or under Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows Live Contacts.
Just soon after trying to delete a few folders with the oldest date,
my WLM functions normally like it was before.

Since I've been using this BETA version in my 64-bit environment for over a year,
guess there's a more updated version to grab for from WLM.
However, it ended up with this:



As far as I remember there was no problem while installing WLM 2009 Beta in Win XP x64.
Seems that they didn't like x64 geeks to chat with each other.
There's one of the ways to have it done:
Windows Live Messenger 2009 on Windows XP 64bit

But I'll stick with the Beta one since it's functioning well now.

FUELLY - Share Your Fuel Economy

Since the purchasing of my 2nd car Proton New Saga, I came across a fine website to record(manually, of course), to calculate & to share your fuel expenses & mileage.



One has to add a car to start tracking & building the statistics for fuel economy.
Since I joined in December 2008, there is no option for Proton cars to choose from.
I e-mailed to ask the website builder if they could kindly add options for Proton cars, with no respond, for months.

This disappointed me.

There are lots of such websites around the internet, like Your MPG, maintaining by US government, could be an alternative.

But I just love at my 1st sight. XD

So I re-e-mailed them and got quick respond from Paul:
"Thanks for the suggestion. I just added Proton to the system."

Not only that, he added "Saga" in the Proton model.
Proton owners would be thankful to him.

So I'm going to start my fuel economy statistics.
Here show you my fuelly badge:

Get Stucked By User Profile Service In Vista

Scenario
After keying-in password and hitting enter on the Windows Vista logon screen, error message "The User Profile Service service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded." pops up, followed by automatic logging off.

Background
One of my housemates took out the fully-charged battery from his newly bought laptop, and using the AC-adapter as the sole power input. He switched off the AC power supply after turning the laptop into Sleep mode.

Problem-solving
Dell Solution Network: Knowledge Base Article
The User Profile Service Failed the Logon Error Occurs When Logging Into Vista
In this scenario, "Delete the Corrupted SID Within the Registry" on the official solution does not help at all, as logging in is prohibited by the automatic logging off after the error message.
So I restarted the system, pressed F8 during startup until I got into the Startup menu. I chose the 1st option, Repair Computer, followed by Restore the System. It just simply works!

Discussion
The major cause could be due to user SID or user profile not being properly saved into hard disk.
"Sleep" is totally different from "Hibernate".
During Sleep mode, data is temporary stored into RAM that is maintained by power supply; while in Hibernate mode, data is physically written into hard disk.

Conclusion
Thus it is advisable not to bother the battery while using laptop, unless you really want to elongate the life span of the laptop battery, and that you have UPS with you.

The Little Nyonya

This Singaporean TV drama suddenly came out my mind.

It's nostalgic, which represents the life of local Peranakan.



Just can't wait to watch the colourful Nyonya blouse waves, like the different cheong-san dress showing in "In The Mood For Love" (花样年华).

Don't know "Baba" (not "Alibaba"), "Nyonya" or "Peranakan"?
More trivia on The Little Nyonya's official website.

You've to install Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 (4MB+) in order to watch the videos.

Great Promo From TM

I heard this for several days until now I have time to take a look on it, and it seems to be a damn good deal, for as low as RM10 monthly you can have unlimited nation-wide calls & a free cordless phone.

I'm going to get it, and you?

Go For Re-Vote!

I can recall the ultra-chaos states in pan-political Taiwan.
It's now happen in my beloved Malaysia too.

Whatsoever now the fate is in the hand.

There are two methods to check whether you are a legitimate voter.

Go online with SPR

Or go mobile with MySMS



By the way, my mom is glad to have money packet & a pack of 10kgs rice from BN.

dotTEL - The New Way To Communicate

There're always 2 extremes.

Before we used to share a lot private info onto the www.
We put our contact info like emails, telephone numbers and the like.

Later when we think of privacy, we removed the info.
Some smart guys might use email link generator to put their email links in picture forms.

Then we have Facebook, Myspace etc.

Now a new trend perhaps, dotTEL, as an online personal name card.



I've been registered several domain names from name.com, as their integration with Google App makes me easy to handle a newly registered domain & website.

Now they're providing an innovative domain extension, dotTEL.
Check it out here!

The Pirate & The Emperor's Ship

I must admit my much appreciation for the creation of the documentary of endangered cultural pieces for not just story-telling viewing pleasure but the rise of the awareness of all age to protect what's left by our briliant ancesstor.

After "Ah Kew The Digger", a documentary about Chinese in Taiping,

here's the 2nd documentary by Lee Eng Kew.

From Pirate To God

March 11, 8pm, free entry: Han Chiang College, Penang.

See you there!

Ramp Up

"Ramp Up is a free, online, community-based learning program that will help you build professional development skills. Join Ramp Up (it's free!) and help advance your career"



This's particularly good for my newly employed as a system programmer housemate.

Let Gov SMS You!

Just came across a few weeks back. (always)

mySMS or 15888

It's a virtual community service provided since July 2008 by Malaysian government to provide an mobile informative platform for the citizen.

Isn't it a good idea to have JPJ reminds you the expiry date for yearly-renewed road tax and driving license?

Apart from this notification service (known as OneJPJ), you can check for the contact address, application status, examination results of various government agencies, even to order application form which to be emailed to appointed email address.

Other functions are to be implemented.

When We Were Together

A wonderful piece of art work, which penetrates deep inside the heart, recalls all those everlasting bygones.

It ended without a full stop which easily drag you fall back to the unforgetable scenes, which somehow also an ongoing or unfinished story, always playing inside your heart.

Try search the artist for more detail.