Microsoft Certified Professional

My MCP Cert and welcome kit finally arrived. I almost thought it will take forever. Well, it says Bill Gates on the signature. :P This will be the first and many more to come signed by him I guess. I only hope I have the chance to take them quickly because I had been tired up by many things recently. What? Thats a secret. The time is not right yet to talk about it.

Where is the Life Jacket?

Just a thought here...
On board the 747-x00 Commerical Plane, when the air stewardess demostrate how to wear a life jacket... How many of us actually listen? Well, does it have to depend on how pretty the air stewardess is? :P

Anyway, we were always told the life jacket where under our seats. Did anyone actually check and know how to open the cover etc? Probably not. Guess we will have to spend a few minutes figuring that out when it comes to that. Along with the dropping of the air mask which we will probably be struggling to put on and for your partner as well if he/she is not in the stage to do so. The air stewardess will probably be passing out papers and everyone else asking if you have a pen or pencil... Well, its doesn't really matters unless they keep your note inside the indestrutable blackbox which is probably somewhere all the way in front at the pilot cockpit. To make it worse, the luggage compartment will probably be opened by now and everything dropping all over the place. You probably can't stand up and shout "How the hell do you open the cover to get the life jacket??", can you?

Well, its a worse case scenario anyway. Hopefully whoever is reading this doesn't have to worry too much about it. Btw, I read somewhere that the seating at the tail (where away from the wings which connects the fuel and the front which probably take the impart head on) has the higher chances of survival. And the middle row (if you are in a 747+. 737 only has 2 rows) or as near the center as possible also increased your chance of making through all these. I can't pull where the articles is, so you probably have to trust me on this one.

AhAh, Megami Sama! S1

After a 2 weeks break, I am finally back from Thailand. Managed to finished watching Ah! My Goddess TV S1. I must say it bring back some fond memory. Although its is slow pace, but I guess its easy to enjoy it especially since I had followed this series for a long time. The Seiyu are the same which is what I really loved. IF they were changed, many things would not hadbeen the same. My japanese sucks, but I guess I could still live though all that and hopefully improve :) Anyway if you do not know or has not watch this anime, you are out man! :) I wont go about telling the who and what it is about but I would really like to know which character people really loved. I used to love Skuld a lot, but somehow hen she keeps getting in the way, I cant agree anymore. In fact, in some way, I think i like Ula a bit more now... But none of cos will surpass Balldandy. She is so cute (except for one epi where she is really sexy). Anyway, I cant wait till the S2 start and come to the episode with the travelling whale and Skuld. That in my opinion is one ofthe most touching story.

More info:
http://www.tbs.co.jp/megamisama/

Wellget Downloader

There were the days of NetAnts. GetRight (still around I think and they had an SDK), Jetcar (which now is GetFlash) and so on... Many of these still works actually, but are hardly updated anymore. There is one small problem... These are not free technically.

Take for example Flashget which I was using. There are adwares inside. IF you registered it, it will disable the ads, but it will not delete the registered DLL away. IF you us MS Antispy or something similar, you will find the adware there. Hate it don't you. Anyway, that is more than enough a good reason to get rid of it.

Here, I am going to introduce Wellget to you. Its FREE for a start. I just got it today. Ok, I know I am slow... Hei, but there are still lots of other people who hasn't. Tested it a bit. Looks and feel like the rest of them. This can even do streaming. Well, I am going to test this one out and uninstall Flashget. Grab it at http://www.wellget.com and let me know if you like ot dislike this one.

What Codec?

Yeah, I know... Need to play Divx and Windows does not have it build-in. What? Need Xvid too... OK, then? OGG as well, and so on... You can visit hundreds of sites to go fetch each codec. OR do something like I did. Download a Codec Pack. There are lots out there...

How to choose? Well, they ranges from 5MB to 150MB. In general, you probably do not need the "Extras" cos they are Enocders for people who encodes. If you use things like DVD Shrink, edit DVDs etc, you probably need the encoders. Well, I had used quite a few codec packs before.

K-Lite Codec Full was not bad. Played most of what I needed. But kinda confusing to install becos DirectVoB is not by default then and still is I think. DirectVoB enable subtitles. New version out at http://www.codecguide.com

Storm Codec. WAS great. V3.05 I think. Then came some betas and guess what? They installed some spyware along with it. Althought this codec uses the latest Real and Quicktime, but I simply cant have my IE keep popping ads for no reasons. Removed the spyware (which require manually since its not a well-listed one) and removed the codec as well.

