Gross Toy

I happen to see this really digusting toy in one of the Japanese stores. Its basically something that you can press and it will harden and bounce up becoming a swan or something... However, given the drawing of the graceful ballet dancer, then with the contrast of a old with the swan head... Its pretty gross. I dun wish to say anymore than needed. You get the picture.

Bongo Burger

I remember I mentioned about eating Bongo Burger at the Night Safari, but I had forgotten to post the pic of the food I taken. Anyway, here it is. Its pretty filling and serious can compare to Carl's Jr.

Nero Scout Bye Bye

Nero Scout is very suspiciously a crippled version of Copernic Search. However, it doesnt know if you already have that or Microsoft Search installed and add itself to the load of the system. Anyway, we know among all, we do not want Nero Scout. So I wrote this problem to rid it.

Basically, you disable it from the toolbar first, but its still wasting you resouces in memory. Next you will need the program to auto unreg and rename some files.

Nero Scout Remover :
http://www.filefactory.com/file/a0db16/

Full Disclosure - FULL DISCLOSURE!

Full Disclosure is a mailing list and forums for publishing 0days expoilts and security related information. However, recently, some joker start to post a pornographic link to it making it, well, full disclosure in some other way...

The link wont be up very long:
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2007/Mar/0330.html

This is one of the most funny thing that ever happen to a security scene this year so far.

怪 Ayakashi

Finally got a chance to catch the 11 episodes of Ayakashi which was produced in 2006. This is another excellent anime especially if you are into culture Japanese horror. The series is mostly based on the Edo period with 3 stories : Yotsuya Kaidan, Tenshu Monogatari and Bakeneko.

I have seen and heard of the first story many times, but I did not know that it was a cursed play... Scary. Of the other 2, I like Tenshu Monogatari more because of the character design as well as the touching stories of how a goddess would give up her immortality for the love of a human.

The 2 theme songs are fantastic. I like the end song Haru no Katami (Memento of Spring) by Chitose Hajime better which is pretty touching if you understand the lyrics. The starting song, Heat Island gives me a whole new definition of Japanese rap which I used to think was nothing...

Official Site :
http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/ayakashi/

Please do not confuse this with another H Game of the same name, which I say is pretty cool as well :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMJKEmZ4vF4

Wini the murderer!

Wini did something really bad. she killed one of the hamster! It somehow got out and Wini quickly picked it up and killed it. The hamster was all wet and soft. Its very likely all the bones were crushed.

No matter how cute and nice she had been, I find it very hard to ever forgive her... Really. It not a matter of saying I forgive, but to come from the heart is a difficult thing. I still remember once when I brought Xiao P over, she pound on his plastic container. If the container dropped and open, I am sure, Xiao P is dead then. Now, I really feel very scary. I will never bring Xiao P anywhere close to Wini again.

Should I forgive Wini?

• 
  
  Yes


• 
  
  Cannot forgive, but just forget it...


• 
  
  Absolutely NOT!

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Souyou no Fafner

Ok, finally got something good to recommend. Souyou no Fafner. Don't worry about what it means. Literally, Fafner of the Azure. Anyway, you will know when you come to the end of the anime why its named so. Its not the typical happy ever after kind of movie. To be frank, they killed off a main character right out in the early episodes... which left a lot of percussion in the remaining of the series.

Its a pretty good story. Something in the future 20xx where Festum (kinda metal form aliens) descend onto earth and cause the begining of a great war. I do not want to spoilt too much of it, but whatever that is to seem at hte start, the happy friends, school, everything is not what it seems. And everything is heading to a sad sad ending. I am not saying I love sad ending, but war is a fact and people die. This anime do not glorify it like some other.

I must say the pace and the audio is really good. The EP and ED songs, Shangri-La and Seperation are really great. I must say overall, I highly recommend this anime. Guess what, my guess is pretty good. There is no Korean involved in this one and it turns out fantastic. See my previous post about bad animes.

