Happy Birthday 2008

I finally took my Bday present home... Its huge. But he is very cute...

Goodbye SingTel! Hello Starhub

Let me share a story. I love the LG Viewty Phone, well for the price vs function anyway. I had been a SinTel Page, Mobile, Landline user for like since they started. So when my contract is ending, I gave them a call to see if they can work something out for me.

On the phone, I speak with the operator for hte latest promotion to renew. They apparently had nothing much. Their LG Viewty is $250 more than Starhub. So after some ping pong, she directed me to the manager. I asked her again to see if they can do something to keep a old customer. Guess what? She told me to go to a fair somewhere in Parkway Parade where they can give me further discount... I asked how much? She replied $50 less. OK, maybe their maths is not very good or they think my maths is not very good.

So, it was Starhub for me. I called them as well. I told them straight I am with SinTel and I asked if they can make me an offer I cannot reject. Straight away, they gave me $100 voucher for ANY plan with them for 2 years. Great, that makes a $350 difference with SinTel now. Ok, if consider the Parkway fair, $300 difference. Then the operator was pretty nice. I swear I did not sweet talk her, but she suggested I check the newpaper... There is a better offer... Oh, OK. So I did. One of Starhub's reseller was offering a further discount and package which is another $50 less plus free gifts. Emm, so there I was, grabbing my phone and line. Total. I saved $350 compare to if I stick with SinTel. But SingTel I had Caller-ID for Free due to the SingTel-UOB Card. So, in a way its kinda $60 more per year for me. But Starhub was willing to give me 3 months for free which means its $60 + $60 - $15 = $105 more for the whole 2 years contract. Big deal.

At this point, I need to stress that SingTel-UOB has scrapped that benefits without warning and its no longer FREE. And on top of this, Starhub has extended my 3 months to 1 year of FREE Caller-ID. That means that comparing SinTel and Starhub, I had a savings of $60 instead. Totalling my savings from the start to $410.

Niow, about the FREE gift. As I was no big fan of Jeff Chang, I gladly sold away the pair of tickets at low cost taking back another $120. Total, that means $530. Ok, I wont say how much I pay for the Viewwty, but apparently if you maths is not too bad, you will know its not just free. I have nett profit instead for changing a new phone...

You guys in the red, I don't know what else is holding you, but the patch is definitely greener here.

I DO NOT work for Starhub nor SingTel. This is totally based on my own experience and is not fictionous.

SingTel - UOB Card Caller ID is no longer FREE

There were some good reasons to switch over to the other providers. I had the SingTel-UOB Card who promises as long as you hold the card, your Caller-ID will be FREE. I guess contract means nothing to these corp nowadays. They can change it whenever they like it.

If you cannot read the babove, you can always read it here:
http://home.singtel.com/upload_hub/consumer/st-uob_promo08.asp

Its funny why this is even put inside PROMOTION... Apparently, if you are not using Classic, Premium 700, Premium 1500 or mio plan, they will CHARGE you for Caller ID without warning from 1st April onwards. I mean, WTF? At least they should have the courtesy to tell me in advance in Feb or March about this change. All a sudden you will all receive a phonebill with charges for Caller ID. Then I seriously doubt whats the whole point of holding this card? Or for that matters stucking up Red's ass.

There is always a Greener patch out there... I will leave that in another article. P.S. The Green company gives you Caller ID for free for 1 year. In your face, SinTel.

Long Khong 2 aka Art of the Devil 3

There isn't many impressive Thailand movies, except a few. Art of the Devil 2 is really impressive and shocking. Part 3 will not disappoint since this is the No 1 movie in Thailand.

A BIG BIG WARNING to you before you click on watch on the following trailer. Although unrated, I strongly suggest you DO NOT watch it before meal or sleep. Also, If you are under 18, please do not watch this as well. You have a happy life, don't let me ruin it for you by showing you the dark side of humanity. :)

CWCheat V0.22B

Once again, there are some updates. I had ripped the original 4MB package as usual to this 130k file for the PSP Slim only. This is meant to be an upgrade if you had followed my post. If you have other version installed, just overwrite them with this package. I hadalso included the latest CheatDB as of today 21 Apr 08. So you will need to download that again. I had spoken before that I wil not update the POPS CheatDB unless there is a need to, and the original package actually does not contain a newer POPS CheatDB from don't know when.