K-Lite Mega Codec. I know K-lite makes you think of Kazaa. I don't know what this has anythingto do with Kazza. But heck with it. This codec works for almost everything around. I am still using this as of today and a new version is out as well at http://www.codecguide.com

All-in-One Codec. Never really tried. Saw the list and its far from ALL in one I think. I still stick to K-Lite becos its has Media Player Classic and the Real and Quicktime Alt inside. IF you had tried this one, let me know.

Ace Mega Codec Pro. Was pretty great, other than 100+MB download. Very comprehensive, but was not updated for a damn long time. Thus, making the codec pretty outdated. I must say if only it was updated, I might had stick with this.

Well, in case you did not know there are alternative to Quicktime and Realmedia which for some reasons are not the fav thing to install. Check them out at http://www.codecguide.com

My CISSP Cert

It finally arrived. And as I expected, my MCP Welcome kit is not even here yet.
Anyway, there is a offer to buy a framed, some buttons, the cert, my CISSP card and a letter to login. Well, no bumper stickers or T-shirt. :)

Bobi on Slide Take 2

Well, I decide to give it another shot and see if Bobi will come down the slide himself.
First, I got him setup and put on the top level and get him relaxed.

Next I start to tempt him to come down.

And actually I almost did it. He started to move down...

Well, he just happen to realize he is going down and suddenly turn back. He wont move down anymore...

Guess this means he learned something. But come to think of it. Fear. IT may not be something bad. His fear of slide can be a good thing to him becos then he won't hurt himself going down slides when nobody is around to watch him. Animals all has these fears build-in, where we humans learns to overcome it and some obviously learn it the very hard way.

Some afterthought I have is that perhaps its just not what Bobi is meant to do. I feel maybe its good to just keep him this way. :) He might not be able to play like other kids in the playground, but seriously, not many dogs looks cool on whale. ( See previous post )

Citibank Visa Problem on Vpost

I wonder how many of you realize this problem when you make payment at vpost.com.sg? Why only Citibank Visa? Emm... I bet there is an interesting story behind this. As far as I know this has been here for almost a week. Well, anyway I just wanted to post his here because I feel this is security related.

Trilogy EC

Trilogy Encrypted Communicator
http://www.trilogysolutions.com/products-trilogyec.html

Its FREE surprisingly. It may not be the most popular thing around, but it is useful to send files across the globe securely without having you to run SSH or SFTP. The people who are using it is also impressive. Take a look and leave some comments about this if you had tried it. I would like to know how good this is.

Thanks to my friend WJ from UK who send me this.

Seven Swords Part 1 (Possibly)

Its NOT a bad movie. Although I know I am going to say its not very original either. There is nothing new that you haven seen somewhere before. The story about 7 heroes (knights) protecting a village of defendless villagers. Marching behind them are a big bunch of bad guys that will kill and leave nobody alive. I haven't read the book by Liang Yi Sheng, but this plot however sound 70% similar to "King Arthur" last year.

Xu Ke's fighting scene is something I must say I had always loved, especially back in the days with Cheng Xiao Dong also doing many of the martial arts movies few years back. Its still enjoyable in this one, but you probably saw some shadows of Kill Bill here and there. Swords slicing heads and legs in cicular fashion, long blades crashes in a tight long corridor... Sound familiar? Hei, but I dint say the stunts are not cool.

Donnie Yen has always been my favorite. But I feel that this show is very unfocus in character development. OTher than Donnie Yen and Leon Lai, I do not even recall any other important characters. I also learn that there are at least 3 version out there. 120 minutes. 150 minutes and 4 Hours. Maybe the 4 Hours version is worth watching. I would getthis on DVD again I guess to watch all. It is just such a waste just because the cinema wouldn't play a 4 hours movie for the price of a 90 minutes one. Also right at the end, there is strong hint of a sequel. Like I said, I did not read the book so I do not know if the story actually ends here. But will this be Xu Ke's new Trilogy. Only time will tell.

