Probably you've already heard about this: Diet Coke + Mentos = fire extinguisher ?? (oh well, people loved to call it as liquid bomb instead of fire extinguisher to make you remember that we're living in a global terrorism era...)

"What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints? It's amazing and completely insane." See below for crazy diet coke and mentos experiment ...





You can find more "home made fire extinguisher" videos on YouTube, or human experiment on Google video , or you can find the glory from Eepybird.com that carries out those crazy experiments. While it's fun to play with, do you want to know how it works ? Below is the explaination from Eepybird.com:

Quote:
Still don't understand what the heck is 'Nucleation sites' ??
Quote:

Do whatever you like with this, just don't try this near the security screening line in any airports, particularly in U.S. or Europe... and don't test this with your stomach too

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/\|//
             ^^^^^^`--`------'`--`^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Found a nice & small utility from Matthias Wandel that manipulate EXIF data inside JPEG files.

Jhead is a command line driven program for manipulating the non-image parts of Exif flavour JPEG files that most digital cameras produce.

Jhead v2.6 program Features

• Extracting camera settings from Exif image files
• Able to set and/or adjust the Exif time field
• Manipulation (extrac, replace, regenerate) of Exif integral thumbnails
• Transplant Exif image header from one JPEG to another
  Edit JPEG comment fields
• Automatically rotate images upright (using jpegtran) according to "orientation" tag.
• Manage running programs on large batches of Jpegs and restoring Exif header information afterwards.
• Display embedded GPS info (if present)

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 =)

Last revised: 2007.01.17

I've enough headache last night trying to figure out how to make Apache 2.2.3 and PHP 5.1.4 to work together on Windows XP. After several hours of tweaking and changing the settings, I finally gave up and search for help on the web. It seems it's not my fault that they can't work in harmony. Most of the tutorial on the web is not detailed enough and the readme from Apache and PHP is gay. I'm no expert or guru on both of them, but I'll write down the steps required to get them working and hope that one day I can make somebody's life easier if they encountered the same problem as me =)

Installing Apache

1. Go to Apache HTTP server project website to download the binary for windows. This guide uses Apache 2.2.3.
2. Open the file and follow the prompt. When it ask for the Network Domain and Server Name, use "localhost" if you're setting up a local server on your computer for development purpose, otherwise fill in the address and name according to your server. In the Administrator’s Email Address field, use any email address (e.g. "admin@localhost").
3. Continue clicking next and choose the setup type and path to install and complete the installation.
4. If Windows (SP2) firewall prompt to ask about the program, just click "Unblock".
5. At this point installation is completed, Apache HTTP server should be running as a service if everything is ok. Open your browser, type in http://localhost/ in the URL bar. You should see "It works !" on the page.
6. To customize the httpd.conf file (located in /conf in Apache folder), open with any text editor. Look for DocumentRoot, change the path if you want. For example:
   DocumentRoot "C:/Documents and Settings/user/My Documents/My Website/localhost/www"
   The default path will be pointing to /htdocs in your Apache folder.
7. If you changed the DocumentRoot mentioned above, remember to scroll down and look for a line that looks like
   # This should be changed to whatever you set DocumentRoot to.
   #
   <Directory "C:/...">
   Change the path in the <Directory> tag to the same you set for DocumentRoot in above. For example:
   <Directory "C:/Documents and Settings/user/My Documents/My Website/localhost/www">
   If you don't change it, you'll get Permission Denied when you browse http://localhost
8. Change any other settings to suit your server or for scricter security. The above is sufficient for normal static html hosting. See below if you need a script parser like PHP for dynamic page output.

Enable mod_rewrite for URL rewrite
See Enable mod_rewrite in Windows in another entry in my weblog.

Installing PHP

1. Go to PHP website to download the binary for windows. This guide uses PHP 5.1.4.
2. Please take note that if you followed the below steps and it's still not working with Apache, continue to read down to the section Another way to make Apache and PHP work together.
3. Unzip the contents to the path you desire (eg. C:\php\).
4. Go to Control Panel -> System -> Advanced tab -> Click on Environment Variables. In the System variables list, look for the variable name Path. Select it and click on Edit. Append
   ;C:\php
   at the back of the variable value.
5. Now go back to the PHP folder (eg. C:\php\), make a copy of the file php.ini-recommended and rename it to php.ini. Open the php.ini file with text editor. *Note* This guide uses php.ini-recommended file, you can use the php.ini-dist if you know what you're doing.
6. If you changed the value of DocumentRoot in httpd.conf file mentioned above (Installing Apache, Step 6), you need to change the doc_root value to , for example:
   doc_root = C:/Documents and Settings/user/My Documents/My Website/localhost/www
7. Save the php.ini. Now open the Apache httpd.conf file, look for the "LoadModule" section. At the bottom of the LoadModule block, insert the following lines:
   # For php5 module
   LoadModule php5_module "c:/php/php5apache2.dll"
   AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
   # Configure the path to php.ini
   PHPIniDir "c:/php"
   
