Be Careful In Cyberjaya

For those working/studying or doing whatever in Cyberjaya, please be careful if you make the illegal U-turn after exiting The Street Mall. If you can, do a U-turn somewhere else where it’s safe.

Yesterday night after dinner at Street Mall, I heard a loud bang. It turns out a Satria from the MMU stretch ran directly into a Waja making a U-turn. That Waja has just minutes before passed by me as I get to my car at The Street Mall.

To people driving from MMU side, come on la… slowly and be alert of cars making the U-turn. I know it’s illegal, but what’s the use of defending that you’re right when your car is all messed up. The Satria was indeed very fast as I heard the tires screech for a long time before the bang!

Nobody died, I think. The Waja ended up on the roadside and the Satria totally lost the front engine part – just imagine how hard the collision was!

Do You Believe In Fate or Destiny

Do you believe in fate, or do you believe in working towards changing the events that can happen in your future?

  fate
       n 1: an event (or a course of events) that will inevitably happen
            in the future [syn: destiny]
       2: the ultimate agency that predetermines the course of events
          (often personified as a woman); "we are helpless in the
          face of Destiny" [syn: Destiny]
       3: your overall circumstances or condition in life (including
          everything that happens to you); "whatever my fortune may
          be"; "deserved a better fate"; "has a happy lot"; "the
          luck of the Irish"; "a victim of circumstances"; "success
          that was her portion" [syn: fortune, destiny, luck,
          lot, circumstances, portion]
       v : decree or designate beforehand; "She was destined to become
           a great pianist" [syn: destine, doom, designate]

Destiny pretty much have the same meaning.

The problem in believing in fate/destiny is that people tend to let things happen automatically, without even lifting a finger to make it better. IMHO this makes people become lazy and stupid. Don’t give me any preaches related to religion or anything, I am looking into it from a simple point of view.

I think people can work hard and achieve whatever they want in the future. What do you think?

Police At Work

Nothing much in this post, just sharing a photo of the police guys that caused me to be late today. Yes, I start work at 15:00.

The location is the freeway into Putrajaya from Puchong, just before the left turn to Putrajaya. Straight ahead are Dengkil and Cyberjaya. (This road is parallel with ERL lines).

Cyberjaya Cops

Nothing wrong with what they do, it’s their job, just pissed off a little with them 😉

4 lanes becoming 1 lane is too much even for this empty-most-of-the-time road.

Free KFC For E.T.

I’m not sure whether all of you have ever heard or even knew E.T.? He (it) is an ugly looking creature from a movie when I was a kid.

KFC has recently changed their logo for the 3rd time since it was ever designed. And guess what did they do? They built a massive 87,500 sq ft logo!

KFC From Space

The logo, which are built with 65,000 tiles took 24 days to finish, and is located near Area 51 in Nevada. I’ve tried looking for it in Google Maps but I guess it’s not there yet.

More news can be read here, and here.

Something that I really wanted to know but too lazy to ask:

The late Col Sanders, who died at the age of 90 in 1980, introduced his Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe at his own restaurant in 1939. He went on to run a chain of restaurants and developed celebrity status after appearing in his own, “finger-lickin’ good” TV commercials.

Now I know Col Sanders is not a fictional character like Hello Kitty. 😉

New Nose on Long Lost Friends?

Ever since my other half started to do her online business, she has been contacting all her long lost friends – friends dated back from her high school, friends from her University, even her hometown childhood friends. One friend in particular she claimed had rhinoplasty right after she finished high school. Not many can vouch for the truth but close friends admitted that her nose did look different. Now my spouse is planning to have a get together with her rhino-girlfriend just so she can squeeze the improved nose of her friend herself, simply to feed her curiosity on how rhinoplasty nose surgery resulted in.

Oh, BTW they do have a procedure to revise the surgery in case the surgeon did a bad job on your too crooked, twisted nose. Check out rhinoplasty nose surgery. The witch who gave poison apple to Snow White might need to consider it?

What Kind Of Employee Are You?

My better half forwarded me an email containing this information. I am unsure of the source but reading through it made me realize that 99% of them (for my star) is in fact accurate.