Browser Museum

I would like you to pay a visit to :
http://browsers.evolt.org



Still remember Mosaic? Emm... Well maybe you haven't been on the Internet as long as I had been. That was one of the first, if not the first browser. Along with Lynx (Still around today), Netscape etc... The browser has came a long way today. This site has the archive for the old browsers as well as some write up on each of them. Its a good visit.

OK, I know you want to ask : What in the world am I looking at browsers from Dinosaur Age? Well, its a long story, I might tell someday. Basically its got to do with my Virtual PC running on Win98 and I did not want to load in IE6...

Lifts Fright

Something strange happen today duringthe evening when I was going down for my evening exercise. The lift came up with an old lady and she complain the lift came up although she was trying to go down. Anyway this happens quite often. Big deal.

So, I took the lift down with her and on the 6th floor it opened again. So I waited a while to see if there is anyone coming in. NONE. Ok, I click the close button. The door close and then it opened again. Emm... The old say she just came in from the 6th floor just now. Heck, I tried again... And it closes but reopen. And one more time. Same thing again. This is totally crap.

I was about to go out when the old lady press the close one more time and this time the lift closes and goes down. I smile at her saying the lift must be in need for maintances soon. Although I read the paper and it say 2006...

I know many of you will say, ah the old lady something weird. No la. This is NOT a ghost story. She is just a normal friendly old lady. Well, as I arrived at the jogging tracks. I just happen to notice a lot of burning of incense and papers to our "brothers" below... Its the first day of the Seventh Month in the Lunar Calendar.

Emm... I dont know... Suddenly, something makes senses...

GWA Revisit

A few post back I was complaining that GWA was too easy to bypass...
Well they kinda fixed it now by having a 2 step method where you are required to enter the code on the page. PS... The LegitCheckControl still works.

Well, I thought, at least the guys from Big M arent sitting around drinking coffee. But then... AGAIN they were defeated by ... yes, you guessed it, their own tools once more.

In days where BHO has been a big problem, they came out with a BHO manager or blocker. There is a weird new control there now... OK, I better keep my mouth shut in order not to get myself into any kind of trouble. I heard rumors that Firefox with the addon script still works too. I wont know cos I am one of the rare people who do not use Firefox. :)

Win Vista Virus

Before I can even install Windows Vista Beta 1, news of 5 POC viruses were released.
This was done by a friend from down under.

The news:
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/
The virus:
http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/danom.shtml

I can only hope AV catches up quickly to support WinVista and not repeat the same mistake last time where I am only stucked with Big S Antivirus since it was the only one that is working with WinXP then.
Its a wonderful world...

Speed

Seeing is believing.

7th month begins

The chinese believes 7th month is the month of the ghost festival (I striped the word hungry becos I did not fill it was correct, who invented it I cannot imagine). Anyway, this month expects to see more ghost stories, real and fake, ghost movies, ghost merchandizes etc. Anyway, don't stay up too late you little boys and girls... Wahahahahaha ^_^

Minor changes

I changed the old anime counter off for a more visual one.
Just added the AdSense code in.
Hei, I know this template look just like xxx's blog. Well, I will change it once I had time for it.
For now, this has to do.

A bird, a plane, a piece of my heart in the post

This is the prototype design for the latest YF166A Tactic Strike Stealth Fighter. Ya, right. :) It does look like a plane though. But this is actually folded from a piece of paper which say that for every heart you send in the post, Singpost donates $1. What have I got to lose? I guess nobody question whether do they really donate or not or would some postman conveniently just dump away all these piece of papers. In any case, they important thing is : It cost me nothing at all. Maybe kill a few trees for the paper, but it had already been recycled. CAn we stillre-recycled? :)

You can find this in the Today newspaper often now. Anyway, here is how the final thing look like.:

Alphonso II The Making 6/6

The last part. Almost feel like part 3 of Starwars.
"I'm glad its finally over." Winston Avalon.


The front of A2. Notice the ugly white parts. Well, what can I do? Also see the 3 5.25inch bay fans which I am not too sure helps or not, blows air towards the back. I must also mention that my 2 HDDs are also running HDDs fan as well to keep their temperature down.


The back where you can see the PSU fan as well as the holes for the 2 backfans to blow out. Also notice the PCI exhaust fan here. This casing is kinda weird as it uses a screwless system for the PCI cards.