Unpack everything to /seplugins :
http://rapidshare.com/files/109264484/cwcheatslim022b.rar

Once again, you will need take note if you have other plugins, you will need to edit the 3 txt files. Otherwise, overwrite is fine.

真正的正义只有一个 End of Streetdirectory.com

Why I am so happy when such a useful website went down? I must be mad or I just can't have the world in peace for a day. If you recall, Streetdirectory was going around suing other companys for use of their map (which LTA has proven was stolen without paying for copyright).

A company that makes money out of other's work without paying for it. This is piracy if you ask me.

A company that makes money suing people for what they do not own. This is Odex, if you remember.

And streetdirectory.com was actually like Odex. This is the very reason why we should be happy. That the true justice can be served and the deceiver can be taken down accordingly.

Hooray.

But there was a darker story to this. Many many years ago, I actuall wrote to street directory and give nthem advice on how to protect their maps with digital signature and other means of copyrights. For all you know, the root of these problem could had been me. But I was dead certain I was helping the good guys then. This world is truly dynamic. You can never be sure who you in turn help or harm in the end.

Nevertheless, Singaporean will have to learn how to live without streetdirectory from now onwards and get a GPS phone. Now, this does sound like a conspiracy...

Free Hamster Stuff Giveaway

Its not everyday you get a decent contest which doesn't steal some info from you to use for mass marketing. Let alone a contest that even is genuine. But here is one decent one that probably only applies for people who love hamster. Great stuff she is giving away. Check it out.

Visit :
http://sheylara.com/2008/04/13/sheylara-great-hamster-giveaway

Bitlocker Drive Prepartion Tool

In the early days of Windows Vista. Bitlocker is so much work, most people will give up before completing it (and end up with a corrupted HDD maybe). The problem IS (yes, still there because Microsoft has not really address it) nobody told you how the HDD should be properly partitioned for Bitlocker. This was not even mentioned in the Windows Vista installation. You will only come to realized this after fully installed and you tried to enable Bitlocker. Back then, the only answer (unless you ahve Partition Magic, Partition Manager etc) wil lbe to reformat you Windows Vista and restart.

The ideal installation should consist of these (to be politically correct, I lifted these from Microsoft) :

1. Have at least two partitions. One partition must include the drive Windows is installed on. This is the drive that BitLocker will encrypt. The other partition is the active partition, which must remain unencrypted so that the computer can be started. Once you've encrypted the drive Windows is installed on, you can also encrypt additional data drives on the same computer.
2. Be formatted with the NTFS file system.
3. Have a BIOS that is compatible with TPM and supports USB devices during computer startup. If this is not the case, you will need to update the BIOS before using BitLocker. For more information on updating your BIOS, see Update the BIOS for BitLocker Drive Encryption.

Take note of point 3. Thats hardware limitation. Most laptop can do it. If yours can't and it says Vista Ultimate compatible, sue them.

Now, let's talk about present day. There is hope. Just download something known as Bitlocker Drive Prepartion Tool. It will shift you partition and create the additional partition required for Bitlocker. You can either split or merge to make the space. This tool handles it pretty well. After a reboot, you will be ready to enable it. Make sure you follow the steps to save BOTH the key and the recovery key. Make copies of it in as many places as possible and stored them security. Storing it with your dog, for example, will not be "securely".

So, here is the full details and how you can get the tool. Basically, Windows Update :
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930063

Rice Store At Bukit Timah Plaza

I had to make a trip to Bukit Timah Plaza which is located out in nowhere a few weeks ago. My primary reason was to pick up some hamster supplies there. However, beside than what I wanted, I found something else. There is this "food court" right at the corner. There is only a few store and I ordered Cha Siew Rice with added rice. Guess what? No extra charges. $2.50 straight. And they gave me 1 full bowl of extra rice.

The rice is brownish... emm, my fear is that it doesn't not taste good. Luckily I only order 1 bowl to share with J. Well, I order another again later. It was fantastic. Like nothing you had taken before. They had a special way to prepare it and it is really good. The soup was ok, better than most place, but not fantastic. The Cha Siew was good. Cantonese style, not much fat. The Roast Pork was great too. The skin still crispy at 4pm.

