During my preparation for a super multiboot computer, I needed to know how much hard disk space to allocate for the various Linux, DOS/Windows and alternate operating systems. These were usually easy to check by visiting each of the distros websites. Anyway, I took some gparted partition manager screenshot of my hard disk, hopefully this would give a fair idea of how much space each distro used up.
How To Build a Super Multi-Boot Linux OS
Having cleaned up several of my old PCs, I’ve decided to embark on my next project. To make a super multi-boot OS system with Linux, DOS, Windows XP and alternate operating systems. Dual-booting is fairly easy, but multi-booting with 10 OSes, now that would be a feat! In order to cram in so many OS, some prior preparation would be needed. Since these are old PCs with Pentium 4, Dual-Core and Core 2 Duo, I would need to look for pretty lightweight Linux. I also wanted some alternative non-linux, non-Windows OS.
Cleaning Up Dusty Computers
I have a bunch of old computers which I would like to repurpose for experiments and other tasks. These old PCs were given to me by family members and some were salvage from the office. These were more than 10 years old and they were no longer capable of running the latest Windows 10. However they were still capable of running light weight operating system like Linux.
However before I could reuse them, I needed to clean them out as the dust accumulated inside was like a mini grey moss jungle, well one of it anyway. The rest had dust in hard to reach corners and on the board itself. Since they were old, I decided to do some drastic cleaning measures. I think most technician would've frown at my methods, but I found it to be truly effective! However a very thorough cleaning was no easy task and it took me the better part of an entire day to clean up one PC. With so many old computers at my disposable, it spanned several weekends just to clean them up! Fortunately with the pandemic lockdown and working from home, I have some spare time after hours to tinker with my various hobby projects!
How to Prevent Extra Draft Copies in eMClient in Gmail
eM Client is good alternative to the bloated Microsoft Office Outlook. I found it to be very stable and faster and worked seamlessly with Google G Suite Gmail. Plus it has a similar look and feel of Office Outlook making it easier for my colleague to migrate to eMClient. Thus I introduce it to my colleagues and asked them to move over to this email client instead. This helped to reduce my troubleshooting time needed to fix my colleague problem whenever Microsoft Outlook started to act up.
However the recent version upgrade to the latest version, I found that extra draft copies started to pile up in the Gmail draft folders. It was quite annoying and I have to daily log in online to draft folder to discard the extra draft copies.
Raid Shadow Legends Final Farewell and Review
I have decided to make a full stop playing Raid Shadow Legends. I have played this for one year from October 2019 till October 2020. I believe I have more or less understood the game mechanics. This was as far as I could go before hitting the wall.
Having played several mobile games, the endless upgrading sure did take its toll. And Raid Shadow Legend was really the worst of the lot that I have tried in terms of the number of hours I needed to put in to make any gains at the higher rank.
Alcatroz Xplorer Go! 100BT and Rapoo 8000s keyboard review
Recently I got myself two keyboards, the Alcatroz Xplorer GO! 100BT (Bluetooth) and the Rapoo 8000s dual keyboard mouse combo nano wireless. With this review hopefully would help anyone out there who may be planning between a bluetooth type devices and wireless type devices.
While waiting out during this Covid-19 virus lockdown and working from home, I went ahead and purchase th Alcatroz Xplorer Go! 100BT keyboard thinking that it might a good idea to use bluetooth to connect to my PC and other devices without having to sacrifice a USB port, especially on my laptop where there is a limited number of slots available. However after using it for awhile, this didn't turn out to be such a good idea, plus this keyboard design was not going the way that I've planned out.
My RAID Shadow Legend game play so far
I've started playing Plarium RAID Shadow Legend since October 2019 having decided to slowdown playing on Pixonic War Robots. I wanted something different from the usual 1st person shooter game. I had played many versions of RPG from the very first Apple Phantasie with its very basic graphics, the popular Ultima, then to the much better graphics and music of and scary atmosphere of Diablo, and finally this.
War Robots game play getting harder
I've slowed down playing Pixonics War Robots mobile game around October 2019. I started another mobile game from Plarium RAID Shadow Legends to give myself some game difference. I didn't give up War Robots altogether having amassed a tidy little Robots and Weapons. Just milking along on the daily advertisement viewing reward collection. And should I gather enough Silver Ag, I would upgrade an item. Mind you, the amount needed to upgrade anything was so exorbitant making it near impossible to gain any upgrade advantage. Coupled with the new Titan robots, pilots, modules, etc, it takes forever to upgrade anything! Thankfully Pixonic tried to give additional silver, but it is never enough. It still takes forever to upgrade! Period.
War Robots Pilots, Death Squads, and new stuffs
I am still banging ahead with Pixonics War Robots mobile game despite considering to stop playing for quite some time. I suppose the idea of piloting mechs and busting other mech still appeals to me. From my last post, there were additional changes, which some players considered it as a move by Pixonics to glean some funds out of the players. Any additional stuff added requires an arduous uphill time consuming and costly upgrading process.
War Robots October Update
Finally I have played War Robots game for exactly one year after quitting Pokemon. It is probably about quitting time for War Robots as well. During this one year of playing this online multiplayer battle mode, I have seen many changes done by Pixonics in trying to keep the game interesting. Unfortunately more often than not, the changes made the game more difficult and takes the fun out of it.
So here’s the quick low down on the good, the bad and the ugly of this War Robots game.
So here’s the quick low down on the good, the bad and the ugly of this War Robots game.