And this are the tools that made all these possible. Well, what do you think? Still want to save that $30 and or you are dying to assemble one like A2? This practically took 1 afternoon and of cos after rearanging the USB ports, I ended up having to reinstall some drivers.

Well, before I end this, here is a prizeless quiz.
How many fans are there in A2?
Dont look at me, I am not too sure either. :P

Alphonso II The Making 5/6

Now we are coming to the end of this, finally.


Here you can see the air from the CPU comes up. The PSU has 2 fans too. One blowing towards the optical drives and the other is shown here blowing at the CPU. The back fans draws out the hot air and when covered, the casing actually has a funnel to channel out most of the hot air out via the side of the casing as well.


See the funnel I am talking about. This is also the reason why I left space near the CPU as well.


This show the back, but notice the top part. That is how the fans look like after the cover. You can see the dual fans which pull in air here and the funnel which channel out air. Just bear with me, one more last post.

Alphonso II The Making 4/6

We are almost done here. Here is just to showcase some of the other stuffs.



This is how the fan are blowing on the HDDs.


The other dual fan blows right down on the AGP card which is in turn suck out by the exhaust fan beside the AGP card.


Now you see mess. But I try to keep the CPU area as clear as possible. I will explain later why this is so. Note the backfans are facing out. That is also why I needed to get the grill to prevent some cables from falling into the blades accidentally.

Alphonso II The Making 3/6

Now is the part where it will get really messy.

This is when I added in my cards. 2 slot taken for the Soundcard, one more exhaust fan here facing the AGP graphics card to suck out the hot air.

Here is another clearer view. You will notice I have a very huge Northbridge here near the AGP card, which prevents me from installing any of the dual side heat sink for the AGP card. :(

Here my harddisk and optical drives are in as well. I added the dual fans as well. More on that in the next post.

Alphonso II The Making 2/6

Here we are back again. Now lets start mounting the Motherboard into the case.



This is an awesome motherboard for its time. Now with the 9xx series around this 875 board has been forgotten. But its still good for me P4 3.0E.



Here the motherboard goes in. I think I forgot to mention the 2 backfans here are facing away from the case. Therefore the hot air will be effectively suck out of the case. This works with the aerodynamics of the 2 front front which blow in and this suck out, not resulting in any conflict where hot air is retended.

This is where the power supply goes in. This of couse is a really good PSU as well. It is PCIX ready as well. But like all power, the cables can be rather messy as you can see later on. This end part 2 here.

Alphonso II The Making 1/6

I finally had time to sit down and publish these photos which was taken during the making of Alphonso II.

The Beginning ...

I happened to see this $18 cheap casing one day at SLS and here it was back home. The casing core for A2 is monsterous. It has room for 4 casing fans. These 2 are from the front blowing towards the back.

Here is another clearer view of the front fans. I chose the Coolmaster Sleeve fans for these since I had overstock of it myself.

Ok, here is the 2 back fans. I will have to split this up. So the inital mounting of the fans before the installation ends here.

Genuine Windows Advantage

You will find that windowsupate and microsoftupdate no longer delivery without going through the new Genuine Windows Advantage (GWA) check now. Well, what do you expect from big M? But the only difference was this was broken in less than 1 day... and insult to injury, by a simple 1 liner javascript... I would had expect Microsoft to do better than that. After they hadput in so much effort in the ActiveX control, they would just let it through via a variable? If this is not a joke, tell me a better one.

In fact, I had even found a better way myself. Its not that I do not own originals (mind the s, I do owns quite some asserts label with big M, ok?), but it the fact that it was so easily done that makes this worth talking about. The javascript had to be ran everytime before GWA take place and thus not so fantastic. There is this Legit*.DLL sitting somewhere in the system32 directory... You might as well use Microsoft's own debugger and play with it. Its not even compressed to my surprise. There you can play with just assembly language and thus ending up changing 2 or 3 bytes. And this DLL let you bypass the GWA forever. Well at least until they can invest in something new.

My point is. Its too simple. Almost like a high school project. And all these never really bothers the pirates. They just crack it and forget about it. Its always the honest people like us who pay hard money for it that has to deal with all these inconveniences. Having to activate, to check this and that. Was this what we paid for when we buy the big M label? I certainly hope not. I would rather pay less and opt out on this. :) Haha.

By the way, its just POC. I wont give you the patch. I also wont tell you how to do it. Please do not ask me for it.