Generated by All in One SEO v5.0.1.1, this is an llms.txt file, used by LLMs to index the site. # Ady's Blog Ramblings of a seasoned SysAdmin ## Sitemaps - [XML Sitemap](https://blog.adyromantika.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website. ## Posts - [OpenSearch on Google Kubernetes Engine](https://blog.adyromantika.com/opensearch-on-google-kubernetes-engine/) - GKE version: 1.20.12-gke.1500 Helm Chart version: 1.8.0 In pursuit of Elasticsearch knowledge, I attempted to install OpenSearch on a GKE cluster. Following the instructions in https://opensearch.org/docs/latest/opensearch/install/helm/ the pods crashed. NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE opensearch-cluster-master-1 0/1 CrashLoopBackOff 1 13s opensearch-cluster-master-0 0/1 CrashLoopBackOff 1 13s Looking at the logs from the pod: [1]: max virtual memory - [Adding Storage To Lenovo Laptop](https://blog.adyromantika.com/adding-storage-to-lenovo-laptop/) - Before purchasing anything, I would usually do a lot of research about reliability, pricing, and support. Another factor is upgradability. I wanted to buy an IdeaPad laptop directly from Lenovo, but it was not as customizable as I would like it to be. The laptop has multiple configuration options, there are models with an SSD - [Old Blog No More](https://blog.adyromantika.com/old-blog-no-more/) - As I have explained in the previous post Domain Change I decided to move on and let the domain romantika.name expire. Today, I found out a new WordPress blog has been erected using that domain, with technical topics as its focus. Some even cross over with my old topics such as exporting blogger to WordPress - [Domain Change](https://blog.adyromantika.com/domain-change/) - Since I haven't had a lot of time to write for the last few years, I have decided to let the domain romantika.name to expire at the end of this month. From my experience with domains, someone will buy the domain and squat there with some ads. Especially a domain that has been around for - [Restricting xmlrpc.php](https://blog.adyromantika.com/restricting-xmlrpc-php/) - Earlier today, I saw some spikes on the load graph for the new server (where this site is hosted). Upon checking the logs I saw a lot of these: 134.122.53.221 - - [01/May/2020:12:21:54 +0000] "POST //xmlrpc.php HTTP/1.1" 200 264 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/78.0.3904.108 Safari/537.36" 134.122.53.221 - - - [Internet Banking Risks - Computer Expert Fooled, Refuse to Use Service](https://blog.adyromantika.com/internet-banking-risks-computer-expert-fooled-refuse-to-use-service/) - This article from a local Malaysian newspaper website caught my eyes. The funny thing is that the person interviewed by the journalist claimed his/her self as a computer expert. And he/she was fooled by an Internet banking scam. Expert? I don't think so. Anyway, my point being, articles like this will surely deter usage of - [Storage Emergency](https://blog.adyromantika.com/storage-emergency/) - My 17-days old Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 300GB disk was giving a lot of error two days ago. There were a bunch of errors in my syslog: ata1: translated ATA stat/err 0x51/40 to SCSI SK/ASC/ASCQ 0x3/11/04 ata1: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error } ata1: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError } ata1: translated ATA stat/err 0x51/40 to SCSI SK/ASC/ASCQ - [Moving Domains to Cloudflare](https://blog.adyromantika.com/moving-domains-to-cloudflare/) - While clicking around in Cloudflare today, I found this button. It got me into thinking about what I paid last year for a .com domain and this is what I see when I looked at the order history. I was surprised to see the difference. At the current exchange rate, Cloudflare will only cost me - [WordPress Plugin: Random Posts Widget](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordpress-plugin-random-posts-widget/) - My better half was complaining that she can't find a suitable plugin for displaying random posts on her sidebar. I tried to look myself, and there were some references to the plugin but nowhere to be found. One good plugin I found is Random categories with random posts by Mike Stickel but it uses categories - [Happy New Year 2020](https://blog.adyromantika.com/happy-new-year-2020/) - Yes, yes I know it is already April. The year 2020 has proven challenging not only to some of us but all of us globally. I hope everyone is staying safe with their loved ones. Server Updates I recently had to move this blog to a new server because: The old server was an OpenVZ - [Flask + GitLab OAuth](https://blog.adyromantika.com/flask-gitlab-oauth/) - I'm back. A lot of things have changed since I last wrote and one of that is my go-to language. Earlier today, I needed to write a simple Flask application using GitLab as the OAuth2 provider. I immediately turned to Flask-OAuth to do the job, but it keeps on failing with: SSLHandshakeError: [Errno 1] _ssl.c:510: - [[SOLD] Frame LCD Display Touch Digitizer Screen for LG Google Nexus 5 D820 D821](https://blog.adyromantika.com/frame-lcd-display-touch-digitizer-screen-for-lg-google-nexus-5-d820-d821/) - I'm selling this component for RM300 to buyers in Malaysia. I ordered it on the 4th of July 2014 and received it on 22th of July 2014. I bought it for US$114.89 which is around RM364. So, it's just been used for 4 days before the phone stops working. Local repair shops and retailers are - [Is CloudFlare Reliable?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/cloudflare-reliable/) - This website and some other websites I maintain had their ups and downs. All of my websites are running via CloudFlare. When you are utilizing CloudFlare and your website is dynamic (not static HTML pages), CloudFlare will still need to contact the server where your website is hosted in order to get the latest content. - [Fender Bender in Subang](https://blog.adyromantika.com/fender-bender-in-subang/) - I was involved in a fender bender in Subang yesterday, caused by a motorcycle. He was crossing a road divider (to save distance WTF) and slowly cruising in front of me so I had to slow down. A car behind me (a Proton Wira) saw this and in turn he slowed down himself. But, an - [What Happened to Marché Mövenpick](https://blog.adyromantika.com/what-happened-to-marche-movenpick/) - I went to have lunch at - [CloudWatch INSUFFICIENT_DATA for Linux System Metric](https://blog.adyromantika.com/cloudwatch-insufficient_data-for-linux-system-metric/) - I recently had to recreate images for our production systems on EC2 because they didn't have ephemeral storage that we require to keep our temporary tcp dumps. Considering that they are EC2 instances, it was quite easy. We use mon-get-instance-stats.pl to monitor system metrics such as memory utilization and disk space. Naturally, I copied alarms - [DD-WRT: OpenVPN Server Using Certificates](https://blog.adyromantika.com/dd-wrt-openvpn-server-using-certificates/) - GUI confuses me sometimes, so I prefer to make configurations in text files. For DD-WRT, OpenVPN server is available in OpenVPN, OpenVPN Small, Big, Mega, and Giga builds: K2.6 Build Features. Since I have never used any router with USB storage capabilities, I can't be sure but I think OpenVPN can be installed using ipkg - [WordPress Update: Upgrade package not available (3.5)](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordpress-update-upgrade-package-not-available-3-5/) - Stuck in WordPress 3.5 and receiving "Upgrade package not available" error? - [Happy 10th Anniversary WordPress!](https://blog.adyromantika.com/happy-anniversary-wordpress/) - Today marks the 10th anniversary of WordPress which was first released on May 27th, 2003. WordPress now powers countless number of blogs in the Internet via the community driven project WordPress.org and the hosted solutions at WordPress.com. This site has been running on WordPress since the beginning, in 2005. Being sick today, I will not - [CrashPlan 3.5.3 Headless Upgrade](https://blog.adyromantika.com/crashplan-3-5-3-headless-upgrade/) - A headless installation of CrashPlan will fail when it tries to update itself. This short post assumes that you already have it setup and successfully running before, and is targeted only to help you save some time by identifying important files to copy. Running the installer again will also work, but we actually spend more - [Inbox Zero: Gmail vs. Mailbox](https://blog.adyromantika.com/inbox-zero-gmail-vs-mailbox/) - Mailbox is really cool for someone who has a lot of emails like me. It was worth the wait although I didn't have to wait long (registered in the queue weeks ago). Have you been activated? - [Redirecting WordPress Permalinks in Nginx](https://blog.adyromantika.com/redirecting-wordpress-permalinks-in-nginx/) - I know, it's been really a long time since I last wrote an article in this blog. But trust me, I've done a lot of improvements at the back end. The blog is now in a new server, with new backup infrastructure, and most importantly served by Nginx. I was just casually looking at 404 - [Pink iPhone Cable from Giveaway](https://blog.adyromantika.com/pink-iphone-cable-from-giveaway/) - I received a surprise in the mail today. It's the iPhone cable I won in a giveaway organized by LiewCF.com. Thanks LiewCF and I should also thank MudahAlih.my for sponsoring the gifts. I laughed because I expected that he will send me a pink cable, as I commented about pink in the post: Thank you, - [Sluggish iChat, Messages, Terminal, and Others in Mac OS X Lion](https://blog.adyromantika.com/sluggish-ichat-messages-terminal-and-others-in-mac-os-x-lion/) - After about 60 days using my MacBook Pro running Mac OS X Lion (10.7.3), I saw some sluggishness in some apps. At first, it was Messages (iChat replacement for Mountain Lion). It went unresponsive and displays the rainbow wheel for a few seconds, enough to annoy an impatient user. Then, the same behavior happened in - [Build LFTP on Mac OS X Lion](https://blog.adyromantika.com/build-lftp-on-mac-os-x-lion/) - If you're a seasoned Linux SysAdmin, you'll miss LFTP. It's a really powerful FTP client. Yes, you can also install it using MacPorts or Fink but right now, this is much quicker for me. Here's how I built LFTP 4.3.6 on my MacBook Pro. For the record, I'm on 10.7.3 Prerequisite: Apple developer tools (Xcode) - [UniFi Phone Call Forwarding](https://blog.adyromantika.com/unifi-phone-call-forwarding/) - If you're here to look for the way to forward the phone that comes to UniFi to another phone number, I apologize. I don't know how. I tried asking TM call center but they told me to call UniFi support for UniFi phone. For the record every time I try *61*XXXXXXXXXX# the automated voice response - [Mac Messages Beta](https://blog.adyromantika.com/mac-messages-beta/) - Apple has just released the developer preview for OS X Mountain Lion yesterday and at the same time released the beta version of Messages, an upgrade of iChat. Here is the link to download Messages. Installation is straight forward but you will be warned that the machine will need to be restarted. After installation, the - [VirtueMart Custom Login Module in Joomla!](https://blog.adyromantika.com/virtuemart-custom-login-module-joomla/) - Here's a short article on making a simple module to include on your Joomla! pages that displays login / logout links. I'm a Joomla! newbie so there might be better ways to accomplish this. I was helping a friend-client to accomplish redirection to the same page after logout. Here's the basic code that you need - [Crocs Malaysia Warehouse Sale](https://blog.adyromantika.com/crocs-malaysia-warehouse-sale/) - I have always been a fan of Crocs shoes because of their lightness, durability and the airy design. As someone who suffers from athlete's foot since the teen years, airy means better air circulation and dryer feet. Back in 2009 or 2010 we went to a Crocs warehouse sale in Ikano Power Center in Damansara. - [Leverage Browser Caching](https://blog.adyromantika.com/leverage-browser-caching/) - In the previous post I wrote about enabling compression for your pages so that they would load faster to the visitor. Today I'm going to write about how you can make use of browser caching to save some bandwidth. Some people told me that their ISP or hosting provider requested that they upgrade the hosting - [Let Apache Compress Your Website](https://blog.adyromantika.com/apache-compress-your-website/) - Website speed is one of the most important factor to make people like to visit more. In 2008, I wrote Compressing WordPress Output and this is done by adding one line to index.php The problem with that approach is that when you upgrade WordPress you have to manually add the line into index.php, and the - [Sparrow and Shortmail](https://blog.adyromantika.com/sparrow-and-shortmail/) - I've been pushing the limits of my mid-2010 13" MacBook Pro lately, running all sort of applications and leaving them running. There has been occasions where the machine will freeze while it struggles to schedule the CPU time to all of the applications. I use a lot of email, and by a lot I don't - [Compiling flip on Mac OS X](https://blog.adyromantika.com/compiling-flip-on-mac-os-x/) - I was looking for a simple utility that will work like dos2unix tool on Linux to convert endlines from DOS to UNIX. I was scraping some contents from a server running .NET and those ugly ^M characters appeared in vim. I found this https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~craig/utility/flip/, downloaded the PPC binary and used it happily for a while. - [innotek VirtualBox](https://blog.adyromantika.com/innotek-virtualbox/) - During the course of my daily work, I sometimes need to run multiple OS at once. I used to rely a lot on VMware to run Debian and CentOS on my Windows notebook. The problem with the free VMware server is that it is damn slow, and at startup it takes a few minutes before - [Used Nikon D50 Kit For Sale](https://blog.adyromantika.com/used-nikon-d50-kit-for-sale/) - Since Mudah.my has decided to be Susah.my (again) I have decided to post this item here, on my own blog. This is my old DSLR, fully functioning and very much loved. It's for sale as I have upgraded to a faster camera suitable for shooting children in normal and low lighting conditions. Here's the same - [Problems Saving Alerts in MyProfiles](https://blog.adyromantika.com/problems-saving-alerts-in-myprofiles/) - Let's face it. iPhone/iPad "new mail" alerts sucks and if you have multiple email accounts set up you'll never know which account received the new email. When you're driving or having a meal, it's convenient to know whether the email is from your boss, is an important alert from a system dying somewhere, or just - [First IKEA Hacking Project: VIKA AMON and LACK](https://blog.adyromantika.com/first-ikea-hacking-project-vika-amon-and-lack/) - My better half and I have been looking for a nice table as surface in our large kitchen but we couldn't find any nice ones. Even IKEA products are too simple or too expensive. She found a website that she likes very much, IKEA Hackers and has been showing me many designs since. For her - [Shrinking VirtualBox Disk Images](https://blog.adyromantika.com/shrinking-virtualbox-disk-images/) - On my MacBook Pro with minimal disk size (250GB) I had to install VirtualBox in order to run any kind of Windows, for emergency cases. I was able to install Windows Server 2008 in a 20GB dynamically expanding virtual disk image (VDI). A couple of months back I also made a clone of my HP - [WordPress 3.1 Upgrade](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordpress-3-1-upgrade/) - I am not going to announce or talk about the release of WordPress 3.1 as I know that most people already know it was released on 23 February 2011. I am also not going to talk about the features. I would like to share problems that I encountered and how to fix them. Well, I - [Queue Jumpers Beware](https://blog.adyromantika.com/queue-jumpers-beware/) - If I were to make a separate website dedicated to share pictures of queue jumpers, would anyone be interested in joining in? It can be worldwide as queue jumper is not a rare breed. Queue jumpers deserve to be shot, and if I have the power like Sylar I would have thrown the truck upside - [Good Bye MyBlogLog](https://blog.adyromantika.com/good-bye-mybloglog/) - I have just received an email from Yahoo! announcing the end of MyBlogLog service. It's going to be discontinued effective May 24, 2011. Nice of Yahoo! to give us some time before terminating it for good. However the link for help pages redirected me to this page: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/ysm/ll/featured/index.html, which I think is a mistake because - [Google Authenticator Rocks](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-authenticator-rocks/) - Ady tests and talks about the Google two factor authentication service - [Bad Domain](https://blog.adyromantika.com/bad-domain/) - I just tried to register to Chitika and Nuffnang and they both rejected my email address with this domain - @romantika.name I thought all systems have updated the checking code to include .name as well, as it has been around for quite a while now. Well I sent them an email to notify about this - [Mac OS X: Modifying Stubborn Files Transferred From Windows](https://blog.adyromantika.com/modifying-stubborn-files-transferred-from-windows/) - This is related to the previous post, where I had a lot of checked out Subversion working copies in my disk. They came from a Windows machine I used before I bought myself a Mac. For your information, in a Subversion working copy, there will always be a hidden folder named .svn in each directory, - [Starting Subversion Service on Demand in Mac OS X](https://blog.adyromantika.com/starting-subversion-service-on-demand-in-mac-os-x/) - Straightforward way to enable subversion service on demand on your Mac machine. - [Tak Nak - Really?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/tak-nak-really/) - "Tak Nak", literally translated to "Don't Want" is a tag line for Malaysia's anti smoking campaign. In true sense it means "Say No To Smoking". It's a collaboration between the Government and a few other organizations. I was lucky enough to have some time to recently visit the National Zoo of Malaysia (locally known as - [TM UniFi Downtime: Exercise Your Rights](https://blog.adyromantika.com/tm-unifi-downtime-exercise-your-rights/) - If you are a UniFi subscriber, and live in the Puchong (plus Damansara reported by achmatibrahim via Twitter) area you might have already been aware of the downtime since yesterday afternoon (8 December 2010). At the moment I am writing this post, it has been more than 12 hours. TM is not actively informing users - [DiGi iPhone Page Has Wrong Modification Date via HTTP](https://blog.adyromantika.com/digi-iphone-page-has-wrong-modification-date-via-http/) - iPhone 4 has just been launched in Malaysia, and I have also been closely following the progress. Looking at SoyaCincau's comparison between Maxis and DiGi, I was attempting to load DiGi's page again. I have done this before. Instead of talking about iPhone 4 itself, I am going to see why the page is showing - [Google Instant, Anyone?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-instant-anyone/) - I saw quite a significant number of tweets mentioning Google Instant, and decided to check it out. Some people might already be aware of it or heard of it before but I am outdated, that I am willing to admit. First, I went to the Official Google Blog where I saw Search: now faster than - [Does Berjaya HVN Really Have Rights Reproducing Thomas & Friends?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/does-berjaya-hvn-really-have-rights-reproducing-thomas-friends/) - My son's current favorite series are Special Agent OSO and the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. He sometimes still watches Thomas & Friends. He can recognize Thomas in Toys 'R' Us even from the entrance a hundred meters away. I've been looking high and low for high quality, and updated DVDs for him to watch in the - [Maxis Transparent Proxy is Causing Problems to Developers](https://blog.adyromantika.com/maxis-transparent-proxy-is-causing-problems-to-developers/) - I had to transfer 2 WordPress blogs to another hosting provider last night, as the free one is going to expire today. It should be as easy as: Transfer the files Transfer the database Change DNS servers in registry to the new DNS servers Configure the new hosting location In a few hours after the - [SMTP Smart Host Setup for Postfix in Snow Leopard](https://blog.adyromantika.com/smtp-smart-host-setup-postfix-snow-leopard/) - PHP does not have any SMTP authentication mechanism in its configuration, and most developer opt for PEAR packages to perform email sending via custom ports and SMTP authentication. I am one of those who will avoid using external packages as much as possible unless really necessary, and of course because I wanted a quick solution - [Connecting to Exchange using Entourage via Outlook Web Access](https://blog.adyromantika.com/connecting-to-exchange-using-entourage-via-outlook-web-access/) - I wanted to be able to use my personal laptop to check my work email, so that I don't have to carry around the 3kg DELL beast all the time. Sure, I can use the Blackberry but typing long emails on it can prove painful especially with fat fingers. I have VPN access, but Cisco - [Error Compiling djbdns and daemontools](https://blog.adyromantika.com/error-compiling-djbdns-and-daemontools/) - While attempting to compile djbdns 1.05 and daemontools 0.76 on a CentOS 5.5 I received the error: /usr/bin/ld: errno: TLS definition in /lib/libc.so.6 section .tbss mismatches non-TLS reference in envdir.o The problem can be eliminated by adding: -include /usr/include/errno.h In conf-cc files for each tarball. Don't forget to install gcc first, if you have a - [PHP Debugging on PDT using Xdebug, with PHP packaged in XAMPP](https://blog.adyromantika.com/php-debugging-pdt-using-xdebug-with-php-packaged-xampp/) - It has been a while since I posted something technical so here goes. This article is meant for someone who has done PHP development before, and already has a web server and a working PHP installation. Traditionally in the old days these are the things that I do to debug my PHP code: Put in - [Some Tips For Fresh Grads](https://blog.adyromantika.com/some-tips-for-fresh-grads/) - I had to go through quite a significant number of resumes the other day, and here are some tips for fresh graduates out there. Try to make your resume short. 