War Robots Recent May 2018 update, Free-For-All mode & etc
War Robots recently had an update to their game which saw a new game map on a ship carrier, changes to the battle rewards and black market, and a couple of new robots and new weapons. Some of the changes I felt was much improved over the previous offering especially for the black market random chance.
I think with the new update, I would have hoped for some improvement on the game balance. There are still lopsidedness in the mix of team players ability and strengths. There were situation where the opposing red team has way too many superior players and made quick work out of the under strength blue team. It didn’t take long before the game was considered a lost cause. However due to the penalty of quitting the game early, I just have to face the bitter pill of being obliterated and hope that I have caused a high enough damage points to be at least in the top two spot of the losing team to avoid getting negative rating.
I think with the new update, I would have hoped for some improvement on the game balance. There are still lopsidedness in the mix of team players ability and strengths. There were situation where the opposing red team has way too many superior players and made quick work out of the under strength blue team. It didn’t take long before the game was considered a lost cause. However due to the penalty of quitting the game early, I just have to face the bitter pill of being obliterated and hope that I have caused a high enough damage points to be at least in the top two spot of the losing team to avoid getting negative rating.
War Robots - Supply Line Drop, Battle League Rewards and Component Collection
It’s been a month since the War Robots Lunar event was over. Pixonics has made several more changes and introduced more robots and weapons, and they were only available by 10,000 components of their own type. This made it very difficult to obtain and with more and more of these types of robots and weapons, the component collection also becomes more difficult especially in the black market random spin.
The new robots and weapons were much more powerful. And if too many of these were in the team line up, the gameplay could really suffer and made it less enjoyable. So I do hope the gamemakers would balance the gameplay out. For example I found the Shocktrain weapon to be too powerful and a range that gives it too good a coverage. A shot from it reduced my robot durability by as much 30% and even if it bounced onto my robot, the reduction was much too devastating. If a weapon should be able to hit multiple targets should have far less damage logically speaking. The damage should be shared amongst the several robots that it hits. Despite Pixonics reducing the damage inflicted, it was still unfair to the players in the receiving end of the stick. Pixonic should take note of this.
The new robots and weapons were much more powerful. And if too many of these were in the team line up, the gameplay could really suffer and made it less enjoyable. So I do hope the gamemakers would balance the gameplay out. For example I found the Shocktrain weapon to be too powerful and a range that gives it too good a coverage. A shot from it reduced my robot durability by as much 30% and even if it bounced onto my robot, the reduction was much too devastating. If a weapon should be able to hit multiple targets should have far less damage logically speaking. The damage should be shared amongst the several robots that it hits. Despite Pixonics reducing the damage inflicted, it was still unfair to the players in the receiving end of the stick. Pixonic should take note of this.
War Robots Lunar Event 2018
Chinese New Year would soon be over and so would the War Robot Lunar event. This time round I didn’t want to stress myself out trying to chase those goodies. My previous chasing during the Christmas 2017 event did left me stressed out. The task list was really strenuous to get through and all I could achieved for part 1 was all the way to Orkan level. Leaving me too burnout for part 2, and was only able to strive up to getting a Stalker.
I decided to take it easy for the War Robot Lunar event. I’m not going the way of the hardcore players. After all this was just a game. No need to get all stressed up about it. If I get it, I get it. If not, no need to fret for not having those coveted robots and weaponry. Though I did find those Korean robots players highly irritating. The dash ability made it very difficult to shoot it down. In most case if the opposing red team has one or more of these robots, it would spell the death knell for my blue team.
I decided to take it easy for the War Robot Lunar event. I’m not going the way of the hardcore players. After all this was just a game. No need to get all stressed up about it. If I get it, I get it. If not, no need to fret for not having those coveted robots and weaponry. Though I did find those Korean robots players highly irritating. The dash ability made it very difficult to shoot it down. In most case if the opposing red team has one or more of these robots, it would spell the death knell for my blue team.
War Robots Event Task List 2017
December is well into half month, another half month it will be year 2018. I just started playing War Robots in October this year. Already learning the in and outs of the game, more or less. I do know there are many hardcore players out there. Suping up their robots and weaponry & equipment so much that it so difficult to destroy their robots. Sometimes I need to use 3 robots to defeat one of them! It is times like this I rather run away and look for another softer target.
Anyway, the War Robots Event is a good chance to obtain items and robots quickly without having to go through the long tedious wait for amassing gold and workshop points. However don’t think this would be an easy task. The War Robot event task list shows the difficulty to obtain some of these coveted robots and weaponry. Having played my first event games during their Halloween event, I didn’t had a clue on what were the next item on their task list and the task required out of each step.
Anyway, the War Robots Event is a good chance to obtain items and robots quickly without having to go through the long tedious wait for amassing gold and workshop points. However don’t think this would be an easy task. The War Robot event task list shows the difficulty to obtain some of these coveted robots and weaponry. Having played my first event games during their Halloween event, I didn’t had a clue on what were the next item on their task list and the task required out of each step.
War Robots Weapon Collection List
Feeling the power of a weapon blast? Gamers of War Robots would love to blow the opponent mech to bits! Who wouldn't want a go at destroying stuff without actually breaking anything in the house. Consider it a form of stress relieve! Playing the game and maximizing the potential to go dish out damage to your opponent by selecting the available weapons in your inventory list is part of the fun of playing robot mecha games. Going through the weapon list in the app wasn't quite so easy. So I created a quick reference list of the available weapons from the game.
