有一阵子没有更新我的blog了，好颓废啊……让我把我最近生活里所发生的事情概括一下吧：

不知道怎么搞的，最近我的手提电脑霉运连连，上个星期它被我连跟bed tray一脚从床上给踹了下去，差点落个魂飞魄散、万劫不复的下场……之后我的PCMCIA USB 2.0 CARD也坏了……靠！才用了两年就坏了！还以为Made in Taiwan的总比Made in China强些……郁闷~~ 这下可惨了，我的那些外接硬盘只能走USB 1.1，只能用乌龟的速度来听歌，其余活动如BT下载就免谈了。嗯……宝贝乖哦，要撑到明年 WinVista 出来之噢，那时我就可以买一台桌上型的电脑……然后……嗯……就上E-Bay给你找新主人吧

比较有趣的是我跟朋友、同事5人租了辆车直接开车下悉尼去看 Jolin蔡依林公主 的 《唯舞独尊》 演唱会! 没错！Jolin 在14号晚在悉尼的Entertainment Center开了场演唱会！开了近14个小时的路程，也见证了月亮和太阳交替，我可是第一次在澳洲看到这么多华人聚集在一块。当晚座位都坐满，虽然我觉得有几段Jolin跳的不是很好，不过看公主这么专心及卖力表演，我还是佩服她的。毕竟从头到尾，每一首歌都有跳舞表演，那可不是轻松的事啊！那天的嘉宾是言承旭，出来唱了两首歌就消失不见了，感觉有点莫名其妙的说…有点遗憾的就是公主那晚并没有唱 Love Love Love 这首歌，那是我们都想听的歌呀……

好啦，看照片的时间到了！我用相机拍的照片就不用拿出来献丑了，朋友拍的照片还没要来，以下的照片都是一些Jolin超级粉丝的无私贡献：




虽然，我们都不是Jolin的fans，不过估计跟我们这么疯狂(省钱)的开车下悉尼只为了看Jolin 也只有我们吧…第二天匆匆忙忙逛了China Town，买了想买的东西，就往回程赶…途中13个小时又见证了太阳和月亮的交替…呵呵

ps: 回某人，经过本人亲眼目测……她那不是original的……我确定、一定以及肯定！

Opps... I just forget something...




Some quick history: I was playing around with some really simple dynamic page content thing using PHP back in April 2005. I would say that's just getting to know the language. Later on, I wrote a simple authentication/control system which became the fundamental building block for my personal website. That time it was around August 2005. One month later, a simple weblog system along with some simple interface is hosted on 100webspace.com. The first blog entry was posted on September 27, 2005. Since then, I have named my site as Darren's Outpost

As time goes by, I feel the need of my own domain name and a greater control/configuration of the server. So I registered ahkuan.com, and moved to a paid web hosting company MDWebhosting.com Old site is officially closed on 29/04/2006

So now, we all know time flies. According to the statistic info in my about page, at this moment it shows:

Currently there are 152 blog entries found in 41 categories. So far, there are 97 comments exist in 26 blog entries. It will be the #143 shout message if you make a new shout right now.

I've contributed heaps of time, dedicated lots of energies, caused trillions of my brain cells to commit suicide, drank lots of coffee Coke and listened played thousands of thousands of songs to build my site. It's small, but it's my playground, a place for me to hang out and also a place for me to challenge my skills.

The image beside is a snap shot of my website at this moment. Let this be marked down in a world that time does not stop, and you're welcomed to witness the 1st anniversary of my site.



ps: This entry is forced to halt publication due to a 3 days server update. This was originally drafted on 2006.10.02 and publish on 2006.10.05

Test... Test... Testing 1 2 3...

Ladies and gentlemen, I 'officially' announce that the updates on my site has completed! This update took me almost 3 months to finish. That's pretty long time, since all the updates are on local and I don't focus on this everyday, so sometimes I tend to forget where I stop the last time. Anyway, this update is accompanied by the release of D's Bloggie v3.1 . Weblog is the main content on my site. So for most of the time, whenever there is a major site update, my D's Bloggie will be updated too, and vice versa.