2-3 pages is just nice, 4 is too many. Skip that section listing your primary school results and hobbies. What good does it make if - [WordPress Plugin: Basic Facebook Social Plugins](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordpress-plugin-basic-facebook-social-plugins/) - Today, I saw that Facebook introduced some new features, and one intriguing feature is called "Facebook Social Plugin". It would be very interesting to have blog posts to be simply "liked", and having information displayed about activities and recommendations related to your website. So I decided to take 30 minutes of my break time and - [Facebook Glitches](https://blog.adyromantika.com/facebook-glitches/) - Facebook is an application, so it's normal that it has glitches and problems. The first one I saw last week while writing a like button plugin is the incorrect number of likes a like button displays: It's obvious there were 4 likes for the post but it randomly displays 2 of my friends. When not - [Forex Trading In Malaysia](https://blog.adyromantika.com/forex-trading-in-malaysia/) - It was an interesting morning today, when a friend told me that his brother received a job offer in a Forex trading company in Shah Alam. It was great news that he was able to get something after searching for opportunities for quite a while. However since my niece experienced this more than once, I - [DD-WRT as Wireless Client](https://blog.adyromantika.com/dd-wrt-as-wireless-client/) - There is something very wrong with the wireless module on the DELL Precision M4300 I am currently using - after a while files begin to get corrupted and Windows will fail to write the event log. I have just had the motherboard changed by DELL last Monday. In the office I did not have any - [Funny Phishing Attempt](https://blog.adyromantika.com/funny-phishing-attempt/) - I received an email with no text but contained just an image as attachment, and the whole image is a hyperlink to a phishing site: [singlepic id=26 w=600] Notice the casual language and a spelling mistake (find out where!), plus the Copyright year is 2009. The email was sent to someone without the Internet banking - [Malaysian Twitter & Facebook Users Makes Fun of Rais Yatim](https://blog.adyromantika.com/malaysian-twitter-facebook-users-makes-fun-of-rais-yatim/) - You can consider this as an honest and sincere opinion from me, as a Malaysian and a heavy Internet user. Maybe, if Rais reads this it will be much fun. It's all because of this news article: Malaysians advised against being immersed in Facebook, Twitter. In twitter, the tag #yorais has been spreading like mad. - [WordPress Plugin: Collapsible Archive Widget](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordpress-plugin-collapsible-archive-widget/) - Update: 20 January 2010: This plugin has not been tested with WordPress 2.9 and may break because 2.9 has internal changes. I am still trying to find time. Sorry for the Inconvenience. I have written another simple WordPress plugin that simply display a collapsible archive in the sidebar. You can see it in action in - [Malaysia PayPal Users Can Now Add Local Bank Accounts](https://blog.adyromantika.com/malaysia-paypal-users-can-now-add-local-bank-accounts/) - My better half told me yesterday that we can now add our local bank accounts in PayPal. It was too good to be true so I decided to check. I went to check my PayPal emails first just in case I missed an announcement. However, I don't see any. It's kinda weird that when a - [Importing Your Blog Posts into Facebook "Notes"](https://blog.adyromantika.com/importing-your-blog-posts-into-facebook-notes/) - I have always find it difficult to find the import link, even when I wanted to change my settings. So here is a quick note for myself and to others who are interested in importing their blog posts into the Facebook notes. There may be a shorter way to access the notes page but I - [Big Bad Thursday](https://blog.adyromantika.com/big-bad-thursday/) - I spent 6.5 hours from 9.00AM to 3.30PM at Puchong Naza Kia service center, wasting time because I didn't realize they have free wifi. As planned, we rushed to the Big Bad Wolf book sales at Amcorp Mall. The traffic was moderate, but Amcorp Mall was packed with people. Arriving at the outdoor parking space - [Is 5GB Per Month Enough? Fair Usage Policy](https://blog.adyromantika.com/is-5gb-per-month-enough-fair-usage-policy/) - I don't think so. Last week, I was on leave for the whole week and did some light browsing at home. To avoid contamination with other PCs in my house, I conducted this test while purely tethering on my BlackBerry device. WIFI was turned off. The only objective is to see how much data I - [INDONESIA & MALAYSIA Should Be Friends](https://blog.adyromantika.com/indonesia-malaysia-should-be-friends/) - Another hot issue in South East Asia, and a sad one. The issue of ownership between Indonesia and Malaysia. We have seen so many events happening in Indonesia that reflects the hatred of some Indonesian people towards Malaysia. Burning of the Malaysian flag, "sweeping" of Malaysians from the streets of Jakarta, and the "GANYANG MALAYSIA" - [Tips When You Know I Am Going To Interview You](https://blog.adyromantika.com/tips-when-you-know-i-am-going-to-interview-you/) - If you by any chance, by any way find out that I am going to be the person interview you for a job you need to know the following: Don't come late. 1 minute late and your resume or CV will end up in the shredder or the trash can. Do your location research the - [There Are Still Uncivilized People Using The Internet](https://blog.adyromantika.com/there-are-still-uncivilized-people-using-the-internet/) - Sad to admit, but it's true. I am helping a friend to get rid of a very old HP laptop but instead of throwing it in the trash I decided to try and sell it off at Mudah.my so that he can get a netbook. I am not surprised to receive quick responses from the - [Italiannies Sunway Pyramid](https://blog.adyromantika.com/italiannies-sunway-pyramid/) - This is an overdue post that I wanted to write right after I came back from there on Tuesday, but I couldn't. That day, I went back home earlier than usual as my other half was craving for pasta. Pizza Hut and Kenny Rogers pasta were also candidates but we like the Carbonara at Italiannies - [Do I need to reboot the machine after increasing the maximum number of open files at /etc/security/limits.conf?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/do-i-need-to-reboot-the-machine-after-increasing-the-maximum-number-of-open-files-at-etcsecuritylimitsconf/) - No, you don't need to. This morning I struggled to convince someone that the server does not need a reboot. It was because of this: Increasing the number of file handles on Linux workstations. ulimit - Provides control over the resources available to the shell and to processes started by it, on systems that allow - [Allianz Auto Assist](https://blog.adyromantika.com/allianz-auto-assist/) - My car refused to start on Sunday, and as a car dummy I didn't expect it was the battery. I thought the maintenance-free dry cell would last longer than acid lead batteries. That incident caused me to miss a friend's wedding, but I am happy to see the pictures posted in many other blogs as - [Yahoo! Mail is Down](https://blog.adyromantika.com/yahoo-mail-is-down/) - I am unsure whether this is only effected Plus users, or everyone. When I failed to fetch my emails using Thunderbird, I tried the web interface and received this: - [Zee Avi](https://blog.adyromantika.com/zee-avi/) - A friend posted a link in Facebook to Zee's video on YouTube, and I started to look for her songs. I really love her music and voice, as there is a certain old feeling to it, not quite the same but I can relate her to Norah Jones. And I commented on that Facebook link: - [Maxis Customer Support Email](https://blog.adyromantika.com/maxis-customer-support-email/) - It annoys me quite significantly when big corporations publish emails which does not even exist. Here's what is displayed in Maxis BlackBerry Internet Services (BIS) website: And here's what I got when I tried to email them about a not so urgent problem: - [Delayed Yahoo! Messenger Custom Message Updates](https://blog.adyromantika.com/delayed-yahoo-messenger-custom-message-updates/) - Borrowing Google's term - I have lately been using a flaky connection when connecting to the Internet. What I noticed is that my Yahoo! Messenger list becomes static and no custom messages are being updated. When I looked at my friend's list, the custom message I set wasn't showing. I was also not able to - [Battery Powered Server](https://blog.adyromantika.com/battery-powered-server/) - For real? The black box with two terminals is a 12V battery, and it looks like a lead-acid battery. Is it a DELL? Is it an IBM? Is it an HP? No, it is a Google. That's right people, it's a unit of many Google's server inside its data center containers. It's a 2U thick - [Plugin: Import New Blogger To WordPress](https://blog.adyromantika.com/import-new-blogger-to-wordpress/) - 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 - [Maxis to bring iPhone 3G to Malaysia on March 20](https://blog.adyromantika.com/maxis-to-bring-iphone-3g-to-malaysia-on-march-20/) - Really? That short notice? I was casually browsing my Google Reader when I stumbled upon this exciting news. Exciting? Not anymore. I don't know why but the frustration of waiting has made me less interested in iPhones. The time stamp on the news was like 4 hours before I started this entry. Fresh! Going to - [RegisterFly Resurrected as RegFly](https://blog.adyromantika.com/registerfly-resurrected-as-regfly/) - I received an email yesterday: Dear Ady Romantika We see you have been a valued member since 2004-12-29. Many of our clients have asked for a notice when we post special savings, we are pleased to provide that. Please find the latest specials that are available for the month of February. It's from RegFly, a - [Image Hotlink Protection](https://blog.adyromantika.com/image-hotlink-protection/) - Have people been stealing images from your websites? Well, there are not so many interesting images in this site so I don't really have that problem. You can add a watermark to your image, but I guess everyone knows that. Another form of image theft also involves bandwidth theft. It's has many names - hotlink, - [Aedes, Go to Bandar Baru Bangi](https://blog.adyromantika.com/aedes-go-to-bandar-baru-bangi/) - This picture was snapped in front of the shop next to Restoran Amir, Seksyen 9, Bandar Baru Bangi. Yes, behind Pusat Rawatan Az-Zahrah and Pusat Rawatan An-Nur the two big medical centers. Aedes can't read blogs, so if you're a public health officer go there and try to do your job. - [Get Your Pipes Fixed](https://blog.adyromantika.com/get-your-pipes-fixed/) - The overflow pipe at my home has been running since the end of January but I was too busy to either call a plumber or look at it myself. I was surprised with a RM50 water bill this month when the usual bill is around RM3. So I decided to climb up the "attic" to - [Locked Fire Door at SOGO Kuala Lumpur](https://blog.adyromantika.com/locked-fire-door-at-sogo-kuala-lumpur/) - I can't help noticing that all fire doors next to the elevators are all locked. I do understand that fire doors need to be kept closed at all times and some are locked electronically but these were locked using padlocks. In the event of an emergency, would the person responsible be running from floor to - [Deleting Emails From Someone Else's Mailbox](https://blog.adyromantika.com/deleting-emails-from-someone-elses-mailbox/) - No, it's not possible unless you have their passwords. From my moonlighting jobs and previous jobs I usually include myself in the SysAdmin or IT email groups or distribution lists. I received a good one yesterday (translated from Malay): Dear IT, Need your help to delete 3 emails sent by John Doe to 3 recipients - [Be Careful With OpenID](https://blog.adyromantika.com/be-careful-with-openid/) - No, there is nothing wrong with OpenID, and there is nothing to worry about security or privacy. Giant players like Yahoo! and Google has also been implementing OpenID for quite some time. I lost my account at Stack Overflow because I was using WordPress.com as an OpenID. Well, I lost it for about a day - [Facebook Is A CIA Device?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/facebook-is-a-cia-device/) - I've recently received a chain of emails, originated from a celebrity in Malaysia on how Facebook is a device used by CIA and how CIA is harvesting data of the world population in order to reach world domination. The email was quite elaborate, and I am impressed by the level of thinking the celebrity has. - [Ice Lemon Tea with Roach, Anyone?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/ice-lemon-tea-with-roach-anyone/) - This is the yuckiest experience I have so far with restaurants. As it was a hot day I was relieved to see my Season's Ice Lemon Tea arrived at Kenny Rogers and quickly took a sip. Something went into my mouth with the drink, and at first I thought it was some lemon pulp separated - [Photo Printing Experience](https://blog.adyromantika.com/photo-printing-experience/) - On Friday I dropped by the Ferry Sabak photo shop at Equine Park to drop a digital photo for printing. It's for a birthday present we planned for our sister - a family photo. Since A4 is not a standard photo paper size I asked the guy to print out a 9R size (8" x - [W3C = Disability Access?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/w3c-disability-access/) - It's amazing how this website can equate the World Wide Web Consortium to "Disability Access". Unless the brackets mean something else. I was attracted by the announcement at the front page "... now equipped with W3C function. Click to know more." Shouldn't the correct term be "Accessibility"? W3C is a body that develops interoperable technologies - [Perl CGI + Apache + Windows](https://blog.adyromantika.com/perl-cgi-apache-windows/) - I have always thought it's difficult to migrate Perl CGI script to Windows. I was wrong, and today I learned how to do it. The configuration part is actually 100% similar! # This line will ensure only .cgi and .pl files are executed as CGI AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl Alias /request/ "C:/request/" AllowOverride None Options - [The Freelance Developer's Dilemma](https://blog.adyromantika.com/the-freelance-developers-dilemma/) - As many have probably known by now, I do freelance work after office hours and during weekends. In other words, I moonlight. I do all sort of things, from developing websites to managing and installing Linux servers. I have done so many web development jobs, but I can't really disclose anything with the fact that - [Another Default Password - Riger DB102 Modem](https://blog.adyromantika.com/another-default-password-riger-db102-modem/) - I don't know what people are thinking, this modem has the management control panel wide open from the Internet, and set to use the default TM password. [singlepic=22,600,600] I bet the user doesn't even realize this. - [The Power of Assumption](https://blog.adyromantika.com/the-power-of-assumption/) - When it comes to personal life, "assume" or "assumption" is the ugliest word. My good friend Ijoy has written about assumptions in his blog, most probably after someone assumed something that is not true about him. WARNING: This is a partialy emotion driven post and should only be read by the open minded. Continue at - [When Security Is Not Secure](https://blog.adyromantika.com/when-security-is-not-secure/) - I was going after a moron who was disturbing my wife's blog and reached an IP number. Utilizing nmap, I found out that port 80 on the IP is open. -(~:#)-> nmap -A -T4 XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX Starting Nmap 4.11 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ ) at 2009-02-09 23:52 MYT Warning: Giving up on port early because retransmission cap hit. - [One Bun To Rule Them All](https://blog.adyromantika.com/on-bun-to-rule-them-all/) - I went out to Subang Parade on Sunday and passed by a Rotiboy outlet. This board was placed up front: It was interesting, funny, and scary at the same time. It's funny and interesting to know that whoever designed the board is a LOTR fan because that is not even a tag line (I can't - [Filters! Yahoo! I Want Better Filters!](https://blog.adyromantika.com/filters-yahoo-i-want-better-filters/) - I have been a long time Yahoo! Mail user (since 2001), and a paying customer of Yahoo! Mail Plus for 5 years+ (since 2003). There were no Gmail back then, and I needed a permanent email with POP3 access. Yahoo! slowly improved their services, although one thing that I have always been annoyed about is - [Yahoo! Mail Unlimited Storage](https://blog.adyromantika.com/yahoo-mail-unlimited-storage/) - Logging into my Yahoo! Mail today, I was surprised with a message "The storage meter is going bye-bye". Yahoo! is still in the game of free emails. I am a Yahoo! Mail Plus user so I have access to POP and SMTP but I do welcome this upgrade! After all, if free users get unlimited - [Yahoo! Mail Now Unlimited](https://blog.adyromantika.com/yahoo-mail-now-unlimited/) - Yeah, you heard it right. Yahoo! has finally disabled the storage limitation for all users! As a long time Yahoo! Mail Plus user with 2GB max storage I was surprised to see that my limit has been decreased to 1GB and only 35% of my email exists where it was at 50% level before. Of - [Yahoo! Time Capsule](https://blog.adyromantika.com/yahoo-time-capsule/) - Time capsule? Isn't that idea kinda old? Not really, if combined with today's multimedia techniques and technologies. Quite a while ago, Yahoo! has introduced Yahoo! time capsule, created by Jonathan Harris, an internet artist. For 30 days, from October 10 until November 8, Yahoo! users worldwide can contribute photos, writings, videos, audio, even drawings, to - [Yahoo! POP3 and SMTP Via SSL](https://blog.adyromantika.com/yahoo-pop3-and-smtp-via-ssl/) - It has almost been 5 years since I have subscribed to Yahoo! Mail Plus and I am really satisfied with the service. With POP3 and SMTP access, I couldn't be happier. Furthermore the ability to add disposable email addresses to combat SPAM from not-so-trusted sites is really useful. Yesterday I tried to send an email - [Gmail Gone Offline](https://blog.adyromantika.com/gmail-gone-offline/) - I have been actively glancing over to the settings page to see whether "Offline" has been activated for my account. And it was there so I decided to activate it: [singlepic=12,600,800] The settings for Offline is displayed, but not changeable (except to enable or disable the feature): [singlepic=10,600,800] I have no idea how the algorithm - [This Is Not SPAM](https://blog.adyromantika.com/this-is-not-spam/) - Since the past 2 weeks I have been receiving funny and annoying emails that start exactly like this: Maaf menganggu.. Maaf, ini bukan SPAM (This is not a SPAM). Tapi untuk menyampaikan satu berita mengenai biz yang menguntungkan Kalau tak berminat delete saja And each of them is actually promoting different programs: i.e. easy money, - [Another AdSense Payment](https://blog.adyromantika.com/another-adsense-payment/) - Today I managed to cash out my latest AdSense payment via Western Union. This is just to show a prove, and to motivate the unmotivated. Although the amount is not that huge, it's still money and after subtracting the hosting cost there is some profit. [singlepic=9,600,800] Next objective is getting significant monthly payments (I currently - [Gmail Going Offline](https://blog.adyromantika.com/gmail-going-offline/) - Read the title again. Gmail is going offline soon and that's the truth. Scared yet? Gmail is actually testing out a new lab feature: Offline Gmail The video featured in the official blog looks really cool, and they are currently opening the lab feature for testing in the UK and US. Seeing how many emails - [Economy Crisis Hits Malaysia](https://blog.adyromantika.com/economy-crisis-hits-malaysia/) - For the last couple of months I realized that the world economy is heading downwards. Europe and America have had their worst moments, Asia had a taste but Malaysia didn't really feel anything. To be really honest the first sign I saw was last week when they announced that around 100K people in the manufacturing - [Sun xVM VirtualBox 2.1.0](https://blog.adyromantika.com/sun-xvm-virtualbox-2-1-0/) - While doing some work I accidentally saw that there is an update available for VirtualBox. I was still using version 1 so I decided to download it and test it out myself. In older versions running on Windows I often get corrupted OS images after an upgrade. Not anymore. My CentOS, Debian, and Ubuntu virtual - [Line Numbers in EPIC + Eclipse](https://blog.adyromantika.com/line-numbers-in-epic-eclipse/) - When I was using Europa I was baffled by the inability to get line numbers to be displayed in my Perl source codes (using EPIC). Since PDT 2.0 has been released I decided to upgrade to Ganymede (3.4.1) but I still face the same issue: I was thinking that the right-click context menu might be - [The US Boycott Dilemma](https://blog.adyromantika.com/the-us-boycott-dilemma/) - Since Israel started to attack Gaza many parts of the world has started to organize events such as demonstration and peaceful gatherings to voice out against Israel actions, and as usual the ally - United States of America. WARNING: The fact that I am currently serving an American company might cause me to be biased - [Anonymous Cowards](https://blog.adyromantika.com/anonymous-cowards/) - Anonymous coward - this is the default user name that is displayed on Slashdot for users who wishes to post comments anonymously. It's really an appropriate term. Why would you want to be anonymous if you really believe what you're talking about? I am mainly disappointed with people who are promoting racial tension in Malaysia. - [SpongeBob SquarePants](https://blog.adyromantika.com/spongebob-squarepants/) - I have been working from home for almost a month now, and to cope with loneliness from the lack of company and with the noise produced by the work next door I always have my TV turned on while working. I used to hear about SpongeBob and I know what he is but never bothered - [Welcoming 2009/1430H](https://blog.adyromantika.com/welcoming-2009-1430h/) - 2009 is very near, and I am writing this post earlier for the fear of getting arrested before 2009 actually comes. 