How you see the problem IS the problem
- Stephen Covey

Got it tested with few friends, and I actually noticed it since 2003.

Some of the Streamyx range are notably smooth.

For example:

219.94.* = Good for China related website, FTP
and
218.111.* = Best for gaming + BitTorrent

The rest are no so good.

To check what IP you are using, you can go to www.whatismyip.org

Slow in downloading?

My favorite bittorrent client WAS BitComet.

But ever since last year or more, it seems to be reallly slow in downloading.

So Ron introduced me uTorrent



WTF, the application is merely 170KB!

There's a Force Start function, which is very useful.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Testing

I've called Eng Hong and Alex Tan (my colleague) to try out the test.

We got ourselves a different seeds, then we used both BitComet and uTorrent to download at the same time.

Result? MIND BLOWING!

All of us had got the uTorrent started downloading for more than 1 hour, but our poor BitComet is still trying to connect....

Seeing is believing.

Get yourself a copy HERE

Once again, thanks Ron

What the fu*k?

Lately my Screamyx line has been fu*king unstable.

So today, I made two calls to the tmnut customer service, fu*king pissed me off!

First of all, let's make it clear. I'm using a wireless router with an integrated ADSL (broadband) modem. It would use its own software inside the router to auto connect.

And I know it's not my windows/modem issue. Cos:

1) DSL signal is stable
2) But the broadband wise, for the past few days, it has been very unstable.
3) Therefore you may see me online a while, then would go off for no reason
4) What's happening at my side is, DSL signal is stable but, the internet just won't connect

So what have they done? They asked me to:

1) Unplug all the phone cable (which i had done before calling them)
2) Unplug all the modem cable (oh ya, in this case, is it a wireless cable?)
3) Restart the computer
4) Create the fu*king stupid manual connection in the windows
5) Then call them back if the problem still persists.

I explained and told them at least two times on the phone, that my modem is an integrated modem, it uses its own software to connect to the internet.

I really tried my best not to tell them that "you are no IT savvier than me"

Why? Because i'm DSK!

The first agent insisted me to try the manual connection. I asked him how. He asked me to go Control Panel, create connection bla bla.

I told him again, that my integrated modem is not connected in this way.

He said nvm, try first (unplugging all the phone line and connect back) if cannot give them a call back, then they will create the report.

Of course, I tried to unplug and plug back, CANNOT!

Then I gave them a ring back, the second agent asked me to do the bloody same thing.

But before that, he asked me to put the DNS into my network card setting.
I asked him to spell out the primary IP: 202.188.0.133

Then I straight away know what it is, I spelled him out the secondary dns IP: 202.188.1.5

He asked me how come I know. FU*K, I told him that i'm DSK I have been TMNet customer for more than 10 years. And I know these troubleshooting. And I told him that "I'm very sure that this is line issue"

He, same as the previous agent, insisted me to try the fu*king manual connection. So i asked him back, "So how am I supposed to make manual connection for this modem?"

"Oh in that case, you'll need to ask the PC vendor, the one who sold you the modem, they'll surely know how to do it"

FU*K THEM.

I told him back "hey how about this, I'm gonna ask my friend to bring his modem to try over here, or i'm gonna bring my modem to his house, if I could connect with the auto connect feature, you'll make a report to either investigate the port or my phone line?"

I told him that last time my line once had the similar issue, then the agent sent the engineer to reactivate the port and I could use after that.

I know it because I had done it for twice.

So now, after all, I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING and now my connection is back. But it is still unstable.

What shall I do? Call them back and congratulate/thank them?

I felt ashamed that I myself is also a helpdesk agent, somehow. Yiaks.

Finally, I've got some time to share the DSK experience.

How to search a song? There's a good song played in the radio but the DJ just doesn't wanna tell the name.

The clue is, remember the chorus part hard, and search with the " "

Why? This is because search engine will return the most viewed + most appeared sentence/keyword in the search result.

So why chorus part? Because most people (or at least, some people) will put just the chorus part of the song - most because it's the most meaningful + remembered part.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ok, I'll just tell the journey I took to search the song "I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash.

1. I only have the starting part + chorus . "I could see" + "sunshine is here" in my brain
2. I search like this in Google "I could see""sunshine is here"lyric
3. It returned two results that were not relevant.
4. I changed the could to can, "I can see""sunshine is here"
5. Rubbish results appeared
6. Cut short the keyword, now it become "I can see"sunshine
7. The lyrics page appeared #2 in the search result

As you can see, the lyrics that was first in my memory were wrong.
Sunshine is here = Sun-shinny day
I could see = I can see

But it didn't matter. The key to success is to trial and error ;)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Downloading the Song

Of course, my first preference would be going to FrostWire to find the shared song, and then, delete it 24 hours after dowloading it. And buy the original record.