The choice of weapons is up to individual style and of course affordability based on your currency that you have. Silver priced weapons were the easiest to procure. Next easiest would be the workshop point types, the gold price and the most difficult would be the jigsaw component priced versions.
The choice of weapons is up to individual style and of course affordability based on your currency that you have. Silver priced weapons were the easiest to procure. Next easiest would be the workshop point types, the gold price and the most difficult would be the jigsaw component priced versions.
War Robots Collection List
Variety is the spice of life. Well in this case, the War Robot game. Similarly like Mechwarrior, there were quite a variety of robot mecha to choose for your game pleasure. While in Mechwarrior, you could practically tried out all the robots in the instant action mode. Unfortunately it was not the case for the War Robots mobile app game.
I would say only 10 of the robot mecha (price tag in silver) were easily obtainable while the rest you litterally have to slog through to get it. With the worse ones being the Korean robots which was virtually impossible to get unless you were willing to pay real money for it. Of which I believe was totally not worth it at all.
I would say only 10 of the robot mecha (price tag in silver) were easily obtainable while the rest you litterally have to slog through to get it. With the worse ones being the Korean robots which was virtually impossible to get unless you were willing to pay real money for it. Of which I believe was totally not worth it at all.
War Robots by Pixonic
Having given up Pokemon Go, I decided to play War Robots by Pixonic. This game reminds me of good old Mechwarrior game but with some differences. This is a pure online battle with other players around the world. Customizing your bots require accumulating various currency and purchasing robots and weapons. Like most advance online game, it gets more difficult as the game advance.
So after about nearly a month of whacking other people’s robots in a multiplayer environment, I would say this game is actually quite tough and grueling. Playing a winning battle requires a good mix of strong robots and weapons and some good luck pairing with good players.
So after about nearly a month of whacking other people’s robots in a multiplayer environment, I would say this game is actually quite tough and grueling. Playing a winning battle requires a good mix of strong robots and weapons and some good luck pairing with good players.
Quitting Pokemon Go
Having played Pokemon Go for the better part of 1 year and 2 months, I have decided to call it quits. It’s been quite an interesting game, but Niantic kept changing its game. The death knell came when one of the updates cause the power up to be less effective. Normally the power up increase the Pokemon CP by between 30 to 40. But the update cause the CP to increase only about 20. As you try to push the Pokemon strength and power to higher and higher CP, it takes more candies and stardust as well available powerup arc to do so.
Playing Pokemon for the Lone Casual Player
How time flies! I’ve been pokeying Pokemon for one year already! Though not so much a hardcore player like some, but I still considered myself as quite a frequent player. Ever since Niantic came up with daily first catch and first spin bonus, I made it a point to catch at least one Pokemon and spin a stop. Steadily building up my game character.
Pokemon Go new gyms strategy for the lone casual player
My earlier post about @PokemonGoApp was an adverse reaction to the new gyms. For a lone casual player, playing this Pokemon Go game can be frustrating. No doubt the idea from Niantic is to have players socializing more and team up to take down gyms on a cooperative effort; it is not always the case for everyone. I don’t have friends that have any interest in this game at all except one and if we get together it is not to play this game.
One of the core game play is of course battling out rival teams and holding a gym to collect your gold coins rewards. With the coins collected you could exchange it for upgrading your backpack storage, Pokedex storage as well as other goodies including having a change of wardrobe for your trainer!
One of the core game play is of course battling out rival teams and holding a gym to collect your gold coins rewards. With the coins collected you could exchange it for upgrading your backpack storage, Pokedex storage as well as other goodies including having a change of wardrobe for your trainer!
Pokemon Go new gyms are awful, need new strategy for gym placement
I have been playing @PokemonGoApp since 8 August 2016. That’s about 11 months worth of time invested playing this augmented reality app! During this time there were many changes to make the game more interesting. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Niantic needed a way to keep the interest going for the off chance that people will invest real money to buy coins for upgrades.
Fixing Pokemon installation and Failed to Detect Location problems
So the Pokemon go crazed is sweeping over the world! And here is no different when the app was launched recently. However trying to get it to work was another matter. This new type of augmented reality games required quite an advance mobile phone in order to work. Although it the Pokemon website it said it need minimum Android version 4.4, the Google Play store didn't allowed me to install into my Samsung Note 2. I did finally found a way to overcome it.
Picasa Web Album ends by 15/March/2016
While reading some tech news, bump into this announcement that Google intends to close the Picasa Web Album. I normally wouldn't be bothered about as I have not been using that service. However ever since they shutdown Google+ Photos/Album and make users switch to Google Photos, I found that new service to be lacking with many features. I liked the fact of being able to store large amount of photos online as a kind of backup as well as for viewing and searching old photos for sentimentality and for references. The missing features makes Google Photos less useful than their predecessors.
Hiding Adobe Acrobat Reader DC Toolbar Pane
With the new Windows 10 roll out this year, I've also updated my PDF reader to Adobe Acrobat Reader DC version. With this update though the interface looked more up-to-date, but why, oh, why must they move those handy buttons about? Instead it was a step backwards on productivity. What use to be just a click away like the comment tools, now take several steps to achieve the same thing. In addition, the right side tool panel is always set to open by default and there was no settings to stop it from appearing!
