Noise Margin (AKA Signal to Noise Margin or Signal to Noise Ratio)
Relative strength of the DSL signal to Noise ratio. The higher the number the better for this measurement. In some instances interleaving can help raise the noise margin to an acceptable level.

6dB or below is bad and will experience no synch or intermittent synch problems
7dB-10dB is fair but does not leave much room for variances in conditions
11dB-20dB is good with little or no synch problems* (but see note below)
20dB-28dB is excellent
29dB or above is outstanding

* Note that there may be short term bursts of noise that may drop the margin, but due to the sampling time of the management utility in your modem, will not show up in the figures.

Line Attenuation
Measure of how much the signal has degraded between the DSLAM and the modem. This is largely a function of the distance from the exchange. The lower the dB the better for this measurement.

20dB and below is outstanding
20dB-30dB is excellent
30dB-40dB is very good
40dB-50dB is good
50dB-60dB is poor and may experience connectivity issues
60dB or above is bad and will experience connectivity issues

Ron's sister, Winnie brought me, her daughter Charmaine and her mother out for breakfast. Sarawak style.

She said kolomee is definitely not enough for me. Apart from putting Charmaine's portion onto mine,




She ordered another bowl of laksa.

__________________________________________________

Yummy, especially the laksa. Its samba is special too - it's not really spicy, but instead, it's more like herbs or something.

I felt really full that morning. End up I crawled to her car because I couldn't walk.

Thanks Winnie :D

He's 76 years old.

He insisted to treat us when we visited him.


We bought a cake when we visited him.


And I saw his 50 years old birthday photo on the shelf.



And we tried to take photo with my grandma, who's reluctant to take because "she's ugly nowadays". Ah, nowadays.






After that, we walked around that apartment in Genting.

Interesting video.

Great effort by BBC to create the show of predicting the 5 ways on how the world ends.

It's a 55 minutes clip. Take a cup of coffee or pack of junk food to get ready ;)

Unless:

1) You have a lot of money to spend
2) You are comfortable with the call charges in your country
3) You don't have broadband
4) You don't really make a lot of long distance/international call

I don't see the reason why you should not embrace VOIP.

VOIP = Voice Over Internet Protocol. It's the technology that allows you to make call at a very competitive rate.

One of the most famous VOIP is Skype. People have been using it to make free PC-to-PC call, and its voice quality is crystal clear.

I've been using three VOIP providers to make paid call, I'll write my review below:


I've been using Skype to make oversea call. It's one of the most expensive VOIP service in the market (if you could refer to other service like VoipStunt, they'd compare how competitive they are with Skype - you get what I mean?)

But I've been using it, because of its good voice quality - apart from occasion unsuccessful connected call, the rest - people can't really differentiate between call from landline or from computer.

Skype offers other service like:
SMS (expensive though, rate: SMS to Malaysia - USD 0.097)
VoiceMail: USD 20 for 12 months
SkypeIn: it lets you buy a "local landline number"(choosing from one of the countries: USA, UK, France, Germany, HongKong/China, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Poland, Switzerland).

Which means, if you buy a Switzerland number, when the people from Switzerland call that number, call will be routed to your Skype. And they'll be charged at local rate. (Yes, because it's treated as Switzerland local call)

SkypeIn is USD 38 for 12 months, it comes with a free voicemail service.

However, the reason why I started finding alternative is due to its "disruptive price plan". Starting from 18th Jan 2007, a connection fee of USD 0.039 will be charged for every successful SkypeOut call you make.

Pros: Good call quality with a range of service available
Cons: Expensive charges, unreasonable connection fee for the normal user of Skype (Skype introduced the connection fee in the name of SkypePro, which is not available in many countries yet)

Rating: 3.5/5
Summary: While I'm disgusted with the introduction of the connection fee, I'm pleased with the overall call quality and the range of service they have.



I found Yahoo Voice when it advertised about its cheap rate.

To purchase the credit is a bit painful - it needs credit card verification, which will put a small charges on your credit card, and need you to call to credit card company to check what are the charges in USD, then write in the registration page, before you could proceed to buy the USD 10 credit.

Call quality: Bad. I've been making test call and found that it's lagging, and the line is even breaking.

