Thawte Free Email Certificate vs Vista IE7

For a long long time, Thawte hsa not came out with a solution to allow easy installation of their free email cerifitcations on Vista / IE7. Vista has already launched SP1 and Thawte is still there...

Well for those who did not know what a email certificate is... Imagine SSL.. Ok, even more plain, the padlock you will see on the browser when you do you internet banking... Well, thats encryption. SSL is basically encryption. But you need a SSL certificate to do the encryption. Email certificate is somethign very similar. But on top of being able to do encryption, email certificate also allow you to identify yourself. This mean when you friend / client receive a email signed by your email certificate, they can be sure its you. If the email ash been tampered, changed, edited, forwards etc.. the signing will fail and you will see a X on your email client. What? You are still using Lotus Notes? Man, get a real email client, FCS!

Anyway, back to this issue of using Thawte Email Certificates. Its FREE. Thats one plus point. And so far I tried many, like komodo etc.. And evne one which I will not name, who issue email cert, but their own SSL cert is kinda expired or blacklist... This is the type of CA you should avoid. In any case, Thawte has the advantage.

Sometime back in Dec 2007, thawte posted a "solution" to the Vista IE7 problem.
https://search.thawte.com/support/ssl-digital-certificates/index?page=content&id=S:SO5558&actp=search&searchid=1215093218617
Well if you do not know whats the problem, it can only means you are not using Vista or are using IE7 or below on XP. anyway, the problem is there is no support for creating the private key to make the certificate.

Anyway, if you follow the instruction above, you will hit the Error: "424 Object required" error.
Thawte suggest your try :
https://search.thawte.com/support/ssl-digital-certificates/index?page=content&id=SO5657
OK, stop right here. This is the step I strong advice you DO NOT do. Whats is the point of using a certificate when you have to cripple your security on your browser to get the certificate in the first place?

This is my approach :
Grab a machine with Win XP. Yes, a VM is good. Always keep Win XP VM around.
Go through the process and request the cert, then complete it by installing the cert.
Now, you will have to export the cert.
Ok, this is the tricky part. Listen carefully, or you will find that you cant import your cert properly later...
YOU NEED TO EXPORT YOUR PRIVATE KEY.
Choose that... then the rest you can play around with... use a good password. But I strongly suggest after importing sucessfully onto your Vista that you delete the exported keys away.

Put all your *.PFX together and bring it to your Vista machine. Open IE options and then import them. Just let IE decide where to put the certs. It should end up in the Personnel folder. Otherwise, you done it wrongly. See the CAPITAL above. Once all yoru cert if done, go ahead and sign some email with your Outlook and smile.

I try to be brief here cos I figure most of us knows what we are doing. If you have problem wit hthis instruction, please post a comment and I will try to help you out. For Firefox, the procedure is different, so lets just worry about IE / Vista here.

I wonder why I searched and cannot find this solution on Google...

彩音 ~ Cloudier Sky - AYAKASHI OP

KAORI ~ Ayakashi - 世界が終わりを告げていても

Activeperl 5.10 Package Problem

It seems like the default packages locations are nto added in the ppm perl module manager. All you have to do it to launch it by "ppm" and under preference add these repositories :


http://www.bribes.org/perl/ppm, for the www.bribes.org Perl 5.10 repository
http://trouchelle.com/ppm10/, for the trouchelle Perl 5.10 repository
http://cpan.uwinnipeg.ca/PPMPackages/10xx/, for the uwinnipeg Perl 5.10 repository

And there you go. You can now download SSLeay and other modules for Perl 5.10.

《太極》片尾曲 林峰 ~ 浮生若水

林峰-浮生若水

詞：林夕　曲：鄧智偉

即使身處逆流未畏懼　我兩手　一轉勢便浮浪午睡
任潮浪再巨　也終歸跌碎　何妨學習輕舟懂得戲水

假使所愛流離在對岸　我的心　肯輕放便難被碰撞
為誰而震盪　沒法收便放　離離合合悲悲喜喜似水　別強擋

善莫善於水　輕與重　也借勢推送
柔弱莫弱於水　水轉動　卸去了心痛
容大莫大於水　將壓力　化清風
磨到頑石也融　將恨意歸空

不爭先氣度才無處覓
永遠不執於友敵　才無敵
動搖沒法靜　要懂得用勁
浮沉順逆轉身不沾背影　像泡影

善莫善於水　輕與重　也借勢推送
柔弱莫弱於水　水轉動　卸去了心痛
容大莫大於水　將壓力　化清風
磨到頑石也融　將恨意歸空

善莫善於水　水向下　退了也可進
柔弱莫弱於水　水舞動　哪裡要操控
容大莫大於水　山與岸 　被簇擁
直到頑石失蹤　只望見清空

Why there is no space at Coffee Beans...