Goodbye Madam Calico Cat
Dealing with loss (Goodbye Madam Calico Cat)
It did not matter whether your dearest was a person or a pet friend, their passing always strikes a blow in your heart. Loosing them creates a hole in your life and it takes some time before you let it go and get your life moving again. Such grieving is normal I suppose. You poured out your heart but only to be wrenched out like a dentist pulling out your teeth!
Still, a remembrance is good for the healing process.
It did not matter whether your dearest was a person or a pet friend, their passing always strikes a blow in your heart. Loosing them creates a hole in your life and it takes some time before you let it go and get your life moving again. Such grieving is normal I suppose. You poured out your heart but only to be wrenched out like a dentist pulling out your teeth!
Still, a remembrance is good for the healing process.
Malaysian GST has come
Malaysia GST has come! The build up to this great government custom taxation is now implemented and there is no way the man in the street will now escape from paying more tax. The flat GST tax rate of 6% will affect all population in Malaysia, but more so to the lower and middle income earners.
No doubt 90% of the world countries has adopted GST (government sales tax) or VAT (value added tax) in order to improved their confers. The way Malaysia has gone about it was more like a force throat approach. From discussion with friends abroad, I get to know that the initial amount collected was something like 2-3% and then gradually increased. So the effect of GST was not too sudden and the people could get used to the consumption tax. But it was said by the men in the street, Malaysia government don’t have enough money, thus the 6% jump, and using the neighbouring countries as an excuse, “we are still lower”, but only by 1%. Terrible way of explaining to the public acceptance.
No doubt 90% of the world countries has adopted GST (government sales tax) or VAT (value added tax) in order to improved their confers. The way Malaysia has gone about it was more like a force throat approach. From discussion with friends abroad, I get to know that the initial amount collected was something like 2-3% and then gradually increased. So the effect of GST was not too sudden and the people could get used to the consumption tax. But it was said by the men in the street, Malaysia government don’t have enough money, thus the 6% jump, and using the neighbouring countries as an excuse, “we are still lower”, but only by 1%. Terrible way of explaining to the public acceptance.
Search Privacy is Making it Difficult to Judge What Web Visitors Want
Of late, there were many privacy requirement from companies. That means, information about what people want or searching is now hidden from web masters. I thought such information would not infringe on users browsing, after all no personal information were divulge. The search keyword terms is useful as it shows what the web visitors interest, and yet Google is now hiding this. Without this information, there is now no way to know to what extend how people found your website.
Celcom XPAX Prepaid SIM card must be upgraded to get 3G
I decided to pop in to a Celcom centre to try to find out why my XPAX 24 could only get 2G/EDGE internet data. A quick check with my phone number and it showed up in their terminal that my SIM card was only meant to be used as 2G.
I found it odd that the Celcom shop was selling 2G XPAX prepaid card when everyone else, Maxis, DiGi, etc were selling 3G enabled prepaid SIM cards. It seems like Celcom stock is slower moving compared with the other telcos. In order to have 3G/HSPA+ internet data connection, I need to change and upgrade my SIM card to a 3G version. And the shop that sold it to me didn't even informed me about it! And when I called up Celcom support sometime back, they were just as befuddle and didn't understand what was my problem. Why is it Celcom support so poor? Anyway,...
I found it odd that the Celcom shop was selling 2G XPAX prepaid card when everyone else, Maxis, DiGi, etc were selling 3G enabled prepaid SIM cards. It seems like Celcom stock is slower moving compared with the other telcos. In order to have 3G/HSPA+ internet data connection, I need to change and upgrade my SIM card to a 3G version. And the shop that sold it to me didn't even informed me about it! And when I called up Celcom support sometime back, they were just as befuddle and didn't understand what was my problem. Why is it Celcom support so poor? Anyway,...
Celcom Xpax Data Connection is so poor!
Is Axiata Celcom Xpax data connection so poor? My Maxis line has not been able to get good signal strength in my home, and was wondering whether Celcom could be any better. The only way to know is to get a prepaid line and give it a test. Who knows? I might just get lucky!
Celcom was a pioneer for mobile phone technology and I heard they have one of the best coverage. Before I switched to Maxis some 20 years ago, I was using Celcom analogue mobile system. Nope, not the Motorola "brick" phone thankfully! It was the Microtac or something named like this from Motorola. Then came Maxis with their GSM system, and my friend persuaded me to change to Maxis and I have been with Maxis ever since.
I have never considered any other mobile telephone operator until now when I could not get any decent mobile signal strength from Maxis after moving to a new house. I recalled the previous owner was using Celcom line so I thought perhaps that telco should be getting good signal.
Celcom was a pioneer for mobile phone technology and I heard they have one of the best coverage. Before I switched to Maxis some 20 years ago, I was using Celcom analogue mobile system. Nope, not the Motorola "brick" phone thankfully! It was the Microtac or something named like this from Motorola. Then came Maxis with their GSM system, and my friend persuaded me to change to Maxis and I have been with Maxis ever since.
I have never considered any other mobile telephone operator until now when I could not get any decent mobile signal strength from Maxis after moving to a new house. I recalled the previous owner was using Celcom line so I thought perhaps that telco should be getting good signal.
My Internet was blocked by bad DNS
My internet connection was working fine just the day before. And this morning when I powered up my PC, no connection could be established. I didn’t know I have a bad DNS problem and was wondering what could be wrong.
I checked my other PC in the LAN network including my mobile phone and they all could connect online. Looking at the error message, it said it was blocked by my browser. So the first thing that came to mind was my PC firewall. The quick way to test it was switching off the firewall. Unfortunately, no connection could be established.