   You can add another optional line if you know what you're doing:
   AddType application/x-httpd-php .php-source .phps
   
   *Updated 2007-01-17*
   If you found a DLL file named php5apache2_2.dll in the PHP build you downloaded, change
   LoadModule php5_module "c:/php/php5apache2.dll"
   to
   LoadModule php5_module "c:/php/php5apache2_2.dll"
8. This step is optional. Scroll down a bit and look for something like
   <IfModule dir_module>
   DirectoryIndex index.html
   </IfModule>
   Made changes to the DirectoryIndex and add index.php. The modified one should looks like
   <IfModule dir_module>
   DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
   </IfModule>
9. Save the file and restart your computer (dont ask, just restart).
10. Create a text file in your document root (eg. C:/Documents and Settings/user/My Documents/My Website/localhost/www), insert
    <?php phpinfo(); ?>
    into the file, save it and rename it to phpinfo.php.
11. Start the Apache server as a service if it's not. Apache should be able to load the PHP module and start running. To check if everything is working, open your browser and type in http://localhost/phpinfo.php. You should get a page containing information on your installation of PHP and its settings. If you don’t, try restarting Apache. If Apache says it can't load the php5apache2.dll or it says that the module can't be found refer to Another way to make Apache and PHP work together section below

Installing MySQL

1. Go to MySQL website to download the binary for windows. This guide uses MySQL 5.0.24.
2. Extract the zip file and run the Setup file.
3. You should choose the Custom installation, to allow you to select an installation path. Click Next to continue and install it.
4. When you're asked register with MySQL, Skip it if you don't have time for it. Once the installation is complete, tick the option to launch the MySQL Configuration Wizard and finish it.
5. On the configuration wizard, select the Standard Configuration option on the first screen and click Next.
6. On next screen, leave the 2 checkbox in default, check the 2nd one (include Bin Directory in Windows Path) if you want to enter MySQL commands from the command prompt without first having to navigate to the MySQL \bin directory.
7. On next screen, you can leave the password field blank for root user for you can assign a password for it. Depends on you but I strongly recommend you assign a password.
8. Click Execute on the next screen to finish the installation. Restart your computer.
9. After rebooting, to check if MySQL is running properly or not, open a command prompt and type the following command:
   mysql -u root -p
   You need to navigate to \bin in your MySQL folder if you didn't ask MySQL to setup the Path variable during installation. If you didn't setup the password for root user, just remove the -p in the above command.
   If you get "Can't connect to MySQL server on 'localhost'" error message, that means MySQL server is not started yet. Go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services and look for MySQL entry. Right click and select Start. Once it's started, you can make a connection to the server using the command stated above.
   Alternatively, you can invoke MySQL by calling the following command:
   mysqld-nt --defaults-file="C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.0\my.ini" MySQL
10. Once you're connected to server using the root user account, type the following command:
    mysql> show schemas;
    
    You should get the following results:
    

    +--------------------+
    | Database           |
    +--------------------+
    | information_schema |
    | mysql              |
    | test               |
    +--------------------+
    3 rows in set (0.26 sec)

11. Now you need to get PHP to talk to MySQL. Open the php.ini look for "Paths and Directories" section and find extension_dir, change it to:
    extension_dir = "c:/php/ext"
12. Scroll down and look for ;extension=php_mysql.dll. You need to uncomment it by removing the ';' (semi-colon). It should looks like
    extension=php_mysql.dll
13. This step is optional. Uncomment the ;extension=php_mbstring.dll if you need multibyte string functions (eg. to process unicode data)
14. Save the file and start/restart Apache.
15. *Hint* I strongly suggest that you should download the MySQL Administrator here and MySQL Query Browser here. MySQL Administrator has powerful functions that allows you to manage/browse/backup your MySQL server/database in GUI. MySQL Query Browser is a replacement for MySQL Control Centre. It's a GUI-based program that allows you to test/execute your SQL queries. Install the MySQL Query Browser first before you install the MySQL Administrator.
    Isn't life's good when you do all the things just using your mouse ? =)

Voilà ~~~ ! There you go, everything should be working now. You shouldn't have any problem setup and run MySQL server. However, if everything goes that smooth, I wouldn't have to waste hours yesterday trying to figure out where it goes wrong. I can't get Apache to load PHP module, that's nasty and stupid problem.

