Writings on the wall

Kids - 20100104 - Joel's 1st day @ Poi Ching School

2010-01-06T04:31:00.001+08:00

Kids - 20091116 - Joel's 6th Birthday Celebration @ PCF Kampong Chai Chee

2009-11-18T01:33:00.002+08:00

Upgrading SqueezeCenter to SqueezeBoxServer

2009-11-13T19:09:00.002+08:00

Logitech has released an upgrade of SqueezeCenter (now called SqueezeBoxServer btw) and here are the steps for upgrading from version 7.3.2 to 7.4.1.

Uninstall SqueezeCenter 7.3.2
# /ffp/sbin/funpkg -r squeezecenter-7.3.2-1.tgz
Upgrade and install additional necessary Perl packages
# wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.tgz http://www.inreto.de/dns323/fun-plug/0.5/extra-packages/perl/
# /ffp/sbin/funpkg -u *.tgz
# /ffp/sbin/funpkg -i *.tgz
Install SqueezeBoxServer 7.4.1
# wget wget http://www.inreto.de/dns323/fun-plug/0.5/extra-packages/squeezecenter/squeezeboxserver-7.4.1-1.tgz
# /ffp/sbin/funpkg -i squeezeboxserver-7.4.1-1.tgz

A couple of things to note:

SqueezeBoxServer installs to /ffp/lib/squeezeboxserver and /ffp/etc/squeezeboxserver.
You can delete any remainings of /ffp/lib/squeezecenter and /ffp/etc/squeezecenter.
Before starting squeezecenter, it's safest to reset the database using /ffp/sbin/reset-slimserver-database.sh. Note that all your previous settings are preserved but your music library will be rescanned.
Change the symlink for the logs in /ffp/var/log
# rm /ffp/var/log/squeezecenter
#ln -s /ffp/lib/squeezeboxserver/Logs /ffp/var/log/squeezeboxserver

Kids - Joel's K2 Graduation Concert 2009

2009-11-05T11:13:00.002+08:00

Actual dance performance :	5 minutes
Actual day preparation :	4 hours
Dance practice :	8 weeks
Muvee of the whole event :	timeless

Need to sell/swap/throw/RMA/give away your hard disk? Sanitize it first!

2009-08-01T00:22:00.008+08:00

Six months after my first NAS capacity upgrade, I finally managed to upgrade the capacity of the second hard drive in my NAS to 1.5TB as well. I had actually wanted to do this since the Western Digital launched the Caviar Green model for this size but stock was hard to come by.

Replacing the old 500GB hard drive with the new 1.5TB one in the NAS is easy enough, especially given my last experience. What to do with the old drive became a problem. In the first upgrade, I re-purposed the old disk as an external backup drive for my folks by housing it in a USB HDD casing. 500GB for a pair of old folks who ain't really into digital content is more than enough hence I figured giving them a second external backup drive will probably be a waste. I won't be needing it too since my storage needs are served by my NAS. As such, I decided to sell it away on my favorite online marketplace.

Now if the item I'm selling is an MP3 player, a CPU or any other components for that matter, I wouldn't think twice about just placing an ad in the forum the very day I decide to sell it. However, this being a device that stores content, and more specifically sensitive personal content (Other than personal pictures and videos, I digitize and store all my paper documents such as bills and statements), I figured I better sanitize it first to avoid subsequent misuse of my personal information. Call me paranoid but hey, better safe than sorry right?

In terms of how to sanitize the disk, there is no safer way than to physically destroy it either by incinerating it or smashing it into pieces. However, that obviously isn't going to work if you plan to sell the disk away.

The next best option is to run some software that will securely delete all your data from the drive. A couple of tools that I know of and have tried personally are:

Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) - a popular, open-source, linux-based self-contained boot disk that wipes any attached hard disks it detects. Incorporates a few wiping techniques such as Gutmann, DoD 5220-22.M standard, and zero/PRNG fill.

Eraser - a Windows based utility that implements most of the techniques in DBAN.

SDelete - a Windows based utility that uses core Windows APIs for its operations. Note that this utility can perform secure deletion of individual files/folders instead of the entire hard disk.

HDDErase - a DOS based utility that relies on the hard disk firmware internal erase functions rather than block writes. Works only with newer hard disks (manufactured after 2001) since the erase function was not part of the ATA specification before that.

My current favorite is number (4) HDDErase. The key reason being that the secure erase is done at the lowest level possible ensuring that the operation is comprehensive (i.e. it also erases certain sectors not accessible by applications) and effective (i.e. it does not depend on assumptions on how the Operating System as well as the underlying physical hard disks perform read/write operations).

The minor grievance I have on this solution is that the software has to run in a true DOS environment (the command prompt window in Windows does not qualify) and the developer has not included a bootable ISO image as a release option.

Having said that, you can download UBCD which is a bootable CD/USB image containing HDDErase and a whole lot of other PC diagnostics tools. Note that its about 100MB in size hence its really an overkill if all you want is HDDErase (which weighs in at less than 1MB!).

For me, I used BootFlashDOS which is a simple executable (i.e. no install required!) that formats your USB stick and create a bootable DOS environment. Note that you will need a Windows XP or 2003 server host to run the executable though.

[EDIT: found an alternative way of creating a boot CD that do not require Windows XP or 2003 server. Check it out here.]

Jarrett sings 春眠不觉晓

2009-07-17T14:33:00.002+08:00

MP4Cam2AVI - Freeware MP4 & MOV to AVI converter

2009-06-11T22:50:00.000+08:00

For the longest time now, I've been capturing videos of my kids and family via my Panasonic digital camera DMC-FX01. The native format is M-JPEG compressed stream wrapped in a MOV container. If you are a Windows user, you will simply need to download the free QuickTime player to view the clips on your PC.

Over the years though, the number of clips I have grew and nowadays my family gets pretty bored when we have to sit through all those raw footage from the past. Hence I decided that its about time I pick up video editing to put them out of this misery.

As luck will have it, there is a pretty nice and powerful (for newbies and amateurs of course) video editing software bundled with the XP and Vista operating system called Windows Movie Maker. But alas, it does not support the MOV container format!

The good news is that there is a free and easy to use software called MP4Cam2AVI which can convert your videos from MOV into AVI at just the click of a button! The conversion is really quick if you retain the M-JPEG compression format (plus you don't suffer any loss in quality) and you can even select multiple files at one go! Of course, there is also the option to recompress the videos in XviD format during the converison to shrink the file size.

Although I would love to be able to just download the video files from my camera and start editing straight away, putting up with an extra step that takes just a couple of clicks and no more than a few minutes for the conversion (for free I might add!) is something I can live with.

On demand start/stop SqueezeCenter possible?

2009-05-24T02:23:00.003+08:00

My main gripe with SqueezeCenter is the ridiculous amount of RAM (around 90MB) it requires to run. On the DNS-323 which has only 64MB of RAM, this means constant virtual memory swapping even when the process is idle (i.e. not serving any clients).

This is rather annoying as it means the disks in the NAS can no longer spin down even when there are no user accessing the box. It has also made redundant all my previous efforts in getting the disks to spin down as often as possible (e.g. moving ffp, mysql db and www pages to a USB stick).

To get back my desired behaviour, I have three options:

Upgrade to 128MB of physical RAM
Run Squeezed (a lightweight alternative) instead of SqueezeCenter
Start/Stop SqueezeCenter on demand

The first option is my preferred option as it should improve overall performance and not just for SqueezeCenter. However, it is extremely risky (changes of bricking your box is very high) as it involves some hardware modification and low level bios code hacking. Not recommended for the faint hearted and those under warranty. (And I just so happen to fall into both categories)

The second option seems like a good idea but it is really basic right now and lacks a lot of SqueezeCenter's features. Perhaps some time in the future I will reconsider this option.

The third option is a good compromise between having the full feature set of SqueezeCenter and getting my power-saving mode back when my SqueezeBox Boom is turned off. The only drawback is that there is a 2-3 minutes wait (for starting the monster up on the DNS-323) before the SqueezeBox Boom gets connected to SqueezeCenter when it is powered on.

I followed the instructions in Yannick's post and managed to get it working on my box with little trouble. I also made a number of changes to make it more robust, configurable and fit the ffp environment better. If you have followed my previous post on getting SqueezeCenter running on the DNS-323, you may find this approach more friendly.

In addition, I created a startup script for the standby daemon so that ffp will start the standby daemon rather than SqueezeCenter on boot/reboot. The assumption here is that I most likely do not need SqueezeCenter when I boot/reboot the box and I rather let a SqueezeBox client trigger the startup of SqueezeCenter than to have it unnecessarily load up my boot process and increase the boot time.

Here's a log of what I did to get this setup working in my environment:

Set up standby daemon script
1. Download and install script (link)
  # cd /ffp
  # wget -O standby_daemon.tar.gz http://forum.dsmg600.info/attachment.php?item=497
  # tar -xzvf standby_daemon.tar.gz
  # rm standby_daemon.tar.gz
2. Configure sudoers to allow user nobody to trigger the script without password. [IMPT: do not blindly copy the code below! replace {your_hostname} with your real hostname!]
  # cd /ffp/etc
  # chmod u+w sudoers
  # echo "nobody {your_hostname}= NOPASSWD: /ffp/sbin/slimserver_standby_daemon.pl" >> sudoers
  # chmod u-w sudoers
Set up SqueezeCenter plugin - Server Power Control
1. Download and install plugin from here
  # cd /ffp/lib/squeezecenter/Plugins/
  # wget -O SrvrPowerCtrl.zip http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7357&d=1241562529
  # unzip SrvrPowerCtrl.zip
  # rm SrvrPowerCtrl.zip
2. Restart SqueezeCenter to load the newly installed plugin.
3. Go to the settings page of the plugin (Settings>Plugins, look for Server Power Control and click on settings on the right) after SqueezeCenter has restarted
4. Check the first two options (Shutdown and Shutdown to SqueezeNetwork) and enter "sudo /ffp/sbin/slimserver_standby_daemon.pl" in the textbox below it (both of them). Leave the rest of the options unchecked as we can't use them on the DNS-323.
5. At the end of the settings dialog, select the option Monitor idle Players and select Shutdown server for the field Action to take after idle time. Optionally you can also setup the same in End of day action with a shorter idle time.
6. Save the settings and you are done.
[Optional] Start standby daemon instead of SqueezeCenter on boot/reboot
# cd /ffp/start
# chmod a-x slimserver.sh
# chmod a+x slimserver_standby_daemon.sh
Tips and Tricks
1. The standby daemon outputs a log file called standby_daemon.log in SqueezeCenter's log directory (i.e. /ffp/lib/squeezecenter/Logs/). It records the timestamps of the shutdown and startup events which I find useful for tracking the uptimes as well as for debugging purposes.
2. The default settings in the standby daemon script does not shutdown MySQL. (My instance of MySQL is used for other purposes hence I have to let it run independently). If you wish to have the script manage that, change the var $stop_mysql from 0 to 1. The script will, however, start MySQL if its not already running regardless of this setting. (Make sense right?!)

A couple of things still need to be sorted out in this setup:

Wakeup prior to alarm - Since SqueezeCenter is no longer running all the time, alarms that plays from SqueezeCenter will not work. Initial idea is to modify script to set up a cron job to wake SqueezeCenter a few minutes prior to the alarm being triggered. Note that this should not affect you if your alarms are set on SqueezeNetwork and you have configured Server Power Control to automatically switch you to SqueezeNetwork when SqueezeCenter is being shutdown.
Scheduled music library scans - Since SqueezeCenter is no longer running all the time, the scheduled daily scans may not be taking place anymore. Initial idea is to modify script to look for this setting and setup a cron job for it when the daemon is active.