I was at Changi Airport and caught this picture. Poor cleaner... maybe hte airport made her worked too hard? Anyway, she should had find a better place to hide and sleep rather than to make it so obvious and also pissed me cos I could had gotten that place to sit and let Coffee Beans make about $20 from me. Well, anyway. Its not a good idea to sleep with your uniform on.

PSP on HDTV

Well, its something I always wanted to do but never have the equipment and the TV to make it happen. Now, you can finally see it.

First thing I realized was that games do not run in full screen. So, this is true, not urban legend. There may be a way around this, but I have yet to look for it.


But the main interface can be set to 16:9 and plays perfectly full screen.

Its a pity the games are still not full screen. I will post a update if I get that fixed later on.

Patapon PON!

Pata Pata Pata Pon

After the journey, our brave patapon has not found the IT which they seeked...

Pon Pon Pata Pon

A great ship was build and the patapon set sail to the north to find the IT rumored to exist at the end of the world....

Chika Chika Pata Pon

A new enemy (symboled with a mysterious triangle symbol) hailed their voyage and our patapon was saved by a wandering surviving zitapon ship. They crashed on a mysterious island where the patapon found the remaining artifacts of the great patapon heroes who has made their journey to IT at the beginning of their time...

Bon BonBon BonBon

Together with the help of the zitapons, the patapon set set out to follow the path of their great ancestors to find IT. With the zitapon power of the siege weapons and machines and the new found secrets of the patapon aerials units from the ancient artifacts, the patapon will once again call forth their patapon drums of war...

Pon Pon PonPonPon

Featuring...
New naval and aerial units.
Build multiple sieging machines and traps with zitapon allies
New patapon miracles.
Patapon heroes unit which gains experience and level up.
Power up weapons with patapon elements during battle with secret patapon chants.
Summon patapon heroes in boss battles.
Play VS with friends over Wifi.
Import Patapon save games for secrets.

and Much Much More!

PATAPON PON!
SPRING 2009...
Only on PSP...

PSP Patapon

If there is only 1 game you can play on the PSP this year. This is the one.

Japanese Trailer :


US Official Trailer :


Patapon TV ads Japanese :


If you had finished this, do not miss my next post... Patapon PON!

Maxtor BlackArmor

I simply can't say no to a black box with blue shiny lights can I? This piece will click in with my Habu, Reclusa and the DGL-4300 Router... Ok, lets see what is BlackArmor.

Maxtor make haddisk. Now they concentrate on external harddisk after the Seagate acquisition. Black Armor is a secured harddisk as they claim. Well, I am tempted to crack it and (not) get hired by Maxtor. Black Armor is protected by AES128 encryption which cover the whole harddisk using their software. Well, I am also tempted to break their software for use on other harddisk IF I can extract it. Ya, this does not come with a Installation CD. In any case, you wont get the hard case and blue shiny lights unless you buy this at USD$150 for the 160GB version. Costly. But cool.

BlackArmor has something very similar to U3, except this encrypt. U3 only authenticate. This is a misconception which many people has. All you need to break the U3 protection without the password is to flash the firmware with a custom one such as SwitchBlade. Anyway, back to this. BlackArmor uses AES128 which will take a fair amount of time unless you like password like abc123 or password. Maxtor claim 30 years. I dare say less because machines get faster, new methods of breaking things comes up every so and then. But its pretty long. BlackArmor supposely has not much issue with unplug from USB. Once unplug it automatically locked and encrypts. So I guess maube this is something built into the firmware which kinda make my statement to want to install it on other notebooks sound silly.

So, is there a downside? Obviously, this does not work in Mac or Linux. This is hard to recover using normal tools. I am not sure if defrag make sense, but it may be. Well, to be honest, I have yet to get my hands on it.

Apple OSX iCal critical vulnerability

This is just great. Just when I am about to roll in OSX 10.5.2, a major bug in the iCal application fall prey to a critical bug which can allow an attacker to execute codes on the OSX machine.