However, for $2.50. I ate until I am full. J was full. We did not have a proper lunch due to travel, but this certainly finished our dinner as well.

Facebook Security - Limited Profile and Privacy

Ok, instead of writing a formal paper and publish it, I prefer to do this here at my blog. Facebook greatest secret by far is how to properly configure it so that it protects your privacy. I had seen many badly designed GUI and this is not one of them, but yet the GUI does not allow you to find what you want to do easily. Could this be a defact by design?


What I am going to talk about here is what will make Facebook safer. But by no means safe. Because there are still some loopholes here and there for social engineers. My advice would be if you do not need to tell anyone something, do not put them there in Facebook. That would be a better security then using the Facebook function to hide them.

First off, there is limited profile. One way or another, you may or may not have it set up. In this article, lets presume Facebook did not set it up properly for you.

Settting up a Limited Profile Friend List:

1. From main menu, go to Friends Tab.
2. Under Friend Lists on the right, see if you have Limited Profile. If so, you can skip this rest of this section.
3. If not, click Make a New List
4. Name it Limited Profile

You have created your limited profile. While we are here, lets go through the confusing steps to add a friend to the Limited Profile before we move on.

Adding friend to Limited Profile:

1. Click on Limited Profile under Friend Lists on the right.
2. Click on Everyone tab (if not highlighted) on the left.
3. You can see a list of friends in your Limited Profile now if you have any.
4. Type in name or click Select Multiple Friends beside the search box to add them.

Now you have someone inside (you should add at least 1 to test out) the Limited Profile, but if you actually surf and try you will not see any difference at all. This is the stage where most people scream that Limited Profiles does not work! What's the point?

OK, to solve this, we need to actually make Limited Profile different. How? It's time to edit your privacy.

Defining Limited Profile:

1. Go to privacy on the top right.
2. Select Profile.
3. You will see a lot of boxes and mostly they will be set to Only Friend (I hope). but that is not the setting we want either.
4. Choose one box and select Customize from the list. You can't do it with the first box label Profile though.
5. You should see a screen like this below.
6. You will need to use the Except These People box. I suggest you set most of the option (if not all) to Friends Only. This is true especially for the network settings. If you join a "OI hate linux" network, its fun but you probably doesn't want everyone in the network to see your information. Set it to no information for network.
7. Then type in Limited Profile into the Except These People box.
8. Click Okay. You should end up with something like the following:
9. Do this for both your Basic and Contact Information tab.

Now, if you go and view your profile through a Limited Profile friend, you will see that the information you chosen are not hidden. This is how the Limited Profile should be configured.

By now, you will realized that Limited Profile is actually just a list. You can call it ABC for all I care. You can create more list and set then in the same way too, giving each of them some differences. For example, you may not want your colledge to know your work history, but allow them to see your contact number etc...

Next step, lets move on to blocking people. I love this one. There are many myth about how you can block people especially those whom are not even your friend. I had issue with this too maybe due to the API... It does not find the user using the search at all. Anyway, here are the instructions.

Blocking user:

1. Go to privacy on the top right.
2. At the bottom right, you should see this.
3. Now you will need to enter the full name of the person you wish to block. The limitation however is if you cannot find the user, you cannot block the user.
4. If you find the user, just click Block Person on the right of his profile and you are done. If not, I suggest you try finding a few times. It took me a while to find some people.
5. After blocking them, go back to privacy and you should see them on the Block List like the picture above(ok, without the mozaic).

So, we settled the human issue. What about apps? Some apps might be taking information away from Facebook just because I installed it. My advice is, do not install any application that ask for excessive information. If you are playing a flash game and it ask for you credit card, thats definitely something wrong with it. However, you can control some of it here.

Limiting Applications:

1. Go to privacy on the top right.
2. Select Application.
3. You should see a list of application you trust. This list better be good. Remove any suspicious ones immediately from here.
4. Click on the Other Application tab.
5. You should read through the wordly page, but the meat is as shown below.
6. My advice would be to disable all options here. I find very little reasons I would want to share information out to applications.

Now, that settles the applications settings.

Despite all the above settings I recommened, the best security is still up to you. Always play safe and do not enter or reveal unnecessary information on Facebook. also know that some information can be leakedthrough your friends as well, so keep them up to date and advice them to "harden" their Facebook settings.