The next step was to try disabling the anti-virus. Even that didn’t work.
Trying to pinpoint the error, I tried running other browsers. Perhaps my current Google Chrome browser was getting cranky. Unfortunately, Mozilla Firefox and Opera browser didn’t work either.
Finally, after giving the error message a second look, I realized the error message came from Open DNS. In my bid to overcome the blocking of certain sites by the Malaysian government, I have switched from TM net DNS primary/secondary servers to those of overseas.
A quick change on my Local Area Connection properties TCP/IPv4 Primary and Secondary DNS server address to another one, voila! My connection was established. This time I switched over to Google’s DNS server.
So most likely the Open DNS gateway servers were down, or they too started implement some kind of blocking procedure. Fortunately I still have some other alternate choices to try.
Well that solved my problem, though it took me about 2 hours to figure it out! What a time waster!
I checked my other PC in the LAN network including my mobile phone and they all could connect online. Looking at the error message, it said it was blocked by my browser. So the first thing that came to mind was my PC firewall. The quick way to test it was switching off the firewall. Unfortunately, no connection could be established.
The next step was to try disabling the anti-virus. Even that didn’t work.
Trying to pinpoint the error, I tried running other browsers. Perhaps my current Google Chrome browser was getting cranky. Unfortunately, Mozilla Firefox and Opera browser didn’t work either.
Finally, after giving the error message a second look, I realized the error message came from Open DNS. In my bid to overcome the blocking of certain sites by the Malaysian government, I have switched from TM net DNS primary/secondary servers to those of overseas.
A quick change on my Local Area Connection properties TCP/IPv4 Primary and Secondary DNS server address to another one, voila! My connection was established. This time I switched over to Google’s DNS server.
So most likely the Open DNS gateway servers were down, or they too started implement some kind of blocking procedure. Fortunately I still have some other alternate choices to try.
Well that solved my problem, though it took me about 2 hours to figure it out! What a time waster!
Nested Cloud Storage and NTFS Symbolic Link
Having a bunch of free cloud storage from the likes of Google Drive, SkyDrive, Dropbox, Box.com and many others, you could embark on a synchronization strategy to back up to your precious files up in the cloud and even give you a convenience or two.
Scrounging around the internet I found you could do some rather interesting sync and backup using the cloud storage on offer.
As of this writing, I have:
Google Drive = 15GB variable with email storage
SkyDrive = 7GB plus a free 1 year 20GB storage for being a Windows Phone user
DropBox = 2GB, can be bump up by doing various task, and recently a link from my mobile Samsung Note 2 gave me a bonus 48GB storage for two years!
Box.com = 10GB
Ubuntu One = 5GB
Amazon = 5GB
Apple iCloud = 5GB
Scrounging around the internet I found you could do some rather interesting sync and backup using the cloud storage on offer.
As of this writing, I have:
Google Drive = 15GB variable with email storage
SkyDrive = 7GB plus a free 1 year 20GB storage for being a Windows Phone user
DropBox = 2GB, can be bump up by doing various task, and recently a link from my mobile Samsung Note 2 gave me a bonus 48GB storage for two years!
Box.com = 10GB
Ubuntu One = 5GB
Amazon = 5GB
Apple iCloud = 5GB
Wordpress is still the top blogging platform
Of all the blogging platform that I have tried, Somehow Wordpress is still the best. Having just moved my website with Wordpress to another web hosting, I decided to find out just what was its market share. It didn't take me long to find out.
The information was fairly new, published around mid of 2013. Information was compiled from Technorati top 100 blogs annual study. Looking at the pie chart, Wordpress has a whopping 52% usage as compared with other blogging platform be it self-hosted or from the Wordpress.com website.
The information was fairly new, published around mid of 2013. Information was compiled from Technorati top 100 blogs annual study. Looking at the pie chart, Wordpress has a whopping 52% usage as compared with other blogging platform be it self-hosted or from the Wordpress.com website.
Moving my Wordpress Installation
I'm moving my Wordpress installation to another webhosting company once again! It's one of those things, sort of like shifting house for one reason or another. Migrating the entire website is no easy task. Especially if your website is as complicated as mine!
Though I still have another 5 months of hosting left, I decided to move it earlier as I foresee I will be busy with work and other matters for the next coming months. Even now, I can't seem to find the time to blog about my favourite things. Anyway, will just have to do a better job on time management.
My personal website has been on a stand alone budget web hosting. I decided to migrate it to my other shared web hosting and save some cost. There is perfectly nothing wrong with Cynet web hosting, it is really cheap and yet very stable. You could customized your hosting requirement based on how active is your website. If you needed more storage or more bandwidth, just upgrade to higher hosting solution. I have been using it for 3 to 4 years, but decided to consolidate my various websites (and save some cost too).
Though I still have another 5 months of hosting left, I decided to move it earlier as I foresee I will be busy with work and other matters for the next coming months. Even now, I can't seem to find the time to blog about my favourite things. Anyway, will just have to do a better job on time management.
My personal website has been on a stand alone budget web hosting. I decided to migrate it to my other shared web hosting and save some cost. There is perfectly nothing wrong with Cynet web hosting, it is really cheap and yet very stable. You could customized your hosting requirement based on how active is your website. If you needed more storage or more bandwidth, just upgrade to higher hosting solution. I have been using it for 3 to 4 years, but decided to consolidate my various websites (and save some cost too).