Alright, If Apache says it can't load the php5apache2.dll or it says that the module can't be found then the below steps might save you... or not...

Another way to make Apache and PHP work together

1. *Note* This section of guide assumes that you already install PHP. If not, please complete the steps in Installing PHP section before continue the steps below.
2. *Updated 2007-01-17* On newer version of PHP (I tested with 5.2.0) you should able to find a DLL file name called php5apache2_2.dll. Now refering to Installing PHP - Step 7, change
   LoadModule php5_module "c:/php/php5apache2.dll"
   to:
   LoadModule php5_module "c:/php/php5apache2_2.dll"
   That should solved the problem and you can skip the steps below. If you're using older version of PHP build, please skip this step and follow the steps below.
3. If you have Apache installed and you're stuck, uninstall it and remember to delete the folder manually for left overs (windows installer sometimes does not delete the config files, you need to clean it yourself). If you deploy Apache via a ZIP file instead of windows installer, you better do a httpd -k uinstall to uninstall the service then only you delete the folder manually.
4. Download and install Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package from Microsoft. It can be downloaded at the link below:
   Microsoft
5. Download httpd-2.2.3-win32-x86-ssl.zip (binary by Steffen) from Apache Lounge or use the direct link below:
   http://www.apachelounge.com/download/binaries/httpd-2.2.3-win32-x86-ssl.zip
   *Note* This binary is build with VC 2005, that's why you need Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package.
6. The Apache binary is in ZIP file, there is no windows installer for this build. Unzip and place it to your C:\Program Files\Apache 2.2.3\
7. Repeat the steps in Installing Apache section to configure your Apache server.
8. Download php5apache2.dll-php5.1.x.zip from Apache Lounge or use the direct link below:
   http://www.apachelounge.com/download/mods/php5apache2.dll-php5.1.x.zip
9. Unzip the file. Read the Readme First.txt.
10. Copy & replace the php5apache2.dll to your php folder (eg. c:/php). Backup the original one if you feel to do so.
11. Copy httpd.exe.manifest to /bin in your Apache folder.
12. Open the httpd.conf file from /conf in your Apache folder. Look for ServerRoot and change the path to where you unzip the newly downloaded Apache binary. For example:
    ServerRoot "C:/Program Files/Apache 2.2.3"
13. Scroll down and look for
    <IfModule alias_module>
    ...
    ...
    ...
    ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ ...
    </IfModule>
    Make sure the ScriptAlias is set to the correct path. For example:
    ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "c:/Program Files/Apache 2.2.3/cgi-bin/"
14. Scroll down and look for
    # "c:\..." should be changed to whatever your ScriptAliased
    # CGI directory exists, if you have that configured.
    #
    <Directory "c:\...">
    AllowOverride None
    Options None
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    </Directory>
    Make sure the <Directory> tag has the correct path. For example:
    <Directory "c:/Program Files/Apache 2.2.3/cgi-bin">
15. Start your MySQL server and hit your Apache server. Your Apache should be able to load the php5apache2.dll now. For extra info, see also : http://www.apachelounge.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=570

Hope this helps. By the way, I spent another 1/2 hr trying to locate another problem after I get the LAMP up (finally). The problem is that the raw source code of the PHP script is dumped out to my browser instead of excution output from the script. The cause of this problem is because one of the required php file starts with <? instead of <?php ... doh ! How strange, they worked in previous version of PHP5 I installed last time...

*EDIT 2006.08.30*
-- Hide the Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package actual link because the long url without spacing will not be wrapped by FireFox 1.5.0.6 during page rendering causing the page become "wide"

*EDIT 2006.09.19*
-- Added a how-to link to "Enable mod_rewrite in Windows"

*EDIT 2007.01.17*
-- Load php5apache2_2.dll instead of php5apache2.dll in newer version of PHP

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 !

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...

Found a great PHP tutorial written by Harry Fuecks on SitePoint that shows you how to build a site with access control. The tutorial focus mainly on user authentication, user permission and user registration that builds on solid foundation. The tutorial is not in depth but it is simple and easy to understand and it comes with codes that's practical. Suitable for beginners that needs a little bit more than simple security.

Link: The PHP Anthology Volume 2, Chapter 1 - Access Control

*Note* The tutorial uses example of database function class from The PHP Anthology Volume I, Chapter 3 - PHP and MySQL