This is mine:

Taurus Employee Profile (April 20 – May 20)

Taureans make some of the best employees. They are loyal, hardworking, and no-nonsense. They work methodically and follow projects through until they are complete. Some may appear to work a little too slowly-usually because they are so careful-but they will always finish what they start. They thrive on structure, schedules, and routine. You’ll find them doing the same exact thing at the same time every day. Taureans, however, are not exactly the malleable workers that they often appear to be. If they have to work in a chaotic environment, they won’t be happy and will be prone to child-like temper tantrums and stubbornness. They might react similarly if they have to work around ignorant people or at a job where there is no obvious potential for advancement. Taureans will be very unhappy if there isn’t a ladder for them to climb. Even in the worst situations, they will find a way to advance slowly, winning over the most difficult people who may stand in their way of progress. Taurus employees will only take so much patiently and happily before they feel they are being taken advantage of. They will gladly accept orders and do whatever dirty work needs to get done, but they expect rewards. They want material gain, salary increases, and the potential for more power. To make your Taurus employees happy, be sure to give them projects through which they will see tangible results-hopefully something that will allow them to express their unique creativity in addition to their practical side. They don’t want to feel mired in details for long periods of time. Make sure to schedule regular performance and salary reviews. This show of respect should keep them loyal to the company.

If you are the owner of this material and want to be credited please contact me.

For other stars, please read on…

Continue reading What Kind Of Employee Are You?

Bad Day – Experience with Lightning

On Friday while at work I received a call from home – my whole house was out of electricity after a big thunder. Great, and I have to work until midnight. After that power was restored by switching the ELCB back on. The bad news was that both of my TV got fried. At first we thought that the 2 got fried because they are connected to the Astro terminal, but the Astro terminal is fine. Also, my DVD player was also effected.

Returning from work at about 1.00 am, I also found out that the ADSL modem (Aztech DSL 600E) is busted as well. The network port is not working anymore. When I connect network cable from any devices it will fail to detect it. The DSL LED is still on but there’s no way to check.

Aztech DSL 600E

Luckily my WRT54G (v2.2) is still fine.

WRT54G

It figures, since it was connected to the phone line BUT the Belkin SurgeMaster Surge Protector GOLD SERIES should have protected it!! After investigations I also found that the all of the phone protector ports and LAN ports are also broken on the Belkin SurgeMaster Surge Protector GOLD SERIES.

Belkin

On the box of the surge protector there’s a toll free number for Malaysia, and this product carries lifetime warranty plus insurance to all of the interconnected devices. I tried to call them on Saturday but no one was available. I guess I’ll have to try during weekdays.

So today (Saturday, as I was late in posting this entry) I went to Low Yat plaza to buy a new DSL modem. To nicely pair up my Linksys wifi router I decided to go for AM-300.

AM-300

It retails at RM119.00, which is a few Ringgits more than the Aztech DSL 600E.

I also got me a few AVR units to plug the TVs once they get back from repair, if they have not went FUBAR.

About the AM-300 modem, I’ve got to tell you that it’s really easy to set up. Initially I just plugged it in to replace the old modem and got online instantly.

Out of curiosity, I tried out the wizard from the installation CD and everything is a whiz!!! When I selected my country and my ISP, the proper selections of the technical settings are selected. This is really fool-proof, not like the Netgear wifi router that I helped my friend with few months ago (and failed).

AM-300 Wizard

The modem itself is a full-featured router. With DHCP, with an additional switch you can actually leave the dialing and routing to it and share your Internet connection. As for me, of course I am using the WRT to dial my connection. Although the modem keeps wanting to reboot after every Save done on the settings pages, I am quite satisfied with it especially the wizard part. Not surprising from Linksys (I am a fan so I might be a bit biased).

If you want to have a shared wifi, get a different model with wifi and perhaps additional ethernet ports. Some people asked me on what the difference are between brands. I told them there’s not so much difference considering their functions, but the things like going on an extra mile to determine user ISP settings is definitely a plus with Linksys. Well done.

Hey while messing up with the modem I find that my ADSL link has also been upgraded:

2m-streamyx.jpg

And the bandwidth test verified it (while connected to only one machine directly). I forgot to take the screen shot.