Chrome New Apps Extension
Like I said, changes from Google are rather annoying and the recent Chrome changes made me scratched my head for many days. This year, Google has made a lot of changes to their apps and software. And changes means having to re-familiarize the layout on how you usually get your work done and re-learning where are all those buttons and settings!
So after the recent Chrome update, suddenly my Chrome App Shortcut extension dissappeared and was replaced with the history panel, which was also rather uglily miniturized. Initially I thought I messed up my Chrome settings but couldn't remember if I changed any settings. It was as though I had some amnesia to what I did wrong to Google Chrome.
So after the recent Chrome update, suddenly my Chrome App Shortcut extension dissappeared and was replaced with the history panel, which was also rather uglily miniturized. Initially I thought I messed up my Chrome settings but couldn't remember if I changed any settings. It was as though I had some amnesia to what I did wrong to Google Chrome.
Android Phone is the most popular OS for Smartphones
The Android onslaught has made it the most popular smartphone O/S. The recent IDC figures shows a whopping 79.3% market share domination! Leaving the other competing platform in the dust. The nearest contender from Apple IOS only managed a miserably 13.2% market share. And my second favourite Windows Phone platform still has a lot of catching up to do standing at 3.7%.
Microsoft Outlook Live Will discontinue multiple linked account
Log in to Microsoft Outlook Live Hotmail account today and saw the message flash. It mentioned that it will discontinue the multiple linked account feature. The message didn't show again after I re-login. Looks like in the webmail world of Microsoft and Google, lots of changes were happening!
Google decided to merge the storage partition of Gmail, Drive and Google+ Photos (Picasa), which seemed rather convenient, and now Microsoft decided to disable the linked account feature, which was rather inconvenient but improved security.
In the online world, there is always this trade off between convenience versus security and they are usually mutually exclusive. If you want more convenience, you will get less security and vice versa. Knowing that black hat hackers are constantly probing and attempting to break into any online systems and email accounts, and losing your email was a big deal especially if it was your main account for banking, password recovery and other important correspondence. I suppose giving priority to security over convenience seemed like a logical choice.
Google decided to merge the storage partition of Gmail, Drive and Google+ Photos (Picasa), which seemed rather convenient, and now Microsoft decided to disable the linked account feature, which was rather inconvenient but improved security.
In the online world, there is always this trade off between convenience versus security and they are usually mutually exclusive. If you want more convenience, you will get less security and vice versa. Knowing that black hat hackers are constantly probing and attempting to break into any online systems and email accounts, and losing your email was a big deal especially if it was your main account for banking, password recovery and other important correspondence. I suppose giving priority to security over convenience seemed like a logical choice.
Surprise! Google Drive Storage is now 15GB
This came a surprise to me when I found that I have 15 GB free Google Drive storage. However after digging around the information online and on closer inspection of my account, this was not really an increase but rather a combining of storage from the various storage. Some blogs said the Drive storage account was increased because it felt like you gained 15 GB of Google Drive / Picasa storage and 15 GB of Gmail storage. So let's look at this closer.
LiveScribe distributor Big'Ant in Malaysia is no more
Talk about bad timing! Big Ant (M) Sdn Bhd under the K-One Technology Berhad who was authorized distributor of Livescribe Pulse and Echo digital pen products has gone bust! Just at the time when my 2GB Pulse pen just ran out of ink and I thought of buying a refill ink cartridge.
I found it strange when my usual IT haunt at All IT Section 14 PJ suddenly removed all the Livescribe products. At first nobody seemed to know what was happening and they weren't able to sell me any of the accessories and replacements. So I searched online and obtained the contact number for K-One Technology / Big’Ant division. Called them up but nobody picked up the phone. After several futile attempts, it dawned onto me that this company may have gone bankrupt.
I found it strange when my usual IT haunt at All IT Section 14 PJ suddenly removed all the Livescribe products. At first nobody seemed to know what was happening and they weren't able to sell me any of the accessories and replacements. So I searched online and obtained the contact number for K-One Technology / Big’Ant division. Called them up but nobody picked up the phone. After several futile attempts, it dawned onto me that this company may have gone bankrupt.
DNS Servers in Malaysia and Overseas
Every now and then, I would tinker with my router modem and network adapters. In most cases DHCP would be fine. But some of the legacy devices like my very old HP Laser Jet 5000 series printer as well as our re-cond all-in-on Ricoh photocopier machine (although fairly new, but uses some very old network communication protocols) worked better with a fixed network IP protocol.
For small office like mine, manually configuring each PC to a fixed IP was not such a big issue. However when setting the Internet Protocol TCP/IPv4 from DHCP to manual settings, the "obtain DNS servers address automatically" sections gets grayed out.
So I would need to key in the DNS servers manually in order for internet connection to work. Scrounging around the internet, I managed to gather all the local DNS Servers as well as some international ones too! I set up this list because I can't remember the DNS server address, so this post was made as sort of a note for me for quick access!
For small office like mine, manually configuring each PC to a fixed IP was not such a big issue. However when setting the Internet Protocol TCP/IPv4 from DHCP to manual settings, the "obtain DNS servers address automatically" sections gets grayed out.
So I would need to key in the DNS servers manually in order for internet connection to work. Scrounging around the internet, I managed to gather all the local DNS Servers as well as some international ones too! I set up this list because I can't remember the DNS server address, so this post was made as sort of a note for me for quick access!
Google App is no longer free
I know this news about Google App being no longer free comes a bit late from me, but phew, been really busy! Didn't really have the time to blog or tinker with my websites!