1430H arrived yesterday. Happy New Year!! 2008 was a very good year with a new job, new son, and new house purchase. The new year of 2009 is supposed to be the best new - [Blogging Frenzy](https://blog.adyromantika.com/blogging-frenzy/) - There is an interesting development at my current office where people are starting to create their own, self-hosted WordPress installations. This is a very good culture! And all this thanks to Mr Rizal, the blogging evangelist (or should I say WordPress evangelist?). I hope he's not just doing this because he's leaving us soon! Sob, - [Paypal to Debit Card, and AdSense to Western Union](https://blog.adyromantika.com/paypal-to-debit-card-and-adsense-to-western-union/) - In spite of being extremely busy, yesterday I had a chance to glance over some of my daily readings. I am excited to find out that PayPal is now allowing Malaysians to withdraw money to Visa branded debit card. I need to check with Standard Chartered whether I can use my savings account which is - [WordPress 2.5.1](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordpress-251/) - I was really reluctant to upgrade my WordPress version because I have so many custom plugins to create many widgets. I was just afraid that they might break and I have to spend a lot of time to repair them. My colleague Shahrulazlan has been trying to get me to upgrade my installation for a - [First AdSense Payment](https://blog.adyromantika.com/first-adsense-payment/) - I have finally received my first AdSense payment since 2005. It's not much but certainly a very good motivational factor to keep on blogging and making efforts to build websites. Since I opted for Western Union payment, it was actually a breeze. Filled a form and within 15 minutes I was holding cash in my - [MasterCard/Visa Promotion Fraud Attempt #2](https://blog.adyromantika.com/mastercardvisa-promotion-fraud-attempt-2/) - Back in January I wrote about an attempt to squeeze my credit card numbers by a caller using a private number. On July 4th, I received a call from 016 336 8916 but since I have my phone on private mode they were not able to reach me. However a couple of minutes later they - [Chitika Oh Chitika](https://blog.adyromantika.com/chitika-oh-chitika/) - On 10 April 2007 I tried to apply for Chitika eMiniMalls just to try out my luck even though my number of visitors is much lower back then. I received a reply which I totally understand and accepted: In an effort to bring value to our publishers, we carefully consider each submission. During our review - [Changes In Life](https://blog.adyromantika.com/changes-in-life/) - Believe it or not I can now feel the aging process creeping into my life. Body functions aside, I am seeing things from the psychology point of view. These days it is incomplete if I don't watch or read the news. I wake up early even on the weekends. I cry when I read life - [MyBlogLog: Where Have I Been?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/mybloglog-where-have-i-been/) - I am a little embarrassed to admit that I have neglected MyBlogLog for quite some time that I never noticed that it has been bought by Yahoo!. I did wonder on how some people get very nice MyBlogLog widgets and today I decided to check it out. I was asked to link my account to - [Busy August](https://blog.adyromantika.com/busy-august/) - Looks like August is another busy month for me. Earlier this month I went to Terengganu for my niece's wedding. It took a lot of work to be the organizing party. One niece married, 2 nieces, 3 nephews, and a son to go. I took a 3-day's leave (thanks boss!) during the first week and - [PayPal in Bahasa Melayu](https://blog.adyromantika.com/paypal-in-bahasa-melayu/) - I recently received an email from PayPal announcing that they now support additional languages. One of them is my native tongue, Bahasa Melayu. However when I clicked on the Malaysia flag it directs me to the same page as Bahasa Indonesia. Although many part of the Internet has already acknowledged and are well aware that - [More Than 48 Hours Offline](https://blog.adyromantika.com/more-than-48-hours-offline/) - It has been a while since I spent time at home without going online. As a matter of fact I don't remember at all when such an event has occurred before. 48 hours is strictly speaking, because 50 hours ago I did check my Gmail for 5 minutes. The truth is that I have not - [Shop Jusco or Carrefour](https://blog.adyromantika.com/shop-jusco-or-carrefour/) - I have been doing groceries shopping alone for about 20 days now, and I have always done it at Jusco. However today since I had to pick up my spectacles from Focus Point I went to Carrefour instead. There were several differences between Jusco and Carrefour and to tell you the truth I prefer Jusco. - [Adding More Sidebars to WordPress Themes](https://blog.adyromantika.com/adding-more-sidebars-to-wordpress-themes/) - WordPress keeps being updated but your themes rarely change unless you're a theme developer. I wanted to add a leaderboard but I was delaying because I am too lazy to add any custom code to my theme. Silly me I forgot that I have already added an extra "sidebar" when I developed the theme for - [On Property Purchase and Money3](https://blog.adyromantika.com/on-property-purchase-and-money3/) - As some of you might already know I bought a property in August, and the banking procedures were dragged until September where RHB Bank suddenly wished to change the loan amount. My agent, agent S was a 22 year old mobile agent I found through word of mouth. She was not helpful because she didn't - [OCRopus and Tesseract Binaries](https://blog.adyromantika.com/ocropus-and-tesseract-binaries/) - After I wrote about Ocropus and Tesseract in July, I received 4 requests for the binaries. Two requested using the comments and two requested via email. The truth is that it ain't easy to upload files that big because my upload speed is 1/4 of my download speed. It's worst today (see the previous post). - [Weird IP Mismatch on TMNET Network](https://blog.adyromantika.com/weird-ip-mismatch-on-tmnet-network/) - Tonight's Internet access was annoyingly slow so I thought of recycling my ADSL connection. Out of habit I opened up WhatIsMyIP.us and was presented with a weird IP. The top text with black background is the actual IP my router was assigned with (60.52.127.200). And then I recycled my ADSL connection. The new IP was - [What Happened to My Upload Speed?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/what-happened-to-my-upload-speed/) - For quite some time I have been working from home with no difficulties, and I am happy with the speed. Sometimes I even have 3 or 4 terminal service windows open, juggling between them to complete my tasks. However this morning when I tried to utilize my Nortel IP Softphone 2050 to call my boss - [Break A Leg](https://blog.adyromantika.com/break-a-leg/) - One fine day, I accidentally switched to the movie Outsourced on HBO. I decided to see what's it about. It was a fine movie about real outsourcing situations in India and it was quite fun. I really enjoyed the last scene at the airport when the American manager is sending off the Indian manager he - [Upload Folder Invasions and Security](https://blog.adyromantika.com/upload-folder-invasions-and-security/) - I was doing a routine backup job for a client's website hosted on Exabytes the other day and noticed something funny. There were supposed to be image, pdf, and video files in the upload folders but there were also .htaccess and PHP files in the main upload folder and each of the subfolders. The first - [Gmail Stickers!](https://blog.adyromantika.com/gmail-stickers/) - I was casually browsing the Official Gmail Blog this morning and saw that Gmail is giving away free Gmail stickers. The only thing you need to do is to send a self-stamped envelope to: Send me some Gmail stickers already P.O. Box 391420 Mountain View, CA 94039-1420 For International requests, we need to send the - [Lightweight Google Reader](https://blog.adyromantika.com/lightweight-google-reader/) - I was surprised by a change made to Google Reader today, with a new lightweight layout. There's no longer rounded corners and blue background. The feel is great and the speed is faster than before. Read more in the Official Google Reader Blog: Square is the new round - [Cooler Disk](https://blog.adyromantika.com/cooler-disk/) - My journey to Low Yat plaza last weekend (or was it the weekend before that?) was worth it. I installed new disk brackets and fans to cool off my system and the temp actually dropped quite significantly: Cooler disks! :-) *The fluctuation you see is because I can't keep my air conditioner turned on 24 - [Radeon IGP on HP nx9010](https://blog.adyromantika.com/radeon-igp-on-hp-nx9010/) - I just spent a few hours trying to find out what the problem is with my Debian. I just replaced Fedora Core 3 to Debian unstable on my notebook. It's a HP nx9010, equipped with Radeon IGP: 0000:01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon IGP 340M There was no video from noatun and xine. - [Local APT Repository: Part 2](https://blog.adyromantika.com/local-apt-repository-part-2/) - Final Steps on Server What we did in part 1 was to sync the repository. Now we need to make sure that our APT Server can serve the files for use by client machines. For this purpose, you can either choose to export the filesystem using NFS, or using Samba. I chose NFS. In the - [Local APT Repository: Part 1](https://blog.adyromantika.com/local-apt-repository-part-1/) - If you have a bunch of Debian machines to be taken care of, you must have been using APT a lot. APT is incredible, but if you use it to update multiple machines, you'll be bored to death waiting each and individual machine to download packages. What if I tell you there's a way we - [Google 'in talks to buy YouTube'](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-in-talks-to-buy-youtube/) - According to this news in BBC News, Google is reported to be in talks to buy popular video-sharing website YouTube for $1.6bn (~856m). For me, it would mean less choice for video bloggers and sharers for them to upload their videos. From the business point of view, Google is once again acquiring one of its - [Hectic April](https://blog.adyromantika.com/hectic-april/) - April has been a very intense month. Everything at work has turned againts you, and the world is falling apart. I injured my hand since a few weeks ago, and had only went to the doctor today. Don't know what causes this, but I bet it's because of carrying the heavy office desks to the - [Movies!](https://blog.adyromantika.com/movies/) - Narnia II - Prince Caspian is in the making. I was skeptical about Narnia until I really watched it. It was good. At least now I have an alternative to Harry Potter (which is going to have only one last instalment after The Goblet of Fire). The next big screen instalment from the books of - [Memoirs of A Geisha](https://blog.adyromantika.com/memoirs-of-a-geisha/) - I watched the movie Memoirs of A Geisha last Saturday. As always, I was quite reluctant to watch it at first. This is due to the fact that the main characters of Sayuri and Mameha are played by Chinese instead of Japanese (Sayuri - Zhang Ziyi, Mameha - Michelle Yeoh). I have nothing again Chinese - [Rain Drops, Veggie Prices Rise](https://blog.adyromantika.com/rain-drops-veggie-prices-rise/) - REPORTS BY ZUHRIN AZAM AHMAD, DALILAH IBRAHIM, SYLIVIA LOOI, MEERA VIJAYAN, NGU IK YING and RENITA CHE WAN (newsdesk@thestar.com.my) PETALING JAYA: Prices of vegetables nationwide have shot up in the past week, increasing by as much as 175% due to the wet season. Topping the list are red chillies, which are being sold at a - [Encode AMR to MP3](https://blog.adyromantika.com/encode-amr-to-mp3/) - Nowadays I have a habit of recording my phone conversations through my k750i. The problem is that the files are saved in AMR format and my PC can't play it. Googling around reveals that AMR files can be converted to WAV and MP3, so I created a shell script to do this for me. Prerequisites: - [Jabberd2 initscript for Debian](https://blog.adyromantika.com/jabber-initscript-for-debian/) - I was compiling and installing jabberd2 on a server at office and everything went great except for one thing: no initscript provided. I was baffled to find out that the great software didn't have any initscript. So I wrote one: #! /bin/sh # # Script to start/stop jabberd2 on a Debian # # by Ady - [New Nose on Long Lost Friends?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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 - [PayPerPost Acquires Performancing.com](https://blog.adyromantika.com/payperpost-acquires-performancingcom-3/) - This is an unexpected news but comprehensible indeed for PPP. For me this is a very good news for bloggers as Perfomancing is generally a very good idea for Internet Marketing strategy. The official news can be read here. According to PPP, by the acquisition they now gained a number of powerful blogger support tools - [A Sneak Peek at WordPress 2.1](https://blog.adyromantika.com/a-sneak-peek-at-wordpress-21/) - 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 - [Move Complete](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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 - [Google @enstek](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-enstek/) - From conversations I had with my colleagues at work, and from other friends I heard that Google is going to have presence in Malaysia, specifically at @enstek in Sepang. It's a new flagship area opening its wings to tech companies from all over the globe. Is this really true? In some stories I even heard - [IE7 and document.body.scrollTop](https://blog.adyromantika.com/ie7-and-documentbodyscrolltop/) - After being nagged by my Windows Automatic Updates for quite some time, I finally decided to give in and just install the IE7 update. I made a mistake by not backing up my IE6 files, or trying to find a method to have IE6 co-exist with IE7. Anyway, I found that the document.body.scrollTop method to - [Changing WordPress Permalink While Still Maintaining Accessibility](https://blog.adyromantika.com/changing-wordpress-permalink-while-still-maintaining-accessibility/) - I've been wanting to change my permalink structure for a while now but I was afraid to lose pageranks on some of my pages. However since I realize that I have been penalized and none of my page have ranks anymore, I'll just change it. But there is another issue that you should be worried - [MasterCard/Visa Promotion Fraud Attempt](https://blog.adyromantika.com/mastercardvisa-promotion-fraud-attempt/) - What great way to start 2008 with a pile of money obtained from other people's credit cards? I am writing to share my experience today. I am lucky I am not that stupid although I didn't realize an obvious bit earlier during the call. By the way the call came is as "Private" Caller:Is this - [Spam or Not Spam](https://blog.adyromantika.com/spam-or-not-spam/) - While monitoring some of the servers I am maintaining today, a user forwarded me an amusing email message: Received: from [218.111.170.31] by web38606.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:01:19 BST Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 07:01:19 +0100 (BST) From: hairiehasnie Subject: Dear XXXX, To: XXXX XXXX MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0-1107947314-1188799279=:79252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: - [Why You Should Not Use Shared Passwords](https://blog.adyromantika.com/why-you-should-not-use-shared-passwords/) - You have probably heard this many times, your friend or someone told you that you should not use the same password for all of your website memberships. Perhaps they never told you why. I have seen people taking this for granted many times, using the same password even for online banking accounts! So I am - [Hosting: Responsibility of Customer or Provider?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/hosting-responsibility-of-customer-or-provider/) - This post is specially dedicated to Exabyte's latest customer newsletter, which provide very useful information on how customers could prevent servers from overloading and causing service downtime. I do agree with what Exabytes have to say, and it is true that I noticed that when the services were down, it was indeed caused by processes - [Bye, Exabytes](https://blog.adyromantika.com/bye-exabytes/) - It has become worst since these last few days. Mails are missing, and site is not accessible many times. I've set up server monitoring at host-tracker.com and I receive on average 6 downtime alerts per day, with monitoring triggered every 30 minutes. I've seen people writing about my plugin said "if you can't access the - [Frustration With Exabytes](https://blog.adyromantika.com/frustration-with-exabytes/) - 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 - [Exabytes Replies](https://blog.adyromantika.com/exabytes-replies/) - 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 - [RegisterFly Gets Ditched By eNom](https://blog.adyromantika.com/registerfly-gets-ditched-by-enom/) - 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 - [JavaScripts getElementsByName - IE Vs Firefox](https://blog.adyromantika.com/javascripts-getelementsbyname-ie-vs-firefox/) - A little coding story. I spent quite some time to figure out what's wrong with my code. Consider the following code: Firefox will correctly alert you with "First Element value is: 1" IE in the other hand will alert you with "First Element value is: undefined" Why is that so? Because there exists a div - [Working With Dynamic Select Inside an Ajax Container](https://blog.adyromantika.com/working-with-dynamic-select-inside-an-ajax-container/) - I spent like half an hour on this, got tired, went out to The Curve Damansara, and tonight when I came back, tried a simple trick and it all worked. I had a code similar to this (shortened for understanding): Name of the option The JavaScript: All three browsers: IE 6, Firefox 2.0, and Opera - [TMNet Decides to Block Port 25](https://blog.adyromantika.com/tmnet-decides-to-block-port-25/) - If you're a Streamyx subscriber and is actively monitoring your Streamyx email you would already be aware that TM is blocking all outgoing connections to port 25 from the dynamic IP users. Simply put, home users with dynamic IP will not be able to use their email clients (i.e. Thunderbird, Outlook, Eudora, Kmail) to send - [Unsolicited Mails](https://blog.adyromantika.com/unsolicited-mails/) - I hate it when I receive unsolicited mails such as this one. I have never registered for any services by this company, and most importantly I only use my disposable emails from Yahoo! to register for any untrusted services in the Internet. So this is a human imbecile who harvested my email. I already have - [The Correct Way To SPAM](https://blog.adyromantika.com/the-correct-way-to-spam/) - Some of us might say that there's no right way to send spams. I partially agree especially the spams contains useless information but I do sometimes receive spams that contains interesting things and products. Spambots is a no no. But living in Malaysia I receive quite a number of people sending emails promoting their valid - [Starbucks Sizing System](https://blog.adyromantika.com/starbucks-sizing-system/) - I was watching HBO when one of the short sections in between the movies were aired. It was about the new movie "Role Models". I have always wondered why Starbucks have the sizing system "Tall" (small), "Grande" (medium), and "Venti" (large). It's plain weird. Interestingly Danny Donahue (played by Paul Rudd) mentioned this directly in - [Cosmic Bowl Sucks](https://blog.adyromantika.com/cosmic-bowl-sucks/) - Well, to be really honest the light setting and the loud music is really cool. However I feel that the bowling alley is poorly maintained. Discolored screens and malfunctioning equipment really helped to spoil the mood for a good