Have a great time playing games and joining networks in Facebook without losing your job!

PSP 3.90M33-3 released

3.90M33-3 is out. All you need to do is to extract to /PSP/GAME/ and then just run the update, reboot and you are good. Of course, make sure you are on 3.90M33 (doesn't matter 3.90M33-1 or 3.90M33-2) first. If not, read my previous post to upgrade to 3.90M33 before going ahead with this.

Changes:
- March33 noumd driver compatibiilty has increased to support games like Coded Arms, Patapon, Harvest Moon Innocent Life and probably others affected by same errors.

Download :
http://rapidshare.com/files/105323033/390M33-3.rar

Enable Vista Bitlocker Today!

Before there was BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool, life was hell with Bitlocker. Its only after installation of Vista completed you release that the only way to enable Bitlocker was to format and reinstall. Well, BS or not, those days are gone. Actually you can technically do some tricks using partioning software and copying files in protected mode...

Anyway, with BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool now, all you need to is to run through the wizard and it will merge or split up a 1.5GB free space for Bitlocker. If you dun use TPM, you need 1 more step to edit the Global Policy. After that, reboot and you can enable Bitlocker. Its also wizard based helping you make your keys and print your recovery codes.

So, what are you waiting for? Wait, before rushing in, do a full backup. JIC.

BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool :
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930063

Bitlocker

Ever saw this screen? Ever tried to tear out the HDD from this laptop and only find a 1.5GB partition oj junk and other partition totally worthless? This is what you had been paying for if you are using Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate and Enterprise. This is Bitlocker.

Encryption is nothing new. Bitlocker uses AES and AES is nothing new either. WPA2 uses AES (as one of the mode or THIP as the other). Its reasonably tested. Bitlocker uses a 2nd authentication other than your regular password. It can be TPM which some laptop comes with (for a high price) and almost nobody knows what its all about or a simple USB pen drive.

Now, using a USB token is nothing new either. PGP has already got USB token. The main differences is this. Bitlocker uses ANY USB pen drive or USB media. It can be a flash card or a USB HDD as long as your BIOS can regconize it at boot time. Now thats now hard to find nowadays. My desktop regconise all my USB devices including mouses, keyboards etc. Of course, Bitlocker is not suitable for desktop, at least not in the common sense.

Before I proceed, here are some good link as to what is Bitlocker about :

Schneier on Security: Microsoft's BitLocker

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=214558

And apparently, the only know issue with Bitlocker (in theroey since it applied to Mac only) :

http://www.news.com/2300-1029_3-6230933-1.html

Now, I would say its relatively safe to use. Only issue is that you are not suppose to keep your pen drive with your laptop. Thats wil lalso makes the TPM (without password) looks silly since its together with the laptop. It might be a good idea to get one of those ultra thin and ultra fast pen drive which you may double as your Vista ReadyBoost drive. This you can keep seperate from your laptop.

Receovery may be an issue, but I seriously doubt it. There is a post saying that if you motherboard fries and you changed one, it automatically disvalidates your Vista. Firstly I disagree. you will be forced to activate your Vista. that's true, but unless the version inside is reinstalled as some other version, its is still Vista Ultimate but unvalidated. Welcome unless some really made that happens, I kinda believe this is urban legend.

By now you should be able to tell that its quite pointless to use this on a Desktop, althought nobody can stop you. Microsoft claims a 1-9% CPU load only, but its still a drag and for desktop, the chance of it getting stolen is much much reduced.

Whatever the situation is, as long as you safekeep and backup your key and recovery keys, I guess you are in good shape. the only thing this doesn't prevent is you losing your laptop. :)

In the next post, I will introduce some way to install Bitlocker. Trust me, its so much easier now than compared with trying it in RC2.

Antivirus on WHS

Before I got down to solving the defrag issue, I started to embark on another issue on WHS. Antivirus. Do you need it?

Let me point out one side of the story first. WHS is a file server. You DO NOT execute software on it (except updates, patches etc). You do not open your files on it. Therefore save yourself some money. As long as you have client antivirus, everything you transfer in and out of WHS was checked at one point or another. Thats one arguement. I do not want to say this is right or wrong.