As quoted:
"Three vulnerabilities discovered in the iCal application may allow un-authenticated attackers to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable systems with (and potentially without) the assistance from the end user of the application or to repeatedly execute a denial of service attack to crash the iCal application."

Detail :
http://www.coresecurity.com/index.php5?module=ContentMod&action=item&id=2219

How many Apple users will patch their product? I only know of 1.
C:You better be, or it would be 0.

Given this is a 0+2 Day vulnerability, I expect the trojan to attack this bug to be released pretty soon.

Backtrack 3 Teaser

Backtrack is a Blackish-hat tool used by many security professional. I used it often too for environment which are tightly controlled. You can sneak in with this on a USB thumb drive or a autoboot CD where you are not allowed to bring in your custom laptop for testing.

Backtrack 3 present many new tools, yet also new problems working in VM especially Virtual PC (which run faster for me in any environment). Anyway, since its in BETA, there is still time for it to fix up everything before the Final is out.

Meantime, enjoy the Wifu and other fantastic stuff here :
https://www.asiaextendedservicesuat1.citibank.com/aes/

Download the BETA:
http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack_download.html

PLEASE. Do not ask me how to use this aor what is going on. If you have no idea, then I suggest, you stay out of this. There is no bad tool, just bad people.

X Japan I.V. ~ ED Saw 4

Luminous Arc 2 ~ Will

Cetis Cisco Crow Massacre Unit

I am pretty sure we all hear the gunshot and see the strange black van moving around shooting down crow in the neighborhood. I got a close look today was to be honest was a shocking experience.

I heard a gunshot and immediately recognized it and I saw it up close. This belong to a Crow culling Unit of Certis Cisco Singapore. What I cannot stand was what happen after this... I saw a crow injured and fallen to the fall maybe its wing got it or something... The man with the shotgun cross the road to reach it... Then all a sudden I see him raise a gun and take a shot into the air on a flying by crow and it fall right onto the road where car are passing by. I recall how much train we all had about using a rifle in the open space. Even a police officer has to make a difficult judge to take such a shot in open public, yet this man did not. In a total of 3 shot, he took down 2 crow. I am really concern such use of firearms in public area may some day lead to a tragedy (I recall a man killed while feeding dogs some years back, probably by the same group of people?).

Well that was still prety ok. He picked up both the crow and one of them was still quite kicking. What shock me was what happened immediate there. I saw him took the crow at one wing and slam it against a nearby tree until it stop moving. Come on, if he had already wasted 3 shots and now he is saving it by smashing the crow onto the tree? I know crows are pest, but I did not think what he did should be consider human. If this is so, we might as well equip them with morning stars and club those crow to death. Luckily no children saw this. I am sure it will project a very bad example to children.

A few things I wonder.
1. The Maths. 3 shots 2 crow. 2 guys in a van. How does the cost justify the means? Does killing 2 crows solve anything?
2. The use of firearms in open public. Has this been so open now that its pretty ok to just pull you guns and shoot when there are people walking around and car driving pass? Does the shot and crow not hit onto someone passing by?
3. Crow slamming. Does what these people do not be govern under animal cruelty? Has SPCA got anything to say about it? Or is it just because they are crow its ok to club them to death. I don't know. But in this case, maybe its ok to pull off heads of rats and electrocute the fishes in the reservoirs because they are not consider animals?

Solving the Rubik Cube Part 3

This is the final tutorial on the rubik cube. By now you should had solved 2 layers. The last will involves some steps but they are quite straight forward. Take a look at your top (opposite of the strawberry which was chosen as the based). If you see something like this, you are good.


Don't panic if you do not. Just apply the following formula (a few times if necessary). Remember that you DO NOT change your F. The pattern above should appear on your U (up) side.
Formula :
F, R, U, R1, U1, F1

After you get the invert "L" above, the next one you will see if a straight line like this on the U side:


Continue with the formula and you will reach this :


Notice the cross or + is very similar to the first step in tutorial one, except you may realized this if you look at the other sides. The middle top pieces does not match the middle piece on the side. Turn the cube to the side which does not match an make that your F. Try to keep the correct side as your B or your R to avoid moving them. Remember, the U and D face do not change, just play around with your 4 sides.
Apply this formula :
R, U, R1, U, R, U, U, R1, U
You may have to do it a few times, eventually, but quite quickly, you will find your cube to have the matching middle matching the sides like this :



So, how many pieces are left? 4. Right. If you are lucky (maybe), you will see one of your corner in your U side is correct.