I do not have any urgency to get these features working as I currently do not use them. I will probably get round to them if there is demand for it.

Setting up SqueezeCenter on DNS-323

2009-05-21T03:35:00.006+08:00

One of the best features of the Squeezebox Boom (or any other SqueezeBox devices for that matter) is the ability to remotely control it as well as to stream your own music collection to it. But to do this, you will need to install and run a server software called the SqueezeCenter somewhere on your network. The ideal place to host it will be where you store your music library and in my case, that would be my SOHO NAS, the Dlink DNS-323.

Typically, the first question that comes to mind when you need to install and run a software is the OS platform and hardware requirements. The good news is that SqueezeCenter is written in Perl and stores its data in a MySQL database hence will run on any OS platform which supports those two dependencies; And that practically means all common platforms out there e.g. Mac, Linux and Windows.

In terms of hardware requirements, its alittle heavy but nothing a recent PC cannot handle. On the DNS-323 however, it still runs but performance does take quite a hit. In my setup, the memory footprint is around 90MB for SqueezeCenter alone plus another 20MB for MySQL and CPU utilization spikes to 100% often when using the web interface. Note that the DNS-323 has just 64MB of physical RAM and a 500MHz ARM CPU. Having said that, the web interface is still fully usable (no time outs) although you do feel the lagginess with most operations.

Luckily, the weak server hardware does not affect its streaming abilities and so far (er.. that's just a couple of hours usage since I got my box only yesterday), I have not experienced any issues on my SqueezeBox Boom. From my observations, the CPU hardly broke a sweat (>5% usage) when streaming mp3 format natively and the response on SqueezeBox Boom controls are pretty jiffy.

Here's what I did to get SqueezeCenter up and running on the DNS-323:

Get ffp 0.5 up and running (see wiki or my post);
Setup Pre-requisite 1 - MySQL

If you don't already have MySQL running, see this post;
Create a new database and an associated db user for SqueezeCenter (NOTE: db and user should be called slimserver!) :
# mysql -u root -p
Enter password: your_root_password

mysql> create database slimserver;
mysql> grant all on slimserver.* to slimserver identified by 'your_password';
mysql> flush privileges;
mysql> quit

Setup Pre-requisite 2 - Perl

Download and install all the Perl packages found here:
# wget -r -l1 --no-parent -A.tgz http://www.inreto.de/dns323/fun-plug/0.5/extra-packages/perl/
# funpkg -i *.tgz

Setup and configure SqueezeCenter
1. Download and install SqueezeCenter package (squeezecenter-7.3.2-1.tgz);
  # wget http://www.inreto.de/dns323/fun-plug/0.5/extra-packages/squeezecenter/squeezecenter-7.3.2-1.tgz
  # funpkg -i squeezecenter-7.3.2-1.tgz
2. Configure SqueezeCenter to start automatically when the box boots as well as to start it up now
  # cd /ffp/start
  # chmod a+x slimserver.sh
  # ./slimserver.sh start
3. When SqueezeCenter starts up, it can take quite a few minutes before the web console becomes accessible. When it does become ready, you can access it via the URL http://[replace with your nas ip or hostname]:9000/
4. Once you get into the web interface, the first thing you should do is to setup the path to your music collection. If your music collection is scattered all over, you will need create a "holding" directory and create the appropriate symlinks in there as SqueezeCenter only allows you to specify one location.
5. Next trigger the scanning process to catalog your collection. Given the weak hardware of the DNS-323, the scanning process can take a long time to complete. (My 2000 odd files took 1+ hour to complete!)
SqueezeCenter Tips and Tricks

The location of the SqueezeCenter installation files (including plugins) are found in /ffp/lib/squeezecenter/.
The location of the SqueezeCenter configuration files (including plugins) are found in /ffp/etc/squeezecenter/.
The location of the SqueezeCenter log files are found in /ffp/lib/squeezecenter/Logs/. Since this isn't in line with where all my other logs go, I created a symlink to it at /ffp/var/log/squeezecenter/.
You can set SqueezeCenter to automatically rescan your music collection once a day via the Schedule Rescan function in Settings>Advanced>Rescan Music Library.
To reduce the memory footprint of SqueezeCenter, go to Settings>Plugins and uncheck all the plugins that you do not use. For me, I turned off the following plugins:
1. Amazon CD Store
2. Deezer
3. Digital Inputs
4. MP3tunes Music Locker
5. MusicIP
6. Pandora
7. Rhapsody
8. RSS News Ticker
9. SIRIUS Internet Radio
10. Slacker
11. SlimTris
Restart the slimserver process for the changes to take effect.
If you find the display only shows the time and does not show the date in the "off/Standby" state, it is most likely because of your font setting. Change it (Settings>Player>Display>Standby Font) to "Standard" to see the date information.

The slimserver startup script provided by fonz does not guard against firing multiple instances of the slimserver process. To fix this problem, include the following chunk of code at the top of the slimserver_start() function.

# check if daemon is already running, if yes, do nothing
if proc_status $command | grep -q "running as pid"; then
echo "INFO: ${name} already running! Nothing to do."
return
fi
# check if mysqld is already running, if not, prompt user and exit
if proc_status "mysqld" | grep -q "not running"; then
echo "ERROR: mysqld has to be running before ${name} can be started!"
return
fi
The pre-configured SqueezeCenter settings uses named pipes for accessing MySQL, if you are having problems like database time-outs; e.g. you can connect to the web console but find that the scanning process did not find all your music files, check in the scanner log (/mnt/usb/ffp/lib/squeezecenter/Logs/scanner.log) for the following error messages:
Slim::Schema::forceCommit (1496) Warning: Couldn't commit transactions to DB: [DBD::mysql::db commit failed: MySQL server has gone away at /mnt/usb/ffp/lib/squeezecenter/Slim/Schema.pm line 1493.
]
Slim::Schema::Storage::throw_exception (70) Error: DBI Connection failed: DBI connect('database=slimserver','slimserver',...) failed: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/ffp/var/run/mysql/mysql.sock' (2) at /mnt/usb/ffp/lib/squeezecenter/CPAN/DBIx/Class/Storage/DBI.pm line 652
If it exists, then you may want to change SqueezeCenter to connect to the DB via TCP/IP instead. To do that, in your server config file, change the value of dbsource to "dbi:mysql:hostname=localhost;port=3306".

Overall, I'm very pleased with the setup. The only gripe is that my HDDs no longer spin down when the NAS is idle due to the virtual memory swapping caused by the SqueezeCenter process (which still consumes some CPU even when no clients are active!). I contemplated putting the swap space on the USB stick where ffp lives to circumvent this but decided not to as I'm not confident that my relatively new USB stick can take that kind of abuse (flash drives have limited write cycles). Perhaps its time to go for the 128MB memory upgrade hack!

Squeezebox Boom is on the way!

2009-05-02T11:27:00.003+08:00

As part of my ongoing project to build a connected home, I wanted to add a dedicated network music player for accessing my digital music library. This will complement my current pool of access points which comprises of solely multi-purpose network media players (i.e. XBMC on Xbox, VMC on HTPC and WMP on laptops).

This device will be used mostly as a bedside music player for my kids to access their music collection (yes, they have one!). In addition, I intend to also use it as a portable boombox around the house such as the patio and yard area where I can't access my other media players.

I started looking around for such a device last year and shortlisted a few; the Logictech Squeezebox Boom, Revo Pico WiFi Radio and the Sangean's WFR-20 Wi-Fi Internet Radio.

My top choice is the Squeezebox Boom as I really like the fact that it can work standalone as well as part of a multi-player system (i.e. together with other Squeezebox devices and/or compatible software based player running off standard PC based hardware). Moreover, both modes can be centrally and more importantly, remotely controlled via a web-based interface. This means that I can control my players in or out of the house and via any connected device with a web-browser (e.g. my mobile phone)! And to top it off, you can control them either via a locally hosted application (called the SqueezeCenter) or via the internet version hosted by Logitech (called the SqueezeNetwork).

Unfortunately, the Squeezebox Boom was not available locally and almost a year later, it still isn't. In the mean time, my kids have been bugging me relentlessly about having no access to their music in bed. So yesterday, I took the plunge and bought a Squeezebox Boom off ebay Australia for AUD$300 inclusive of local shipping.

Why Australia? Well, for one thing, I am going to get the overseas shipping free thanks to my cousin Yuan who has a friend returning from Australia in a couple of weeks time. And secondly, it is priced cheaper in Australia than the US. So its a no-brainer really.

ETA for my set to reach my hands is 20th May. In the mean time, I need to start figuring out how to get SqueezeCenter working off my DNS-323!

Setting up MySQL on DNS-323

2009-04-26T00:29:00.003+08:00

It took me awhile to get round to this (more than a year apparently) but I finally managed to get it done over the weekend. The trigger was because I am going to get a SqueezeBox Boom and will be running the associated controller software called SqueezeCenter (which requires the MySQL database) off the DNS-323.

Compared to the last time I was looking at doing this, the installation and setup is now a breeze, all thanks to fonz for creating a funplug package for it:

Download the package from fonz's website
# wget http://www.inreto.de/dns323/fun-plug/0.5/packages/mysql-5.0.67-2.tgz
Install the package
# funpkg -i mysql-5.0.67-2.tgz
Setup the MySQL config file using the small version of the included examples (remember that the DNS-323 has limited resources)
# cp -a /ffp/etc/examples/mysql/my-small.cnf /ffp/etc/my.cnf
Define a storage location for your database files in the config file. For me, I have it on my USB stick as my usage pattern is mostly reads and I want to my HDD to remain in spin down state longer. Add in my.cnf after [mysqld] : datadir = /ffp/var/mysql
Initialize MySQL
# mysql_install_db
Now create a database and have fun!
# mysql -u root -p
Enter password: your_root_password

mysql> create database testdb;
mysql> grant all on testdbuser.* to testdb identified by 'your_password';
mysql> flush privileges;
mysql> quit
In case of errors, look up the log found in /ffp/var/mysql/[replace with your hostname].err

Besides using it with SqueezeCenter, I intend to also use it for some web-app projects (e.g. Joomla!). Stay tuned!

Microsoft Dynamics pains...

2009-04-22T02:27:00.002+08:00

My organization has been using Microsoft Dynamics CRM and AX for almost 2 years now and have gone through one cycle of upgrades for both in that short time. And the reason? well, sad to say, is because both products fall short of what we wanted (and promised by vendor) initially as well as even now. Below are just a few examples of our disappointment:

1) AX Multi-timezone issue - we adopted the solution as a regional platform supporting 12 countries spanning 5 different timezones. Amazingly, the so-called enterprise class AX (previous version 4.0) cannot do this OOTB and even our vendor's promised workaround posed serious limitation to the way we do things. Having said that, the latest version 2009 does solve this problem.

2) CRM performance issue - The client side component of CRM is _extremely_ heavy (lots of small file fragments to load for a page and heavy use of javascripts) causing poor performance over WAN connections, adding substantial traffic to our regional corporate network (To make matters worse, network infrastructure across AP is still relatively poor, patchy and insanely expensive), and lastly requires reasonably powerful client side PC for snappy processing. We resorted to using Citrix to mitigate these issues (moving the load and traffic back to the server side) and even then, we are starting to find this "workaround" getting really expensive (Client license, rapidly growing Citrix farm increased hosting and management costs) as we scale up and throws our ROI right out the window. To top it off, the bloated and leaky (memory-wise) Internet Explorer in Citrix is NOT a good combination!

So in conclusion, IMHO, Microsoft Dynamics (especially CRM) is probably more suitable for small local shops rather than regional platforms with large number of users spread over geographically diverse locations.