Finally, a link to the English website :

http://www.fafnerdvd.com/

Stop the Killing... Save the Dolphin

Recently I came across a rather shocking footage of Japanese dolphin trade... There is certainly some amount of cruelty I can tolerate, but what I saw I deem far out of my level. I believe that dolphin are after animals of similar intelligence to human and should be treated with respect, but these people in the footage is not even killing for food. They are almost enjoying it. How can we even swallow this in our sushi and tempura? But, my friend, I want you to see this for yourself and decide. Maybe after this you will really think that 2 atomic bombs is not enough.

http://drbenkim.com/earthlings-documentary.html

Well, there is something you can do, do sign a petition against dolphin killing here :

http://www.wayn.com/wayn.html?wci=club&page=makedifference

And when you buy salmon, be sure to check that the salmon is taken from dolphin friendly source. Many fisherman do not adopt such practice and dolphins get killed because of salmon harvesting. I do must say I owe my life to a dolphin, so for once I am very serious about this. Do support the movement against this.

WM5 Themes

Been hunting up and down for these. Most of the sites host many crappy (my standard) ones. However, I would like to introduce you to one of my fav :

Shino's blog
http://blogs.shintak.info/articles/wm5themes.aspx

Its in Japanese, but I do not think pictures has that limitation. :)

HITB 2007 not in Dubai, but KL!

Yes, one more year I will be able to attend. Better block those dates.
This year, the call for papers are interesting :

# 3G/4G Cellular Networks
# SS7/Backbone telephony networks
# Analysis of network and security vulnerabilities
# Firewall technologies
# Intrusion detection
# Data Recovery and Incident Response
# GPRS and CDMA Security
# Identification and Entity Authentication
# Network Protocol and Analysis
# Smart Card Security
# Virus and Worms
# WLAN and Bluetooth Security
# Analysis of malicious code
# Applications of cryptographic techniques
# Analysis of attacks against networks and machines
# File system security
# Security in heterogeneous and large-scale environments

I will have until May to come out with my paper if I want the free ticket there... :)

Deploying WSS 3.0 Full Templates Part 4 Final

I now live happily ever after with 40 templates... Wait a minute... there is only 20 in the custom list... What happened?

Remembered I told you to leave out the *.wsp files, those are the missing templates. And if you had tried to included them, I do not know what effects there is, but it does not work either. So any guess?

YES, you have to install them like your core application templates. EACH and everyone of it.

Now, that can be a real pain, but here are the detail instructions :

1. stsadm –o addsolution –filename .wsp
2. stsadm –o deploysolution –name

Thats all. You do not need to copycontent etc for the Site Templates. Anyway, if you want here is a batch file to help you do it...

WSS3STInstall.bat

@echo off
stsadm –o addsolution –filename %1
stsadm -o deploysolution -name %1 -local -allowgacdeployment

Cool?

Deploying WSS 3.0 Full Templates Part 3

This is the final part, so lets avoid all the possible pitfall and get it right one time.

1. Extract all the *.stp into one directory. Do not mix the *.wsp files there.
2. Login to Sharepoint Administration.
3. Site Action->Site Settings->Galleries->Site Templates
4. Upload. Browse multiple files and select the directory in Step 1.
5. All uploaded and it should be working.

To access the template,

1. Login as Site admin if you have not done so.
2. Site Action->Site Settings->Site Administration->Sites and Workspace.
3. Create and you can use the new templates under custom in the Select a template.

YES! No hicups on this one.

Deploying WSS 3.0 Full Templates Part 2

Emm... I just relized I have added another option in the deploysolution part with a "-allowgacdeployment". This may be necessary for some installations.

Ok, back to my problem. I have Deployment Status : Error now in my solution if you check under Administration portal, Central Administration->Operations->Solution Management->Properties.

If I try to deploy again, I get the error :

"A deployment or rectraction is already under way for the solution "applicationtemplatecore.wsp", and only one deployment or retraction at a time is supported."

This is bad. We need to cancel the deployment. Trying retraction option will give the same error. The right thing to do is to canceldeployment. First make sure the Administrative service is running. See details in the previous post.

Then do this :
1. stsadm -o enumdeployments. You should see a id with some number.
2. stsadm -o canceldeployment -id
3. Run again Step 1 to see no more deployment. Then this is correct.