If this is the case, make the yellow Pear as your F. Keeping that piece on your R side. This will not move that piece. Apply this formula :
U, R, U1, L1, U, R1, U1, L
This is the last, but hardest part. There are ways out there which you may be able to tell how to get each piece right, but by doing this repeatly, you will eventually get it. Just remember the formula only shift the corners on the U side. So you can turn the cube around a bit, keeping hte U and D side to apply this formula. I would say with a bit of luck, you will finally get this :


Yes, its done finally. Congratulation. I had completed this a few times thanks to the methods describe here. haha, if you notice there is another trick in my cube, the facing of the fruits. You can change that with a slightly different formula, but thats out of topic here.

If you feel you would like more information, try this :
http://jeays.net/rubiks.htm
or
http://peter.stillhq.com/jasmine/rubikscubesolution.html
or
http://rubikscube.info/

You may encounter another fast method known as the corner first method. Of course, if you are interested, go ahead and try that. This method is used by many winners and champions. Given the full potential, some of them claim it can solve the cube in 60 or less moves. Its out of my topic here too.

Solving the Rubik Cube Part 2

Ok, here is the 2nd part. We will solve the 2nd layer in this section. To be honest, I think this is the hardest part. OK, we need to define some simple notation. First turn the cube upside down. The strawberry side which is completed should be at the bottom covered. Take a look at this picture :


OK, now the side facing you we will call it F (Front). The side on your left and right will be L and R respectively. The top side will be T (Top) and the strawberry side will be D (Down). Finally the side that on the opposite you are looking away from you will be B (Back).

The black region will be the region that is completed in Part 1. Now we need to locate some special pieces on the top...


Find one of these pieces in black. Notice how this piece should be on the right in the blue region? There is a formula to move this there. Move this face to be your F (Front) to start. For notation, to rotate a side clockwise (means that you imagine you are looking at that side and turning the side clockwise), we will use F,B,U,D,L,R. To rotate it anticlockwise, we will use F1,B1,U1,D1,L1,R1. Got it?

To move the top pieces in black to the blue region on the right, the formula is :
U, R, U1, R1, U1, F1, U, F

OK, I mentioned don't ask why. This guide is simply to help you complete it. to understand why you may want to look at it step by step and figure it out.

If you have not figure it out, the formula for moving the top to left side in the similar case will be :
U1, L1, U, L, U, F, U1, F1

The piece should be in the blue region as shown here :


You may also find that sometimes you have a wrong piece in place like this below :


In this case, you will need to swap that piece out using the above formula moving L or R depending which side you choose to be F. You will also need to do this if you cannot find any pieces on the top to do the step above. simply move them out using the formula. If you have done it right, it will be something like this :


Now you can use the Grape side as F and move the top piece (in black region), which you had moved out just now, to the right side using the same formula again.

Do it for all the pieces (there are 4 only actually) in layer 2 and you should be having something like this :


Layer 2 for all side should be correct to end this part of the tutorial.

Solving the Rubik Cube Part 1

The Rubik cube has existed long before many of us. I still remember having to struggle to complete it when I was like.. 6? That's crazy then. There is no Internet or FAQ out there then. But today, its different now.

There are many guides on the Internet and I believe this page is not the first you came across looking for a way to complete it. Unlike other sites, I do not want to go through too much trouble about the history, how and why the method works etc. I just want to put it plain and simple. To solve the cube. Its not the fastest way to do it, but I will try to make this the simplest around.

This is divided into 3 parts and each concentrate on solve 1 layer of the cube. Before we start, lets go through some simple notation I will use later. Basically look at the cube you have now. Mine is a bit cute because it has fruits on it, yours will be color usually (OK, or super model if yours is the Playboy edition).

First, some basic. The cube consist of 6 sides and each of the has a center. The center pieces will never change. Relatively. Keep that in mind. There are 8 corners, these pieces wil lalways be corners... and the same goes for the mid side pieces. With that in mind, play around until you are able to join multiple same patterns around etc...

OK, I like strawberry, so this tutorial will pick strawberry as the base and start from there. The aim will be to create a + or cross shape as shown.


