I just re-install (again) my windows on the weekend. I borrowed Roxio Creator CD (a burning software) from friend, install it, reboot windows, and realized my windows are screwed up. Windows are running extremely slow, many of the windows services are not running. I gave up... even the System Restore is unable to load up. This is the 2nd time in 2 weeks time I need to reinstall windows on my notebook.

So, it's backup time. Not much things (rubbish) to backup since this is still a pretty "fresh" copy of windows. But hey, the Copy & Paste, Drag & Drop, CTRL+C & CTRL+V ain't working ... Luckily the command prompt is still working, the good old copy and xcopy command saved the day =)

After going through the pain of windows update to get SP1 upgraded to SP2, I think it's a good idea to Slipstreaming Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) to save myself some time in future. On top of that, you can Slipstreaming Microsfot Office (2003) with SP2 (or any version of Office you have)

However, you still need to do windows/office update after installation to get HotFixes and optional updates. You can "slipstreaming" HotFixes too, but it's way too complicated, you can search Microsoft's KnowledgeBase for more info or just leave the hard work to Windows Update =)

Rawwwrrrrrrrr ~~~~~~~ !! This site is finally up and running again

beh tong nia... I can't believe my lame ISP really took 72hrs to update their cache for DNS records ! Last week, my webhosting company actually planned to do some RAM upgrades for the server. Then in the middle, I'm sort of confused, but I think they moved some of the accounts to another new server/datacenter in US. So new server means new IP address. That also means http://ahkuan.com is pointing to another new IP address. The changes is made effective pretty quick in the top registration database and the webhosting's DNS servers, however, the so called DNS propagation process is causing all the mess around.

Let's go in plain english... You see, every ISP cache the master DNS records and read them locally instead of looking them up on the Internet each time someone wants to view a website. Some ISP fetch a new copy once every 24 hrs. However, some ISP (like the one that I'm using) they fetch a new copy once every 72 hrs... or even longer ! So even though the domain name ahkuan.com is already mapped to a new IP address in the top level domain servers, but your ISP's DNS cache is still pointing to the old IP address ! So there will be chaos... some will be viewing the most updated content on the new server but some will still be visiting the old content on old server. Unless everybody is using pure IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx instead of ahkuan.com, you'll probably have to wait up to 72hrs until your ISP refresh their DNS records cache.

It won't be surprised if you're still having problem to resolve to the correct address even after your ISP updated the cache. The problem might be your operating system is caching its own copy of DNS records. For windows user, go to command prompt, and type the following command:


This will flushes and resets the contents of the DNS client resolver cache. Try /displaydns to display the cache content.

Another alert message to all Dell notebook users out there: A family from Leicestershire in England was left in shock after their Dell laptop exploded "like fireworks" and set fire to their carpet and lounge.

According to a story in the Leicester Mercury, Shaun Allen, 39, said the drama experienced by him, his wife and children. The offending laptop was a Dell Latitude C600 bought from a shop in Coventry, about a year before for about £500.

Quote:

An investigator examined the Allens' laptop.

A Dell spokesman said that although they believed the battery which exploded was not the original supplied by Dell, the company was supplying a new laptop as a gesture of goodwill for the family's co-operation with the investigation.

Last month, Dell formally requested 4.1m customers around the world return batteries shipped with its notebooks sold between 1 April 2004 and 18 July 2006. The recalled lithium-ion batteries were made by Sony, saying that Dell branded batteries with cells manufactured by Sony could, under rare conditions, overheat

After reading this, should I just remove my battery from notebook? I run it on AC power 24/7 and the weather is starting to turn warm now... This worried me because I'm using a Latitude C640 purchased on 2003, although it does not falls under the time period for recall. I really don't wan't fireworks going on in my room, or even got hit by fireworks...also, did I forgot to mention I got 2 batteries... ? OMG ~~~ !

Amazon.com has started to offer Microsoft Windows Vista operating systems for pre-order.

You can own the Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate DVD-Rom at the price of $USD399.00 (or around $AUD523.00) and it will be available on 30th January, 2007.

However, according to Amazon, item can be shipped only within the U.S. for now. It seems DVD will be the main-stream media used. Geez, I'll get a new computer when Windows Vista is availabe next year, my notebook does not comes with DVD-rom, and I doubt it will be able to run those nice AERO-style animation in Vista... so I'll get a new desktop then ^^

Pricing info on more Windows Vista products

• MS Vista Ultimate Upgrade - $USD259.00 (around $AUD339)
• MS Vista Home Premium - $USD239.00 (around $AUD313)
• MS Vista Home Premium Upgrade - $USD159.00 (around $AUD208)
• MS Vista Home Basic - $USD199.00 (around $AUD261)
• MS Vista Home Basic Upgrade - $USD99.95 (around $AUD131)

By the way, a new copy of Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate is over AUD500, I just think it's too pricey !!! Anybody going for a Linux switch and forget about their favourite MMORPG ??