I was rather surprised that Google was pulling out the free version of the Google App. However for those who has already signed up before 8/Dec/2012 news announcement were indeed rather fortunate! Google has been shrinking the free account features starting with reducing the number of inboxes available from 50 free users to 10 free users on 10/May/2011 for new signups. And now the bombshell, no more free Google app account offering!
I was rather surprised that Google was pulling out the free version of the Google App. However for those who has already signed up before 8/Dec/2012 news announcement were indeed rather fortunate! Google has been shrinking the free account features starting with reducing the number of inboxes available from 50 free users to 10 free users on 10/May/2011 for new signups. And now the bombshell, no more free Google app account offering!
Messed up my Wordpress Blog and now lags, trying to find a solution
I think I really did it this time round and messed up my Wordpress blog big time! While playing around with StoryTlr, I noticed it was hogging up a lot of server space. Yeah sure, I'm using a very low cost hosting but figured it was good enough for my current needs. I decided to get rid of StoryTlr since I couldn't get the auto update to work anyway. However, after deleting it, much of my server space were still being hog. I said no way, how could it be?
So browsing around trying to find out where the culprit files were, I decided to delete many log files in the /home directory figuring it would be of no use. Finally I chance upon the main culprit error log file in Wordpress which was hogging about 70% of the limited server space. Zap! And that's it, deleted the offending large file.
So browsing around trying to find out where the culprit files were, I decided to delete many log files in the /home directory figuring it would be of no use. Finally I chance upon the main culprit error log file in Wordpress which was hogging about 70% of the limited server space. Zap! And that's it, deleted the offending large file.
Panda and Penguin, very potent web traffic killer
The recent Panda and Penguin updates has severely affected many web site traffic. Being very busy myself, I have not the time to do a proper cleanup of the Panda and Penguin traffic killer factors. So much to my dismay all the hard work of getting website traffic is now going down the drain and not many people has much clue as to how to gain back the traffic.
Basically, Panda is more about content and on page ranking factors while Penguin is about off page ranking factors particularly about inbound linking. When Google came up with the plan to limit the effects of these factors and come out with penalties, many websites were affected.
Too much on my mind or getting forgetful
The last many days has been very busy for me. Too much on my mind, could be a contributing factor to my forgetfulness! I may not have the best memory but it has been said you could train your brain for better memory retention. Probably true to a certain extent. Having to remember as much details on a road trip for my blogging sure helped out. Still there are situation that I found I could not remember simple things. Probably just too many pending things to do in my mind.
With a new boss changeover in the company, I suppose there will be added burden to get him settled in while at the same time trying to secure new prospects for the company. Not to mention the recent and not recent changes in the Google SEO scene meant I need to do a lot of things to clean up my sites both on site and off site ranking factors. It can get complicated so sort of procrastinating on it much to the detriment of my website traffic.
Galaxy Hotel in Shanghai, and the surrounding area
Galaxy Hotel in Shanghai is quite a nice hotel for business stay. It's quite pricey at RMB¥689, which is far more expensive then PJ Hilton with our company's corporate rate. It is located next to Rainbow Hotel which I've stay once during one my holiday tour to Shanghai.
Flight from KL to Shanghai was rather smooth despite me getting a mild cold. The last many days running around in the hot humid weather of Kuala Lumpur really wore me down. So the 28°C was a nice change. It wasn't too warm and neither was it cold.
The check in counter was located on the second floor so when I arrived I was a little lost as to where to check in! This was the first time coming to Shanghai not on a tour group so many things have do on my own. I was told to take either a taxi or bus, taxi would be quicker but costly at about RMB¥200 while the bus ride cost RMB¥24. Walking around the Pudong Airport I somehow ended up at the bus stop rather then the taxi stand.
Google Penguin Anti-Webspam update again causing website traffic drop
I'm seeing another significant drop in my website traffic from the recent Google Penguin Anti-webspam update which was recently launched around 24th April 2012. The Google dance is getting me spinning in circles! After suffering 60% drop in website traffic from the Google Panda update, the latest installment of Google attempt at reducing webspam is again killing legitimate authority sites. According to Google, this should affect 3% of the websites (but based on many kvetching, could be more than 10% affected websites!).
Lots of Interface Changes with Google Services and Facebook, for better or for worse
There's been a lot of changes with the user interface of various Google services and Facebook and others (which I haven't gotten around, but I'm sure there are and would find out about it when I next log on to them). Getting something shiny and new is nice, but not always. So call me one of those few who are resistant to change.
Perhaps the maxim, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule should be followed. Having getting very comfortable with the way an interfaced was used, the Google and Facebook threw a curve ball at users and for better or for worse, we just have to grind our teeth and use whatever web interface these big boys throw at us.
Let's start with Gmail, I like the previous interface as the spacing was more compact and there was less wastage of space estate on page. Plus I could easily see more messages in one go. The new interface wasn't so nice in terms of spacing whether in message listing or composing messages. Although I could compact the message list to a certain extend but still a lot of space wastage. I still can bear with it though. But I would still prefer the old interface.
Perhaps the maxim, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule should be followed. Having getting very comfortable with the way an interfaced was used, the Google and Facebook threw a curve ball at users and for better or for worse, we just have to grind our teeth and use whatever web interface these big boys throw at us.