But thats not just any cross, you will have to match the side to the middle pieces on the side as well. See below :


The side pieces must match with the center pieces on the side. There are only 4 combinations, so this shouldn't be a problem even for beginners.

Next you will need to put in the 4 corner pieces and you will have to get them right as well. I am not providing much tips here because these should be very simple. If you are still struggling doing this, then you need more practice before you can go on... It will get harder.


This is how your cube should be at the end of this part. 1 Layer fully solved. With pieces matching the center of the side as well.

THE SGDUMMIES GUIDE TO WALKING TO BAN LEONG

First of all, lets not assumed everyone drives. If you do, this guide is not for you. You can easily find the place via your GPS. What? The building is not listed on the GPS? emm.. too bad.

Ok, lets do some walking...

1. Get off the right bus stop
I did not try the feeder bus inside. But lets talk about the bus stops on the main road. You should see Kah Motors or Honda directly in front of you if you drop on the same side. For those coming on the other side you should see a green building, following by a blue building, finally a red building after the traffic light.. They are side by side and your bus stop is right at the red building. Its City Warehouse.

2. Walking through Honda
You will need to get over via the overhead bridge if you are on the other side. In any case, you should head towards Honda. There is no fence whatever blocking you, just walk right in. There are 2 ways in Honda, one is directly in front of you. Its a bit longer. Take other other way instead. Walk towards the front of the building. You will see another path going through. Proceed with this path. You will pass by 2 entrance to Honda's Testing lab for vehicles with yellow floors on your left.

3. Find the right building and right floor
Once out of the gate at the back of Honda, you will see a brown nice building across the road. This is NOT it. The building is the one white and gray behind this one. You will need to cross the road and get to it. Once in the building, BL is at level 4. Once you come out of the lift, you will see hte nice office of BL. This is NOT where you will be served. Instead, turn right and follow the path. You will end up in some warehouse like place which is the service center. There is 2 counters there and as far as I can see, there is no queue system in place. So do not be shy go right up the counter and press the bell on your left side.

4. Getting out of BL
After all the happy/unhappy/sad/angry experience, you will probably not be thinking too well on your way out. Go into the lift. DO NOT PRESS LEVEL 1! you did not come in from Level 1. Its LEVEL 2! Level 1 is the underground car park. Once out, follow the same path back, this time Honda may not be so obvious across the road. Look for Kah Motors and you won't miss it. You may want to catch some food right across BL before continue if you are hungry. The rest is just the reverse. Go through Honda and you will come right out into the bus stop again. Cross the road if you have to via the overhead bridge.

Ban Leong Sucks.

I had a VERY bad experience too. My Gfx card went KO on friday and had to wait till monday to go to BL. Despite all the help, the place IS very confusing. I took leave and called in the morning to check that they are open. OF cos, its the standard customer service->vga card tech support on the menu. Then I got lost, this is my fault, cos 150 is not exactly helpful. If you end up on the wrong side of ubi ave 4 all you see are 10s and 20s...

But eventually I called again. Same menu and asked for direction. Not very helpful, but luckily I remember walking thru Honda part and found the place.

GUESS WHAT? They say they are stock taking no RMA whatsoever until like Wed or Thu. And 2x I called and nobody said anything about stock taking? The website did not state either. I had totally wasted my day getting there and they ask me to come back again later the week (I need to take another day leave then?). I asked them then anything they CAN do today. At least take in the card or whatever. Cos even if I come down again they cannot confirm whether I will get a replacement at all. (Which means I may need to take yet another day in the future to collect the card). I refused and ask them to take in today since I am here already. I asked them if I cant get a replacement on Wed then how? They say will send back to TW and can take up to 6 weeks!!! Then I asked if they can T-Loan me something for the meantime. They say cannot. If the card goes back to TW, then I st away loses 6 weeks of usability and warranty time?

I had done with Big3 before. At least when my ASUS board when back, they load me one for the time being which alhought unhappy, but I cant complain. To make things worse is that Vista had detected a gfx change and I need to reactivate soon or it will log me out again...

1. The location sucks.
2. The information sucks. If you cant RMA, they did not even tell you.

BTW, I saw some other people around quite pissed also... They even send off one couple who is trying to RMA their Sony LCD (which I presumed is under them) to Sony Orchard. I am totally so give up on BL. Previously I always insist on getting item with BL warranty, I think I will insist I DO NOT get BL warranty in the future!!!!