This site update, like most of the major updates, which heavily involved in backend changes. For database part, I've created 5 new tables, added 21 new columns to existing tables and dropped 5 existing columns. This is not fun, I've to change lines of lines of codes. I've also revised most of the sql queries and remove any duplicate queries. On a full standard page it usually needs around 30 queries, after the tuning, it now requires only around 20 queries =) For search engine optimization (SEO) part, I added 'description' and 'keyword' to the HTML <META> tag. Depending on the page's content, different or custom descriptions and keywords will be used. I'm not sure why Google indexed my main page but not the rest of other pages. I even added new rewrite rules to rewrite all the URLs that points to weblog and shout entries. For example, '/weblog/100/' will now be rewrote to '/weblog/100.html'. So I hope this will help abit for Google... although Yahoo has already crawled almost all the pages on my site. That's weird eh ?

Weblog entries are now able to carry multiple tags/categories instead of just a single tag/category. Tag and category is an exchangable term on my site. I've expended from originally 9 categories to 41 categories in this update. The new categories can be arranged into hierarchy format, which means every category can be a parent category and allowed to have sub categories beneath it. The public is also able to perform a search on the weblog entries, by matching the entry's title, description and content. The default search mode will be 'exact search', and it's the only search mode available right now. Read my other entry Stucked with "homemade" search engine for own weblog for more info.

This site update also indicates the starting of the battle between my site and spammers. Now, this site is armed with site-wide banning (IP range, hostname). On top of that, suspicious private message/shouts/comments will not be added. You're free to view my blacklisted list. For security, CAPTCHA (aka verification code) is used on several new pages as well as extra tracking to strengthen site's security.

For tools section, I added a few new tools. Most of them are for administrative purpose. Only URL Extract is opened for public. For weather report, I added new weather reports that cover most of the cities/capitals in Australia.

The most noticeable layout changes will be the new logo design and the side navigation menu. The side navigation menu is moved to the right hand side. This is also a part of the SEO, data comes first On this update, side navigation menu is break down into modules, every page can choose to load the required or preset module instead of displaying all. For example, the shoutbox will only be loaded on the main page's side navigation menu. It will never appear in other pages because it's not needed.

For D's Bloggie part...


Again, please report any bugs or weird CSS rendering. You can also contact me and let me know.

*Update 2006-09-30* Forget to mentioned duplicate sql thing.

Internet connection speed got slowed lately, that sounds normal to some people if their quota from ISP is reached. But that's not the case to me. It' unsual. So the house owner login to the router and guess what ? An unknown computer has connected (wireless) to the router and gain access to internet, also stealing our bandwidth... moron neighbours ! Well, it's not that we have unsecured wireless opened for public usage. It's just that somehow the router screwed up and lost the WEP configuration while I last reboot it, which is quite a while ago. Our wireless network has gone public without our notice.

Now the house owner has got WEP authentication up again and sealing up the "backdoor" for any unauthorized access. Well, if that moron is smart enough, he can crack our WEP key and use our network as a reward for him (we didn't use MAC address filtering and the router's logging system is lame...hehe..)

Anyway, opening your wireless network as unsecured network which allows other people (or neighbours) to access the internet isn't really a bad thing too. You'll theoretically be able to share all of the music on P2P networks without worrying about an RIAA lawsuit.

Quote:

In fact, there are people purposely turned off the security to avoid trouble. What can I say ? Crazy world with crazy people having crazy ideas in their crazy mind... everything is possible !

To my best friend:

Don't be sad and feel hopeless, an angel is sent to say prayers for you. Be strong and take care yourself.

  
                              -=====-
                               _..._
                             .~     `~.
                     ,_     /          }
                    ,_'--, \   _.'`~~/
                     '--,_`{_,}    -(
                      '.`-.`\;--,__.'_
                        '._`/    |_ _{@}
                           /     ` |-';/            _
                          /   \    /  |        _   {@}_
                         /     '--;_        _ {@}  _Y{@}
                        _\          `\     {@}\Y/_{@} Y/
                       / |`-.___.    /     \Y/\|{@}Y/\|//
             ^^^^^^`--`------'`--`^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I signed up the Sony Ericsson K800i phone from Three on Monday. The sign up process for 3 is so lame and being a customer, I would like to say: "3, YOU SUCKED, BIG TIME !".