Let's start with Gmail, I like the previous interface as the spacing was more compact and there was less wastage of space estate on page. Plus I could easily see more messages in one go. The new interface wasn't so nice in terms of spacing whether in message listing or composing messages. Although I could compact the message list to a certain extend but still a lot of space wastage. I still can bear with it though. But I would still prefer the old interface.
Eulogy for Abraham Kenny Seow
It is always sad and much heartache when a loved one has to depart from the earthly home to a heavenly one. But that is life and we shall all go on that journey someday. It is just that some will go through it sooner than others.
Abraham Kenny Seow had good prolonged life considering that he was diagnosed with a terminal nasal / brain cancer four years ago. It was a fight that truly transformed him and strengthened his faith to the Lord.
As an elder brother-in-law, he has done some deeds that grieved family members, but eventually he has redeemed himself throughout the ordeal. And of course God sent him a good wife who stood by him for better and worse, who loved him and help him to turnaround his life.
Abraham Kenny Seow had good prolonged life considering that he was diagnosed with a terminal nasal / brain cancer four years ago. It was a fight that truly transformed him and strengthened his faith to the Lord.
As an elder brother-in-law, he has done some deeds that grieved family members, but eventually he has redeemed himself throughout the ordeal. And of course God sent him a good wife who stood by him for better and worse, who loved him and help him to turnaround his life.
Unexpected Road Change in Damansara Perdana
This is one of those days where you get caught with your pants down. The morning rush hour was under way with the rain the heavy rush hour traffic would be bad. But I never expected it to be worse as I made my way to the usual road interchange at Damansara Perdana Penchala Link for the U turn to head back out to Petaling Jaya via the LDP congested highway.
Surprise, surprise! The road was blocked due to modification of the road with the entrance pushed backed earlier at IPC/Curve shopping mall rather than below the underpass.
I believed many were caught unaware too as there was no way to make any U turn except to head out all the way, pay the road toll, to Sri Damansara Kepong and U turn from there.
Surprise, surprise! The road was blocked due to modification of the road with the entrance pushed backed earlier at IPC/Curve shopping mall rather than below the underpass.
I believed many were caught unaware too as there was no way to make any U turn except to head out all the way, pay the road toll, to Sri Damansara Kepong and U turn from there.
Google Panda update info graphic and Google Venice update
Happen to bump into this Google Panda update info graphic which gives a good quick overview of what this update is all about. And yes, this update is a real website traffic killer and it won't care whether your site is an authoritative site or not as long as your web site contain negative points that shows up in the Google Panda algorithm, you will be whacked!
So far I have tried to clean up whatever I can, but I have not seen any re-bounce to the website traffic that I had earlier. Perhaps my site still contained a lot of negative points which are deemed less useful and thus not worthy of inclusion into the better ranking on the search term.
On the other hand some sites owners seemed to have good inkling as to what Google wants and has managed to take steps to rectify their site and get better results. But with so many tweaking done by Google, chances are it is a long uphill climb to the former higher traffic for most of us hit hard by changes. I guess there are many points to fixing the Google Panda update penalty.
So far I have tried to clean up whatever I can, but I have not seen any re-bounce to the website traffic that I had earlier. Perhaps my site still contained a lot of negative points which are deemed less useful and thus not worthy of inclusion into the better ranking on the search term.
On the other hand some sites owners seemed to have good inkling as to what Google wants and has managed to take steps to rectify their site and get better results. But with so many tweaking done by Google, chances are it is a long uphill climb to the former higher traffic for most of us hit hard by changes. I guess there are many points to fixing the Google Panda update penalty.
Back to Work after so Many Holidays
It is back to work as usual after a string of public holidays in succession. Not just for the day job but also for my various websites. It is indeed very difficult to move to high gear having slowed down for awhile. This was not to say I took leaved, I still went to work, but the mood was not there to push for more sales. Besides the wretching cough and sniffling flu made it difficult. I'm still trying to recover from it, in fact it became worst the last few days with me losing my voice! Argh!
No choice now but to see the doctor again for a course of antibiotics and other anti-inflammatory medicine. According to doctor, if the flu and cough persisted for so long, it is no longer a product of virus as that would usually clear after a week or so. Most likely it would be suspected bacterial infection. Since it has cause inflammation, some anti-inflammatory medicine should help ease the transition for full recovery. Well I hope so, I have tried many traditional remedy and it didn't help, so looks like it was back to Western medicine.
This year, work would be a new challenge both for my day job and part-time. Since my pay is mostly stagnated and the cost of high inflation (no thanks to the current Government who is more interested on their own agenda than the rakyat) has pushed up the cost of living, supplemental income would become more important. No thanks to Google 2011 Panda Update and many other Google algorithm tweaks, my various website traffic has been reduced significantly.
No choice now but to see the doctor again for a course of antibiotics and other anti-inflammatory medicine. According to doctor, if the flu and cough persisted for so long, it is no longer a product of virus as that would usually clear after a week or so. Most likely it would be suspected bacterial infection. Since it has cause inflammation, some anti-inflammatory medicine should help ease the transition for full recovery. Well I hope so, I have tried many traditional remedy and it didn't help, so looks like it was back to Western medicine.
This year, work would be a new challenge both for my day job and part-time. Since my pay is mostly stagnated and the cost of high inflation (no thanks to the current Government who is more interested on their own agenda than the rakyat) has pushed up the cost of living, supplemental income would become more important. No thanks to Google 2011 Panda Update and many other Google algorithm tweaks, my various website traffic has been reduced significantly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