bowling night. I was playing in lane 36 on Friday after work and I counted at - [GMail Themes](https://blog.adyromantika.com/gmail-themes/) - I was jealous of Azlan when he was able to change his GMail theme yesterday, and so was Nazham. But look at what I found when I woke up this morning: [singlepic=2,420,420] Sweet!!! [singlepic=1,420,420] - [2.59MB/Sec Download](https://blog.adyromantika.com/259mbsec-download/) - I had to download the Flex SDK for work today and when I saw the file size I thought I can take some time to get coffee and a smoking break but I was wrong. I am not making it a big deal but I guess home users in Malaysia has never experienced this before. - [Flash Uploader Error](https://blog.adyromantika.com/flash-uploader-error/) - [IOErrorEvent type=\"ioError\" bubbles=false cancelable=false eventPhase=2 text=\"Error #2038\"] - [New Maybank2u Sucks](https://blog.adyromantika.com/new-maybank2u-sucks/) - Yesterday I was trying to pay my overdue house rental that I have forgotten to pay because of the Hari Raya holidays (sorry landlord!). When I load Maybank2u it was fine at a glance, and the new design looks super cool! However when I tried to login and use the functions I was disappointed. Logging - [Help Find Ozzie the Golden Retriever](https://blog.adyromantika.com/help-find-ozzie-the-golden-retriever/) - [UPDATE] Ozzie was actually taken by a neighbor's friend who thought the dog was lost. Ozzie was scared of thunder and wandered around to a Hari Raya open house nearby where the house owner asked his Chinese friend to bring Ozzie home. Ozzie is now back with his rightful owner he loves. [END UPDATE] If - [Reverie: A DSLR Masterpiece in HD](https://blog.adyromantika.com/reverie-a-dslr-masterpiece-in-hd/) - Yes, I am busy again that's why I have been so quiet. As usual Rizal pointed me to an interesting post that leads me to Reverie. It caught my attention so much I had to write this short post. I was astonished by the quality of the movie, especially since it is taken using a - [My Version of Pidgin Portable](https://blog.adyromantika.com/my-version-of-pidgin-portable/) - Latest Update click here. I am a curious programmer, and was all the way wondering on how apps on PortableApps were made. Since Pidgin, the replacement for Gaim was released I was waiting for a while for Portable Apps but I guess they must be busy with the number off apps they have to handle. - [Setting DD-WRT Cron Job Through Command Line](https://blog.adyromantika.com/setting-dd-wrt-cron-job-through-command-line/) - I managed to get OpenVPN running on my DD-WRT v2.2 router, with the instructions from the wiki. However after a few reboot tests I saw that OpenVPN died immediately after it started, with no traceable reasons. Sep 12 00:51:10 192.168.xx.xx openvpn[3940]: TUN/TAP device tap0 opened . . . Sep 12 00:51:11 192.168.xx.xx openvpn[3949]: Initialization Sequence - [Checking Limits on OpenVZ / Virtuozzo](https://blog.adyromantika.com/checking-limits-on-openvz-virtuozzo/) - Do you use virtual server hosting for your websites? It's commonly known as VPS. Most hosting companies now uses Virtuozzo, a proprietary operating system virtualization product produced by SWsoft, Inc. The OpenVZ project is an open source community project supported by SWsoft and is intended to provide access to the code and ultimately for the - [OpenVZ On Ubuntu Or Debian](https://blog.adyromantika.com/openvz-on-ubuntu-or-debian/) - As a SysAdmin I have been using OpenVZ since it was introduced, and trust me it has not always been this easy. I used to take care of 20 physical servers with yearly replacement of about 5 machines. Since some of the servers are running different Linux distributions and different hardware it was decided that - [DD-WRT v24 Upgrade on My WRT54G v2.2 Wireless Router](https://blog.adyromantika.com/dd-wrt-v24-upgrade-on-my-wrt54g-v22-wireless-router/) - It has been some time that I wanted to upgrade the firmware, but I rarely have the motivation to do so. I ensured myself that I would not brick the router, and reminded myself on how DD-WRT always produces new and exciting features. So today, I did it. It took around 20 minutes to upgrade - [OSCC: The Silent Mirror](https://blog.adyromantika.com/oscc-the-silent-mirror/) - All hyped out about sharing Linux knowledge with friends especially dirn, I wanted to download Ubuntu for my own use mainly because I am a strict Debian user. Browsing the mirror list in Ubuntu official site I am disappointed by the speed of most of the mirrors I selected, and the fastest I can get - [1TB Hitachi Hard Drive](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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 - [SMART Tunnel Woes](https://blog.adyromantika.com/smart-tunnel-woes/) - I just watched a segment from TV3's Buletin Utama about complaints regarding the closure of the SMART tunnel. It amuses me with the fact that people seem to be blaming it on the tunnel management alone when the reason is closure is known - to redirect water. For the ignorant or the unrelated readers from - [Google Chrome: More Findings](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-chrome-more-findings/) - Actually, if you really watch the 52-minutes video or read the whole manual you might already know about these cool features. And then again maybe not. I didn't have the time to go thorough with the documents / videos so I am just documenting based on casual use. One of most obvious feature would be - [Google Chrome: My Findings So Far](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-chrome-my-findings-so-far/) - Like Rizal, I was also thrilled to try out Google Chrome when I saw the posts in nazham.com and dirn.name. I am simply discussing my initial findings, and we all know it's Beta. This is by no means an official or detailed review. This is what I have encountered so far while using it casually. - [Jusco Baby Cots](https://blog.adyromantika.com/jusco-baby-cots/) - We went for baby shopping again on Saturday, this time at Mid-Valley. Surprisingly there are not as many choices as in The Curve. We're looking for a cot, stroller, car seat, and playpen. While in Jusco I saw this sign on one of the baby cot: I know I know, it means don't put your - [Ramadhan: McDonald's Breakfast Starts at 5.00](https://blog.adyromantika.com/ramadhan-mcdonalds-breakfast-starts-at-500/) - I have just returned from a short trip to Taman Equine McDonald's to look for some light food for sahur. It was exactly 4.22 AM when I arrived at the drive-thru. We wanted to have the big breakfast set but the voice on the display said "during Ramadhan breakfast starts at 5.00 AM". I said - [McDonald's Taman Equine](https://blog.adyromantika.com/mcdonalds-taman-equine/) - Last night (Sunday morning) at 2.50am my stomach started to rumble as I was staying up late to finish up some work. So I went to McDonald's to get some food at the 24-hour drive thru. I arrived there exactly at 3.00am, and there were 3 cars ahead of me in the queue. I didn't - [Subscribe To Comments](https://blog.adyromantika.com/subscribe-to-comments/) - I am a blogger. (What a stupid statement when writing a blog post). Anyway, I just wish everyone could install the Subscribe To Comments plugin so that I will know when they (or anyone for that matter) responds to my comments. Today I have to remember which blog post I posted my comments on and - [Telephone Harassment](https://blog.adyromantika.com/telephone-harassment/) - Prepaid SIM cards are convenient, and there is no doubt that a lot of people in this planet have gained great benefit from them. Some countries have imposed a law that all prepaid SIM cards must be registered to the telco so that they (the authorities) can track down criminals and people who are misusing - [Photography As Passion](https://blog.adyromantika.com/photography-as-passion/) - Do you photograph? I have owned a Nikon D50 DSLR for about a year now, and also a Sony T30 for casual shots. It is indeed an expensive hobby as many people would put it once they see my camera. But this hobby can be converted to a source of income, and that is what - [Nikon Capture NX on Linux](https://blog.adyromantika.com/nikon-capture-nx-on-linux/) - I am feeling a little bit slow today, because my notebook is slow. LOL. I think this relates directly to the fact that everyday at work I am using a new Lenovo T60 notebook which is much faster than my 2 years old personal notebook. I used to dual-boot the notebook with Debian where the - [Get More From Your Nikon D50](https://blog.adyromantika.com/get-more-from-your-nikon-d50/) - This magazine, or we can also call it a booklet, is produced by Digital Photography Magazine UK. I previously bought this magazine on a monthly basis, until its local publication came into the market. This booklet costs RM59.00 (~USD16.00) and at a glance you might think that it's another way for the magazine to make - [Chromatic Aberration Is My New Enemy](https://blog.adyromantika.com/chromatic-aberration-is-my-new-enemy/) - For those who know me, they know that I am a beginner photographer equipped with a Nikon D50 DSLR and have bought a Sigma 18-200mm DC OS lens back in February when I visited Singapore. Since I usually take casual photographs I have never really paid that much attention to people in my photos. My - [Vacation At Last](https://blog.adyromantika.com/vacation-at-last/) - People who personally know me must have realized that it has been a while since I talked about taking a vacation. But as people also know, I'm sort of a workaholic. I obviously don't admit this, but even people closest to me says so. My employer announced today that we will be getting a fully - [Debian Sarge is finally FINAL](https://blog.adyromantika.com/debian-sarge-is-finally-final/) - To Debian junkies out there, Debian 3.1 codenamed 'Sarge' has been declared stable on 6th of June 2005. Read more about it here: http://www.debian.org/News/2005/20050606 - [apt-get moo](https://blog.adyromantika.com/apt-get-moo/) - (__) (oo) /------\/ / | || * /\---/\ ~~ ~~ ....''Have you mooed today?''... - [Debian Unstable - apt-get upgrade](https://blog.adyromantika.com/debian-unstable-apt-get-upgrade/) - Be careful when you are feeling like doing an apt-get upgrade today.My whole KDE menu at work went missing after doing an upgrade... LOL! This bug has been reported: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=323747 The buggy version is 3.4.2-1 so for now, downgrade to 3.3.2-6.1 :-) - [Iceweasel](https://blog.adyromantika.com/iceweasel/) - Have you ever heard of the browser named Iceweasel? Of course not, if you're not using Debian. One of my machine at home is running a Debian Etch installation (my torrent box), and a few days ago I ran apt-get upgrade to upgrade the packages. I was quite annoyed at first, as it's trying to - [ALSA Support in Skype](https://blog.adyromantika.com/alsa-support-in-skype/) - Finally, Skype has released a beta version with alsa support: 1.3.0.30_API Hopefully all the troubles with "Problem with Sound Device" will be history. However for users with very old kernels, and prefer to use OSS, the option is still there. The problem with Skype utilizing OSS on modern systems is that it keeps on failing - [Movie Time!](https://blog.adyromantika.com/movie-time/) - It's movie time again after months being away from the cinemas. After being worked so hard and having no time for entertainment, I think I deserve a couple of hours for a movie. We are going to watch the not-so-new-anymore Casino Royale tonight! Made a reservation on TGV online for tonight. Never realized that the - [Casino Royale](https://blog.adyromantika.com/casino-royale/) - As mentioned earlier I went to watch Casino Royale earlier tonight. The movie is alright, but can be better. What I like: The starting montage is indeed suitable and gives me the feel that this is a Bond movie. Bond's weakness is as usual - women. No SPECTRE - frankly I'm tired of that shit, - [Microsoft revamps blogging policy](https://blog.adyromantika.com/microsoft-revamps-blogging-policy/) - Remember what happened to Chinese blogger Zhao Jing? His blog was closed down by Microsoft. Following that decision, many parties were outraged. So Microsoft decided to revamp its blogging policy. News Story by Jeremy Kirk JANUARY 31, 2006 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - LISBON -- In the face of outrage from many of its own employees - [HP Offers Notebooks Without Windows XP](https://blog.adyromantika.com/hp-offers-notebooks-without-windows®-xp/) - I just bought a notebook today for my nephew. Well, helped in buying it as it's his father's money. It comes with FreeDOS. Cool. Now users can choose whether or not they want Microsoft® Windows® on their notebooks.At first I was looking for Compaq Presario M2232, but it was already replaced with Compaq Presario M2241. - [Microsoft releases revamped Internet Explorer](https://blog.adyromantika.com/microsoft-releases-revamped-internet-explorer/) - More news related to Microsoft. The software giant has released Internet Explorer 7 Beta. The beta version of Internet Explorer (IE) 7 is now available for download from the company's website, www.microsoft.com. However, users have been advised that the product should not yet be used in "mission-critical environments". Since when did I trust IE for - [Downside of IT Certification](https://blog.adyromantika.com/downside-of-it-certification/) - Interesting... The Q1 2006 Hot Technical Skills and Certifications Pay Index, released April 25 by Foote Partners, a New Canaan, Conn., IT compensation and workforce management firm, found that pay premiums for non-certified IT skills grew three times faster than for certified ones in a six-month period spanning 2005-2006. http://www.eweek.com/article2/... The study suggests that there - [Under The Hood of Microsoft Windows](https://blog.adyromantika.com/under-the-hood-of-microsoft-windows/) - For a Linux geek like me, I always feel so much restrained when using Windows, due to the fact that I can't really get into the internals of the system especially that now I am using Windows on my 2 year old notebook after the storage catastrophe. It looks like hard disks don't really like - [Error on Microsoft Site](https://blog.adyromantika.com/error-on-microsoft-site/) - Click on "Special offers for genuine Windows customers": Received this: I wonder what the offers could be. Offers not found - 404 ;-) - [Free Windows Vista](https://blog.adyromantika.com/free-windows-vista/) - Last month, there was a radio commercial on Hitz.fm that promotes free upgrade to Windows Vista and I was fooled. Of course, it's a commercial. You get Windows Vista only if you buy a new PC with Windows XP now. For those currently using licensed Windows XP like me, you get nothing. In fact, even - [Where Did My Disk Space Go?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/where-did-my-disk-space-go/) - Although I am a Linux user, I do enjoy from time to time strolling around Windows. Especially since my Windows XP price was included with my notebook ;-)For the last few weeks I have been puzzled why my free space on drive C: keep decreasing eventhough I have not installed anything. Yeah I know, temp - [Ooopsss... Google Dit It Again](https://blog.adyromantika.com/ooopsss-google-dit-it-again/) - Google has released its latest release of Google Desktop. Google Desktop 2, now includes a sidebar suitable for nerds like me.Features of Google Desktop 2 includes: Email: This panel will display all of your latest emails in your gmail inbox. If you think nobody will look over your shoulder or you have nothing to hide, this - [Google Apps for Your Domain](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-apps-for-your-domain/) - Google has released the beta version of Google Apps for Your Domain, a service where your organization or website will be able to use Google's services personalized with a unique domain. This means that your users at yourdomain.com will be able to log in into Google's services using yourdomain.com. Simply put, you will not even - [Google Calendar With Holidays](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-calendar-with-holidays/) - Anyone else uses Google calendar? It's my favorite web calendar, and I will like it more if it can sync with Outlook 2000 that my workplace still uses. One great feature that have been added a while ago is an option to add your country's holidays in your calendar: Of course, I immediately added Malaysia - [YouTube Acquired By Google](https://blog.adyromantika.com/youtube-acquired-by-google/) - Google is no longer in talks to buy YouTube. They bought it for 1.6 billion dollars. Some of sites have listed it as 1.6m which is incorrect by three zeros. Let's see what Chad and Steve (founders of YouTube) have to say about this: - [Google In Malaysia](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-in-malaysia/) - While playing around with some Google caches today I found this intriguing page. It's an opening for Malaysia Country Consultant for Google Inc. I wonder if they are planning to open up an office in Malaysia, or better still, a research center perhaps? Digging deeper, Azidin found out that Jeff mentioned that this position has - [Google AdSense Under Maintenance](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-adsense-under-maintenance/) - For AdSense users out there who are not subscribed in the blog update, Google AdSense site is down from 10am to 2pm PDT: This Saturday, November 11th, our engineers will be performing routine system maintenance from 10am to 2pm PDT. Although you won't be able to access your account during this time, ads will still - [Missing AdSense Pages](https://blog.adyromantika.com/missing-adsense-pages/) - A client friend of mine complained that he can't see the pages when he clicked on AdSense links, which is quite weird. When I tried, they all loaded fine. Anyone experience the same problem? By the way you should not click on your own ads too many times as Google will think you are trying - [Google Analytics Plugin Not Showing](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-analytics-plugin-not-showing/) - Well, this is not a complaint to the great plugin, but for some themes. Themes like Intense, and AquaGreen does not have any wp_footer call so the tracking code will not show. How to fix it? Open up themes/[themename]/footer.php and add before resulting in: Hope this - [About The New Blogger Import Plugin](https://blog.adyromantika.com/about-the-new-blogger-import-plugin/) - 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 - [Why Use Gmail](https://blog.adyromantika.com/why-use-gmail/) - Someone at work forwarded me to this video today. Good video to fill up some time... It really looks fun over there in Google land. :-) - [AdSense Referrals Beta](https://blog.adyromantika.com/adsense-referrals-beta/) - I received my email subscription to Inside AdSense just about 20 minutes ago. There's good news - AdSense is launching a referral program where you can refer products from advertisers now, not only Google products. When a visitor clicks on your referral link, if he/she completes an action defined by the advertiser, you get paid! - [Google Referrals 2.0](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-referral-20/) - Have you checked in to your AdSense account lately? Try and see the Referral setup page and see whether you have been upgraded to Referrals 2.0. I was surprised by this notification when I logged on to the AdSense account of one of my clients. This is what I saw: Some of us are lucky - [Google Desktop for Linux](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-desktop-for-linux/) - Hooray! Google Desktop has finally reached Linux users. It is the first release, and contains a subset of features from the Windows version. Obviously no source is provided, but two package types is ready to be downloaded - .rpm for Red Hat/Fedora/Suse/Mandriva x86, and .deb for Debian/Ubuntu x86 No 64 bit version yet, though. However - [Firebug and Gmail](https://blog.adyromantika.com/firebug-and-gmail/) - When I log on to my Gmail today, I received an error bounded by a red box that says "Firebug is known to make Gmail slow unless it is configured correctly". I didn't know that! And as always, Gmail is nice enough to provide a simple workaround. Firebug is an excellent add-on normally used by - [Does PageRank Matter?