Kids - 20090322 - Trip to Sentosa Palawan Beach

2009-04-20T13:43:00.001+08:00

How to send email from scripts running on DNS-323

2009-04-18T14:39:00.001+08:00

In the full installation of ffp 0.5, two email related utilities are installed by default. They are

mailx - a Mail User Agent which allows you to send and receive mail using command line parameters, and
esmtp - a Mail Transfer Agent which transfer mail from one computer to another

Unfortunately, they are not setup properly out-of-the-box hence you won't be able to use them right away. There also isn't any mention of how to do this on the wiki nor the package readme files.

Well, as it turned out, it wasn't that hard to get it up and running anyway which might explain the lack of documentation. But for the uninitiated, all you need is to create a config file called esmtprc in your /ffp/etc folder and input your mail provider details there. To learn more about how to configure the esmtprc file, take a look at this sample.

Then to send mail, use the mailx command syntax like this

> cat /bs/some_file.txt mailx -s "the email subject line" -r sender@somewhere.com recepient@somewhere.com

which sends the content of the file "some_file.txt" as the body of the message, or to send it as an attachment, use this

>mailx -s "this is your subject line" -a /bs/some_file.txt -r sender@somewhere.com recepient@somewhere.com

To use gmail as your mail provider, you may want to check out this forum post.

How much does it cost to run a HomePlugAV network?

2009-04-16T23:37:00.002+08:00

This question popped into my head today when I was contemplating leaving my HomePlugs on 24/7 instead of having to run around the house turning them on/off as required. So here's what I figured out:

Power consumption of the Aztech HomePlugAV HL109E is 4.5W (based on paper specs)
Running it all month will give consume 3.285kWh (4.5W x 730hr /1000)
At the current electricity price of $0.1803/kWh, monthly electricity bill will increase by $0.59
Over the course of a year, I will need to spend $7 to maintain 1 point.
Assuming I have 6 points in my house, that will be $42 a year!

Not cheap but still quite affordable considering that we are talking about six devices that are always on.

However, compare this with a 8 port LAN switch such as the Netgear GS108 whose paper specs say a maximum power consumption of 4.92W which works out to be just $7.70 a year for eight devices!

Hmm.. Looks like I will still be insisting that a wired Ethernet network infrastructure be one of the key requirements in my next house!

DIY Passport Photos using your digital camera and photo printer!

2009-04-11T19:20:00.006+08:00

Every so often, I find myself having to submit passport photos of myself or my kids for various applications. And each time, I find myself needing to go down to the neighbourhood print shops to get those photos taken/printed.

I remember back in the good old days, the process can take days and require professional equipment and a competent photographer. Of course, you have to pay an appropriately high price for the job. Something like S$6 for 4-6 photos.

However, with the advancement of modern digital photography and printers, all it takes is half and an hour (or less) and a common digital camera hooked up to a common photo printer. What's more, the entire process can be operated by a single five year old (ok, maybe 10). You will think that given the simplicity of the process and the cheap equipment required, the prices must have come down accordingly. Well, unless you have been living on another planet, the prices have been creeping up slowly.

To date, I have largely ignored the fact that I'm being over-charged for four pieces of photos that are barely larger than the size of a stamp. However, the last straw came when just two weeks ago, I found myself at a neighbourhood print shop needing to get my passport photos taken.

My usual practice is to just tell the shop assistant at my regular print shop how many pieces of photos I require, get through the process and pay the price shown on the till. This time however, I decided to try out a different print shop hoping that I can perhaps get it done cheaper. And boy was I wrong... this particular shop at IMM quoted me not the usual market rate of $6 for 4 pieces, she quoted me a whooping $12 for 4 instead! In fact, she even told me that its "cheaper" to get 8 pieces since it cost "only" $18! My eyes popped and I let out a loud "WTF?!" and did an about turn immediately. And that was when I decided that perhaps its time I make better use of my investments in my Sonly Alpha DSLR and my recently acquired Canon MFC printer.

The photo taking process is painless enough; just find a bright sunny day, stand indoors in front of a white wall somewhere near the windows where the light is coming through (make sure the sun is not shining on you though), and get someone to snap a few shots of you.

Don't worry so much about your position in the photo, just make sure your head and shoulders are covering at least half of the image. Oh, and don't use flash as that will cast shadows off your facial features (specifically your nose!) and reflections off your glasses (if you are wearing them).

Now here comes the difficult part, adjusting the image such that it complies with the specifications (size of image, position of your eyes, chin and shoulders, etc). Luckily, there is an online service called ePassportPhoto.com that will not only guide you along, but also let you finish the task in under five minutes with just a few mouse clicks!

All you need to do is to take the photo, upload it to the website, follow the few simple instructions to adjust the image and viola, a nicely adjusted image (comprising of 7 passport sized photos and a small text advertisement) that you can easily print on a 4"x6" photo paper and then cut it into the individual pieces.

So what is the damage of this DIY project? All of 30 minutes and $0.35 cents for a 4R sized photo paper! And you get SEVEN (eight if you cut and paste the advertisement away) passport sized photos to boot!

So goodbye to the ridiculously overpriced print shop down at IMM, and thanks for motivating me to find a cheaper way to get this done!

Watch YouTube on the go without connecting to the internet possible? Yes!

2009-03-30T19:08:00.008+08:00

Previously, the only way to watch YouTube videos on the HTC Diamond (and the later siblings) is via the YouTube application that came bundled. It is a small application with a nice user interface. However, it does not have an offline mode hence requires an internet connection at all times. This pose a problem when you want to watch the clips on the go and don't want to incur hugely expensive data charges.

Then came freeware alternatives like youtubeplay; It's user interface won't win any awards but the good thing is that it allows you to save the clips and watch them offline. However, it doesn't have a "push" mode meaning that you have to spend time working through (i.e. choosing and saving) the clips you want to watch later which can get rather tedious.

Then I noticed that the YouTube site has rss feeds and figured I can perhaps use the bundled RSS Hub application to download them as podcasts and watch them on the go later. But alas, the native podcasts from the YouTube site are actually embedded flash players hence RSS Hub falls flat on its face here.

Then I found RSSHandler; a website that parse the YouTube feeds and convert the attachments to either FLV, MP4 or PSP formats! This turns out to be the perfect solution as there is nothing to install, its free and its dead easy to setup.

So to recap... to watch YouTube channels on the go with the clips automatically pre-downloaded on your Windows Mobile so that you don't waste time downloading them in real time and more importantly, you save on expensive data connection charges:

Go to RSSHandler website.
Generate the URL for the YouTube Channel you wish to watch by following the simple instructions on the website.
Fire up RSS Hub.
Add the URL in as a new rss channel.
[IMPT] Go into the channel properties, tap on the Podcast tab and change the setting for "Automatically download podcasts" to "If Connected to PC Only" and "Keep this many podcasts:" to "All". (Otherwise, your clips won't be downloaded!)
Hit refresh and wait patiently for your clips to get downloaded. (It can take awhile)
And now enjoy your subscribed YouTube channels on the go... for FREE!

Oh, in case anyone is interested in what I'm subscribed to:

TED Talks (technology) (RSS Hub link)
New Scientist (science) (RSS Hub link)
ThinkGeek (geek stuff) (RSS Hub link)
Apple Movie Trailers (entertainment) (RSS Hub link)
Fail Blog (entertainment) (RSS Hub link)

Jarrett can sing!

2009-03-24T21:14:00.002+08:00

Managed to capture Jarrett singing "Rain, rain, go away!" on video this morning during breakfast. Check this out!

Tips for extending the range of your wireless coverage at home

2009-03-22T22:45:00.002+08:00

If you are using a wireless router like WRT54G as a secondary AP to extend the wireless coverage in your home, here are a few things that you should take note of:

Use the same SSID, encryption type and shared key as your primary wireless router so that you can roam between the APs transparently.
Use a different channel on your secondary AP if it is in range of the primary no matter how weak the signal is so that you have less interference between your own APs. If possible, use channels as far a part as possible (e.g. 1 and 11).
Disable the WAN settings. Optionally, turn the WAN port into a LAN port.
Disable the DHCP services.
Set the IP of the WAP to a static IP. Remember that it has to be unique and be in the same subnet as the rest of your network (no reason to use a separate subnet unless you have lots of networked devices or special network zoning/security requirements). [TIP: set your DHCP server on your primary wireless router to allocate IPs in a range say 100 - 254. Then you can safely use the IPs from 2 -99 assuming that 1 is already used by your primary wireless router.]
Set the gateway IP to that of your primary wireless router.
Set the DNS IP to that of your primary wireless router or your ISP's DNS servers.
Change the router mode from gateway to router since you no longer need NAT, Firewall and port forwarding services. (can save some CPU cycles and device memory from doing so)

Note that the above tips are only valid if your secondary AP is backed by a wired network. i.e. It is connected to the primary wireless router either via direct Ethernet cables (LAN to LAN port and do use a crossover cable if your ports do not have auto-MDIX feature) or via HomePlugs.

Another way of hooking up the access points is via Wireless Distribution System aka WDS. In this approach, the secondary AP acts as both a wireless repeater for the primary AP as well as an AP for wireless clients (i.e. your laptop).

WDS is cheaper to implement and less messy as it does not require a wired backbone. But do note that your network throughput will generally be halved, latency will increase slightly and the placement of the secondary AP is restricted to locations in range of the primary AP. And lastly, to use this approach, you will most likely need to use a wireless device capable of flashing to third party firmwares like Tomato, DD-WRT or OpenWRT.

Using all 5 ports of a WRT54G for LAN?

2009-03-21T20:20:00.011+08:00

If you are not using a WRT54G as a gateway (i.e. solely as a LAN switch and/or WAP and/or WDS), you can convert the WAN port on the router to a LAN port and have five wired devices connecting to your LAN via the wired ports on the WRT54G instead of four!

To work this magic, you will first need to flash the WRT54G to a third party firmware (e.g. tomato) that allows you to telnet into the box.

Once you have done that, telnet into the box and issue the following commands:

nvram set vlan0ports="0 1 2 3 4 5*"
nvram set vlan1ports="5"
nvram commit
reboot

Now you can use your WAN port to uplink to your core switch or gateway and keep the four LAN ports free for your other devices!

Finally found a cheap solution to extending my wireless coverage on level 3!

2009-03-20T23:50:00.004+08:00

Recently, I discovered just how cheap it is to finally fixed the lack of wireless coverage at the top floor of my home... at just S$30! The solution? A second hand WRT54G v2.2 wireless router running Tomato configured as a secondary AP.

Originally, I had wanted to run it in WDS mode but realized that I have a problem with placement (its out of reach from my primary AP signal) and didn't like the fact that throughput will be halved.

Luckily, I have a HomePlug network in place hence I just replaced the LAN switch in my study with the WRT54G now doubling as the LAN switch plus secondary AP hooked into the home network via the HomePlug. (Configuration details of my WRT54G can be found here.)

There are plenty of used WRT54G wireless routers for sale on local forum marketplaces like HWZ and VR-Zone and S$30 appears to be the going rate. Do note that if you wish to run a third party firmware (like Tomato) on the WRT54G, be sure that you are getting the hardware revisions 1 to 4 only. Anything higher is not supported.

New printer in the house!

2009-03-18T00:40:00.002+08:00

I finally decided to retire my four years old HP PSC 2310 AIO printer after it's black ink tank suddenly went belly up on me; the printer just refuse to acknowledge the cartridge even though it has been there and working just a few days ago.

This happened in late December 2008 and since then I had been hunting around for its successor. It took me a while to find a worthy replacement as I had some pretty demanding requirements:

It must be capable of printing photos at par with the photo labs.
It must be capable of printing text and graphics for general business use.
It must support auto duplex printing (no manual flipping of pages!).
It must support individual ink tanks (at least four).
It must have at least two input trays with one tray holding at least 100 sheets of A4 paper.
It must print at reasonably fast speeds and quietness.
It should print from media cards directly and cameras via PictBridge.
It should support network printing.