You should see succesful now. VERY IMPORTANT. There was a mistake in the previous post. One of the step was WRONG. You should deploy the application core again with :

stsadm -o deploysolution -name ApplicationtemplateCore.wsp -allowgacdeployment -local

Notice to use "-local" instead of "-immediate". Looks like the suggested parameter by Microsoft was the thing that got us into this trouble in the first place. And also before you run this, be very sure you have the Administrative Service running or else its back to square one again.

Only 1 last step remains to complete the core template :

stsadm -o copyappbincontent

Just to verify, you can run enumdeployment again.

Phew, thats only the first step to deploying the templates. We will move on to the site admin templates from here.

Deploying WSS 3.0 Full Templates Part 2

Emm... I just relized I have added another option in the deploysolution part with a "-allowgacdeployment". This may be necessary for some installations.

Ok, back to my problem. I have Deployment Status : Error now in my solution if you check under Administration portal, Central Administration->Operations->Solution Management->Properties.

If I try to deploy again, I get the error :

"A deployment or rectraction is already under way for the solution "applicationtemplatecore.wsp", and only one deployment or retraction at a time is supported."

This is bad. We need to cancel the deployment. Trying retraction option will give the same error. The right thing to do is to canceldeployment. First make sure the Administrative service is running. See details in the previous post.

Then do this :
1. stsadm -o enumdeployments. You should see a id with some number.
2. stsadm -o canceldeployment -id
3. Run again Step 1 to see no more deployment. Then this is correct.

You should see succesful now. VERY IMPORTANT. There was a mistake in the previous post. One of the step was WRONG. You should deploy the application core again with :

stsadm -o deploysolution -name ApplicationtemplateCore.wsp -allowgacdeployment -local

Notice to use "-local" instead of "-immediate". Looks like the suggested parameter by Microsoft was the thing that got us into this trouble in the first place. And also before you run this, be very sure you have the Administrative Service running or else its back to square one again.

Only 1 last step remains to complete the core template :

stsadm -o copyappbincontent

Just to verify, you can run enumdeployment again.

Phew, thats only the first step to deploying the templates. We will move on to the site admin templates from here.

Deploying WSS 3.0 Full Templates

After the very long wait, the WSS 3.0 templates are finally ready. There are altogether 20 Site admin templates and 20 application templates. Grab them at :

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sharepoint/wssapps/templates/default.mspx

Now comes the exiciting part, the installation is totally screwed up. So far, I have not heard of anyone who got it right the very first time.

Lets see what the problem.

First thing you will need to install the core which run with a stsadm.exe. If you are not familiar with this, you probably will never find the file (thats where desktop search comes in). Anyway, its in "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN" if that is your default.

So, cleverly, you either run with a reference like "c:stadm.exe blah blah..." or even trying to copy the *.wsp into the same directory with stsadm.exe. This is what you may see :

Command Line Error

Emm... Thats very informative. You can try and try all combinations of parameters thinking its wrong somehwere... Or just take a shortcut from me and do this :

1. Close your command prompt.
2. Go to My Computer->Property, Advance, Environment Variables.
3. Edit the Path variable to include the path of the stsadm.exe. It can be "....;"c:\....\bin"". Use the quote if necessary.
4. Open command prompt. Run "stsadm". It should run it. If not you done something wrong in step 3.
5. Now run the commands.

And automagically (Patent Pedning :P) it will work.

Now at least that will get you to add the solution. Next when you run the deploysolution, you will have an error will the parameters. For a standalone deployment, you will need to add "-immediately" behind the whole string.

It is quite likely you still have an error saying that you cannot deploy because administratative services is not running... Stuck again. Ok, this part is easy. Open command prompt and run "services.msc". Yes, its much faster to get to the services this way. Look for "Windows Sharepoint Services Administration". Run the service. If you repeat the step, you wil lsee that the deployment should be on its way and if complain you cannot run it again.

Well, I am kinda stucked again having Deployment Status : Error now... Let me take my lunch, rethink what went wrong and get back to this again.