Let's takea look at the other side of the story. WHS is essentially Windows Server 2003 R2 (SBS Edition). Lets consider the following :

1. WHS is connected to the internet. Otherwise whats the point of "accessing it anywhere".
2. WHS is subjectable to server vulnerabilities similar to WS2003.
3. WHS requires patching. Some patches can be delivered automatically, others have to be manually put in. Therefore you need to execute some form of software once in a while.
4. WHS has software running in the background which arefrom 3rd party and can be subjected to infection. Especially if you have chosen to download it from untrusted sources.
5. You network firewall (if you have one) or router will not protect you from malware in general. If you do, you are pretty rich, I guess :P
6. Non of the default malware (if any) such as Window defender etc works on WHS. In short, you are short of arsenal against malware.
7. WHS can be attacked and WILL be attacked. If you do not believe me, look at your log in verbose mode.
8. Are you pretty sure your WHS is 100% free of trojans, spyware etc? Remember the point where you needed to have some software on your WHS and you actually launched IE to download them. Ok, maybe not cos in the default lockdown mode, you will get annoyed within 30 seconds. Mayeb you installed firefox? Now, thats a evil way to use Firefox. :) Back to the point, you probably downloaded something with it. Scan it with Spybot or Spyware Terminator and you will know the answer.
9. Do you want to risk corrupting (please dun even bring up the MS bug...) due to malware? Do you want to have unrestorable backup or unopenable files after investing so much on WHS? If you do, you should go ahead and get linux. Its cheap and probably not worth the effort protection. :)
10. Do you want someone else not on your list to access all your naked photo (of your pets) and other previous moments (with your family) all over yourtube and photosharing portal? Or your latest resume with your boss and payslip all over IRS?
11. Do you want to use the restore disk soon? Lost all your data?

In short, I sided with the 2nd camp. I believe whatever reasons it may be some form of antivirus is required. While it's not as critical as a real commercial server, you probably still want to put in some form of antivirus (of a suitable value) to protect it.

I would want to put a deeper discussion on another post, but lets run through some choice here first. ClamWin (free) is one which requires $0 but its a on demand scanner with no active component. Avast WHS edition is the only WHS "certified" antivirus of date. avast has already processed my request for an extended trial for this purpose. There are many others.

While I do not want to criticize a certain brand, I feel its fair to mentioned that its all due to my faut for trying to "hack" it to work. I tried Eset Business Suite. Its an excellent antivirus for server, but not for WHS. The firewall totally screwed up my WHS. To get it to work, I almost had to tear it down to minimum (which is probably not worth the money you pay for now).

OK, I will come back to this again when I have more concrete testing results.

Xiao P House Upgrade

Added the additional level also from AB. Fits perfectly giving Xiao P one more level to keep his stuff and play around. I had to change the tube though. It appears they are designed for robo only... But I am really happy it all works out. I haven't decided what to put in the extra spaces yet though.

PerfectDisk 2008 for WHS Build 48

I had been trying out both Perfectdisk and Diskeeper some time back on my WHS. So far, Perfectdisk has an edge because it was able to install. Somehow for me, the trial of Diskeeper ends up with :

“Product: Diskeeper 2008 HomeServer — This edition of Diskeeper is not supported on this version of Windows. See the Table of Editions in the Diskeeper Readme.txt file for a list of supported operating systems. Setup will now exit.”

So, I guess I can only try out Perfectdisk for now. Although someone from Diskeeper did leave a comment, I probably check it out later on. Maybe they might be able to help me resolve this issue.

Perfectdisk on the other hand has made an improvement which I only knew 5 minutes ago from their email. The have finally integrated the GUI into Home Server Console. I guess thats a good point to go.

Ok, this is what it looks like when you use your Home Server Console to connect to it. Notice something? Yes, there is a C:\ and a C:\fs\4... Emm, thats must be whats so different for this version of WHS. Well, for me it works so far so good.

But whether does this seriously addresses the 4k cluster issue and VSS, that I need time to confirm. I should note that on a thread I recently read, VSS is not suppose to work on WHS in terms of storing previous versions. However, I am dead sure I had to VSS is enabled on the WHS. Well, maybe I am just confused for now. I will follow on this.