Cold Day In Hell

Not really in hell. I’m at the office and it’s raining very heavily since this afternoon and I have no jacket. Brought it back home last Monday for laundry.

I miss my fleece jacket so much!

To think that I will have to work until midnight… 🙁

Lack Of Sleep

I am really really sleep deprived this first week of Ramadhan. This is due to the fact that I have to wake up in the middle of the night for sahur. Also, I am struggling to finish up a freelance work for a Singapore client; I am lagging behind the schedule because of the hard disk incident. That reminds me that I have yet to make a post about that 😉

Sleep has been my main problem every Ramadhan, not hunger. I have trouble falling asleep so when it takes only 30 minutes to take a meal, I might be awake for 2 hours. Anyone want to share their experience?

Take care, people. Sleep well. Maybe tonight I’ll take a break from the extra work and go to bed early.

Pacific Regency Hotel Apartments

I am writing this post from Pacific Regency Apartments, in KL. It’s a new experience for me to spend time during Ramadhan in a hotel apartment. I have CCSA training tomorrow, and since I hate driving / commuting so much (especially in Ramadhan), I’ve decided to stay 2 nights here.

The hotel is really great, and the price is right too since it’s not peak season and they have a promotion. Here’s a picture from the website (I am sitting in front of the TV with my laptop):

Pacific Regency One Bedroom Apartment

Despite of a bad experience at the reception with a female staff, the other staff seems to be very helpful and polite. Just about ten minutes ago I received a phone call from them to confirm about the time for sahur.

Lucky for me, the training is actually in the same building, on the 20th floor of Menara Pan Global.

Room Shots

Continue reading Pacific Regency Hotel Apartments

Ramadhan Is Back

Just a few hours earlier, I bet every Muslim in Malaysia sat in front (or near) the TV while watching the news. Even those who have never watched news most probably waited as well 😉

We were all waiting for the starting of Ramadhan announcement. Yes, as anticipated it’s going to start tomorrow, Sunday 24 of September 2006.

I can already imagine what it’s going to be like at the Baazars, in late afternoon where people will rush to buy food for break fast.

As for me, this Ramadhan I’ll be working 2 weeks of 7am-4pm and 2 weeks of 3pm-12am. It is going to be a new experience. Hopefully everything goes well. I’ll try to get myself to go for Tadarus during lunch hours, and perhaps steal some time to update this blog…

Selamat berpuasa semua!

Kittens in The Backyard

While cleaning up our backyard last weekend, we found these little kittens hiding under some grasses. Luckily we found them on time otherwise they’ll be chopped up by the grass cutter. Here’s a video I uploaded on YouTube:

For unfortunate ones who can’t view YouTube, here’s an image. Click on it for larger picture.

Kittens

Bye Bye Old Friend

I have to part with my dear old friend today. It has been around since the year 2000, and we had a lot of very good memories together. It’s a 8x4x32 CD writer priced at more than RM800.00 that time, but I managed to get it for RM550.00 (brand new) from my friend. It was a long time ago, and nowadays CD writers cost merely RM100+

This HP 9100 CD Writer doesn’t have any buffer underrun protection, but it has served me well. I have to get rid of it since it is no longer working and taking up too much space in my computer room, which by the way is a junk yard and morgue for computer equipment 😉

It has burnt more than 1000 CDs if I recall correctly, as me and my wife (my girlfriend back then) had a CD Burning business. No, not 100% pirated contents, more like burning what people own (assignments, anime) since at that time CD writers was still too expensive (and anime is very hard to get!). For a CD media costing us RM0.70~RM0.90, we charged RM3.00. HEY it’s not easy to burn things, especially one mistake you lose the CD!!! So a lot of work was involved, copying the files and waiting it to burn at a very slow speed.

Oh well, thanks a lot my friend.

HP 9100 CD Writer

Another Month with Low Post

Looks like not so much useful post for May either. I was actually planning to post a few useful geeky articles about things I have managed to hack around at work (i.e. Patching the Linux kernel tree to support Linux Virtual Server + Software Suspend 2). Looks like I have to do those later. 😐