Scan

It must be capable of scanning at 9600 dpi (optical).
It must be capable of scanning via an auto document feeder (ADF).
It must be capable of scanning via an ADF in duplex mode.
It must scan at reasonably fast speeds and quietness.
It should support scanning directly to media cards
It should support scanning directly to shared volumes over the network. (no PC!)
It should support scanning directly to email via a SMTP gateway. (no PC!)

Copy

It must be capable of copying via an ADF.
It must support 2-sided-to-2-sided copying as well as other combinations.
It must copy at reasonably fast speeds and quietness.

It must be capable of sending mono and color faxes.
It must be capable of sending fax standalone and via a PC.
It must be capable of receiving fax in memory.
It should be able to receive fax and store them to shared volumes over the network.
It should be able to receive fax and forward them to an email address via a SMTP gateway.

4-in-1 Multi-Function Printers or All-in-One printers are pretty common nowadays. They even come in the price range of just over S$100! Unfortunately, these printers are usually either short in the quality, efficiency and/or features departments. Even the top end ones costing almost S$1k are still pretty lacking in the networking area. i.e. They still require a PC for some of its features like storing directly to shared volumes or sending to email. And what's the point of having networking capability if you still need a darn PC next to it?!

Some claim that these are really enterprise features and I should be looking at AIO printers in the enterprise class instead of the SOHO class. But I beg to differ as having a NAS or even just a shared file server and wanting scan/fax over email are no longer entitlements of the MNCs or even the SMEs; NAS boxes can be had for under half a grand (including 1Tb storage!) and for SMTP gateways, you can simply rely on the ones that came with your email providers.

Anyways, after months of searching, I have finally given up hope of finding one that fits all the above and instead, just settle for the one that come the closest. And there are not one but three choices; Cannon MX850, MX868 and MX7600 (sorted from cheapest to most expensive).

All three models are very similar in terms of quality and features. The differences are just that the MX868 has built-in WiFi and comes in a more compact form-factor while the MX7600 gives laser like quality via the "Pigment Reaction (PgR) technology".

I eventually settled for the MX850 at S$499 during the recent IT SHOW 2009 since WiFi, form-factor and "Laser like" quality ain't enough for me to shell out additional S$100 and S$300 respectively.

And speaking of the IT SHOW 2009, the package that Canon had put together is a real joke; a useless bag, a mandatory trolley since its cash and carry, and... here's the kicker... product training. Wow... since when did product training become a freebie?! At least HP gave away additional warranty and Epson was giving out additional ink cartridges!

I did not feel good at all buying the printer at the fair but at least it has not disappointed me yet in terms of its print quality and speed. Getting it hooked up to my WiFi router and printing/scanning wirelessly is also quite a joy although pretty much an overkill since my laptop has to be almost right next to the printer. DUH!

HTC reveals successors to the Diamond and Pro!

2009-02-22T00:34:00.003+08:00

Woot! HTC has unveiled the successors to the Touch Diamond and Touch Pro! Despite the crappy names (they are simply called Touch Diamond2 and Touch Pro2), the devices themselves do pack some worthy upgrades and they look gorgeous to boot! The screenshot on top is the Touch Pro2 while that on the bottom is the Touch Diamond2.

For one, both get larger screens and slimmer dimensions. Battery life is also supposedly improved; up to 50% more juice for the Diamond which will be a much welcomed relieve! Other upgrades for the Diamond include double the RAM and ROM, expandable memory instead of a fixed internal storage and a 5 megapixel camera!

In terms of availability, both models are expected to hit our shores in Q2 2009 which is really soon! Time to start looking for a new owner for my Touch Diamond!

Oh, and it will run on the Windows Mobile 6.1 instead of the recently announced Windows Mobile 6.5 as Microsoft has put its (version 6.5) GA date to be in the second half of 2009. Darn!

Switching audio output device on HTPC via Harmony remote

2009-02-19T15:57:00.003+08:00

In my HTPC setup, I have two audio output devices connected; The first is my plasma TV via HDMI and the second is my home theater sound system via optical S/PDIF connection. Now normally, I will pipe the audio from the PC via my TV speakers for TV and general purpose use (such as Skype conferencing, watching youTube videos, some games etc). On the occasions where I'm listening to my music collection or watching movies, I will want to switch over to my 6.1 home theater sound system.

Unfortunately, there is no OOTB feature provided in Windows, VMC or the IR receiver software (SoundTech iMon) to allow me to switch the audio outputs via the remote. Hence I will have to use the mouse to enter the dreaded Windows interface, call up the audio devices control panel applet and change it manually. Typically, a five minutes process not including the need to walk up to my HTPC since I don't have a wireless mouse handy. Bummer!

Fortunately, you can maintain your couch potato laziness (and maximise your investment in the expensive Harmony remote!) by using a combination of AutoHotKey (a Windows scripting engine) and custom commands in iMon.

Here's how it works:

An AutoHotKey script will be running on the PC at all times waiting for certain keyboard shortcut to be triggered. In my case, CTRL+F5 to trigger HDMI output and CTRL+F6 to trigger S/PDIF.
Map two unused remote keys via the iMon custom command feature to CTRL+F5 and CTRL+F6 respectively. In my case, star (*) key to trigger CTRL+F5 and sharp (#) key to trigger CTRL+F6.
In summary, when you hit the (*) or (#) keys on the Harmony (or MCE for that matter) remote, the iMon software will capture it and send the respective CTRL+F5 or CTRL+F6 keyboard shortcut in Windows. The AutoHotKey script will pick it up and execute the main sequence to open the audio device control panel applet, select the right audio output device and close (my script actually does more than that like sanity checks and reopening VMC if it is open at the time the script is called).

And here's how to get it working on your setup:

Download and install AutoHotKey.
Download and extract the two necessary addon scripts (COM standard library and Vista Audio Control Functions) to the \Lib folder (create if its not already present) of AutoHotKey's program folder. These two addon scripts are needed to enable AutoHotKey to talk to the Vista audio device APIs.
Now create a text file with name "Audio device switch helper.ahk" and copy the following text into it:
; CTRL+F5 = Change audio device to Digital Output
^F5::
; check if HDMI output is already set
COM_Init()
device := VA_GetDevice()
device_name := VA_GetDeviceName(device)
COM_Release(device)
COM_Term()

vmcOpen := "nothing"

if InStr(device_name, "Digital")
{
;already set, so lets pop a message and return
if WinActive("ahk_class eHome Render Window")
{
vmcOpen := "VMC Open"
WinMinimize
}
SplashTextOn, 250, , Digital audio output already selected
Sleep, 1500
SplashTextOff
; TrayTip, ,Digital audio output already selected, 10,1
if InStr(vmcOpen, "VMC Open")
{
WinMaximize, ahk_class eHome Render Window
}
return
}

if WinActive("ahk_class eHome Render Window")
{
vmcOpen := "VMC Open"
; Close application with Alt-F4
WinClose
;Send !{F4}
}

Run, mmsys.cpl
WinWait,Sound
ControlSend,SysListView321,{Down 2}
Sleep, 200
ControlClick,&Set Default
ControlClick,OK

if InStr(vmcOpen, "VMC Open")
{
Run, C:\Windows\ehome\ehshell.exe, , max
}
return

; CTRL+F6 = Change audio device to HDMI Output
^F6::
; check if HDMI output is already set
COM_Init()
device := VA_GetDevice()
device_name := VA_GetDeviceName(device)
COM_Release(device)
COM_Term()

vmcOpen := "nothing"

if InStr(device_name, "HDMI")
{
;already set, so lets pop a message and return
if WinActive("ahk_class eHome Render Window")
{
vmcOpen := "VMC Open"
WinMinimize
}
SplashTextOn, 250, , HDMI audio output already selected
Sleep, 1500
SplashTextOff
; TrayTip, ,HDMI audio output already selected, 10,1
if InStr(vmcOpen, "VMC Open")
{
WinMaximize, ahk_class eHome Render Window
}
return
}

; check if VMC is open, if yes, close it
if WinActive("ahk_class eHome Render Window")
{
vmcOpen := "VMC Open"
; Close application with Alt-F4
WinClose
;Send !{F4}
}

Run, mmsys.cpl
WinWait,Sound
ControlSend,SysListView321,{Down 3}
Sleep, 400
ControlClick,&Set Default
;Sleep, 1000
ControlClick,OK

;if vmc was open previously, we open it again
if InStr(vmcOpen, "VMC Open")
{
Run, C:\Windows\ehome\ehshell.exe, , max
}
return
Notice that in the above code, there are two lines with text in red. You will need to change them according to the order your devices are listed in the audio device control panel applet! So for example, in my case, my HDMI audio device is the first item in the list while the S/PDIF audio device is listed fourth. So to switch between them, the script will need to move up three items to select HDMI (assuming the current selection is at S/PDIF) and move down three items to select S/PDIF (assuming that the current selection is at HDMI).
Save the script and test it (double click on the file to launch).
Once you have it working, open up iMon manager and select "Custom Command" on the left.
Click on the "Add" button, give the new function a name (e.g. "Select HDMI Audio"), configure the shortcut CTRL+F5, followed by selecting the remote key STAR.
Click on the "Add" button again, give the new function a name (e.g. "Select S/PDIF Audio"), configure the shortcut CTRL+F6, followed by selecting the remote key SHARP.
Now select "Program Command" followed by selecting "XPMediaCenter" as the program and finally, remove the (*) and (#) keys from the mapping. You need to do this to allow the custom command to work when VMC is the active application.
Click on "OK"
At this point, you should be able to start using the (*) and (#) keys on the remote to switch between the two audio outputs.
To enable this feature to survive a reboot, add a shortcut to this script in the "Startup" folder of all users.

For those with a Harmony remote, you can add these keys into the startup sequence of your activities so that you don't even need to manually click the (*) or (#) buttons! e.g. in my case, when I start the "Watch Movie" or the "Listen to Music" activities, at the end of the startup sequence, a (#) key will be sent to ensure that the S/PDIF audio output is selected.

Ahhh.... a true couch potato's blessing indeed!

My Mobiler - remote control your windows mobile device from desktop

2009-02-11T03:52:00.002+08:00

I know of a number of utilities that allow you to remote control your desktop from your Windows Mobile device, including the native Remote Desktop application bundled with the Windows Mobile OS.

However, there are very few tools that allow you to do the reverse; i.e. control your Windows Mobile from your Windows desktop. Why would you need such a software? Well, for one thing, if you use a Windows Mobile software that does not have a desktop counterpart and you need to do alot of data entry (and your device does not have a keyboard), then I bet you will appreciate the usefulness of this type of utility.

An excellent choice for this is My Mobiler. It is small (just 500kb!), easy to install (just download the zip package and unpack to a directory of your choice, fire it up and click connect from the tray menu; no installation on BOTH the desktop and your mobile device!), stable and best of all, its a freeware!

RSS Hub doesn't auto-update or download podcasts when set to update when ActiveSync is connected

2009-02-08T10:58:00.002+08:00

If you are having problems with RSS Hub not updating your news feeds automatically when your device is connected to the PC, it could be due to the following issue: [Info extracted from NewsBreak FAQ (NewsBreak is the engine behind RSS Hub)]

Windows Mobile 5.0 has a new connection method which may prevent NewsBreak from detecting that ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center is connected. To fix this, you need to do the following:
On your device, go to Start -> Settings -> Connections and look for the "USB to PC" item. If you have it, un-check "Use Advanced Networking."
OR
If you don't have a "USB to PC" item, you may have a "USB Switch" program in your Start -> Programs list. This does the same thing. You want to switch the connection to "USB Serial" instead of "RNDIS".