The first time I went to the 3 shop was last Sunday. I brought the documents that they needed, however, near to end of sign up, I was asked for my working and company details. Thet said an operator from 3 will ring up my company to verify if I'm really working in there or not. WTF ?! screw that.... That was Sunday ! who will stay in office on Sunday to answer call ? So they can't verify that. As an alternative for that, they wanted my company's manager's name card with his mobile number printed on it. They'll ring my manager on his mobile... again, WTF ??! Give me a reason and persuade me why I should carry my manager's name card all the time with me... So after wasted 1 hr in the shop, I left with empty hands. Then I drop by 3 shop the next day (Monday), and they finally can ring somebody in my company to verify it. I picked up the phone after work, thinking everything should be over.. and bam ! The girl in 3 shop forget to activate my phone number... I got a new phone but I can't make any calls...thanks for that, the 3rd WTF ???! goes here... Because it's after hours, I have to ring back first thing in the next morning (yesterday) to get them finish what they left over.... WTF !!!!!

Anyway, the phone is great. After playing with phone for a day, below are some of the pros and cons that I still remember...

Pros

• Great imaging quality (still picture)
• Better than average features/functions
• Installation of SE Phone Manager on Windows doesn't cause me any troubles (I once helped a friend to install a LG pc suit on windows..pain in the ass...)
• Display screen is very clear
• Navigation system is still consider better than average. I'm still able to pick up the navigation style pretty quick after I switch over to this phone, considering the fact that I've been using Nokia phones for past 5 years.
• Phone is light weight
• Any other thing is good except listed below

Cons

• The recording quality is way to small and pixelize
• Phone battery doesn't seem to last that long like what they advertised
• Keypard is a little too small to press
• Not sure if I'm not used to the joystick style navigation or they're a bit hard to use
• Auto key-lock activates too fast. A user define auto lock time would be great.
• The cover that protects the camera lens seems a bit fragile
• Contacts storing is a bit confusing between storing in phone or USIM
• Size is a bit bulky but not a big problem
• 1Gb M2 memory card is still hard to get (expensive too...)
• Blog this picture feature only limits to Blogger.com ... bugga !
• No chinese input for messaging (not sure if firmware update can solve this or not on International version, since China has their own K800C)

I still need to master the skill of text input for messaging on this phone, it's just a matter of time... Below are pictures of my old Nokia 8210 and the new Sony Ericsson K800I


2 pictures taken from K800i indoor in night time (Xenon flash kick ass !). The thumbnails are rotated but not the originals.





I found that there is a green line on the screen during video recording mode. Googled it on the web and realize it's a bug from SE, many people having this problem too. They all suggest/waiting for SE to release a firmware to fix the problem but nobody claims that he/she found a way to fix the problem until now. This is a obvious bug, can't believe SE just let this passes by. Anyway, I'll bring this phone back to 3 shop tomorrow and try to get a replacement, at the same time to collect my 100 free tickets for digital printing =)

Finish re-installing my windows. Just need to do more fine tune and windows/driver updating. Guess what's the first website I typed in Internet Explorer after the fresh copy of windows is up ? www.opera.com =)

Alright, here goes the checklist for me just in case I foget...

1. BIOS update
2. Chipset update
3. Windows fix/patch (eg. Speedstep fix)
4. Display card driver update
5. Sound card driver update
6. Wire/wireless driver update
7. Install/update anti virus
8. Opera - Download, Torrent
9. Windows update
10. Optional Windows update (eg .Net Framework)
11. Direct X update - Download
12. Windows Live Messenger - Download
13. Microsoft Office
14. Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0
15. Microsoft Visual Studio .NET
16. Apache HTTP Server - Download
17. PHP - Download
18. MySQL - Download, MySQL Administrator, MySQL Query Browser
19. Perl - Download
20. WinAmp (I'm still a fan of it)- Download
21. Java SE (JDK, or just only JRE) - Download
22. Adobe Reader - Download
23. Adode Shockwave - Download
24. Apple QuickTime - Download
25. Azureus - Download
26. µTorrent - Download
27. Emeditor - Download
28. Flashget - Download
29. LimeWire - Download
30. Shareaza - Download
31. WinRAR - Download
32. GIMP - Download (Installer & Runtime Environment)
33. I8Kfan GUI - Website

... gosh ! I'll stop listing here. The rest will be installed when I need them.