For songs that are new, you can mostly find the single track download from web.

To search for it, for e.g.

"I can see clearly now"rapidshare

or

"I can see clearly now"sendspace

or you can modify the rapidshare or sendspace to other file hosting service co name.

You'll most probably find the song. Just the matter of availability (for legal reason, once the filehoster found it, they'll delete it)

Of course, delete it 24 hours after you download it, the artists need your support ;)

Last week, I accidentally 'welcomed' the trojans. It was because I accidentally clicked on the advert featured in the TVAnts (an online TV streaming software)

Then my McAfee antivirus started to pop up a lot of virus alert.
t
D*e la (CNY forbids such a word), a lot of trojans in my comp already.

So, recalling the last successful fight with trojans, which was like... last year, when I helped Emily to clear her laptop's trojans, at least there are no more annoying pop up while web surfing.

I downloaded AVG Antispyware (formerly known as Ewido), got it updated and performed full scan. It killed off some of the Trojans successfully, while others appeared again.


For example, the following trojan



Being clueless, I started the DSK work. Found that those China-made trojan (cos, obviously, it kept popping up China's ad), even those Chinese also clueless about it!

Most people, when they faced this problem they'll use HijackThis! to detect, then discusses it in the forum.

Somehow I chose to opt for alternative (i'm not sure, maybe it failed to delete off Emily laptop's trojan last time)

Then from another forum I found a software called Filseclab which can delete the file no matter it's being used or being stubbornly stationed there.

So, based on the lists I've got from McAfee, I used "Arrange Icon by -> Last Modified" then found the following creatures.


Without any hesitation, I deleted em' using Filseclab (NOTE: This action is dangerous. You've gotta make sure of what you are deleting, else your windows will be unusable! Cos I deleted wpa.dbl, which was not malware, luckily it's not that essential to startup my windows ;) )



Then I restarted the PC. Great! No more "virus detected" alert from McAfee!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Lessons learned:

1) Most Anti-Virus (note, here I mean virus, not trojan, malware, spyware) are clueless/helpless about other than virus, they could prevent it from running, but they can't stop/deeply remove them when you've welcomed it

One of the trojans was also known as Infostealer, which was one of the trojans made my customer in horrible situation earlier on.

2) Even the Anti-Malware software also failed (probably the software I used was lousy?) to remove all the malware/trojan/spyware successfully.

3) Therefore, manual removal rocks!! It worked and saved me from reformatting (you know, the famous action taken by most of the people when they can't solve something)

4) Is it time to change the good old McAfee? It's not exactly good old, cos I have frequent updates... One thing I like about it is that it uses minimal resources and fast scanning result. (oh ya, at least, better than the Symantec's...). FYI, McAfee had served me for the last 9 years. The reason I changed was because my Trend Micro was helpless about CIH virus

5) NEVER click on those pop up adverts.

6) IE sux again! Cos the ad was popped up in IE (well, my FireFox is already my default browser, ok), and subsequently, all the trojans came into my computer. Think the option is to either update to IE 7 or REMOVE IT!

Today I received a support call from a user.

"I think my computer got a problem. When the fishes start swimming, after a while they won't move anymore."

Note: fishes = screensaver, won't move anymore = computer hang

Phew, yesterday managed to kill off 4-5 trojans from my laptop, which I accidentally 'welcome' them into my laptop.

The summary?

Manual deletion. All antivirus/anti-trojan/anti-malware is no better than human, when it comes to a situation which they themselves cannot handle!

DSK-ed and found the trick here

Related story and near-exact story happened to Ryan's friend could be found here

Suddenly, I found myself in a high school, somewhere in Ipoh.

There's an English teacher came in, discussed with us about the SPM English essay, on what we had wrote, sharing with us on how we could score a good one. (He should have done that before the exam, shouldn't he?)

Then there's a man rushed into the classroom, telling us that the Godzilla just revived, and it had just destroyed Kuala Lumpur.

The whole classroom was in the mess. That English teacher took out the dessert he brought in, asked if anyone want to eat, before we leave.

Efficiently, everybody ate the cakes, because from KL to Ipoh, still far away mah.