Not quite sure what "Advanced Networking" does but so far I have not noticed any adverse impact so I'm keeping it that way since its more important that I get my feeds for my hour long journey to work!

Is browsing photos over your network S L O W? The culprit could be your anti-virus software!

2009-01-18T02:25:00.000+08:00

For the longest time now, I have been tolerating some major pain-in-the-ass slowness when it comes to previewing files (especially photos and videos) directly on my NAS. I have conveniently put the blame on my WiFi connection as it can get pretty flaky in my noisy (I can detect up to five APs with signal strength of at least 50% in my vicinity!) multi-storey environment.

The last straw came recently when I wanted to do some major re-organization of my family media stored on the NAS. It was unbearably slow as each thumbnail in Explorer's "Large Icons" view was taking at least two seconds to show up. After some ten minutes, I gave up on my task and decided that its about time I find the root cause of this slowness.

Since I have been blaming the WiFi connection all along, I figured I should at least try to verify this. So I hooked up my laptop to the network via wired LAN (100basedT) and tried to browse the folder again. It certainly is faster but I'm still getting quite abit of lag; about half a second before each thumbnail shows up.

So it is not the WiFi connectivity. Next I switched my focus to the NAS. Could it be that the DNS-323 has poor network throughput? I tried a large file transfer from the NAS to my laptop over the wired connection. I managed to get a sustained transfer rate of 10.5 MB/sec (as reported by file transfer dialog in Windows Vista) which is decent for 100basedT network.

So it is not the network throughput. Could it be the SAMBA server implementation in the DNS-323? I did some research online and found this and this. Nothing conclusive there but seeing that my current version was only v3.0.24 and a new firmware for the DNS-323 is available, it led me to try upgrading firmware to v1.06 and upgrading Samba to v3.2.3. Unfortunately, I was still getting the same behaviour after both upgrades.

So it is not the SAMBA server. Could it be on the client side then? I started trying it using the various PCs I could find in the house; my wife's laptop (running Vista Business x86), my kids' laptop (running XP) as well as my HTPC (running Vista Ultimate x64). All exhibits the same behaviour. Just when I was about to give up, I gave it one last try on my Office laptop (running Vista Business x86). Lo and behold, the thumbnails showed up instantaneously!

Now we are making progress! I dig a little deeper into the difference in configurations and finally found the root cause of the problem.... and it was Avast! Anti Virus! I had it as a household standard while my Office laptop was using my Office standard issue which is McAfee. Once I turned off Avast!, the problem goes away.

Obviously, turning off anti virus protection is not a good idea. Therefore, one option is to switch to a different one such as McAfee since it has proven to work in my scenario. However, I'm not quite ready to junk my time and effort invested in Avast! just because of this nor do I want to shell out more money for McAfee.

I did a little more investigation and here's what I think is happening. Avast! by default will scan any file before opening it, not just executable ones. So when I am browsing the photos on my NAS in "Large Icons" view in Explorer, Explorer will need to open each file in order to generate the thumbnail and this means that Avast! will intercept and scan it (over the network and each file is about 3MB mind you) thus causing the delay.

Poking around the settings available in Avast!, I found out that I can setup an exclusion list. And by adding in the extensions for my images (i.e. *.jpg, *.gif, *.bmp), I effectively solve the problem. Here are the steps to finding the exclusion list in Avast!:

Open the Resident Protection dialog by double clicking on the Avast! system tray icon;
On the left, select the icon for "Standard Shield", then click the "Customise" button on the right;
In the popup dialog, select "Advanced" tab and click on the "Add" button;
Here, you type in the file extensions or paths for exclusion. Use of wildcards is possible.

Although I may have solved this particular problem, I am still puzzled as to why Avast! needs to scan all files and not just infectable files. Sure, by giving us the option to exclude file types/extensions in the configuration helps but this should not be an end-user's job since how many of us knows all the file types/extensions are infectable? Moreover, end-users are less likely to be tracking developments in new exploits hence may end up with out-dated exclusion lists and leave a gaping hole in their anti-virus protection.

Well, perhaps it is time to explore other anti-virus solutions out there in the market...

Upgrading Transmission to 1.42

2009-01-15T09:46:00.002+08:00

Since I'm in the mood to upgrade, I figured I might as well do so for Transmission. More specifically, I want to upgrade so that I can get more fine grain control over the files to download in a torrent; You can do this via the CLI or a third party GUI client like this only. i.e. You cannot access this feature using the web interface (yet). Other things that have changed moving from v1.2 to the current v1.42 include the following:

Notably, the working directory is now /mnt/HD_a2/.transmission-daemon instead of just /mnt/HD_a2/.transmission. (since v1.3) If you are upgrading, you will need to move your existing directory manually if you want to resume your existing downloads. You may also need to amend your custom addon scripts (if any) such as my enhanced transmission script.

Another change (also since v1.3) is that Clutch no longer depends on a separate web server as one is already built in. This sucks as you now have another web server running on the box listening on its own port (default is 9091). Having said that, it does make installation and maintenance easier.

Lastly, access to Transmission is now restricted to local host by default (doesn't matter if you are using the CLI or web interface) (this change was introduced in v1.42). To allow access from other hosts, you will need to edit the rpc-whitelist parameter in the settings.json configuration file.

For an (almost) idiot-proof guide on setting up Trasmission v1.42 on the DNS-323, check out this guide by andy. More info can also be found in this forum thread.

Upgrading DNS-323 firmware to 1.06

2009-01-14T01:48:00.004+08:00

I knew about the existence of the new firmware when I bumped up the capacity of the NAS a couple of weeks ago. However, I resisted the upgrade as none of the changes/fixes mentioned in the release notes (see below) interests me.

Just today, while troubleshooting slowness in browsing files on my NAS from my Vista laptop, I came across the news release for Samba 3.2 which states better integration and support Vista (and Server 2008!). Hoping that the new firmware will have incorporated this version (or later), I decided to give it a shot and upgraded the firmware tonight.

Like my previous upgrade, the process is straight forward and quick; just download the file, unpacked it into a temporary folder, and upload it to the DNS-323 using the web admin console.

After a mandatory reboot, my NAS is happily running v1.06. Unfortunately, Dlink has chosen not to touch the Linux kernel nor the Samba server hence they remain as version 2.6.12.6 and 3.0.24 respectively. Looks like if I want to give the new 3.2.x a spin, I'm going to have to go the route of replacing the stock Samba server with fonz's package!

DNS-323 Firmware 1.06 Release Notes
===========================================================

Feature Additions:
1. Supports 1.5 TB Hard Drives
2. USB port supports UPS monitoring
3. Add option to Manually or Automatically Rebuild Raid
4. UPnP AV supports Microsoft XBoX 360, Sony PlayStation 3
5. Support FTP over SSL/TLS
6. Add Unicode support to FTP Server
7. Email Alerts supports Gmail

Function Changes:
1. Turn off Fan at low system temperature
2. Disable UPnP AV Server and iTunes Server by default.
3. Remove static DNS from the DDNS server provider list
4. Remove the DDNS Timeout setting from GUI, and change the Status design. fixed timeout timer as 576 hours
5. Remove the Auto Refresh Timer option for UPnP AV and iTunes Server, instantly Auto Refresh by default.
6. More user friendly Time Settings GUI design

Bug fixes:
1. Fix BT downloaded files sometimes are unable to be deleted
2. UPnP AV support large file (over 4GB)
3. Fix 1st HDD unable to sleep
4. Fix HDD cannot hibernate if UPnP AV or iTunes Server is enabled
5. Time stamp of files are incorrect when DST is enabled

Transmission Remote GUI - feature rich desktop client for Transmission!

2009-01-08T10:31:00.000+08:00

Out of the box, Transmission offers you two ways of accessing its features and functions; via the command-line interface (aka CLI) which is clumsy or via the web client (formally known as Clutch) which is basic. Now, there is a third and better way of accessing Transmission.... introducing Transmission Remote GUI!

This is a cross platform (Linux and Windows for now. Mac OS X on the way) desktop client with a look and feel similar to uTorrent. It offers a lot more control and status information on your torrents than the web client, not to mention fast too.

If you are a power user, this client is definitely for you! Note that to use it, you will need Transmission v1.40 and up. *Sigh*, looks like an upgrade is in order for me!

Top ten things to do on a hour long train ride

2009-01-06T18:42:00.003+08:00

Starting this week, I will no longer be driving to work as I figured that the car is better served as transport for my two school-going kids. So instead, I now commute via public transport (MRT and Bus) which takes a whole hour (and slightly more) for just one way!

As such, I suddenly find myself having quite a fair bit of time to kill... Two hours a day, ten hours a week, forty hours a month! *Gasp!* That's equivalent to one entire work week! It will be a real waste if I can't find anything productive or interesting to do. So here, I have come up with the top ten things I can do during the journey that is free or cost little (yeah I'm cheap) and don't require me to carry additional barang barang (yeah I'm lazy too!).

Listening to my MP3 collection using the stock HTC Touchflo 3D music player on my Touch Diamond;
Reading ebooks using Adobe Reader on my Touch Diamond; (still hunting for a better one, may try Mobipocket ebook Reader; winner of Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine's "Best Software Awards 2008" in the ebook reader category. Currently also trying this interesting approach to book reading - via RSS)
Catching up on news/blogs/discussions using RSS Hub (based on NewsBreak) on my Touch Diamond;
Training my left brain by playing SPB Brain Evolution (review) on my Touch Diamond; (may give Brain School a spin after this)
Reviewing my daily calendar and todo list using Pocket Informant (review) on my Touch Diamond;
Training my hand eye coordination by playing Teeter on my Touch Diamond;
Learning a new foreign language using MobiLearn Talking Phrasebooks on my Touch Diamond;
Watching interesting YouTube videos using youtubeplay (remember to download the video first or it can get pretty expensive using 3G data connection!); [edit: you can now easily grab the videos automatically via RSS and RSSHandler! More info here.]
Texting friends to catch up using the stock SMS application on my Touch Diamond;
Taking pictures/videos of inconsiderate/weird/interesting people on the train using the camera on my Touch Diamond (remember to turn off the camera snapping sound first!) and sending them to STOMP!

Why no "catching a nap" in the list? Well, I would love to except for one thing, do you know how crowded the rush hour traffic is? I will be grateful if I can find some standing space without bags, umbrellas or newspapers poking into me; let alone finding a seat to catch some Zzz!

Another observation: ten out of the ten activities involve using my Touch Diamond! I never thought I will say this but... I love my Diamond!

Upsizing NAS Storage from 500GB to 1.5TB

2008-12-30T14:34:00.003+08:00

I have been planning to upgrade my NAS storage capacity after it crossed the 90% mark a couple of weeks ago. Just over a year ago, I went with a 500GB hard drive (1TB drives were available in the market then but at a premium) expecting it to last me for at least two years. I was pretty amazed to find myself consuming more than 400GB in just over a year.

On further analysis, I found out that most of the space was used up by my family's photo and video albums; It's not really surprising considering that my DSLR captures each frame at ten megapixels and my videos are captured in VGA quality at thirty frames a second and stored as mjpeg.

With that hindsight, I decided to go all out and get the largest drive on the market today for this upgrade. Other than size, the other two requirements I had were low power consumption and noise. This is because my NAS runs 24/7 and it sits in the living room where the constant clicking noises from the drives can get pretty annoying, especially late at night.

Based on today's market, my ideal choice is the Western Digital Caviar Green 1.5TB. Unfortunately, WD has yet to launch this model and the largest it offers is a 1TB model (WD10EADS). I would have waited for it if its due to launch within the next few months but I couldn't find any news of it online.