I actually searched for some review before I purchase. It seems that those positive testimonial are from those who resides in USA.

Poor me, right now I still have USD 8.54 that is yet to be used.

Pros: Cheap call rate, if you are a YM user, you'll find it handy to make call
Cons: Poor call quality in my country, there's no successful good call made YET

Rating: 1.5/5
Summary: I can't even make a proper call, I should have given 1/5 actually :)



Then I found PennyTel in late January 2007. I found it because a Skype forumer mentioned about this alternative.

Registration is a bit troublesome - just like Yahoo Voice, they need credit card verification.

Furthermore, you'll have to ask the credit card company (just call the credit card company in next 2 days) for the amount in Aussie currency.

It doesn't directly offer the traditional landline number like SkypeIn does, but rather, it's packaged with the Untimed package of which I'm not discussing it here. (Skype has a similar package called SkypePro)

However, PennyTel does offer some little 'surprise' frequently. For example, rebate on the call made to certain destination, occasionally.

And I like its group SMS feature and not to forget, Web Call Back as well as ANI call back.

The Web Call Back functions similar like Jajah, which you can use its web interface to connect two phones (either mobile or landline)

To understand how it works, you can go to www.jajah.com and try out the service as shown below (for FREE, of course)

What will happen is, after you press "CALL", your phone will ring. After you answer it, Jajah will connect to the second phone et voila, that's how you make calls! (that applies the same with PennyTel's web call back ;) )

ANI callback is the latest add-on since 1st Mac 2007, it's even handy that you do not need internet connection at all to make an oversea call. What you'll do is:

1) Set your phone number into your PennyTel account profile (this is the only step that needs internet connection)
2) You use the phone to call the access number
3) Your phone will be disconnected
4) PennyTel will call you back (as set in the profile)
5) You'll then key in the number you wish to call

Take note that, both Web Callback and ANI callback will charge both the phone calls, which is, the first phone(your phone) and also the destination call.

But well, after all, it's still cheaper than IDD call in most occasion ;)

I introduced Amy about this service, since she makes a lot of oversea calls with SkypeOut.

Surprisingly, she said the call quality is better than SkypeOut! (reason is because, her housemate is a heavy bittorrent user, you get what I mean?!)

Pros: Super cheap call rate, good call quality, innovative features, per-second block charges(!!), occasional bonus/surprise ;)
Cons: The first time purchase is a bit painful(but it's better than Yahoo's), i got the softphone provided by PennyTel not working (but it works with the X-Lite) but hey, that's it.

Rating: 4.8/5
Summary: PennyTel is the One! I really hope they'll continue to provide this good service. Keep it up!

I've put a price comparison table below and yes, PennyTel has the cheapest call plan!
The price is good as of 4/3/2007


____________________________________________
Note that, I didn't compare the SkypePro and PennyTel's Untimed call plan because
1) SkypePro is not yet available in Malaysia
2) I'm not a heavy user of overseas call, after all

Bought this earlier on at Tower Records, it's kinda love at the first sight. (actually I was looking for Yo Yo Ma's)

Then when I DSK this CD's info, found that

1) He recorded it at the age of 70
2) This is his fifth recording of the same suites
3) It earned him a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) in 1998
4) This imported CD is selling cheaper here than Amazon.com!
5) The reviews in Amazon.com are mostly positive, with some say it's better than Yo Yo Ma's!

I agreed with some of them. Yo Yo Ma's edition in 1983 sounds flatter than Janos (in another words, Janos' is livelier)

While my sister said this music is dull (Cello solo), I enjoyed listening it, giving it a 5/5 rating

Listen one of the track: BWV 1007: Prelude, HERE

She'll get married on 8/9/2007.

The featured photo was taken while we met accidentally (yes, it was absolutely accidentally) on the London street, 25/12/2004.

They'll (the coulpe in the middle) get married on 28/12/2007.

Time to save up some money for the trip ;)

So after complaining to them, "amazingly" my line doesn't disconnect at all.

Been running very well since that day.

WTF?

Means what? My problem or their problem or...?

By the way, got the magic number to report.

Next time, i'm just gonna act that I've done manual connection, and I've got this 678 error code.



I just hope that they don't read my blog (who reads my blog, anyway?)

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. :)