Before my turn, everybody heard the big "Boom, Boooom, Boom" sound, yes, Godzilla was walking towards Ipoh already!

We got the info that it was currently in Tapah.

Then I woke up, oh, Sunday morning.

Tried this burger set few weeks back.

With the online voucher they have at www.kfc.com.my, end up, the set is like RM6++

The burger, like the previous burger by KFC (Zinger Maxx is an exception), is a so so burger.

I'd rather spend a few bucks more to have a McD large set. :)

We went to Metro Prima to hunt for some clothes for Chinese New Year.

Passed-by The Body Shop, bought an aroma candle, cos me and my sis both couldn't sleep well lately.

Then went to Hang Ten, bought the shirts for the whole family, bought 7 clothes in total.

Then went to Jaya Jusco to buy some biscuit + Vitagen (after being loyal to Yakult [their ad is gross, btw] for the past few months)

We saw the god of prosperity near the counter. To our surprise, it's a justice Pao version.

My neighbour ... quite wuliao lately.

He doesn't have a job, but he works as a part timer as a "car audio installation/testing specialist" for car audio (or, "loud music playing") enthusiast

So lately he and his gf got themselves a dog. So lately, they used the dog as their new found entertainment:

1) One day, when I reached home, the girl with her dog approached me. Then I turned my head to the right, found that there's a cat near me.

What she did was, let the dog bark until the cat walked away.

Then she and her bf laughed out loud there.

In fact, the size of the dog is almost the same as the cat.

2) The dog had made the girl wakes up early every morning, in order to let her dog 'exercise' (info by my mum)

Picture captured from the book: Creativity at Work by Jeff DeGraff

Yep, currently, my team is still in the improving stage. Cos it's new, but we have to move quick, my ultimate goal is to reach the dotted cross in say, one year time?

Can my DSK skill help? I think more or less, big YES ?

Hopefully! God Bless!

While Ronnie reported that his cup of hot coffee would have thin layer of ice form on top within the 30metres walk (thanks to the -25 degree Celcius weather)

Featured below are the pictures I took from BBC

Earlier on I went for acupuncture, then plus the what "cup sucking" thingy, so there you go, my shoulders got sucked till like that





But I must admit, I felt better after being sucked. :P

So Sarah and Kok Hooi decided to have joint celebration for their birthday.


Sarah (sorry, hand only) and Kok Hooi


The difference was, one was busy preparing food for us, the other one is busy eating.


Weihan was looking at the gochujang paste (am I right, Sarah?)


I dunno why he smiled, maybe he initially, really thought that it's a toothpaste or what


Just a shot featuring both ready-to-go rice + the gochujang paste


Featuring Kong Yen ('s hand, sorry again) in the process of putting the sauce onto the rice


My stomach just got hungry (again)


After Mixing everything up



Now really ready to go (and my stomach really hungry now)


It was tasty, of course.

Thanks Sarah, for preparing the food. Again, Yummy and thanks!

Got cut on my tongue last year 26/11... by Ricola sweet wa...

No more Jaring lo.

Today one of the reseller called me, then i asked about house moving - how much i have to pay if I wanna move the line to another house - kaching - RM100

Better leave it till a year + later la.

Stick with the Screamyx first.

I know, lately Streamyx service is back to normal, but thanks to the suffering period, it let me discovered alternatives

Which is, Jaring.

My mum objected -_- She said got 512kbps is enough already.

But, with just extra RM13 (Triskaidekaphobia?) I can get another 512kbps extra(which is, 1Mbps speed) with Jaring.

Plus, i'm entitled the MY015 phone number, which can let me use VOIP to make cheap call. <- detail yet to be confirmed, as in, the special phone adapter etc...

I DSK-ed some forums, so far still VERY few people switched to Jaring. Majority complained about its wireless service, but all that i've seen so far, praised the stable wired broadband service.

How? I'm a white mouse it seems! All the people seem like "filter shore see fire" If the service is lousy how?

Aiyuh, another sissy-type decision to make la...

Screamyx or Triskaidekaphobia?

Finally, there's a burger from KFC that can seriously rival with McDonald.

In the last two weeks I ate this set no less than 5 times ok?!

Back in McD days, I only thought that McDeluxe large set can fill up my partial (ah, yah, cos actaully i can still eat more) stomach.

KFC? No chance!

Until this Zinger Maxx, it's delicious ok?!

Mmmm, I'm lovin' it.. ops, "It's finger lickin' good" ok...