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/does-pagerank-matter/) - As many of us has experienced, Google has finally slapped everyone who has paid links on their site. PageRanks have been stripped off by as much as 2 on most sites. A good example would be this site which has been penalized from PR4 to PR2. I am not complaining, since I never have any - [Google Maps Now With Malaysia Map](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-maps-now-with-malaysia-map/) - Yes I know I know... the title sounds weird. Remember the days when loading Google Maps you can only see the satellite images? Well, if you click on "Map" or "Hybrid", no useful information was shown. Those days are now over. I jumped up today at the office when I saw that the Map button - [Google In Malaysia II](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-in-malaysia-ii/) - More than a year after I wrote this post: Google In Malaysia, and more than a year after Hanson Toh was appointed as Malaysia Google Consultant, we may actually have a real good news. I just saw in TV3's Buletin Utama that Malaysia Prime Minister met Google's CEO in Switzerland (World Economic Forum) and they - [Pacific Regency Hotel Apartments](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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, - [Nuffnang Error](https://blog.adyromantika.com/nuffnang-error/) - Today the site loads very slow, and as I was about to blame the network when I saw this: It seems that Nuffnang may be currently experiencing some difficulties. Since the ad block loads inline, the whole site waits for it. Oh by the way visitors from outside of Malaysia & Singapore will not see - [You Can Make Money Online](https://blog.adyromantika.com/you-can-make-money-online/) - For the skeptical, here's a post as a simple proof that you can indeed make money online. During early March 2007 I introduced my better half to Pay Per Post. Since then she has been happily blogging and earn around USD15-25 per day. Within two month's time she accumulated more than USD1000 in her Paypal - [WP-Cache and GoDaddy Hosting](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wp-cache-and-godaddy-hosting/) - I have several blogs hosted on GoDaddy servers. If your WordPress blog is hosted on GoDaddy hosting, do not use the WP-Cache plugin or your site will intermittently produce Error 500 (Internal Server Error). I can't spot the error even when I enable the error logs - there seems to be none! I've heard similar - [Another Reason Not To Host In Malaysia](https://blog.adyromantika.com/another-reason-not-to-host-in-malaysia/) - Would you register your blog if the Government ask you to? Although I rarely write about any sensitive issues related to the Government, I have to express myself on this one. So now Malaysian Government is planning to make it compulsory for bloggers to register themselves. Here is an article from The Star: Bloggers may - [Etch is Stable](https://blog.adyromantika.com/etch-is-stable/) - The current “stable” distribution of Debian GNU/Linux is version 4.0r0, codenamed etch. It was released on April 8th, 2007. Testing is now codenamed lenny. Release notes here. - [Portable Application - A Reality](https://blog.adyromantika.com/portable-application-a-reality/) - Not everything that you dream of can become reality. But one of my oldest dream has come true. I really wanted that my frequently used applications can be brought along anywhere I need them, and be used in any computer I want to. I found PortableApps. It can be used as a suite, and can - [Imation Disk Manager II](https://blog.adyromantika.com/imation-disk-manager-ii/) - A funny story. I just bought myself a 4GB flash drive to substitute my old 128MB Imation flash drive. So I was trying to format the Imation drive when I found a big loophole to the software. The Imation flash drive comes with a firmware that automatically creates an executable to run the Imation Disk - [Bye, Advertlets](https://blog.adyromantika.com/bye-advertlets/) - Advertlets is not working for me, so I am dropping it this weekend. This does not mean that you shouldn't try it out, go ahead it might just work for you. For me the most revenue I am receiving from this blog is through AdSense and Kontera. Someone from Advertlets did make a comment on - [Advertlets Performance](https://blog.adyromantika.com/advertlets-performance/) - From other Malaysian and Singaporean bloggers I can see that they experiencing very good performance with Advertlets. Unfortunately it is not the same case for me. Since having the widget for quite a while, and I remember that I am in the first batch of advertisement as well when it started but I only received - [Slow Streamyx](https://blog.adyromantika.com/slow-streamyx/) - For quite some time Streamyx has been quite stable for me, no complaints. However starting from a few days ago it has become really painful to access the Internet, and to even access my own blog. I guess the problem is with international connections again as accessing a local server hosted in Netmyne is not - [Clipperz: Online Password Manager](https://blog.adyromantika.com/clipperz-online-password-manager/) - In my previous post about passwords, I wrote about why you should not use shared passwords. One thing after another, in the comments section password storage became a topic and I suggested KeePass and at all cost avoid online password managers. I had a reason in mind, and you have guessed it right - security. - [Do You Own An MP3 Player?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/do-you-own-an-mp3-player/) - MP3 players today are as common as a discman or walkman used to be. Back then we have to carry a bigger pouch to pack in our CDs or cassettes, and each of them usually can carry only about 17 songs - and that was already considered many. Today, with a device the size of - [Why I Set Up VPN On DD-WRT On My Router](https://blog.adyromantika.com/why-i-set-up-vpn-on-dd-wrt-on-my-router/) - Everyday I receive a massive number of emails from many sources and half of them are valid (i.e. not spams). And at certain times I receive huge attachments from friends with pictures or other things. With a normal Streamyx ADSL connection this is fine, but when it gets hiccups my email retrieval process normally gets - [Apple MacBook Air, Anyone?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/apple-macbook-air-anyone/) - I can't believe my eyes when I saw this notebook. It's as thin as air hence the perfect name is given. At 1.94cm, it is as thick as two foolscap binders stacked on top of each other. The weight of 1.36kg is simply acceptable. It looks like I made the right decision not to get - [MacBook Air Is Too Expensive For Me](https://blog.adyromantika.com/macbook-air-is-too-expensive-for-me/) - Hey hey hey... looks like MacBook Air's price has been released in Malaysia. However when I took a glance at Machines Sunway Pyramid last weekend I didn't see any hint (not even a flier) about MacBook Air. The least expensive model is priced at RM6,299.00 (~US$1,949.25) - which is actually logical for an Apple notebook. - [Welcome Firefox 3; Good Bye Google Browser Sync](https://blog.adyromantika.com/welcome-firefox-3-good-bye-google-browser-sync/) - Following from Firefox 3 download day yesterday, I was eager to try out the new, all-improved Firefox 3. As a matter of fact, I am writing this post in Firefox 3. There is certainly a significant improvement in speed and responsiveness, and the overall feel have changed. It's a lot more elegant now. However it's - [Maildir Storage in Thunderbird](https://blog.adyromantika.com/maildir-storage-in-thunderbird/) - I am doing research before deployment of a Postfix + Dovecot HA cluster tomorrow morning, on converting existing mailboxes to Maildir format. The existing mail server is running Sendmail + Unidentified POP3 on a Fedora Core 2 box. It's ancient and that's why my client need it to be scrapped or turned into something else. - [The Most Expensive "Baju Melayu" I Ever Had](https://blog.adyromantika.com/the-most-expensive-baju-melayu-i-ever-had/) - Or frankly the title should be "The Most Expensive Baju Melayu I will have" because I have just sent the fabric to the tailor a couple of hours ago at Wisma Yakin near Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman. The thing is I am unsure whether I will get a more expensive ones later in life. For - [PHP Framework Benchmark](https://blog.adyromantika.com/php-framework-benchmark/) - In April I wrote about Eclipse PDT, Zend Framework, PHPUnit. AVNet Labs have executed a comprehensive benchmark against popular PHP Frameworks. It looks like they are also using Zend Framework for their development. I'll stay with Zend as well, because I believe in vendor-product compatibility. I will not ask for support from Adobe if I - [Compressing WordPress Output](https://blog.adyromantika.com/compressing-wordpress-output/) - While toying around with NextGen code so that I can activate my custom image mirror, I saw the output from Firebug. I noticed that my HTML output is not compressed (by the absence of gzip content-encoding). Some Apache servers have this module already enabled (previously mod_gzip a 3rd party module in Apache 1, and now - [OCRopus and Tesseract](https://blog.adyromantika.com/ocropus-and-tesseract/) - A friend pointed me to an open source project called OCRopus because I am currently working on a project related to OCR. Commercial OCR solutions ain't cheap and you can really dig a hole in your pocket trying to get a good OCR solution. It's neither the price of the hardware nor the software that - [Pull Down Ladder @ Fold Ladder @ Attic Ladder](https://blog.adyromantika.com/pull-down-ladder-fold-ladder-attic-ladder/) - I have recently purchased a new house, and while waiting for it to complete next year I am looking around for best deals for home renovation and decoration. For the first phase I am going to emphasize on safety and things that needs to be done before the house is occupied. Plaster ceiling, wooden skirting - [Live Free or Die Hard](https://blog.adyromantika.com/live-free-or-die-hard/) - As a long time Bruce Willis fan (you'll know if you see my gravatar and IM avatars), I was thrilled when Azidin told me that a new Die Hard movie is going to be released this year. It is going to be the 4th installment to the Die Hard series, being the 4th. I have - [My AdSense PIN Has Arrived](https://blog.adyromantika.com/my-adsense-pin-has-arrived/) - Despite of a shadowy day (the shadow is in my head) today, I am thrilled to learn that my AdSense PIN has arrived safely at my home. It felt good. I've been busy and tired lately, this is a very big hurdle for a non full time blogger like me. Less and less time (and - [Pidgin 2.0.1 Released](https://blog.adyromantika.com/pidgin-201-released/) - Have you heard? Pidgin 2.0.1 has just been released two hours ago (as of the time of writing - 25 May 2007 20:10 GMT). This release fixed various bugs, where 112 tickets were closed. Go here to see the Milestone page and here to download Pidgin. However my most waited enhancement is not in this - [Transformers The Movie 2](https://blog.adyromantika.com/transformers-the-movie-2/) - Warning: Might contain spoilers. I skipped my weekly swimming exercise yesterday and went out to Summit Parade to watch Transformers. We thought that the cinemas will not be full as it is a week day but we were wrong and ended up taking the first line of seat in the THX hall. Luckily in the - [Die Hard 4.0](https://blog.adyromantika.com/die-hard-40/) - Warning: might contain spoilers. There are so many movies being released and I can't get to them all. I watched Die Hard 4.0 last Saturday after 5 calls to the GSC Movie Reservation lines. Die Hard 4.0 is one of the best installment from the Die Hard movie series. If you have watched the previous - [New Portable Apps](https://blog.adyromantika.com/new-portable-apps/) - Hey hey hey, PortableApps.com have released a bunch of brand new applications such as winMd5Sum Portable 1.0.1.55, On-Screen Keyboard Portable 1.0, Notepad++ Portable 4.1.2, Virtual Magnifying Glass Portable 3.3, and some portable games for your pleasure. Go ahead to http://portableapps.com/apps for your dose of portable apps. - [PHP 4 End Of Life](https://blog.adyromantika.com/php-4-end-of-life/) - PHP 4 will finally reached its end of life on December 31, 2007. However critical security fixes will be made available until August 8, 2008. This is a good time to revise your codes, to see whether they will run without any glitches in PHP 5. That first, then when doing any code upgrades or - [Pangkor Island Beach Resort](https://blog.adyromantika.com/pangkor-island-beach-resort/) - So as I mentioned in my previous post, last weekend I went to Pangkor Island for the company's team building. Here's the picture taken once we arrived at the hotel private jetty: This is not exactly a vacation and we didn't have much chances to go to other tourist spots. However it was a great - [Tesla Real to Reel](https://blog.adyromantika.com/tesla-real-to-reel/) - One of my favorite rock bands have recently (in June) released an album featuring many songs from other bands in late 60s and early 70s - Real to Reel. Visit the Real to Reel site to sample the songs before you buy the album! See the player image I captured above? Reel One can be - [PHP 5 In CentOS 4.5](https://blog.adyromantika.com/php-5-in-centos-45/) - Just a short sharing note, for users of CentOS 4.5 who is looking to update PHP to version 5 instead of the default 4.3.9 there is a clean and easy way to upgrade your PHP. Open up /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo and look for the section centosplus: [centosplus] name=CentOS-$releasever - Plus mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/... #baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/... gpgcheck=1 enabled=0 gpgkey=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/RPM-GPG-KEY-centos4 priority=2 protect=1 - [Pidgin 2.1.0 Released](https://blog.adyromantika.com/pidgin-210-released/) - Okay, I know I cheated by going directly from 2.0.1 to 2.1.0 - I just have not enough time when 2.0.2 was released. Pidgin 2.1.0 has finally been released with lots of improvements. For my Portable Pidgin users, you'll be happy to know that it's ready. Please let me know if you find any problem. - [Pidgin 2.1.1 Released](https://blog.adyromantika.com/pidgin-211-released/) - The official Pidgin 2.1.1 has been released, and the official Pidgin Portable 2.1.0 Released. So since John T. Haller of PortableApps has packaged this, I will stop packaging Pidgin Portable for the public. This is the end of My Version of Pidgin Portable. Hope all who have used it found it useful. I guess the - [TMNET Rebate](https://blog.adyromantika.com/tmnet-rebate-2/) - Usually, people will not appreciate the good things being done. They will only rant and shout when things go bad. I don't like that so I want to post an update of the TMNET case. I finally received a rebate, and my latest bill dated 05 Feb 2005 shows only RM33.50. That's a total rebate - [Traffic Shaping on TMNET Streamyx?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/traffic-shaping-on-tmnet-streamyx/) - Everywhere I see people complaining that their Internet access speed via TMNET Streamyx is slow, and there are accusations that TMNET is using traffic shaping technology to limit bandwidth for certain applications. I don't know how true are these, and have never bothered to check. However lately I have been experiencing very slow Bittorrent traffic, - [Traffic Shaping According to Time Of Day?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/traffic-shaping-according-to-time-of-day/) - Looking at my traffic graph generated from the router, I can see that my traffic increases at night and gradually slows down right after 0800. Traffic remains slow until going up again at about 2300. Interesting. Is TMNET implementing traffic shaping based on hours of the day? Anyway the traffic at night hovers around 10kB/s - [Bye Michael Lai, Hello Zainab Hashim](https://blog.adyromantika.com/bye-michael-lai-hello-zainab-hashim/) - Zainab Hashim? Who's that? That's the new TMNET CEO. Well, acting CEO. Telekom Malaysia Bhd said in a statement that the company was in the process of looking for a suitable successor as the present CEO, Michael Lai would be leaving his current position to pursue an external career opportunity. Zainab, who has been with - [Hotel Grand Continental Kuantan](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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 - [Hotel Vistana Kuantan](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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. - [Cable Fixed?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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 - [Down Again](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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 - [100% Percent Service Restoration](https://blog.adyromantika.com/100-percent-service-restoration/) - 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. http://www.tm.net.my/... - [4.0Mbps Streamyx?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/40mbps-streamyx/) - I was browsing through some blogs when I found myself on this particular post in doBot's blog. Here's the official announcement. Familiar Malaysian forums have been discussing this for a while, and as usual I'm left behind again. Some of them mentioned that the 4Mbps is nothing if TMNet still decides to limit/throttle traffic especially - [TMNet New IP Block 124?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/tmnet-new-ip-block-124/) - 3 days ago I was alerted by my DNS-O-Matic script that my IP has changed. Usually I don't care much because the script will do its job in updating my dynamic IP. One interesting thing is that I usually get IPs beginning with 60 but now I am receiving IP beginning with 124. I am - [AdSense Referrals Retirement](https://blog.adyromantika.com/adsense-referrals-retirement/) - Google have announced that they are retiring AdSense Referrals. You might want to remove it from your websites. I have never been a fan of AdSense Referrals as I think it's a hassle to use :-) - [Potret Mistik](https://blog.adyromantika.com/potret-mistik/) - Tonight while doing some coding work, I turned on the TV and the satellite decoder was tuned to Astro Kirana. Since it is an old movie that I have never watched before, I decided to go along just to see what it is all about. As a matter of fact, I started writing this post - [Google AdSense Allowed Sites](https://blog.adyromantika.com/google-adsense-allowed-sites/) - Have your publisher ID ever been used in other sites than yours, without your knowledge? I have never experienced the same problem but I guess some prominent publishers must've experienced this. AdSense now have an Allowed Sites feature where you can specify on which sites your publisher ID will be considered active. This is indeed - [Local Ponzi Schemes Sprouting Everywhere](https://blog.adyromantika.com/local-ponzi-schemes-sprouting-everywhere/) - I don't know about you but since several past weeks I have been receiving emails that claims to make you rich. Almost everyday, yeah. The unique thing about these emails are that they are in Malay, and originating from Malaysia and Singapore. So far I can easily classify these emails into a few categories: Mobile - [Sun Acquired MySQL](https://blog.adyromantika.com/sun-acquired-mysql/) - For those who have been busy or simply missed the news, MySQL has been acquired by Sun Microsystems (last month). There are many speculations on the effect of this acquisition, some good and some bad. I just hope Sun will preserve MySQL as an open source project and keeps the dual-licensing option. According to Kaj - [Rambo 4: Bloody Movie](https://blog.adyromantika.com/rambo-4-bloody-movie/) - After getting some art supplies in One Utama yesterday, we decided to watch a movie. Since Rambo 4 is now showing, we decided to take a look especially because the last Rambo movie were released about 20 years ago. As a child, I've watched all of the Rambo movies and liked each of them. They - [Eclipse PDT, Zend Framework, PHPUnit](https://blog.adyromantika.com/eclipse-pdt-zend-framework-phpunit/) - I am currently in love and coding some personal projects using Eclipse PDT with the Zend Framework as foundation. Unit testing is accomplished using PHPUnit. I love the ability of Eclipse to be extended with plugins so that I can have intelligent code completion and integrated subversion client. To my surprise, Eclipse runs very well - [International Driving Permit & JPJ Portal Joomla](https://blog.adyromantika.com/international-driving-permit-jpj-portal-joomla/) - I was looking for information on getting an International Driving Permit when I arrived at the new JPJ Portal. I am not sure if the portal was "developed" by a third party contractor or internally but I have a hunch that says it was built externally. There may be other Government portals that are built - [You Don't Need To Work Hard To Take A Break](https://blog.adyromantika.com/you-dont-need-to-work-hard-to-take-a-break/) - Fancy a 4 days 3 nights vacation at Club Med Kani Maldives or Laguna Bay Redang with your 3 best buds? Steps: Post or update resume Answer 2 simple questions about Monster Send email to 3 friends Click the image below for more information. This is NOT a paid advertisement and I don't receive anything - [US Visa Collection](https://blog.adyromantika.com/us-visa-collection/) - It has almost been a month since I wrote my last post. I've been busy, yes. Busy enough that I didn't have the chance to write. I have been away to the United States and back. While there I was tired more than normal simply because of the commute to work and the different weather - [WordPress 2.0.1 Released](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordpress-201-released/) - Matt announced: It's been exactly one month since we released the well-received WordPress 2.0 release. In the past 4 weeks we've been listening closely to feedback, squashing bugs wherever we find them, and watching how 2.0 handled under different loads. We've rolled up all the most important fixes into a 2.0.1 release, which is now - [WordPress Posting Problem](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordpress-posting-problem/) - I've seen some WordPress users complaining that after they post something, sometimes their browser gave them a blank page, or an error. Many blamed it on the plugins. I had the same problem, and deactivating or removing plugins didn't help. I found out the real problem: Update services (Options - Writing - Update Services) Try - [Import Blogger Beta to WordPress](https://blog.adyromantika.com/import-blogger-beta-to-wordpress/) - This page is outdated. Please click here for the update. Comments are closed on this post. As I have not heard anything about the solution to this problem, I wrote a script. This script is a simple but powerful ;-) script which extracts the posts and comments from RSS feeds at blogger.com. Instructions: Copy the - [First Blogger Beta Import](https://blog.adyromantika.com/first-blogger-beta-import/) - Following the post Import Blogger Beta to WordPress, here is a working example after an import. Before: homemakerdiary.blogspot.com (Blogger) After: www.homemakerdiary.com (WordPress) (Images are imported using the plugin mentioned earlier) P/S - to my current one and only web development client, I am doing this as a hobby during breaks. Please be assured that the - [Why WordPress](https://blog.adyromantika.com/why-wordpress/) - For those who are still thinking whether or not to migrate from Blogger to WordPress, here's a good insight by Anita Campbell. Although it was written more than a year ago, it's still relevant. Blogger (non-beta) users will be able to use the built-in import function and while you're at that you might want to - [WordPress 2.0.7 Security Update](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordpress-207-security-update/) - 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: wp-admin/inline-uploading.php wp-admin/post.php wp-includes/classes.php wp-includes/functions.php wp-settings.php wp-includes/version.php Download it now. - [Useful WordPress Plugin: WordPress Suicide](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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 - [WordPress 2.1](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordpress-21/) - 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 - [WordPress 2.1.1 and 2.0.9](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordpress-211-and-209/) - Hey, did anyone realize that there's an upgrade available? Or February is the busiest time for everyone? WordPress 2.1 is upgraded to 2.1.1 while WordPress 2.0.7 is upgraded to 2.0.9. Files changed in 2.1.1 from 2.1: wp-includes/post-template.php wp-includes/cache.php wp-includes/formatting.php wp-includes/category.php wp-includes/post.php wp-includes/version.php wp-includes/js/scriptaculous/wp-scriptaculous.js wp-includes/js/tinymce/tiny_mce_config.php wp-includes/js/tinymce/wp-mce-help.php wp-includes/js/tinymce/tiny_mce_gzip.php wp-includes/capabilities.php wp-includes/cron.php wp-includes/functions.php wp-includes/bookmark-template.php xmlrpc.php wp-admin/admin-ajax.php wp-admin/admin-functions.php wp-admin/custom-header.php wp-admin/options-general.php - [FeedBurner Feed Replacement](https://blog.adyromantika.com/feedburner-feed-replacement/) - If any one of you just updated to the newer version of WordPress, make sure that you also update to the latest version of the plugin. A fellow blogger encountered this error on WordPress 2.1.x yesterday, as he still had the version 2.1 of the plugin. This is caused by the removal of generate_page_rewrite_rules function - [Automated WordPress Backup](https://blog.adyromantika.com/automated-wordpress-backup/) - Since I am maintaining several WordPress installation now, I feel that it is quite a tiring chore to backup the databases every now and then. I used to do it once a week, and it is even a recurring event in my pocket PC. It was WordPress Database backup 0.8 and every time I clicked - [WordPress 2.2](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordpress-22/) - WordPress 2.2 has just been released about 14 hours ago. There are a lot of new goodies with this release, among the big ones are Integrated Widgets, Full Atom support, New Blogger importer, Infinite comment stream, protection against plugins or edits that will break your blog, and also a hook for a future WYSIWYG support - [WordPress 2.2.1 Upgrade](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordpress-221-upgrade/) - I have just finished upgrading this blog and 6 others maintained (not owned) by me. The transition from 2.2 to 2.2.1 is generally very smooth, as there's no database changes involved. I simply uploaded only the changed files as listed here. I am rushed to upgrade to 2.2.1 since there is a lot of security - [WordCamp 2007](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordcamp-2007/) - So the next weekend I will be flying to San Francisco to attend WordCamp 2007 on 21-22 July. This event is a 2-day conference for WordPress users and developers. The first day will focus on how to be a better blogger, the second on the development and future of WordPress. Yeah right! Did you believe - [I Want WordPress Red T-Shirt!](https://blog.adyromantika.com/i-want-wordpress-red-t-shirt/) - How cool is this! WordPress Shop is now selling WordPress red t-shirt worldwide. It's gonna cost about RM100.00 including shipping for Malaysians. For the rest of the world, the t-shirt costs £9.50 and delivery is £4.50 but if you share with friends the delivery cost would be (£4.00 x Quantity) + X where X is - [WordPress 2.3 Plugin Compatibility](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordpress-23-plugin-compatibility/) - As everyone might have realized by now, WordPress 2.3 has been released. WordPress 2.3 contains many improvements mentioned in the release page, and one of the most critical change is to the database structure where several database has been removed and added. Relations are all different now, so plugin authors: check your plugins! What I - [WordPress 2.6 (Tyner)](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wordpress-26-tyne/) - WordPress 2.6 has been released. Go get WordPress 2.6 now!. Or you can also read the development blog for the complete details. - [Aicu Kopitiam & Cafe](https://blog.adyromantika.com/aicu-kopitiam-cafe/) - Earlier today I went to Wangsa Maju to pick up some things for my niece's wedding next week. For lunch I decided to try out shops in the Wangsa Link area. My friend who owns a business there recommended a lunch at Aicu Kopitiam & Cafe. Since it was hot we decided to sit inside - [MMU For Sale](https://blog.adyromantika.com/mmu-for-sale/) - Yeah, you heard it right. Multimedia University (MMU) is up for sale, and it's valued between RM800~900 million. The plan is to raise money for the high-speed broadband (HSBB) project which will cost TM RM1~1.5 billion per year. Here's an article from Business Times Online. From the line While management remains optimistic on the disposal - [US Visa Application](https://blog.adyromantika.com/us-visa-application/) - If you are planning to go to the US for any reason whatsoever, do consider confirming your trip as soon as possible so that you have ample time to get your Visa. Consider this: you have to go pay your Visa fees (RM440) at Alliance Bank at least one day before scheduling for an interview - [WiMAX Delayed In Malaysia](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wimax-delayed-in-malaysia/) - It has been a while since I last heard anything about WiMAX plans for Malaysia. Well, from the news in The Star I gather that this problem is not specific to Malaysia. The WiMAX Forum who provide standards and certification is now focusing on the US roll out. While some expert argues that the number - [Room To Breathe](https://blog.adyromantika.com/room-to-breathe/) - As you can see I have just been granted with some room to breathe. 3 full posts in a row is a lot for my schedule, and hopefully more coming to this blog. To my plugin users who have requested for enhancements and bug fixes, thanks for your patience. Work shall commence soon on upgrading - [Shutdown Day!](https://blog.adyromantika.com/shutdown-day/) - I was casually cruising at a friend's blog when I saw his post about the Shutdown Day. It's just a simple experiment to see how many people in this world can live a day without their PC. I joined the site, and will definitely turn off all of my notebooks on that day. My servers - [Rain Inside Alamanda Putrajaya](https://blog.adyromantika.com/rain-inside-alamanda-putrajaya/) - This is the first time in my entire 29-years of life that I actually encounter real rain inside a shopping mall. After being disappointed that Sri Ayutthaya is no longer operational, we went to Rasa food court to have lunch. It was actually my wife's birthday. While we were browsing magazines at the newsstand, rain - [Plant A Tree While Buying A Dell Server](https://blog.adyromantika.com/plant-a-tree-while-buying-a-dell-server/) - Yes, I have been busy. I just want to share you an interesting finding while "shopping" for a server at work today. While customizing a DELL 2950 III server, at the end of the customization page Dell offers and Environmental Options section. Want to help the environment? Through Dell, you can plant a tree to - [To Be Or Not To Be](https://blog.adyromantika.com/to-be-or-not-to-be/) - I wish I had found the site "Joel on Software" by Joel Spolsky earlier in my life. It contains a lot of precious insights and good points in the area of software development. Being a partial developer myself, I would have never thought of doing programming as a full day job anymore in this lifetime. - [Welcome 2008, Goodbye 2007](https://blog.adyromantika.com/welcome-2008-goodbye-2007/) - A new year is beginning, and I am ending this year with very bad moments. I've been sick since last Thursday and even now while writing this post I am still suffering from the remnants of the viral fever. I feel like a water fountain because since yesterday morning I have been sweating profusely even - [Work Life Balance](https://blog.adyromantika.com/work-life-balance/) - I have recently discovered that I am having difficulties to separate work and life. I am always worried about work which is good for my employer, but very bad for my household. Since I also have sleeping problems, having to work in a shift environment doesn't make it any easier for me. That's what has - [GMail Labels Now With Color](https://blog.adyromantika.com/gmail-labels-now-with-color/) - This morning when I logged on to GMail, it was still the same. However about half an hour ago I was surprised with some weird boxes around the label list. Clicking on them gave me the option to do only one thing: change the colors of my labels. Yay! As an email organizing freak, I - [Turn Off Your Scooter Engine](https://blog.adyromantika.com/turn-off-your-scooter-engine/) - A few days ago I received a video via email where a little girl was left on a scooter by the father. She accidentally turned the throttle and the scooter shot forward. I found the same video in YouTube: I really feel sorry for the little girl. It must've hurt like hell and she must - [Buka Puasa & A Kid](https://blog.adyromantika.com/buka-puasa-a-kid/) - On Thursday a close family friend invited us for buka puasa (break fast). We had a good time talking and enjoying the lovely food. As we were about to return home my better half mentioned Jaya Jusco and the family only little boy aged 2+ heard it and wanted to follow us. I was worried - [Busy Times & Work](https://blog.adyromantika.com/busy-times-work/) - I have been very busy for the past several weeks and I am expecting that I will be for the coming weeks as well. The reason is mainly that I have just changed my dayjob and this new place is a tough place to work in. Contrary to my previous place, it is so uptight - [Stuck Dog](https://blog.adyromantika.com/stuck-dog/) - Behind my house there are currently 3 dogs, owned by my neighbors. There used to be only one, but the other 2 have just been added to the family. I think they are renovating their fence or something, because the fences are torn open at the wall side behind the house. Every now and then - [Four Months Later](https://blog.adyromantika.com/four-months-later/) - Right, I have been occupied with so many things lately that I neglected this blog. September 2007 is one of the months this year with very low post count :-( Being subscribed to the Got Heroes forum, I received an exciting reminder this morning: Heroes Season 2 is going to start today! Chapter 1 of - [Busy Week](https://blog.adyromantika.com/busy-week/) - I just went through a hectic, but satisfying weekend. Went to Melaka (southern part of Malaysia) to help out in my niece's engagement ceremony. It was tiring but satisfying. The ceremony ended up well, and I wish them a happy engaged period... until the real wedding day arrives! - [Would You Return A Cellphone Found In The Streets?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/would-you-return-a-cellphone-found-in-the-streets/) - I received my copy of the August 2007 edition of Reader's Digest yesterday and IMHO it is the most interesting edition for me since I started my subscription about a year ago. I ain't gonna talk about all of the articles this time, but one of them. RD made an experiment where they sent their - [Surf The Internet Faster with OpenDNS](https://blog.adyromantika.com/surf-the-internet-faster-with-opendns/) - So you want to surf the Internet faster? Ever heard of OpenDNS? I have been using OpenDNS for a week now to test its performance. So far it has not let me down, and the name resolving rate is satisfactory. What is DNS? DNS stands for Domain Name System. As you might already seen before, - [Asian Cup: Malaysia 1 China 5](https://blog.adyromantika.com/asian-cup-malaysia-1-china-5/) - Yes, it's soccer or as we in Malaysia locally call it, football. The national team lost 5-1 to China on Tuesday night match, and it is not a good news. However I am not a football fan and this blog is not a sports blog. I just need to vent out my frustration and disappointment - [System Administrator Appreciation Day](https://blog.adyromantika.com/system-administrator-appreciation-day/) - I just found out that yesterday (the last Friday of July) is the System Administrator Appreciation Day. Quote: "Let's face it, System Administrators get no respect 364 days a year. This is the day that all fellow System Administrators across the globe, will be showered with expensive sports cars and large piles of cash in - [System Administrator Appreciation Day](https://blog.adyromantika.com/system-administrator-appreciation-day-2/) - It's that time of the year again. The last Friday of July is the System Administrator Appreciation Day. You have plenty of time to plan them a party, or buy them gifts before the day arrives. But please, no mugs! You can see some suggestions for gifts here. Go ahead, consider it. You can seriously - [Five e-mail habits that waste time and cause problems](https://blog.adyromantika.com/five-e-mail-habits-that-waste-time-and-cause-problems/) - I have been subscribed to TechRepublic's newsletters for quite a while but never had many chance to read every article. However today's article caught my eyes: Five e-mail habits that waste time and cause problems As someone who is very dependent to emails, and hates using phones I agree very much with the content of - [World of Microprocessors](https://blog.adyromantika.com/world-of-microprocessors/) - I have been terribly busy lately and my energy seems to be drained out completely once I reach home. It's time to write something. For no apparent reason I was browsing the Internet when my eyes caught on the words Intel and Penryn. I was curious. Really curious so I Googled the words. The results - [Nokia 5700 Commercial Song](https://blog.adyromantika.com/nokia-5700-commercial-song/) - Recently in Malaysian TV there are several commercials with very cool music. One of them is the Nokia 5700 Express Music commercial with a very funky music performed in a foreign language. Googling around I found out that the song titled Solta O Frango is performed by Bonde Do Rolê, a band from Brazil. The - [Imagine Hiro Yelling "Bonsai"](https://blog.adyromantika.com/imagine-hiro-yelling-bonsai/) - I am working at night this week and as always as I want to enjoy the "lunch" my wife prepared for me I would look for something to watch. Searching for Heroes I found this clip containing an interview with Masi Oka (Hiro Nakamura) and Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli): The script originally contained the word - [What Are .ISO Images](https://blog.adyromantika.com/what-are-iso-images/) - Have you ever downloaded a file with the extension .iso and have no idea what to do with it? It has been not once, not twice, but at least 6 times I have provided a .iso file to a friend / family member and the .iso file ended up to be a single file on - [New Metrics & Ranking System](https://blog.adyromantika.com/new-metrics-ranking-system/) - I was alerted by Firefox earlier today to update one of the plugins I use: SearchStatus. It is a plugin which displays Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, and the latest update includes Compete Rank. It turns out Compete has been around for quite a while now. I am surprised why I never heard of them. According - [Down With A Cold](https://blog.adyromantika.com/down-with-a-cold/) - Yesterday morning it was raining quite heavily since about 4:00 am or so and the whole day was cold and dark. I caught a cold because of the sudden change. And then today, it's (very) hot as usual. Mother Nature is really not feeling very well and so am I. - [Global Warming Effects Geeks Too](https://blog.adyromantika.com/global-warming-effects-geeks-too/) - In the area where I live (and work) it has been so hot for quite while now. Since I am working in an air-conditioned office at work and in my home office I did not really realize how seriously the heat has become until I received multiple alerts from my SMART monitoring software. Seagate disks - [New Header and Footer](https://blog.adyromantika.com/new-header-and-footer/) - I've just updated the header and footer for this site. At first I only changed the image but then the night scene was not quite suitable for the default header colors. So I decided to play around with Photoshop and make some color adjustments. The header image was taken last weekend, when we went to - [Kelab Komuniti Taman Tasik Cyberjaya](https://blog.adyromantika.com/kelab-komuniti-taman-tasik-cyberjaya/) - On Sunday afternoon we got bored at home and decided to go out, just anywhere. We finally decided in the car to go to Taman Tasik Cyberjaya, also to check out the latest addition, the Community Club. For non Malay speakers, Taman Tasik Cyberjaya translates to Cyberjaya Lake Park. Some people prefer to say it - [One Day Blog Silence](https://blog.adyromantika.com/one-day-blog-silence/) - On April 30th 2007, the Blogosphere will hold a One-Day Blog Silence in honor of the victims at Virginia Tech. 32 innocent people died at the US college massacre. I support this as a human, and since it has got nothing to do with religion, politics (hope not!) or anything else. Massacres are bad. I - [Secure Your Wireless Network](https://blog.adyromantika.com/secure-your-wireless-network/) - Since a couple of months I've heard quite a lot of concern in the Internet about Wi-Fi security. The WEP encryption standard has been widely known and easier to crack. This means that a guy next door can easily sniff your packets and break into your wireless network after he manage to get your key. - [Changing Jobs](https://blog.adyromantika.com/changing-jobs/) - Next week is going to be my final week serving my current employer. I am leaving because I received a much better offer (and prospect) for employment with an American company. From the security field, I am crossing back to UNIX servers, with a twist - I am going to work on Oracle as well. - [Hi Metallica, I am Megadeth](https://blog.adyromantika.com/hi-metallica-i-am-megadeth/) - Listening to Hitz.fm this morning on my way to work, heard a news that a couple in Sweden wants to name their daughter Metallica (and the authority does not allow them to). Searched the Net and found some news: http://www.shoutmouth.com/index.php/news/7510 http://punkbands.com/index.php?id=22715 Apparently they are trying to combine their 2 first names and came out with - [Migration Complete](https://blog.adyromantika.com/migration-complete/) - This site has once again moved. Now nobody can say to me that I have not tried to support the Malaysian hosting industry. I tried, and I don't like it. All of the other sites hosted on the previous server has also been migrated here. Hopefully this would be a better home. It would be - [WiMAX In Malaysia](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wimax-in-malaysia/) - Ok ok I know this is old news for most of you. I just can find this time to write a bit about it. Technically speaking WiMAX stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. It is a common misconception to consider WiMAX and Wi-Fi as similar technologies. The fact that they both start with same - [Rest In Peace](https://blog.adyromantika.com/rest-in-peace/) - It is a sad moment indeed. Prayers and Al-Fatihah to our dear friend Rafizul Elmy, or better known as Ali. He passed away on Monday evening around 10.00pm after suffering for a month plus in chemotherapy. May he rest in peace. Ali leaves behind a wife and a little daughter. May they be blessed, always. - [What's Wrong With Fotopages?