Year: 2007

Useful WordPress Plugin: WordPress Suicide

WordPress Suicide is a useful plugin, particularly if you are running tests on your freshly installed WordPress.

Also, if you are trying to import your posts and comments from the New Blogger this could prove useful – if you are unlucky to have problems during your import. Some people succeed the first time, but some do have problems.

As for the importer, I am trying to find time to update it to include features that were requested by users. Currently I can only fix important bugs, if found. It’s currently in version 0.5.

If I had found this plugin earlier I would have recommended it too.

First PPP Payment

I have just received the payment for my first 2 posts with PayPerPost:

PPP First Payment

So now I have my proof that PPP is real. If you have not joined, why not start now? Click here to join.

However as I stressed out before I will only write on sites that accept neutral posts, or positive ones if I really have positive opinion about it. 🙂

This is not a sponsored post.

Down Again

Looks like my excitement this morning was short-lived. The connection is down again.

Received a call from TMNET and they asked me to check my connection when I return home. If the connection is still not OK they suggested I wait for tomorrow morning. I immediately jumped at the caller and said “tomorrow??? tomorrow???”. And she quickly asked me to call if I still have problems.

What kind of service is that? This morning they even asked me whether I have done the stupid steps they always ask customers to do (create dialer, flush DNS, etc.). Last night I was still willing to go along with their low level technical skills. Today I am not so patient anymore.

Obviously as a network and firewall engineer I have checked all possible causes on my side and when I call I am sure it’s not my equipment’s fault!

That’s what always happen with TMNET – I play good and they bit by bit test my patience. 🙁

Cable Fixed?

I lost my Internet connection at about 6.00pm local time yesterday, and according to my logs Internet was restored at about 2.30am today.

This morning I tried to ping some sites and the speed is good. Has the submarine cable been fixed already?

-(~/:#)-> ping yahoo.com
PING yahoo.com (216.109.112.135) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from w2.rc.vip.dcn.yahoo.com (216.109.112.135): icmp_seq=1 ttl=45 time=425 ms
64 bytes from w2.rc.vip.dcn.yahoo.com (216.109.112.135): icmp_seq=2 ttl=45 time=415 ms

--- yahoo.com ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 999ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 415.794/420.556/425.319/4.806 ms

-(~/:#)-> ping bbc.co.uk
PING bbc.co.uk (212.58.224.131) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from rdirwww-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk (212.58.224.131): icmp_seq=1 ttl=114 time=240 ms
64 bytes from rdirwww-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk (212.58.224.131): icmp_seq=2 ttl=114 time=231 ms
64 bytes from rdirwww-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk (212.58.224.131): icmp_seq=4 ttl=114 time=237 ms
64 bytes from rdirwww-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk (212.58.224.131): icmp_seq=5 ttl=114 time=232 ms

--- bbc.co.uk ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 4 received, 20% packet loss, time 4027ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 231.551/235.507/240.924/3.875 ms

-(~/:#)-> ping performancing.com
PING performancing.com (216.251.243.173) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from vip (216.251.243.173): icmp_seq=1 ttl=100 time=337 ms
64 bytes from vip (216.251.243.173): icmp_seq=2 ttl=100 time=337 ms
64 bytes from vip (216.251.243.173): icmp_seq=3 ttl=100 time=338 ms

--- performancing.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2001ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 337.500/337.795/338.171/0.727 ms

There are no particular announcement about restoration of the International link in TMNET’s website yet, though.

Move Complete

This site has been moved to another hosting server. Some of you might have received an error message from the old server, if your DNS has not been made aware of the server change and still have the old IP address. Sorry for any inconveniences. This is normal for any DNS change.

Additionally, WordPress have been upgraded to 2.0.6

Update: Since my previous hosting uses MySQL 4.0 and the new server uses MySQL 4.1 there seems to be some kind of confusion. Many UTF-8 characters such as the ” character were displayed as ? instead. I spotted this problem when receiving errors from FeedBurner.