My next best choice is the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB model (ST31500341AS). Although the power consumption and noise performance isn't as fantastic as the WD Caviar Green range (reviews here, here and here), its price per GB ratio makes it a hard-to-resist offer; At $0.19/GB for the WD 1TB model vs $0.14/GB for the Seagate 1.5TB model, that is more than 20% cheaper! In addition, its also runs on slightly lower power and alot quieter(!) than my current pair of 7200.10 500GB drives. But do be careful when buying the Seagate drives as there are apparently some buggy production firmwares out there. Based on user feedback, it appears that those with firmware CC1G are ok.

As a compromise, I decided to replace my primary drive first while waiting to see if the WD Caviar Green 1.5TB model will turn up in the next couple of months and at what price point. FYI, I run a JBOD configuration with a full disk to disk backup setup (i.e. HD_a2 -> HD_b2) in my NAS hence it is possible for me to break the upgrade process into two phases. Obviously, I will have to stop backing up some folders due to the smaller backup drive.

The upgrade process was simple enough; I first swapped out the backup drive in the NAS with the new one, booted up the box and let the firmware detect and format the drive accordingly. After that, I copied the entire content in my primary drive to the new drive via ssh using the command cp -a /mnt/HD_a2 /mnt/HD_b2.

Once the copy is complete (be patient! It can take a long time to copy all 400+GB over!), shutdown the box, remove the old primary drive, move the new primary drive from the left drive bay to the right, put in the old backup drive in the left drive bay and reboot. Job done!

A couple of things to note:

The primary drive is in the right drive bay while the backup drive is in the left.
My DNS-323 firmware version is 1.05 and is able to detect the drive correctly. However, the "format new drive" dialog in the web admin console shows the drive having zero bytes. Just ignore that and continue to format the drive as normal. However if you are running a RAID configuration with your pair of 1.5TB drives, you will require the 1.06 firmware.
The formatting process can take quite awhile (more than 30mins!), just be patient and let it complete.

Kids - 20081221 - Joel's 5th Birthday Celebration @ Home

2008-12-23T21:59:00.000+08:00

Happy 5th Birthday Joel!

2008-12-21T23:35:00.005+08:00

This year, we decided to throw Joel a birthday bash right at home and invited some of his friends (ok... ok... more like his parent's friends with kids...) over to celebrate it with him.

We also decided to try something new... like not buying an off-the-shelf birthday cake but instead, have mommy bake one! It (the cake that is) turned out pretty well for a first attempt I must say... both in terms of aesthetics as well as in the taste department. The kids absolutely loved it! Hm... on second thought, it could be the thick chocolate icing that they liked...

Oh, and finally here's a shot of Joel with the loot he picked up today!

Cleanboot finally working on my DNS-323!

2008-12-10T18:24:00.000+08:00

If you are running fun_plug on your DNS-323, you may notice that your partitions are no longer unmounted properly at shutdown or reboot. You have this problem if you start seeing this line in your dmesg output:

EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended

The solution to this problem is a utility called cleanboot. Unfortunately, since the first version, it has not worked for me and quite alot of other folks; instead of cleanly unmounting the partitions before shutting down or rebooting, it hangs the box. Bummer...

The good news is that a fellow forumer SilentException persisted and managed to fixed the utility for his box (forum post here). I just tried it and it works on mine too! Hooray! You may want to give it a shot and see if it works for you.

Jordan and Grandparents

2008-12-06T01:11:00.001+08:00

Found these shots of my mom and dad with Jordan while cleaning up my picture library. These were taken during the period when Jordan was being cared for by them on a daily basis. The good thing about having your own folks look after the kids is that you are pretty much assured that they are getting the best attention one can give. Just look at how tightly my dad is hugging him in the photo! Thanks mom and dad for your help!

Vista TIP: New way to capture a screenshot

2008-11-26T09:42:00.002+08:00

Before Windows Vista, you can use the following ways to capture a screenshot:

<Prt Sc> key - captures the entire desktop
<Alt> + <Prt Sc> keys - captures the active window

If you want more fine grain capture, like part of a window, you will have to do one of the above first, paste into Paint and then crop or cut and paste from there. Not rocket science but quite a hassle.

The good news is that in Vista, there is a snipping tool that allows you to capture any part of your screen without jumping through the hoops! Check it out here! Note: This feature is not available in the Home Basic edition of Windows Vista.

Ready made LAMP Virtual Machines

2008-11-20T17:42:00.006+08:00

Recently, one of the projects I'm working on urgently required a LAMP environment for testing. Rather than going through the hassle (not to mention time consuming process) of securing hardware, getting the infra guys to set up the network and OS and finally getting my own guys to set up the rest of the middleware, I did a search online and found myself a ready made LAMP VM all in a compact 166mb package. Download the package, unpack it into a directory of choice, add it in my Virtual PC 2007 console and click run; it couldn't be any simpler.

Thirty minutes later, I was up and running with my LAMP environment compared to weeks if I had gone the other route. Oh, and half that time was taken by the download... Yeah, my corporate network sucks...

Kudos to the guys at Virtual Appliances. Other than the LAMP VM, they also provide ready made VMs for LAPP (Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP), Tomcat (App server only, no database), Cacti (Network device monitoring and data collections), and NTOP (Realtime network traffic monitoring). These packages are available in VM formats for Virtual PC (and Server), VMware and Virtual Iron. Oh, and best of all? Its Free! (for now at least as its still in beta)

Upgrading ffp 0.5 and moving it to USB... again

2008-11-18T04:51:00.003+08:00

Recently I have been getting some comments on my post on moving ffp to a USB stick asking for help as the instructions seemed to have become invalid. It was only then I found out that fonz has been updating ffp without changing the version number. Alot of changed since I last upgraded to ffp 0.5 and while there are instructions on how to upgrade to the latest version, I decided to play it safe and just do a fresh reinstall. Here is a log of what I did:

Backup the file /mnt/HD_a2/fun_plug and the directory /ffp. (use the sym link to make sure you are backing up your active configurations)
Download the latest packages (i.e. fun_plug and fun_plug.tgz) and put them in /mnt/HD_a2/.
Delete the folder /mnt/HD_a2/ffp if you have it and reboot.
Telnet into the box (default has no username/pswd), disable telnet and enable ssh. (i.e. do a chmod a-x telnetd.sh and chmod a+x sshd.sh)
Download and install all the core packages found here. After the download, install using the command funpkg -i *.tgz. Also run the command funpkg -u *.tgz to update existing packages. (i.e. those that came in the fun_plug.tgz package)
<-- At this point, we have a working stock ffp working off the hard disk partition /mnt/HD_a2. Now to update the box with extra packages we need -->
Restore the svn startup script from backup (it contains the path to my local SVN repository)
unrar
Transmission
Create a local fun_plug script (/ffp/etc/fun_plug.local) to set up some convenience shortcuts. (/hd1 for /mnt/HD_a2, /hd2 for /mnt/HD_b2 and /usb for /mnt/usb)
<-- Now that we have all the features working, lets move it to the USB stick using the method found here -->
First create the directory /mnt/HD_a2/.bootstrap and download the necessary files into it. (namely setup.sh and usb-storage.ko)
Edit setup.sh to make sure that the variable USBFFPPART refers to the right USB partition. If you have only 1 USB drive attached and it has only 1 partition, then this should be /dev/sdc1.
Reboot to get the USB partition up and running. (Check by running df and look for /mnt/usb)
Copy the entire /ffp folder into the USB partition /mnt/usb. (cp -a /mnt/HD_a2/ffp /mnt/usb/)
Create a dummy file .usb-ffp in the root of the USB partition. (touch /mnt/usb/.usb-ffp)
Reboot again to get ffp working off the USB partition. (If you need to troubleshoot, check the ffp log at /mnt/HD_a2/.bootstrap/ffp.log)

A couple of things to note:

To have ffp running off the hard disk again, simply remove the file /mnt/usb/.usb-ffp and reboot. You may want to do this when you need to run e2fsck (i.e. file system check) on the partition.
To be able to unmount the first hard drive partition (i.e. /mnt/HD_a2) say for disk maintainance, you will need to copy the USB module (i.e. usb-storage.ko) to VRAM (/lib/modules is a good place to put it) before loading it. You can do so by editing the script setup.sh.

How to spot a recovering economy?

2008-11-11T09:21:00.003+08:00

Now that the year 2008 is drawing to a close, the number one thing on everyone's mind right now must be how the economy will pan out in the new year. The guys at CNNMoney have just published their predictions as well as some advice on how to tell the worst is over (quoted below). Do you agree with this assessment?

The action plan

Keep your eye on three key signs that the overall economic picture is improving. These clues can help you decide when to make moves you may have put on ice for now, such as starting a business or moving to a bigger home.

Check the three-month TED spread

It's the difference between the interest rate at which banks borrow from one another (known as Libor) and the rate on three-month T-bills. The wider the spread, the more skittish banks are about lending. It's now just under 3%, far above historical levels; when it drops below 1% you'll know the credit market is almost back to normal.

Where to find it: Go to Bankrate.com, search for the three-month Libor rate and the three-month T-bill rate, and then subtract the T-bill rate from Libor.

Track real estate inventory

Historically, the number of months' worth of inventory on the market has reliably predicted home prices. Six months of inventory appears to be the sweet spot for a healthy market; right now it's 10 months. The National Association of Realtors puts out the inventory data each month, usually between the 22nd and the 25th.

Where to find it: Go to the Research section of realtor.org.

Watch initial jobless claims

The number of new people filing for unemployment benefits, released every Thursday morning by the Labor Department, has been running between 450,000 and 500,000 a week lately.

"When you see those numbers start to come down below 400,000, that'll be a very good sign that the worst of the pain is over," says Brian Wesbury, chief economist at First Trust Advisors.

Where to find it: Do a search for jobless claims on our Web site.

Video Clip: Jordan's many faces

2008-11-05T23:35:00.006+08:00

Here's a short video clip (more of a slide show actually) of Jordan making funny faces. Camera shots and video editing all done by the ever-so-tech-savvy grandpa! Nice maiden effort on the clip!

HTPC Update: TV Signal Strength Checker

2008-10-23T22:22:00.007+08:00

If you need a tool to help you find the best location to place your aerial for receiving over-the-air (OTA) DVB-T broadcasts, check out TSReader. It comes in three different flavors (Lite, Standard and Professional) but the Lite version (which is FOC btw) is good enough for this purpose.

After you have installed the software, launch it via the Start\All programs menu. The first time you run the program, you will be asked to select an input source. This refers to your TV Tuner hardware. In my case, I am using an Asus My Cinema U3100. It is not listed specifically but luckily it works with the generic DVB-T driver "DVBTBDASource.dll".

Next select the frequency of the channel that you would like to find the best reception for. If you live in Singapore you can refer to this Wiki page to get the frequencies of free-to-air (FTA) TV stations here. Just note that the frequency for HD5 is 610MHz and not 608MHz as stated on the Wiki.

When a consistent signal is detected, you will see in the bottom left window a line that says "Signal: Locked". Use the statistics ("Last sec" and "Mux bitrate") in the bottom window titled "MPEG-2 Statistics" to guide you in finding the best reception. The higher the numbers mean better reception of course!

Trying out Tomato on WHR-HP-G54

2008-10-17T03:42:00.003+08:00

Back in August, I upgraded the DD-WRT v24 firmware to SP1 on my router as part of routine maintenance. At first, everything seems to work fine but soon I noticed that QoS stopped working; Skype calls were getting dropped, frozen video on receiver side and slow web browsing when BT is running in the background.