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/whats-wrong-with-fotopages/) - Lately when accessing Fotopages, there has been quite a lot of occurrence of this error: db error Lost connection to MySQL server during query . I wonder why. Maybe the database server is overloaded? From my analysis it looks like the database is located in a different server :-) - [Time and Space Continuum](https://blog.adyromantika.com/time-and-space-continuum/) - I watched a few episodes of Heroes last night until episode 10. I was thinking that when Hiro went back to the past to save Charlie (after she has been murdered by Sylar), didn't he risk causing a rift in the time and space continuum? Just think of it this way, when Hiro and Ando - [I Am Romanian](https://blog.adyromantika.com/i-am-romanian/) - Hey cool. I noticed a pingback from the Cheques Gallery blog, and in yesterday's post the author of the site actually thought that I am a Romanian ;-) Perhaps it was the word Romantika. It was an honest mistake, frankly I enjoyed it! - [Damn Crackers!](https://blog.adyromantika.com/damn-crackers/) - To anyone who have downloaded and used WordPress 2.1.1, you must immediately download 2.1.2. Now! An evil cracker managed to get into one of WordPress' server and edited some file, resulting in the ability to remotely execute PHP codes. This is a very serious issue. News at WordPress.org Even the F-Secure Weblog posted on this - [Success Does Not Come Easy](https://blog.adyromantika.com/success-does-not-come-easy/) - Following my previous post about the $700K+ check, I looked up some information on the site. From the site's copyright notice at the bottom the site have been running since 2001. However check this out, traffic graph from Alexa: Permalink here. As you can see, it's not a while for the site to gain traffic - [$700,000 AdSense Check](https://blog.adyromantika.com/700000-adsense-check/) - It's official. This morning at home I switched on my machine, browsed on LiewCF, saw some posts, followed a link, and fell off my chair. I am talking about this post. The check's total value is $901,733.84 (Canadian Dollars). That's the check for 2 months. This guy would be a millionaire already if he is - [Get Well Soon](https://blog.adyromantika.com/get-well-soon/) - I've received a bad news a couple of weeks ago, that one of my good friend from college has been diagnosed with Leukemia. I was shocked and wished it was not true, as it was unconfirmed. Today I had the opportunity to contact his wife who is working in the same company as me, and - [Time Runs Fast](https://blog.adyromantika.com/time-runs-fast/) - Well it felt like yesterday since 2007 came and said hello to us. And now it's already the end of February? Wow. One of my favorite thing about February is that anyone who was born on the 29th of February actually grow older slower, only one fourth of the normal person ;-) Have any one - [A Global Community: Own The Internet](https://blog.adyromantika.com/a-global-community-own-the-internet/) - AGLOCO - simply a weird abbreviation that I am curious to check it out. What is AGLOCO? Simply put, AGLOCO is an Internet marketing tool for us to use in order to earn money. Advertisers, search companies, online merchants, businesses, etc. will pay for traffic and attention. AGLOCO will work in the same way as - [Moment of Silence](https://blog.adyromantika.com/moment-of-silence/) - It has been quite a while I have the chance to update this blog. February is the busiest month ever for myself, and I still have a week to go until it all ends. I have not been sleeping well since I am on 24x7 standby and holding a pager. Indeed, life is hard. I - [My K750i Is Dead](https://blog.adyromantika.com/my-k750i-is-dead/) - 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. - [On Duty](https://blog.adyromantika.com/on-duty/) - For the next couple of weeks I may not be able to write so much, due to the fact that I am on 24x7 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 - [Thanks, Daddy](https://blog.adyromantika.com/thanks-daddy/) - 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 - [Malaysian Bloggers Sued](https://blog.adyromantika.com/malaysian-bloggers-sued/) - 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 - [Connect To Me Via LinkedIn](https://blog.adyromantika.com/connect-to-me-via-linkedin/) - 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 - [RegisterFly Woes V2.0](https://blog.adyromantika.com/registerfly-woes-v20/) - 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 - [Firewall in Malay](https://blog.adyromantika.com/firewall-in-malay/) - For no apparent reason, while driving back from work today I wondered about what do you call firewall in Malay language. Would it become "dinding api"? Dinding = wall Api = fire It's reversed because the language is constructed that way... ;-) - [First PPP Payment](https://blog.adyromantika.com/first-ppp-payment/) - I have just received the payment for my first 2 posts with PayPerPost: 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 - [I Am 50 Inside](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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 - [Be Careful In Cyberjaya](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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 - [Internet Slowness](https://blog.adyromantika.com/internet-slowness/) - I am experiencing Internet slowness again. Can't even upload any image to my blog server. This post was made after the 5th attempt. :-( Update 27-Dec-2006: It turns out that an international link is down due to earthquake in Taiwan. Undersea cables are broken. Learned it the hard way at the office as global functions - [Happy Holidays](https://blog.adyromantika.com/happy-holidays/) - I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Holidays. Be safe. I will be away for the weekend, to a galaxy far far away. Just kidding. I am going to Pahang for my wife's business. It's not a vacation as I have to spend my time in the hotel room working on a development - [Blogger Moves Out Of Beta](https://blog.adyromantika.com/blogger-moves-out-of-beta/) - Blogger is now out of Beta: www.blogger.com. However I tried my Blogger Beta Importer and it still works :-) I think this is because the importer depends on the RSS provided by the New Blogger. Perhaps I should change my importer's name to New Blogger import? My true wish is that to have that importer - [PayPerPost Requires Disclosure](https://blog.adyromantika.com/payperpost-requires-disclosure/) - Mike Arrington of Techcrunch revealed on Saturday that PayPerPost will require bloggers to disclose that the post is a paid post. It can be done on the individual post, or site-wide using a disclosure policy. In October when PayPerPost created DisclosurePolicy, Mike stated that he hopes not many bloggers will go along with PayPerPost. I - [Enjoy The Fresh Air](https://blog.adyromantika.com/enjoy-the-fresh-air/) - This interesting signboard was found on top of Gunung Mat Chincang after the 2.2km ride on the famous Langkawi Cable Car. Honestly I was terrified of the cable car ride, especially when the wind blows strongly while we were dangling in the middle of the air, inside the 80% clear gondola. The thing actually swerves - [Hacker Vs Cracker](https://blog.adyromantika.com/hacker-vs-cracker/) - It seems that I can never stress this enough. The mass public needs to be educated on the difference between these 2 words. Mass media have been using this term incorrectly since forever. Unfortunately, the bad side of things always seem to be emphasized and being exaggerated more than the good side. Hacker is big - [Frank Barone Dies](https://blog.adyromantika.com/frank-barone-dies/) - I know, his real name is Peter Boyle. But I like his role the most as Frank Barone, the grumpy father of Raymond in one of my favorite TV series, Everybody Loves Raymond. He died two days ago because of heart failure. Well, some newscast said he died of bone marrow cancer. I am unsure - [Studio Traffic](https://blog.adyromantika.com/studio-traffic/) - It has been a while since I heard about Studio Traffic. In fact, I have always thought that it was a scam trying to reach into your pocket and steal our hard-earned money. Also, the fact that people spamming my Yahoo! Messenger and emails with Studio Traffic referral links turned me off from even checking - [Sick Day](https://blog.adyromantika.com/sick-day/) - When I woke up at dawn today it felt like I have been hit by a train. Decided not to go to work, send text to my shift partner and manager. The weird thing is that I did not realize I have a fever. Well, a slight fever anyway. The fever is because of throat - [Police At Work](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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). - [JAKIM is Hosting PayPal Phishing Site?!](https://blog.adyromantika.com/jakim-is-hosting-paypal-phishing-site/) - I visited some other blog today and read a fresh post about JAKIM site hosting a Paypal Phishing site. Try yourself and go to http://www.islam.gov.my/online/cgi/. You'll see this: And if you get to http://www.islam.gov.my/online/cgi/webscr_cmd=_login-run/primapagina.htm (I suggest you only go there if you know what you are doing) you'll see this: http://www.phishtank.com/... which really looks like - [Belkin Surge Protector Insurance](https://blog.adyromantika.com/belkin-surge-protector-insurance/) - When I first bought the Belkin Surge Protector Gold Series I didn't really believe that they are going to replace faulty equipments. On the box, they say the insurance amount is RM50,000 insurance (maximum amount of the devices connected to the protector). Today, we called the toll-free number and immediately received an RMA letter for - [What Kind Of Employee Are You?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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, - [Internet Marketing Goes Wild](https://blog.adyromantika.com/internet-marketing-goes-wild/) - Technology is a huge keyword in the world we live in today. More and more types of businesses are going online for promoting their products and services. For example nowadays, businesses that we thought would never go online has already made attempts to have websites and online promotions, or as we usually say it "Internet - [BMW Navigation System Professional](https://blog.adyromantika.com/bmw-navigation-system-professional/) - I stumbled upon this new technology from BMW. It's a navigation system built in directly inside the dashboard or the car! This would be very useful for me as I am very very unfamiliar with KL roads ;-) When will I can afford a BMW, I don't know. - [Akismet SPAM](https://blog.adyromantika.com/akismet-spam/) - Nowadays I receive about 20 to 40 spams per day via the comment utility. I am not sure whether to be happy or to frown about that. In a way it shows that traffic is increasing on this site, but it's quite tiring to review the spams one by one. Perhaps it's time to look - [Tun Dr Mahathir Warded at Institut Jantung Negara](https://blog.adyromantika.com/tun-dr-mahathir-warded-at-institut-jantung-negara/) - Poor Tun. He's now recovering from a mild heart attack in IJN. I heard the attack was following a Hari Raya open house party the previous night (the attack came on Thursday morning). I am not going to comment about his political views or anything, especially for a man that is 3 times older than - [RegisterFly Woes](https://blog.adyromantika.com/registerfly-woes/) - Do yourself a favor. Do not use RegisterFly for domains. When you submit a ticket, they don't care. When you submit multiple tickets, they'll reply by saying "Please do not submit multiple tickets with the same issue". But at least I got their attention. I am pissed off at them since I can't even renew - [Creative Zen Neeon](https://blog.adyromantika.com/creative-zen-neeon/) - Yesterday I received a free Creative Zen Neeon 512MB in a goodie bag distributed to all my department staff at work. Although I have never really wanted an MP3 player* this is a pleasant surprise indeed. 512MB is not that big if you ask me, but the player actually comes in different models of 512MB, - [New Theme](https://blog.adyromantika.com/new-theme/) - I love WordPress. Frankly I was bored with the previous gray theme, as it made the site looks neutral and dull. After stumbling upon a few blogs using this fantastic 3-column theme, I decided to give it a try. To my surprise the theme supports widgets, and I took a couple of minutes to transfer - [Malaysia OSS Master Plan Gets Truncated](https://blog.adyromantika.com/malaysia-oss-master-plan-gets-truncated/) - As I thought. When the Government declared that they will favor open source for their IT needs I was thinking whether they have thoroughly analyzed their plan. What I can clearly see is that all they understand is the word FREE. No more, no less. It was published on The Star Online on 5 December - [Performancing Bug?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/performancing-bug/) - I tried to register to performancing today but it said I already registered (username and email taken). Tried using the request for password form, and it said unable to send email. When I try to use the contact form, I received this: Oh well, maybe just a bad luck day for me :-( Update: 18:54 - [Narcolepsy](https://blog.adyromantika.com/narcolepsy/) - I think I am suffering from Narcolepsy. Even after 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep that should be adequate, I still feel tired and fatigue strikes during the whole time I am awake. It's a sleeping disorder. That's why I have not been updating this blog, and why I am feeling dead tired at work. - [A Busy Weekend](https://blog.adyromantika.com/a-busy-weekend/) - I have just finished a busy weekend. Went to pick up my Mom ~400km up North East and ~400km back, and sending her off for Hajj at Kelana Jaya Hajj Complex. Today I was dead tired, but unable to get any sleep due to the fact that I slept early the night before and woke - [RHCT or RHCE?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/rhct-or-rhce/) - Since the company I am working for is willing to pay for the training fees + exam fees, I am actually thinking of getting RHCE. However due to the current events that are going on in the office, I will not be able to attend the 5 day training until the early of next year. - [Do You Believe In Fate or Destiny](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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); - [Moving Soon](https://blog.adyromantika.com/moving-soon/) - This site will be soon moved to another server due to my expiring account with the current hosting company. In due course, you will not be able to access this site. At that time you may want to open up a command prompt, and as the TMNET customer support always mentioned, flush your DNS cache - [Free KFC For E.T.](https://blog.adyromantika.com/free-kfc-for-et/) - 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 - [Bad Day - Experience with Lightning](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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 - [Do You Have Heart?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/do-you-have-heart/) - When your family ask you to bring you to KFC for a meal, would you say no? Do you have heart to say no, for whatever reason, if you child asked you to bring him/her to KFC? I know, it would be dramatic and sad if you can't afford it but what if you earn - [Malaysia Prepaid War](https://blog.adyromantika.com/malaysia-prepaid-war/) - The war has begun again. Yellow operator came out with www.thetruthaboutprepaid.com and the blue (purple?) operator came out with www.thetruthaboutprepaid.com.my. I wonder what the red operator will register. For sure, the yellow operator must have some regrets for not registering the .com.my version of the domain. While the yellow operator is being discreet about the - [Firefox 2.0 Spell Checker in Action](https://blog.adyromantika.com/firefox-20-spell-checker-in-action/) - I knew Firefox 2.0 contains built-in spell checker, but was not really looking for it. To my surprise while typing in my previous post, it starts underlining misspelled words. The funny thing is that even Firefox is considered as wrongly spelled? It suggested "Firebox" or "fire fox". :-) This is, however not a big deal. - [Cold Day In Hell](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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... :-( - [Don't Play With Firecrackers](https://blog.adyromantika.com/dont-play-with-firecrackers/) - Every Raya, there will be boom, bangs everywhere. I know that have been a tradition, but is it really necessary? Furthermore, it's not even a Malay tradition. I can understand when Chinese lights up firecrackers, it's their tradition since forever. It's their belief. It's their culture. In fact, I rarely see any Chinese lighting up - [EON Hari Raya Song](https://blog.adyromantika.com/eon-hari-raya-song/) - Nostalgic... I can still remember this song which was introduced by EON during my primary school times. And that was in the 90s. Hari Raya hari yang mulia, Sungguh bererti kepada kita, Tua muda miskin dan kaya, Menyambutnya dengan gembira... Berhati-hati di jalan raya, Semoga anda selamat tiba, Ucapan selamat hari raya, Dari EON untuk - [Cute Black Cat](https://blog.adyromantika.com/cute-black-cat/) - Isn't he cute? This image is taken from http://www.b3ta.hnldesign.nl/ - [A Real Computer Expert, At Last](https://blog.adyromantika.com/a-real-computer-expert-at-last/) - At last in yesterday's edition of the articles about Internet Banking, the same newspaper as mentioned in the previous post interviewed Datuk Abdul Hamidy Abdul Hafiz, the chairman of the Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM). In the interview, Datuk Hamidy explained about the problem like an expert. I am not sure about his background, - [Hans Reiser Held for Murder](https://blog.adyromantika.com/hans-reiser-held-for-murder/) - No, it's not Hans Reiser the actor, it's Hans Reiser the creator of ReiserFS. ReiserFS is a journaled computer file system mainly used in Linux. He was taken into custody 10th October at 10am in Oakland. He is suspected of murdering his wife, Nina Reiser. Nina is currently missing, but the authorities think that she - [Update: JAKIM is Hosting PayPal Phishing Site?!](https://blog.adyromantika.com/update-jakim-is-hosting-paypal-phishing-site/) - Today I received an email from JAKIM (baheis/JAKIM [at] JAKIM.islam.gov.my) that redirected me to this site: Well done. Despite of what happened I am quite pleased and proud of their immediate action (3 days is immediate for government bodies, give them a break). First time I've ever seen an email address with slash (/) though. - [Pikom reports dip in PC sales nationwide](https://blog.adyromantika.com/pikom-reports-dip-in-pc-sales-nationwide/) - Hey hey hey... PC sales has dropped? From The Star Online TechCentral: PETALING JAYA: Despite the recent tax relief offered by the Government to help spur PC ownership in the country, PC sales have dropped by about 20% in September, compared to August. The Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry of Malaysia (Pikom) said - [HP Jobs Marched Offshore](https://blog.adyromantika.com/hp-jobs-marched-offshore/) - Another news of big corporations juggling people around. I don't think that anyone can do anything about it, but nevertheless it's kind of a sad thing especially for the employees. Being laid off is not as simple as it sounds, even though if you have been kept in the loop. It's people lives we are - [Keranamu Malaysia](https://blog.adyromantika.com/keranamu-malaysia/) - For this special entry of Malaysia's 48th Independence Anniversary I will be writing in Malay. Hari ini, tanggal 31 Ogos 2005 Malaysia meraikan ulangtahun kemerdekaan ke-48. Banyak yang telah berlaku sejak hari bersejarah 31 Ogos 1957. Malaysia kini lebih matang dan melangkah pantas ke arah kemajuan. Sudah tentulah, apa sahaja yang ingin dicapai semestinya - [Maybank2u.com Charges](https://blog.adyromantika.com/maybank2ucom-charges/) - I received a forwarded Yahoo! message just now: "Maybank telah mengenakan cas RM0.50 melalui Internet banking Maybank2u.com bagi setaip penghantaran wang (transfer fund) walhal sebelum ni dia orang tak cas.. mana bleh cam ni.. ini kemungkinan besar pihak dia orang nak kaut keuntungan berlebihan.. nampaknya maybank dah mula menekan customer... forward kat kawan-kawan.. kita hantar - [Sijil Halal AYAM DINDINGS Ditarik](https://blog.adyromantika.com/ayam-dindings-jual-bangkai-kepada-umat-islam/) - Source: http://www.muslimconsumer.org/ppim/news.php?extend.78 http://www.halaljakim.gov.my/content_view.php?IDarticle=98 KUALA LUMPUR: Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (Jakim) menarik balik sijil pengesahan halal yang diberikan kepada syarikat Dindings Poultry Processing Sdn Bhd berikutan proses penyembelihan ayam di kilangnya meragukan. Difahamkan antara kesalahan dikesan Jakim iaitu sesetengah ayam disembelih dua kali selepas penyembelihan pertama tidak sempurna dan ada ayam sudah mati sebelum disembelih. Pengumuman - [Additional Holiday for Public Sector](https://blog.adyromantika.com/additional-holiday-for-public-sector/) - Malaysia News: Bulletin Utama (TV3) has just announced that 23rd October will be a public holiday, but only for the public sector. Of course, why else would they call it public holiday? ;-) - [Still Alive](https://blog.adyromantika.com/still-alive/) - In contrary to popular belief, this site is still alive. It's just hard for me to find time to update it. My new job in operations is really taking much of my time. Starting from this week, for 3 weeks I will be working in EU (European) time which is 0700 - 1600 GMT (that's - [PM: We have to sacrifice](https://blog.adyromantika.com/pm-we-have-to-sacrifice/) - The title should say "PM: Malaysian citizens have to sacrifice". Quoting from what he has to say: "Those riding motorcycles and driving small cars dont really enjoy the subsidy as their vehicles dont consume a lot of fuel," he said. Is this reverse psychology or something? In fact: Those riding motorcycles and driving small cars - [Lion Cut vs Line Cut](https://blog.adyromantika.com/lion-cut-vs-line-cut/) - Poor cat. Just look at its face. This is something that have been circulating around forwarded emails. Thanks to Azidin for the story. ;-) The story: "My sister-in law is from Oklahoma and has a slight accent. She has cats and when she lived in the south she would take them to the groomers and - [MIT OpenCourseWare](https://blog.adyromantika.com/mit-opencourseware/) - I stumbled upon this website today: http://ocw.mit.edu/ It's too good to be true - Courseware freely downloadable by anyone! I wish my uni can have something like this. ;-) - [TM Bill](https://blog.adyromantika.com/tm-bill/) - Cool screenshot from the telephone bill I received today. As I came back at almost 10.00pm the customer support is closed. Will try to call them tomorrow. Since forever I thought that Streamyx ADSL bill will not effect phone bill. Note the date, I registered my phone line and Streamyx in May, but it says - [Seagate Technology To Acquire Maxtor Corporation](https://blog.adyromantika.com/seagate-technology-to-acquire-maxtor-corporation/) - Scotts Valley, CA, and Milpitas, CA, December 21, 2005: Seagate (NYSE: STX) and Maxtor (NYSE: MXO) today jointly announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Seagate will acquire Maxtor in an all stock transaction. Read more about it here: http://www.seagatemaxtor.com/ Quantum was acquired by Maxtor, now Maxtor acquired by Seagate. I still - [A Book or a Sony® Reader?