While updating my phone using SEUS today, SEUS crashed in the midst of downloading the phone firmware and now the phone is dead. Looks like a trip to the service center is needed… 🙁
This is like my 7th time updating the phone firmware but like they say, there’s always a first time in everything. I’m not too worried though, as only the firmware is missing. I just hope they can restore it in one day without having to leave it. My poor baby…
Following the case I wrote about Exabytes’ disappointing respond to my notification, I received an email from the Director of Business Development saying how sorry they are about the incident.
By responding to a customer without being asked is indeed a very beneficial action towards a business. Customers feel happy that there exists someone inside the company who actually cares (even if they don’t really). It’s a good business practice and kudos to Exabytes.
I suddenly remembered I watched a video once by Ron Kauffman, and he explained how good customer service can overcome product defects. I agree with him 100%, if not more.
One little, meaningful email from my mailbox:
This is a formal notice to owners of domains which have been registered through eNom via its reseller, RegisterFly.com.
YOU MUST TAKE ACTION NOW TO RETAIN FULL MANAGEMENT RIGHTS TO YOUR DOMAIN NAME.
Although you purchased your name at RegisterFly, eNom is the actual registrar of record for your domains. As we are severing our relationship with RegisterFly, we are aware that this may have an impact on you as the domain owner.
Therefore we would like to offer this opportunity to assist you in securing control of your domain name directly with eNom.Over the last year, eNom has become aware of an increasing number of complaints from dissatisfied RegisterFly customers.
As an eNom reseller, RegisterFly is contractually bound to adhere to certain standards of customer service in a speedy and diligent manner. Therefore, effective immediately, we have terminated RegisterFly as a reseller of domain names through eNom.
eNom has come to its senses, as when people buy domains from RegisterFly, eNom’s name gets displayed as well. It used to be like that; now RegisterFly is a fully accredited registrar by its own. The question is, isn’t there any control or qualification rules needed by ICANN to allow a company to be an accredited ICANN registrar?
Update: It turns out that when the domains are transferred to eNom we get an extended renewal for free! A domain I had which expired on the 17th Jan 2007 was renewed even though I was ready to let it go. Maybe this is a sign, and I should do something with that domain?
Update: It turns out that the domains are indeed expired. They keep it for themselves, the expired date shown on a whois query is one year later but the system says it’s expired. 🙂
For the next couple of weeks I may not be able to write so much, due to the fact that I am on 24×7 standby duty at work. This only happens like every 3 months, so I am OK with it.
On another development I have received quite a number of invitations for interviews by referral and immediate employments. Too many junctions ahead, and I have to clear up my head to think and make the best choice for the future. The highest paying company does not mean the best place to work in.
I wrote a plugin to import everything that can be found from the feeds Blogger provides. Many people has emailed me since asking me why I would do such a thing, as Blogger is a great platform for bloggers. This is my answer to all of those questions.
Why do you write this script/plugin?
A simple answer to this is that my better half wanted to migrate to WordPress and she has accidentally accepted the offer to upgrade to the New Blogger (Blogger Beta back then). Next, I was looking for ways to maintain my coding skills in PHP as for the past 3 years I have been working in System Administration and security.
Do you hate Blogger/Google that much?
No I don’t hate them. In fact, I love Google so much that I am willing to work for them if given the chance 😉 I love all Google products, but when it comes to blogging I feel restricted using Blogger. I migrated my blog from that system when it had only two posts. I hope Google does not think I hate them (perhaps that’s why my pagerank stays static).
Why don’t you integrate the Haloscan import into your plugin?
Why should I re-invent the wheel? Justin has written a very good tool to do this.
Do you think it’s suitable to call it a plugin?
No. Other plugins will be used and upgraded as time goes but for this one, you can remove it after you’ve finished importing. Call it a disposable plugin if you desire.
Will this plugin work forever?
No. If Google decides to change a tag inside the feeds, the whole plugin will fall apart. When that time comes, I might or might not have the time to provide an immediate fix. So if you want to do it, I suggest not to wait.
I’ll add my answers from time to time to this post, if I receive any more. Till then, have a nice weekend.
Between 00:20 to 02:10 Malaysian time (16:20 to 18:10 GMT) the Apache service on the server hosting this site was down. I know that only Apache was down due to the fact that I can’t access the webites using the web browser but I can access FTP, SSH, SMTP, and POP. Here’s what I put inside the form for Exabytes technical support:
Hi
We can’t access the site using HTTP. Apache may be down. I can access FTP, SMTP, SSH, and POP. I realized that there was a problem with the network at the data center as described in https://support.exabytes.com/index.php?_m=news&_a=viewnews&newsid=209 but this problem will cause outages on all services, not only HTTP.
Just letting you know as you may not realize Apache is down.
Thank you.
And the reply I received surprised me:
Dear Ady,
At the moment, our network had high latency.
Our network engineers are currently working on this issue.
You may refer to:
https://support.exabytes.com/index.php?_m=news&_a=viewnews&newsid=209If you have any enquiries, please do not hesitate to contact. Thank You.
Best Regards,
KM Chow
………………………………..
System Engineer,
Exa Bytes Network Sdn Bhd
With an excellent customer support record so far (at least for myself), I was surprised that this Engineer (?) can’t read well. He shouldn’t have repeated the URL I already mentioned. This somehow implies that the customer can’t read and the reply really looks like a template.
I am hosting at Exabytes Malaysia due to the fact that the customer support is fast, and my access to the server is very fast. But right now I am thinking of moving my blog elsewhere. Too bad some of other sites I host here must stay due to the fact that they are targeted to Malaysian customers and the access is fast.