Some snapshots of my Windows desktop before I format my notebook tonight. Beware, the actual picture size is 1400 x 1050 pixels...




Noticed some of those very old software, like ICQ. Geez... it's already been years since I last use it... what's the latest ICQ version now ? I don't even want to know it lol

My notebook was attacked by virus yesterday night. All because of my stupid act... bugga @#$%^&!

I download a lot of files, but that doesn't mean I'll use them or open them after I downloaded. It's like I see something interesting on a page, right click and as it to any folder depending on my mood, and then... forget about it. When time comes, say I'm cleaning up my harddisk, I'll discover a lot of files that I couldn't really remember where I downloaded it from. I can't live in a mess, to organize them I have to rename the file if the filename is ugly, re-folder it, or toss it to recycle bin if I think it's just a piece of crap that's eating up space. Well, it so happens I downloaded a lot of files that contains trojans/virus, which I knew they were even before I download them. Reason ? hmm.. It's like treasure hunting, obviously if you want to own the treasure, you have to kill all those beasts/monsters that are guarding the treasure. Most of those dangerous files are belong to underground release, for example, bot for a game. Nobody knows where it comes from unless the author stated clearly in the program. It's very obvious that a file will contain virus/trojans/bad stuff if they're released in public, and almost 99.99% of them are fake programs that carry the virus. So most of the time I'll download the file, hoping I can unpack the infected file and try to squeeze out the real one. Again, 99.99% of all of times you'll get nothing even though after you killed all the beasts :x If you're careful enough, it's quite fun to learn a bit of unpacking techniques.

Anyway, what happened yesterday was I'm cleaning my harddisk and I (unfortunately) found a file that I couldn't remember where it came from. So like 99.99% of what people normally will do, I double clicked it... before I realize it's an EXE file and regret about what I have done, the beast hidden behind the file is unleashed! The virus has crashed my Norton anti-virus, destroyed all the virus activity log while I'm holding my screen and screaming "NO ~~~~ !" This is the first catastrophic tragedy happened on my notebook since I have it for more than 3 years. Now my windows is acting strangely, Norton anti-virus no longer works (damn it, I can't even the check virus name via log file), even Windows can't restore back to the check point N days back. Believe me, I'm seeing more blue screens since yesterday than those I've seen for past 3 years. I can't really do much, the best way to do is format it making those 1011010010 turn into 000000000.

I was hoping current one can last until Windows Vista is out without formatting... but again.. bugga ! Somebody please buy me a piece of tofu so that I can kill myself...

Hardcore gamers don't have healthy lifestyle? Well, I don't dare to call myself as a hardcore gamer, but I can spend up to 14 hrs a day in weekends doing hardcore leveling for my character in online games. I'm not alone, most of the party members I party with seems to stay as long as I do.

So, long hours of gaming will bring your health down? My answer is "it depends" ! If you're on a holiday or student life, then it is fine. Most of the time you got 24hrs free =) But it will not work if you're working. On weekdays I work 9-5, then I started to play from 7 to midnight... then after 1 to 2 weeks I finally fell sick :S I don't feel good since yesterday, well actually sine last Sunday. First I got 2 teeth gum pain, then headache and a slight fever yesterday, followed by a sore throat today. Colleague says I look sick 2 days ago.. and now I'm sick ! I'm guessing the main cause of this is the lack of rest and sleep.

But thank god that my character just leveled last night =) So I'll have some rest tonight, then I'll own some fast ass 2hand knight and archers on the weekends ^^ hmm... probably I'll finish what I left half way on the site updates on this weekend.