Computer firm IBM made technological history on 12 August 1981 with the announcement of a personal computer - the IBM 5150. Although IBM is not the first that came out with PC or the term "Personal Computer", however the IBM 5150 is the first that successfully gained wide acceptance and this led to global impact on PCs. It's recognised as the ancestor of the modern PC, a crucial step in computers' evolution from expensive geek's play toy to business and home computing. After all these years, PC has significantly changed our lives.

Quote:

IBM 5150 came in 3 versions, they cost between $1,565, for a home model, and $4,500, for a machine designed for the office. The $1,565 IMB 5150 had a 4.7Mhz processor, 16K of memory and it comes with keyboard. Disk drives were an optional extra but each 5.25inch disk could hold 160K of data. It included Microsoft's BASIC programming language. The machines could display four different colours of graphics and 24 different colours for text. It also included a built-in mono speaker for music and audio.

What ?! 4.7Mhz and 16k of memory ?! Most of the terms & conditions, license agreements these days are more than 16k even in pure text, on top of that, a click on "Start" on Windows will certainly crashed the 4.7Mhz processor... hehe...

I still remember the days of playing Dig Dug when I'm a kid ~12 years back, I can't remember what kind of PC is that, but the green console text reminds me of Matrix, and we uses 5.25inch disk to load the game. Then I came across a more modern PC, playing Mortal Combat in friend's house. The first game that I ever played on my Pentium 600Mhz desktop was Command & Conquer in DOS mode (greetings to all C&C fans out there). Loved the Lemmings game too back that time. Those little tiny lemmings with green hair with faces that's not visible... they're all nice nostalgia of mine. Again, if you wonder, the game is in DOS mode as well. Hmm, Doom was fun that time but now my Windows XP can't run Doom 1 and I don't even bother to try playing Doom 3 on my notebook, I don't want my notebook to overheat and catch fire.

Anyway, the cheapest model that used to cost $1,565 would cost around $3,500 today (in 2006 figures), taking 25 years of adjustments in the retail price index into account. That's around $AUD 4,500. What can you do with $AUD 4.5k ? Oh boy, you'll pretty spoiled if you have that much of money to spend on a dekstop PC today. Other than high ends computers, you'll probably looking at buying a small server, get a dedicated line and start hosting service... ^^

Salute to those great people who dedicated their time and bringing this great technology to human. Thanks !

A quick tip to enable Apache's module, mod_rewrite, for Windows. You need the extra step 4 & 5 if you're still unable to enable the mod_rewrite in Windows.




ps: Just to say "Woohoo ~~" for my weblog to hit over 100 entries =)

I'm still having trouble with my new hosting environment. They're using different configuration in some areas and taking me time to do Q&A between me and the support team.

For example, in my new hosting environment, PHP is run under the ownership of "Nobody". That means the folders/files created using PHP script has the group 'Nobody' and owner 'Nobody' in Linux filesystem. That doesn't hurt but it's a pain in the ass when it comes to file manipulation through FTP client. That's because when you login through FTP, you belongs to your username group. Thus making you having no rights to manipulate to those files that are create by PHP script. Sounds stupid eh ? (See here)

But that's not the end of the story. If you upload/create the files through FTP, you can't delete them through PHP script because of the owner/group permission issue! That's really stupid but then the answer/solution I got from the support team is

Quote:

*Fainted... ... ... ... ... ...*

I suggest them to use suexec or suPHP but I doubt they will ever care about that. Any Linux guru can help me ?

Been looking at this over and over lately... Dell's XPS 600 Renegade !

However I don't think I'll buy Dell's desktop because it's costing too much if Im getting that XPS 600 Renegade customized. Still prefer to go to cheap but realiable computer shops to get the components.. although the service might not be that good compared to Dell.

Dell is taking gaming seriously as the potential of gaming market is great.


Still have no idea what's a Dell XPS 600 Renegade ?
Hello ?! Quad NVIDIA SLI Technology... you know what that means ?

Dell XPS 600 Renegade : http://www.dell.com/ces/

via woeisiong:

It seems that Mozilla is building it's own editor. I suppose that's a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web-based editor.
Quote:
This is a good thing to FireFox and other gecko-based browser... BUT, what about IE and Opera ?? They aren't gecko-based. Does that means that they will not be able to use it ?? hmm ??

I've seen a few WYSIWYG but most of them are pretty buggy. They all consist of "complicated and sophisticated" things (codes, lol) in it, but they have the problems of cross-browser-compatibility.

Anyway, aren't those WYSIWYG editor and BBCode tags exists solely for one purpose ? To make lazy people's life easier =)

Visit the Mozilla Editor and the live demo (Note: I got a feeling the demo page is out-dated).

Set up Google as your homepage and read your multiple favourite RSS on your personalized page! You can choose what you love to read and what you don't want. Examples are your local weather forecast, top news stories, specific RSS feed and etc.

Google has this freely-drag-and-arrange feature that allows you to arrange the layout. Sounds cool eh? But before you can use the service, you gotna have a google account, eg Gmail account.

Visit Google Personalized Page, login and start to personalize!