Update #3 (26 April 2007): This plugin has been broken by changes made to feeds on Blogger, and is pretty much unusable anymore. The download links are still there so if you want to try it anyway you can do so. Try to see the method described in TechCounter (the last one) for a good method. Theoretically this would work but I have not tried it. Good luck!.
Update #2: Only 500 posts can be imported via RSS (Blogger limited the RSS feed to only contain 500 max posts). Check out comment 181 and 191 below for suggestions.
Update: This plugin is now known as Blogger RSS Import instead of New Blogger Import.
Back in December, I created a stand alone script to import Blogger Beta to WordPress. I didn’t really expect that many will benefit from it until I received so many comments and bug reports. So here is the improved version, as a plugin. Many improvements were done especially at the database side where WordPress functions are utilized, and there’s no security issue anymore.
Continue reading Plugin: Import New Blogger To WordPress
According to TMNET:
In view of these unforeseen circumstances, the consortium has confirmed that the full restoration will be completed by January 29th, 2007. Your patience is much appreciated during this restoration process.
Wow! That was fast. WordPress 2.1 has been released. Users of my Blogger Beta importer, please be aware that the script might not work with WordPress 2.1
I shall have to look into it later.
Update: A kind soul tested the script to a fresh install of WordPress 2.1 and it still works.
Update: This blog has also been updated to WordPress 2.1 without many complications. Only 2 of my plugins failed.
Well, this post is not about my dad but about GoDaddy. Tonight, after my continuous disappointment with RegisterFly I decided to buy some domains from GoDaddy. I am still very impressed with their system. Top level automation. For my story I will need the following image to assist me.
As their promotion mentioned: Private Registration just $4.99 or FREE when you register three or more domains!
Even though I didn’t really need private whois information, it was quite a good offer especially with .com domains priced at USD6.95. So I went and add 3 domains to my cart, clicking the “private” button. That went well – all of the private registrations (rows 4-6) were inserted with cost of 0. At this moment all three domains were at their full prices, so my total cart amount was USD23.64.
Next I simply added a .info domain which costs me USD1.99. Nothing special about it, just the low price but I still get the free private registration. My cart now holds USD25.88.
Next, I needed a simple hosting preferably with unlimited domains so I signed up for a year of budget Linux hosting. That costs USD43.05 (3.59 x 12). The most exciting part here is that the first domain I registered (row 1) became USD1.99 as they promised with the hosting package: Your Domain is Just $1.99 With This Purchase. My total then was USD63.97.
Going further, I was ready to checkout and pay with my PayPal but I remembered a discount code provided by BLAUGH. So I entered it and further obtained 10% discount (even though 10% should be USD6.397 I was given USD5.20 – must be some other calculations). It brought my total to USD58.77.
If I consider my hosting to be paid in full (USD43.05) I only paid 58.77 – 43.05 = 15.72 for my two .com, a .net and a .info domain 😉
I was (am) happy. I would really recommend this service to everyone. And immediately after paying, I can already check my whois, and manage my brand new domains.
By the way, RegisterFly responded to my ticket about domains not registered (see related link), and they say it was a problem with traffic load being too high. That’s a bad excuse.
Yes what you heard is right. Sued. Jeff Ooi and Rocky were served separately by a group of the same people for what else but the contents of their blogs.
I am very unfamiliar with law terms, and in the area itself so I am not going to comment much.
However seeing the situation I do feel that since this is now in legal proceedings, bloggers are being taken a lot seriously in Malaysia. I feel sorry for the fellow bloggers of course, but let’s not take this matter to the extreme. After all we are all professionals and can think on our own.
I do keep track of the subversion repository and the latest I just updated from the server is 2.1 beta4. I can see lots of improvements for the management interface although I don’t have the time to take a look at the internals yet. The interface runs smoother and faster – or is it just psychology? 😉
Anyway one of the most obvious upgrade is the image uploading form – feel likes AJAX. I say feel because like I said I didn’t look at the codes. Navigation of images are insanely fast, better than the current inline uploading used by 2.0.x series. Here’s a snapshot:
I love it!
I think version 2.1 beta4, like its counterpart 2.0.7 also fixes the FeedBurner problem as I no longer receive feed medic alerts. Thumbs up to WordPress.
There’s a new update for WordPress: version 2.0.7
Most of you who are currently using WordPress would be able to see it on your dashboard. This is a very minor upgrade, involving these files:
There’s a new service in town: LinkedIn
It’s a connection building site, more or less the purpose is like those of Ringo or Friendster but targeted to the professional community. It have a paid option where you can see more business information about other people in the community. The site looks professional and the system works really well.
If you ask me, this is a very good opportunity for you to get linked to others and find out if anyone is interested in your expertise. I does not matter if you’re still a student – the system supports it too. Maybe you’ll be able to secure a job after graduation, or even find a place to do your industrial training. As for me, well if there are opportunities to work abroad or remotely I would certainly be interested 😉
Connect to me now: http://www.linkedin.com/in/romantika. Drop me an invitation using my email ady [at] romantika [dot] name
This is not a paid post, and I will not gain anything from this except for valuable networking and contacts.
Urgh… RegisterFly did it again. Although I have officially become a GoDaddy customer, I still have like USD30+ in my RegisterFly account so I decided to spend the money on some domains I have in mind. Guess what? I registered and paid for the domains on the 5th of January 2007 but until today there’s no sign of the domain in any whois and they remain free for registration.
So, if someone were to buy those domains from other registrars they still can. It’s so stupid and disappointing especially since they took my money when I registered, and now that I want to use it they don’t exist!
I sent them a ticket two days ago, and until now there’s still no reply. That’s normal even though they boast of 24/7 support on the top of their page. Maybe I should try calling their support number.
Things ain’t that bad as I registered some not so very critical domains… and I can always buy them somewhere else as they have not been registered. 😉