A dirty quick fix is to open up /wp-includes/wp-db.php and look for these:

function wpdb($dbuser, $dbpassword, $dbname, $dbhost) {
$this->dbh = @mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpassword);
if (!$this->dbh) {

And add an additional line:

function wpdb($dbuser, $dbpassword, $dbname, $dbhost) {
$this->dbh = @mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpassword);
$this->query("SET NAMES 'utf8'");
if (!$this->dbh) {

I am sure WordPress guys will not agree with this quick hack 😉

This is due to how MySQL 5.0 handles collations.

I found the fix here: http://blog.jtam.org/…

Hotel Vistana Kuantan

Alright, it’s time for the second part of the Kuantan trip. For 23rd to 24th December we stayed in Vistana Hotel Kuantan, a 4 star hotel.

Afraid to be disappointed, I did not scan for wifi availability this time but at the registration counter there was a TMNET HotSpot logo so I asked the guy. He politely mentioned that Internet access is available 24×7 in the business center and lobby, via TMNET HotSpot service and they sell the starter pack for RM28.00.

The hallway of this hotel is undecorated as well, but looks nice and eye pleasing. I noticed a faint smell of paint so I asked a housekeeping girl whether they are renovating – they are. We were given a room at the top floor (6th floor).

vktn1.jpg

Continue reading Hotel Vistana Kuantan

1TB Hitachi Hard Drive

After 51 year from the introduction of the first hard drive by IBM in 1956 (5MB in capacity), Hitachi has released a 1TB hard drive. For the technical readers, 1TB = 1024GB = 1048576MB. That’s a huge amount of data, and if the hard disk crashes and you don’t have any backups or a RAID setup, you’ll end up kneeling down and crying over your lost data. And just imagine what’s the cost for data recovery service…

Hitachi 1TB Box

In the future if I even consider buying disks this big, I’ll surely buy by pair and setup RAID.

The consumer version of the Hitachi drive is named Deskstar 7K1000 while the two other versions (which will be released later – 2nd quarter) are called CinemaStar for DVR boxes, and unknown name for enterprise with certified MTBF.

The disk contains 5 platters, in which each carries 200GB. The 7200 rpm Serial-ATA drive will have 32MB data buffer. It will be available in SATA 3.0Gb/s and Parallel-ATA 133 interfaces.

Of course, this big capacity drive was achieved by Perpendicular Recording.

For further reading this technology go to http://www.pcworld.com/article/….

Whatever it is, I am sure that late Reynold Johnson will be very happy with what has evolved from his invention and how it has helped mankind.

Thanks for Azidin for the heads up.

I Am 50 Inside

Yesterday: I went to see the company doctor due to my giddiness problem and the doctor said I need to exercise more. My cholesterol level ain’t that great either and my risk to getting a heart disease is 7%. Lucky for me my blood pressure is normal.

Today at a pharmacy I got a test to see my body fat level and it’s spiking high. And my metabolism rate is at 50 of age. I am in my late 20s and my metabolism rate is almost twice my age. I really have to think harder about my health.

This Friday I shall restart my gym sessions which have been stopped for 2 months since the fasting month.

Hotel Grand Continental Kuantan

As I mentioned earlier, during the Christmas weekend we went to Kuantan, Pahang for business trip. Due to the late reservation, we were unable to get a decent hotel. Decent here means with a hotel with Internet connection inside the room 😉 Even our favorite, Swiss Garden Resort was fully booked.

So during the first day, 22nd to 23rd December we end up in the Hotel Grand Continental Kuantan, owned by Grand Hotels International. I believe it is a 3 star hotel but please correct me if I am wrong.

When I first arrived, I scanned for wifi availability and detected that TMNET Hotspot is in the lobby.

The hallway of this hotel is clean, but undecorated. That’s not really important as long as we have a place to stay.

Grand Continental Kuantan 7

Continue reading Hotel Grand Continental Kuantan