I tried a couple of different configurations in QoS, from tweaking the max bandwidth settings to changing classifications and even the packet scheduler type. Nothing worked which pretty much left me with two choices; (1) rollback to the older version or (2) try out other flavors of alternative firmware. I decided to go with option (2) and try out Tomato since I have been hearing many good feedback on its performance and especially on its QoS reliability.

Upgrading from DD-WRT to Tomato is a breeze. Simply download the Tomato firmware (latest as of this writing is v1.21) and flash it using the DD-WRT web admin GUI. Just remember to make a note of the router password before you flash! (Detailed instructions here)

In under two minutes, I was running Tomato on my router with nearly all settings intact. The only settings that I found to have been lost are:

Static DHCP lease
WiFi Security (it defaults to none!)
QoS (naturally since its implemented differently)
WOL
Lan domain name

Once I have configured QoS, I tried a web download and also surfed a couple of local websites while starting BT in the background. I found no noticeable decrease in the download and web surfing experience. Problem solved!

Of course, there is no perfect ending in the real world... A couple of things I had to give up for choosing Tomato over DD-WRT:

VPN Gateway - The official builds do not offer this functionality but a quick google showed that there are people working on unofficial builds that included this feature. I will probably give that a spin once I am happy with stock features.
Bluetooth Compatibility Mode - I require this feature as my router sits very close to my HTPC which I'm using a bluetooth keyboard to control. Since WiFi and Bluetooth work on the same frequency band, I have been experiencing frequent dropouts from my bluetooth keyboard when WiFi is on. Activating this feature on the DD-WRT seems to have reduced the interference quite abit. Since Tomato does not include this feature, I may have to consider relocating my router or my bluetooth receiver.

Go-Karting is fun!

2008-10-11T22:52:00.004+08:00

I finally got a chance to try out go-karting today in a company organized event (Sony F1 Challenge) and boy did I enjoyed myself. The event started with one round of practice followed by two rounds of qualifying time trials. The top five drivers with the best lap times then go head-to-head in the finals that involves 10 laps.

As this was my first time in a go-kart, it took me awhile to get acclimatized; think no power steering, zero suspension, hard plastic seat and no enclosed cabin! The fuel tank sitted in between my tights also made me alittle nevous... The lack of suspension, coupled with the poor track condition and hard plastic seat really made it a bumpy ride. My back and bum are still sore till now...

Obviously, I started slow with lap times around the high 38 seconds region during the practice and first qualifying round. In the last qualifying round, I managed a 38.1 seconds timing but that was still not good enough to beat the "pros" and their 35 seconds timings! (Sony has been organizing this event on a yearly basis and the regulars dominated the finals).

Overall, it was an exciting event with plenty of action; there were a couple of crashes (luckily no one got hurt), 180 degree spins and even a joker driving in the wrong direction TWICE! :O

Kart World Singapore (maplink)
$40 for 10 mins (adults)

Vista TIP: Shutdown/Restart/Sleep from Remote Desktop Connection

2008-10-09T13:16:00.005+08:00

If you are using Remote Desktop Connection to connect to a Vista workstation, you will find that the options to Shutdown, Restart and Sleep are missing from the Start Menu. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to get it back into the menu. You can, however, still activate the function easily via the following ways:

1) Run the command shutdown.exe on the command line. Note that the program supports only shutdown (-s) and restart (-r); it doesn't do stand-by or hibernate. Also, it requires you to have administrator privileges. If you are a limited user with shutdown privileges, the shutdown.exe program will complain.

2) Use the Ctrl+Alt+End hotkey (It's the Remote Desktop version of Ctrl+Alt+Del). This will bring up the full screen menu as shown on the right. Click on the red button near the bottom right and you will get the options to Shutdown, Restart and Sleep!

HTPC Update: Logitech diNovo Edge

2008-10-08T13:33:00.002+08:00

To complete the hardware setup of my HTPC, I decided to go all out and splurge on the best HTPC keyboard money can buy; the Logitech diNovo Edge. To me, it is really the perfect match for the following reasons:

It has an integrated touchpad (although alittle on the petite side) which removes the need for a separate mouse. On top of that, you will want a touchpad over a mouse for living room use anyway since you are unlikely to find a hard surface to use your mouse on when you are on the couch.
It has just the right dimensions and weight for using on the lap
It has a dedicated volume slider and mute, sleep and MediaCenter buttons on the keyboard; essential keys for a HTPC setup.
If you don't already have bluetooth capability in your box, the included USB bluetooth receiver adds that for free. And if you do, then it saves on one USB port for an otherwise proprietary receiver on the PC.
The range is pretty decent although I find that it loses reception when you place your keyboard at a height much lower than the receiver. (I get this when I use the keyboard on my coffee table which is sitting approx 60cm below my PC placement. [Edit: Found the problem - it is due to interference from my WiFi router which sits within 1 meter of the HTPC])
Tactile feel on the keys are excellent and not noisy.
And lastly, the reflective black and metallic silver look compliments my living room look perfectly.

The SG SRP on this is a whopping S$399! The cheapest I can find in local retail stores is still S$349. The good news is that you can buy it online for just US$127 (roughly S$210 incl shipping via vPost) from Amazon.com. The downside is of course the warranty which is limited to domestic US but at nearly 50% off, I will gladly take that risk.

Installation and setup of the keyboard is a breeze. By default, the USB bluetooth receiver is configured as USB HID class which means that any modern day motherboard and OS can detect and use it without installing any drivers. This also means that the keyboard can be used even for entering Bios Setup! If you want more control over its features, then installing the SetPoint software is a must. Forget the version found in the CD and go straight to Logitech's support website to download the latest version (v4.6 as of this post).

One undocumented feature I've found is that the keyboard is actually active when charging in the base station even if you flick the on/off switch to off! This is a tad annoying as it wakes my HTPC whose off state is always S3 (commonly known as standby or sleep) whenever I put the keyboard back on the charging stand! I had to resort to pulling out the charging cable off the base to stop this behavior. Switching off the base charger is not possible as the switch is hidden behind the TV console. An alternative solution will be to configure the HTPC to disable wakeup from the keyboard but that also means that I lose the feature permanently. i.e. I will no longer be able to turn on the HTPC from the comfort of my couch using the keyboard!

To have the included USB bluetooth receiver to work with other bluetooth devices, you will need to change it from HID to HCI class using information found here. I will be updating this post once I have found time to try this out myself.

Here is the updated part list for my setup:

CPU: Phenom X3 8650 HD8650WCGHBOX 2.3GHz Socket AM2+, $0 (bundle with mobo).
CPU Cooler: Scythe SCMNJ-1000 Ninja MINI, S$50 (used).
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA78GPM-DS2H AMD 780G chipset microATX, $355 (SLS Bell Systems)
Memory: Kingston DDR2-800 2 x 2GB Kit, $104.(SLS Bell Systems)
Graphics Card: Radeon HD 3200 (integrated in motherboard the chipset), $0.
TV Tuner: PowerColor Theater 550 Pro PCIe, $69. (SLS Chamoxa)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar WD5000AACS 500GB SATA2, $101.(SLS Bell Systems)
PSU: Antec EarthWatts EA 430 (included in the case), $0.
Case: Antec Fusion Black 430, $339 (SLS Media Mart).
Webcam: Creative Live! Cam Optia AF, $55 (used)
Wireless Keyboard: Logitech diNovo Edge, $210 (Amazon.com)

The following are still on my todo list:

ODD: LG GGC-H20L, BD-ROM + DVD-RW, $249. (COMEX)

HTPC Update: Improving video quality

2008-10-03T17:49:00.004+08:00

If you own a recent ATI graphics card and use it mainly for movie playback, you may well be interested in this set of tweaks. It is basically a registry script that enables certain settings in ATI based cards that is geared towards video playback and hardware assisted decoding (DXVA in geek speak).

[Disclaimer: I have yet to find time to apply the settings on my HTPC so please read up before applying the script!]

HTPC Update: Creative Live! Cam optia AF

2008-09-29T23:58:00.003+08:00

A part of my plans for a digital home involves setting up a video conferencing facility in the living room so that:

I can get in touch with the kids and family when I'm on overseas business trips;
my folks can interact with their grandchildren when they are not visiting;
we can keep in touch with our relatives and friends who have migrated abroad or out stationed for extended duration;
and lastly, create a platform where we can encourage our kids to explore staging performances (singing, dancing, acting) in front of a camera! (This help build confidence in the child as well as capturing those precious childhood moments)

Although we can pretty much do this now with the integrated camera and microphone on our laptops (we have two of these at home), the experience isn't that great given the poor quality of the integrated cameras (1.3Mp only) and the screen is a little small for a family of five to crowd around to see.

Setting it up on the HTPC however is perfect. We have a 50" display and some pretty good speakers. All I needed is a good quality webcam with integrated microphone and we are all set.

Scouring my favorite marketplace, I managed to pick up a used Creative Live! Cam Optia AF for only S$55. It's about a year old but the condition was excellent.

This webcam features a 2 megapixel sensor, auto-focus, noise cancelling adaptive array microphone and great looks to boot (blends into the living room decor perfectly).

I tested it on my rig and found the picture quality to be excellent. Audio is a little weak but that is probably because I was testing it from a distance of two meters.

The bundled software are also pretty decent and fun for the kids to play with. Overall, I'm happy with this acquisition.

Here's my updated parts list with pricing:

CPU: Phenom X3 8650 HD8650WCGHBOX 2.3GHz Socket AM2+, $0 (bundle with mobo).
CPU Cooler: Scythe SCMNJ-1000 Ninja MINI, S$50 (used).
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA78GPM-DS2H AMD 780G chipset microATX, $355 (SLS Bell Systems)
Memory: Kingston DDR2-800 2 x 2GB Kit, $104.(SLS Bell Systems)
Graphics Card: Radeon HD 3200 (integrated in motherboard the chipset), $0.
HDD: Western Digital Caviar WD5000AACS 500GB SATA2, $101.(SLS Bell Systems)
PSU: Antec EarthWatts EA 430 (included in the case), $0.
Case: Antec Fusion Black 430, $339 (SLS Media Mart).
Webcam: Creative Live! Cam optia AF, $55 (used)

The following are still on my todo list:

ODD: LG GGC-H20L, BD-ROM + DVD-RW, $249. (COMEX)
TV Tuner: ??
Wireless Keyboard: Logitech DiNovo Edge S$399

10sec Gadget Review: Logitech Squeezebox Boom

2008-09-23T13:32:00.000+08:00

What is it?

WiFi BoomBox

What can it do?

Plays MP3, AAC, AU, WAV, AIFF, WMA, and Real Audio formats over network shared folders
Connects to your home network to access music stored on your computer via SqueezeCenter (software server, requires installation), and Internet radio and music services via SqueezeNetwork™
6-button presets allow one touch access to favorite radio stations and playlists
Connect to Internet via WiFi (802.11 g/b) and 10/100 BaseT Ethernet port
Aux input for other sources (e.g. MP3 player)
headphone jack
¾-inch (1.9 cm) high-definition, soft-dome tweeters and 3-inch (7.6 cm) high-power, long-throw woofers
Compact IR remote control
7 day alarm clock

What can it NOT do?

No CD playback option
No FM radio
No UPnP and DLNA

How much does it cost?

US$269.99 from Logitech Online Store
US$279.99 from Amazon.com

Where can I find more information?

Product page on Company website

Vista TIP: How to check installed audio and video codecs

2008-09-17T02:14:00.002+08:00

Before Vista, you can check the installed audio and video codecs by:

Go to Control Panel.
Click on the Sounds and Audio Devices icon.
Click on the HardwareVideo Codecs and click on Properties button.
Click on the Properties tab and you’ll see the whole list of Video Codecs installed.
To check installed Audio Codecs, on step 4, select Audio Codecs and follow the rest of the steps.