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/a-book-or-a-sony-reader/) - For those who likes to read like myself (if only I could find the time), there's now an option for keeping multiple books in one digital device. According to Sony®, the device can store hundreds of book titles. Now I'll say that will be great if you need to move; instead of carrying those heavy - [Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all](https://blog.adyromantika.com/dear-aunt-lets-set-so-double-the-killer-delete-select-all/) - Is you mom the same person as your aunt? If not, you might want to reconsider if you have been waiting for Microsoft Windows Vista voice recognition system: Thanks to Azidin for the tip. - [Lack Of Sleep](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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 - [Oracle Buys Sleepycat Software](https://blog.adyromantika.com/oracle-buys-sleepycat-software/) - For those who have not realized it yet, yesterday Oracle bought Sleepycat Software, the makers of Berkeley DB. Read the press release here: I wonder what going to happen to BerkeleyDB... Previously, on 07 October 2005 Oracle bought InnoBase, the makers of InnoDB. Press release here: http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2005_oct/inno.html InnoDB is a transactional database technology, also included - [Services and Price List](https://blog.adyromantika.com/services-and-price-list/) - Since I have received a lot of requests and people complaining about getting prices for specific services, I have created my own price estimation list for your convenience. For interested parties, please do not hesitate to contact me directly via email (ady at romantika dot name) or (ady dot romantika at gmail dot com).I am - [Beijing's New Enforcer: Microsoft](https://blog.adyromantika.com/beijings-new-enforcer-microsoft/) - From the New York Times: Microsoft has silenced a well-known blogger in China for committing journalism. At the Chinese government's request, the company closed the blog of Zhao Jing on Dec. 30 after he criticized the government's firing of editors at a progressive newspaper. Microsoft, which also acknowledges that its MSN Internet portal in China - [Ramadhan Is Back](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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 - [PHP 4.4.4 and Apache 2.2 on Win32](https://blog.adyromantika.com/php-444-and-apache-22-on-win32/) - I have just spent more than the normal time to install Apache + PHP on Windows. Well, for me at least, as a PHP trainer. It's quite embarassing if you ask me. Anyway, I am writing this quick post just to let you know which Apache to download. In Apache download page today, there's a - [Kittens in The Backyard](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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. - [Student caught recording in cinema](https://blog.adyromantika.com/student-caught-recording-in-cinema/) - PENANG: Ever wondered how the latest movie blockbusters make it into the pirated market within a day of its official cinema release? A 21-year-old college student was caught using a video camera handphone to record Anjelica Lee Sinje's latest horror flick Re-cycle at the Golden Screen Cinema (GSC) in Gurney Plaza on Thursday afternoon. The - [Bye Bye Old Friend](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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 - [Another Month with Low Post](https://blog.adyromantika.com/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. :-| - [3 AM](https://blog.adyromantika.com/3-am/) - It's 3.45am and I am still in front of my PC. Not many people realizes my habit of staying up if my mind's in a bad shape. Tomorrow's a work day. Oh well I can still manage to go through hell at work even suffering from sleepless nights. Instead of whining and complaining with the - [Police on Phone While Driving](https://blog.adyromantika.com/146/) - 21-Mar-2006: Back from lunch at McDonalds' Equine Park. Thanks to Azidin for the capture. Great shot from a moving car! Well, the police officer probably gave himself a ticket when he reached the police station. (Click here or the picture for a larger view) I was quite busy for the last few weeks - my - [Used SODIMM DDR to Let Go](https://blog.adyromantika.com/used-sodimm-ddr-for-sale/) - I have just upgraded my notebook RAM to 1GB (2 x 512MB). That's the max it can have. So, now I have 2 pieces of 256MB modules and am deciding to let them go. Anyone interested in buying one or both of them please email me at [adyromantika at gmail dot com]. New modules of - [Ewww! Don't touch that mouse!](https://blog.adyromantika.com/ewww-dont-touch-that-mouse/) - Oh sh*t! Thinking that I have to touch computer mice everyday at the office everyday... urgh... need to buy hand disinfectant when I go out this weekend. Computer mouses found in cyber cafes have been ranked as the second most bacteria-infested items in a list of commonly touched objects. The survey, carried out by the - [Wisdom for Grads](https://blog.adyromantika.com/wisdom-for-grads/) - I found Dilbert's blog. Here's one entry entitled Wisdom for Grads: Ive been asked to compile some Dilbert advice for new graduates who have no idea whats awaiting them in the business world. Im talking about practical advice. Here are some of the ones that come to mind. The person who sits nearest the bosss - [JE is Back?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/je-is-back/) - Oh no... don't tell me JE is back? If you guys can remember, in 1992 Malaysia had trouble with JE widespread. From The Star Online today: Officials baffled by deaths in Tanah Merah By IAN MCINTYRE KOTA BARU: Health authorities were scrambling to determine the cause of the acute neurological syndrome (DIL) which has killed - [Search Results](https://blog.adyromantika.com/search-results/) - Lately I have been monitoring traffic coming in to this site, particularly the referers. I'm surprised to see how many people reach this site by searching (in Google or Yahoo!) for the word sex, and phrases like aksi ranjang, seks malaysia, rogol, bogel, etc. Although I do welcome traffic and people coming to this site, - [Danger! LPG Tank Ahead](https://blog.adyromantika.com/danger-lpg-tank-ahead/) - This photo was taken en-route to work (after lunch) on 26 January 2006 by Azidin. I was driving at that time so we were quite far away from the lorry. I was afraid that the bloody thing will fall on my car if I get too close. I tried to honk the guy and let - [999 Emergency Number](https://blog.adyromantika.com/999-emergency-number/) - Last night my neighbor's house alarm was triggered multiple times. At 4.00am I was concerned on what happened as there's no one at the house - they went somewhere for Chinese New Year. I called the emergency line 999 to report this, as I don't dare to check it out myself. Guess what? No answer. - [Second Level .my Domain Name Space](https://blog.adyromantika.com/second-level-my-domain-name-space/) - MCMC and MYNIC are inviting the public to take part in the Second Public Consultation on Second Level '.my' Domain Name Space. I suggest everyone having any opinions or suggestions to email them as soon as possible at 2LD-comments@mynic.net.my as the exercise will end on the 10th of February, 1700 hours. Voice up now, don't - [Got Stormpay?](https://blog.adyromantika.com/got-stormpay/) - I've heard about Stormpay for quite a while, but have never interested in taking a peek at it as I thought that it is just another pyramid scheme or fraudulent money making site. Two days ago a friend forwarded me a link to stormpay, and as I was irritated with the spam technique I just - [Students Sue Government](https://blog.adyromantika.com/students-sue-government/) - This is new, interesting, and dumb. Four students from the state of Perak, Mohammad Syawwaal Mohammad Nizar (Year 4), Mohammad Fadzil Nor Mohd Rosni (Form 3), Nur Najihah Muhaimin (Form 3) and Syazaira Arham Yahya Ariff (Form 4) filed a suit against the Government over its policy to teach Science and Mathematics in English. As - [PTPTN Lifts Exemptions](https://blog.adyromantika.com/ptptn-lifts-exemptions/) - National Higher Education Loan Fund a.k.a. PTPTN (or for some PTPTpu) has lifted exemptions given to borrowers who obtain first class degrees from repayment. The new motto is Now, everybody has to pay ;-) They claim that too many students has excel in their studies, and up to last year 2,464 students who borrowed RM5.5mil - [Visitor](https://blog.adyromantika.com/visitor/) - This friendly little guy was knocking at the glass window next to my desk the other day. I managed to take a photo: I don't know what species it is from ;-) The whole picture... - [Microsoft FAT Patent Upheld](https://blog.adyromantika.com/microsoft-fat-patent-upheld/) - theodp writes "After initially rejecting Microsoft's File Allocation Table (FAT) patents, the USPTO has ruled them valid. From the article: 'Microsoft has won a debate where they were the only party allowed to speak, in that the patent re-examination process bars the public from rebutting arguments made by Microsoft, said unimpressed Public Patent Foundation President - [Computers estimate emotions](https://blog.adyromantika.com/computers-estimate-emotions/) - Many computers are already able to see and hear. However, they have no way of telling whether their users are happy or angry. At CeBIT 2006, researchers will be presenting techniques that could one day enable the digital servant to respond to the mood of its human master. (Read more about it here) Some day - [Cats In The Cradle](https://blog.adyromantika.com/cats-and-the-cradle/) - Not really my favorite song, but the meaning's deep and I have been listening to this song since I was a kid... Many artists took this song, the one I occasionally listen to is performed by Ugly Kid Joe Cats In The Cradle My child arrived just the other day Came to the world in - [Damaged Tire](https://blog.adyromantika.com/79/) - This is what my front left tire looked like. The damaged area is the inner part. Luckily we went into a very big pothole on the way from Shah Alam yesterday, and it made me worry so much and took a trip to the workshop. I'd recommend the workshop (I think the name is Maystorm, - [BI Marketing](https://blog.adyromantika.com/bi-marketing/) - Last Friday a company called BI Marketing called my home number twice, asking for the address for them to send free magazine. I told them I am not interested.Today, I received another phone call at the office - from the same people asking my address for them to send free health and car magazine. I - [Pelajar MMU juga mahu skrol bentuk kertas](https://blog.adyromantika.com/pelajar-mmu-juga-mahu-skrol-bentuk-kertas/) - Today there's one entry in the Utusan Malaysia forum, entitled Pelajar MMU juga mahu skrol bentuk kertas: Saudara Pengarang, SAYA pelajar tahun akhir Multimedia Universiti (MMU) ingin menyuarakan kebimbangan saya kerana MMU tidak menganugerahkan skrol berbentuk kertas, tetapi berbentuk CD. Apa yang membimbangkan ialah apabila saya memohon jawatan di Suruhanjaya Perkhidmatan Awam (SPA) kelak sudah - [Prime Minister's wife dies](https://blog.adyromantika.com/prime-ministers-wife-dies/) - Malaysia was shocked by the news of the departure of the First Lady, Datin Seri Endon Mahmood. She passed away at 7.55am this morning because of breast cancer. All of Malaysia would like to express condolences to the Prime Minister and family.Sad day for Malaysia, indeed. Read more about it at The Star Online. - [Zakat!](https://blog.adyromantika.com/zakat/) - Nowadays, there's a lot of programmes in TV showing how poor citizens suffer. I wonder what the government have been doing with the BaitulMal money?Here's the total collection for September, taken from the Pusat Pungutan Zakat Wilayah Persekutuan website: Hmmm... 8 million. Maybe PPZ officers need to go out, and not just rely on applications from - [Nov 2 will not be a public holiday](https://blog.adyromantika.com/nov-2-will-not-be-a-public-holiday/) - Well it looks like 2nd November will not be a public holiday. Many were expecting this.Excerpt from The Star:"KUALA LUMPUR: The Government does not plan to declare Nov 2 a public holiday. Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said it would be too costly for the private sector to pay their employees to - [I want one!](https://blog.adyromantika.com/i-want-one/) - Lately I have an eye for SE phones... Sony Ericsson k750i, or Sony Ericsson W800. These two siblings are the exact same hardware, with difference in the software (and perhaps some accessories). W800 can behave like a Walkman, without switching the phone on. Tres cool!W800 is great but looks kind of funky, and k750i looks - [Ramadhan Is Here](https://blog.adyromantika.com/ramadhan-is-here/) - Ramadhan is here again. Here's an output from iprayertime for my township area (Putra Permai). Please take note that these are calculated by a software and may not be accurate. Provided only as a rough guide.Additionally I have created a web-based generator at my home server: http://ady.homelinux.net (However I can't guarantee that the server will - [Online (Residential) Communities](https://blog.adyromantika.com/online-residential-communities/) - While 'running' around the net, I found two online residential communities close to my area. The first one closest to me is the Puncak Jalil Online Community. This is an example of a great effort to utilize IT resources for good use. Another one is Lestari Putra Online Community. I remembered seeing such sites being - [3G Data Card](https://blog.adyromantika.com/3g-data-card/) - I am so frustrated by 3G providers, Malaysian and abroad. I have a Merlin U530 from Novatel Wireless with me now (not mine), and tried to use it for Maxis. Of course, it wouldn't work as the card was bought in Hong Kong. The provider is Hong Kong Three :-(.The problem is the data card - [Hurricane Katrina](https://blog.adyromantika.com/hurricane-katrina/) - I found the 'Katrina' button on Google Maps today. The difference is so clear: Condolences to the people of New Orleans. - [Afdlin Shauki Dah Hilang Akal](https://blog.adyromantika.com/afdlin-shauki-dah-hilang-akal/) - Did you guys ever heard of Afdlin's new album (Fuyoo)? I did a while ago, but I don't see it on the shelves of music stores. Anyway, Afdlin has initiated a project Afdlin Shauki Dah Hilang Akal where he'll mail you the CD/cassette to your doorstep. Read about it at the official page made by - [Haze Haze Go Away](https://blog.adyromantika.com/haze-haze-go-away/) - At first, everyone has thought that this haze will end in a few days. No one ever expected that it could be the worst haze episode ever. With API reaching critical levels here and there, it's a nightmare. Emergency state have also been declared in two areas; Port Klang and Kuala Selangor where the API - [New Error Code Pages from M$](https://blog.adyromantika.com/new-error-code-pages-from-m/) - I stumbled upon these cool & hilarious error pages on the net: http://www.thispagecannotbedisplayed.com/ http://www.nmpcs.com/breaktime.htm - [Salary Survey](https://blog.adyromantika.com/salary-survey/) - I am initiating a salary survey for research purpose. If you are a System Administrator (SysAdmin), I'd appreciate it if you email me your annual salary information at adyr79-salarysurvey@yahoo.comIt is entirely up to you whether you want to be anonymous or not. SysAdmins include Linux administrators, network administrators, etc. It would be helpful if you - [Innocent Man Shot Dead](https://blog.adyromantika.com/innocent-man-shot-dead/) - It turns out that the man shot by Metropolitan Police Service was not connected to the bombings. Read all about it here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4711021.stm Quote: "A man shot dead by police hunting the bombers behind Thursday's London attacks was a Brazilian electrician unconnected to the incidents." - [Selamat Bertunang](https://blog.adyromantika.com/selamat-bertunang/) - I'd like to wish Happy Engagement (Selamat Bertunang) to my friend, Khairul Yusri bin Zamri (webmaster of yusri.sifoorian.com). He was engaged last weekend (or was it the weekend before that?). Don't forget to invite me for your wedding!!! - [How To Ask Smart Questions](https://blog.adyromantika.com/how-to-ask-smart-questions/) - As an old player in the Open Source Community (PHP and Linux in particular), lots of people tend to ask me a lot of questions. Some are worthy enough to be answered, but some questions are pure crap and irritating. While looking for the fetchmail official site, I stumbed upon this HOWTO created by Eric - [Training Materials](https://blog.adyromantika.com/training-materials/) - Due to popular demand, I have created a page in my home server for you to browse through the training materials / courseware I have created at http://ady.homelinux.net/training/ There you can browse through all of the slides I have created for training sessions. You can't download them unless you want to capture the screen individually - [APC UPS](https://blog.adyromantika.com/apc-ups/) - For the last few months, our office building has been doing a lot of generator testing and sometimes these tests went out of schedule. We began to worry about the office servers, as constant power failures may cause data corruptions although we use reiserfs for all of the disks. My colleague and I look for - [EV1SERVERS](https://blog.adyromantika.com/ev1servers/) - Just a short review on EV1SERVERS: Customer Support Last Thursday I had to contact EV1 customer support to change passwords for the member section. They are very helpful, and fast. The online chat system also works great. Everything was done within 30 minutes. Server Order We planned to upgrade one of our Celeron server, which - [New Monitor](https://blog.adyromantika.com/new-monitor/) - Although I rarely go for used products, this time I can't let go of the deal. I just acquired a 19" monitor - Samsung SyncMaster 955DF from a colleague leaving for the Philippines. How much? RM150.00 This model is not the best out there, but it's really worth the price. :-) - [Viewsonic 91f+](https://blog.adyromantika.com/viewsonic-91f/) - I bought a Viewsonic 91f+ 19" monitor for my office a few months ago for almost RM1,000.00. Today we found it dead! Nothing is displayed on the screen except for a bright line in the middle. Don't buy this monitor!!! :-( - [ USDJPY](https://blog.adyromantika.com/usdjpy/) - Since working very close to the financial markets, I grew interest in analyzing forex and indices... - [Latest Update](https://blog.adyromantika.com/latest-update/) - Finally, this site is updated and is currently running wordpress. Even all of the blogs are transferred to this system. I'll be updating this site more frequently ;-) - [Linksys WRT54G](https://blog.adyromantika.com/linksys-wrt54g/) - I've just upgraded my WRT54G firmware to v3.03.6 HyperWRT_2.1b1 created by Timothy Jans. Previously, with the default firmware provided by Linksys (v3.03.6) the router frequently hangs. Now, it is rock stable. Read more about this firmware at http://www.hyperwrt.org As I search for the solution of the problem, I also stumbled upon a great site, dedicated - [ Connection established](https://blog.adyromantika.com/connection-established/) - For the last two months, I have been struggling to access the Internet - my wireless broadband was not reliable. At first I thought that it's because my area is at the edge of coverage (as the folks at Jaring warned me) but later found out in some forums that even users who live next - [ Gong Xi Fa Cai & Happy New Year](https://blog.adyromantika.com/gong-xi-fa-cai-happy-new-year/) - It's Tuesday, just finished updating the website. Gong Xi Fa Cai to all Chinese friends, and happy new year 1426 to all Muslim friends. Starting tomorrow it's going to be a long holiday, and we'll only be back for work on next Monday. I will be staying at home to finish up an online project ## Pages - [About](https://blog.adyromantika.com/about/) - About the site - [Disclosure & Privacy](https://blog.adyromantika.com/disclosure-privacy/) - This policy is valid from 23 December 2020 Privacy Policy for romantika.name At romantika.name, accessible from https://blog.adyromantika.com, one of our main priorities is the privacy of our visitors. This Privacy Policy document contains types of information that are collected and recorded by romantika.name and how we use it. 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