However, in Vista, Microsoft has removed this from the Control Panel applet. Instead, you have to:

Start Windows Media Player.
Click on Help and About Windows Media Player.
Click on the link Technical Support Information and a webpage will popup.
Scroll down to see the list of installed Audio and Video Codecs.

Happy Birthday Jordan!

2008-09-13T23:07:00.004+08:00

Time files! It felt like just yesterday that we celebrated Jordan's second birthday and he's already one year older. Picture on the left shows the cake we got for him. Spot anything interesting? [Hint: Which sport did Singapore win a medal at the recent Olympics?]

For his third birthday, we decided to have a home cooked meal with the immediate family only. Choice of food was entirely his preference which explains why there are so much fried stuff on the table. Oh, the salad wasn't his choice of course but even the birthday boy must take his greens.

And of course, no kid's birthday is complete without presents! Look how cheery he is while unwrapping one of the many presents he received tonight!

HTPC Update: Powering on/off via remote!

2008-09-10T23:40:00.002+08:00

A critical feature of any worthy HTPC is the ability to turn it on/off via a remote; Just like any other piece of living room appliance. I got the Antec Fusion Black 430 expecting this to work out of the box (the package includes an IR receiver and I own a Harmony 550) but I guess I was asking too much; You will need to perform this (undocumented) step in order to get it working.

In short, here is what you need to do:

From the bunch of headers in the front panel, locate the two headers labelled "POWER SW".

Connect the header with the white and black wires to the input pins on the LCD as shown in the picture above. Note: you should not need to remove the front panel and disassemble the LCD as stated in the forum thread as you should be able to see it through a hole in the panel.

Connect the header with the red and black wires to the power switch pins on the motherboard.

HTPC up and running finally!

2008-09-07T16:45:00.016+08:00

One year ago, I started looking at building a HTPC for my living room (1)(2) but had it KIVed due to costs and more importantly the maturity of hardware HD decoding and availability of native HDMI+HDCP output combining both audio and video.

Recently, I revisited the project and am mighty glad to find plenty of options available and most of them at affordable costs. So over the weekend, I took the plunge and built my own "BD player" (and a whole lot more) for about 1k SGD.

The heart of the setup is the GIGABYTE GA-MA78GPM-DS2H motherboard. This mobo is based on the excellent AMD 780G chipset and features the ATI Radeon™ HD3200 (DirectX 10 capable) as its iGPU. It is actually a revision of the popular GA-MA78GM-S2H with an added DDR3 128MB SidePort Memory (essentially dedicated memory for the iGPU). It also features a native HDMI+HDCP output that delivers both audio and video.

The board is mated to an AMD Phenom X3 8650 processor and 2x2GB of DDR2-800 RAM. Triple core CPU is used as it is well suited for video and 3D rendering tasks, which will be the most common tasks on this PC. Plus you get more bang for the buck compared to the quad core ones. Power consumption and heat also come into mind. 2x2GB in Dual Channel mode provides more than adequate performance for now. Note that the board has 4 DIMM slots so you can add-on an additional 4GB at a later time. Also, although it supports DDR3 specs, the performance gain does not justify the cost today (its about 2x the price of the DDR2!).

Hard disk is a single 500GB Western Digital Caviar Green Power SATA 2 edition; Again chosen for its price and power/heat/noise characteristics. I only need one mid-size HDD in my HTPC as I have a NAS cum media server on my network. The casing I've selected can pack in 2 HDD giving you a total of 2TB if required.

And finally, the casing is the Antec Fusion Black 430. It is a rather big and heavy chasis but note that it only fits a microATX motherboard due to its unique tri-chamber design. Exterior wise, it resembles a conventional hifi component and features a LCD display and volume knob. The casing also comes with an IR receiver that is Vista and MCE compatible but without a MCE remote. This is fine by me since I use a Harmony remote anyway. The included 430W power supply is RoHS and 80 PLUS certified and is more than sufficient for the parts I'm throwing in. Chasis cooling takes the form of two 120mm fans which is very quiet at low setting. Any higher and they get audible but not annoying as the AMD stock CPU cooling fan. One gripe is that the fan speeds are manually set via a physical switch INSIDE the casing hence you can pretty much forget about adjusting them according to the CPU load.

The setup scored a Windows Experience Index of 4.1. As expected, the lowest value is due to the 3D performance. 2D scored 4.6 while the rest are well above 5.

The box is placed in a closed cabinet and after 30mins of running idle, both system and CPU temps can hit close to 50 Degrees Celsius. I may have to consider cutting up the rear of the cabinet to make way for an exhaust fan. Oh, and the stock AMD cooler fan is loud as hell at those temps (around 5k RPM). So do go out and get a decent aftermarket cooler.

The box is hooked up to my Pioneer PDP-508XG via HDMI. Resolution on the TV is automatically set at 1360x768 after the latest Catalyst drivers are installed. Setting to any of the HD resolutions (i.e. 720p/1080i/1080p) causes overscan when the TV is set to "TV Mode". You need to set it to "PC Mode" to get around this problem. Text is sharp and picture is good at the native resolution of 1360x768 hence I do not see a point in having the GPU output at 1080i/p resolution only to be downscaled later by the TV's internal processor.

Sound output is via HDMI to the TV and is pretty decent. I have it connected separately to my 6.1 Pioneer HTiB via optical S/PDIF but have to manually change the default sound device in the Realtek HD audio control panel before I can get sound output from there. Ideally I would like to output to both devices at the same time or better yet, selective output based on programs I run. e.g. Windows Media Center audio output should be via HTiB while the system sounds can be piped through the TV.

Here is the breakdown with costs for my setup:

CPU: Phenom X3 8650 HD8650WCGHBOX 2.3GHz Socket AM2+, $0 (bundle with mobo).
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA78GPM-DS2H AMD 780G chipset microATX, $355 (SLS Bell Systems)
Memory: Kingston DDR2-800 2 x 2GB Kit, $104.(SLS Bell Systems)
Graphics Card: Radeon HD 3200 (integrated in motherboard the chipset), $0.
HDD: Western Digital Caviar WD5000AACS 500GB SATA2, $101.(SLS Bell Systems)
PSU: Antec EarthWatts EA 430 (included in the case), $0.
Case: Antec Fusion Black 430, $339 (SLS Media Mart).

The following are on my todo list:

CPU Cooler: Scythe SCMNJ-1000 Ninja MINI (S$69).
ODD: LG GGC-H20L, BD-ROM + DVD-RW, $249. (COMEX)
TV Tuner: ??
Wireless Keyboard: Logitech DiNovo Edge S$399

CPU cooler was on my core list but too bad none of my selections had stock in any of the shops in SLS! But I really ought to get one soon as the buzz from the stock CPU cooler is killing me!

For the ODD, I had a choice between the LG and a LITE-ON DH-4O1S which costs only S$159. I had to drop the latter as it cannot write to CD/DVD while the LG one can. Since my choice of casing only allows me to have a single 5.25" device, I needed one that can read Blu-ray for movies but at the same time can read/write to CD/DVD for data/music/home movies! Forget writing to Blu-ray as the media is still way too expensive and the players are not as prevalent yet. (How many people you know owns a Blu-ray player?)

I'm still sourcing for an internal TV Tuner card to complete the setup. I'm split between looking for something that can accept HD input (via component or HDMI better) and has native hardware H.264 encoder or just settle for a conventional dual (DVB-T and analogue) TV tuner with hardware MPEG2, or even just a hybrid tuner without the hardware encoder since the 2.3GHz triple core CPU should be more than sufficient for handling the MPEG2 encoding in software. If you have any thoughts on this, let me know!

BTW, if you are going for the last option (i.e. TV card with no hardware encoder), be wary that you will need to jump through quite a few hoops to make it work in MCE or WMC.

Project updates:

Fixed Remote on/off issue
Added third party CPU Cooler
Added Webcam
Added TV Tuner (analog)
Added Wireless Keyboard

Boys with cool shades and urm... not so cool head gear

2008-08-31T21:26:00.003+08:00

Little kids are like monkeys... They see you wearing shades while driving and they want a pair too. Oh, but they are rather innovative too... Check out the "cool" headgear they've got on while posing for this shot.

Virtual Machine - a software engineer's best friend

2008-08-28T15:51:00.001+08:00

Here is another reason why Virtual Machine(s) are a developer's best friend. If you are a packaged software developer (doesn't matter if its desktop or server software), you will probably realize that platform compatibility testing is a large part of the release cycle; not only is the actual testing tedious and time consuming, setting up and maintaining the many testing environments is a whole lot worse. In addition, it can get pretty expensive too as you will need multiple machines to contain them.

Back in the days when I was developing packaged software, one of my strategies for managing test environments on the cheap is to use boot loaders (such as LILO and GRUB) and hard disk partitions. Using this approach, I had up to four environments running on a single PC (only four environments due to a limitation on the number of primary partitions a hard disk can have). Not long after, I figured that I could further cut down on the number of boxes required by using removable caddies to facilitate the swapping of hard disks on a single PC.

This strategy was indeed cost effective (I managed to reduce my farm of test PCs from eight to just two) but it was darn tedious and not as robust as I had wanted; I could only have one environment up at a time on one PC and it was time consuming to shutdown and startup another. In addition, the OS images are practically tied to the specific hardware it was installed on as we all know how crappy Windows is when it comes to swapping hardware.

Then enters VMware and its (then) flagship product VMware Workstation. My test environments became normal files and were able to run off any host OSes as long as the hypervisor supports it. With it, I was no longer bounded by the four primary partition limit on a hard disk, could run multiple environments all at the same time and copy/move them between PCs seamlessly (even if they are running different host OSes!). In addition, with the snapshot feature, I could create a base image of each test environment and easily revert to it after testing.

Out went the drive caddies, the stack of hard disks and backup tapes piled up on my desk, LILO, PartitionMagic and Norton Ghost! In addition to cost savings, the time saved was also considerable and it was appropriately channeled to our LAN parties in the office! :)

Diamond TIP: new menu for your home screen

2008-08-19T00:10:00.005+08:00

If you have used Windows Mobile 2003 or earlier, you will probably know what the "new menu" was and how useful it had been. For those who have not, it is basically a way to quickly create a new document (e.g. word, excel, note, email, sms) via a popup menu that is triggered by tapping on the text "New" found at the bottom of the home screen. (See screenshot on the right)

Unfortunately, this nifty little feature was removed from Windows Mobile 5 and up. (Thats a -1 for you Microsoft.) The good news is that useful features like this don't go away; they just get reintroduced via third parties.

The first application that does this is called WM5NewMenu by a developer named Saman. It started out as a direct replacement for the old functionality but has now grown to be a very powerful and highly configurable utility that can launch pretty much anything that you can think of. (See screenshot on left. More screenshots here). Best of all, it remains a freeware even today.

It has served me well back in my 838 pro days but unfortunately, the look and feel just don't jive with the snazzy TouchFlo UI. As luck would have it, HTC had a similar feature called the "Action Screen" in the Touch model (+1 HTC!) and it has been ported over to the Diamond by the guys at xda-developers (+2 XDA Developers!)! So now, we get the best of both worlds; the new menu functionality in cool graphics!

There are currently two layouts available; the first and original being the row layout (screenshot on far right) and the latest being the grid layout (screenshot on right) ala the upcoming HTC Touch Pro.

Personally, I like the latter better as it allows up to nine items instead of seven in the row layout.

Can things get any better than this? Yes! If you are like me, using a third party PIM (like the excellent Pocket Informant), you can customize Action Screen to launch the appropriate screens in your third party applications! In fact, you can even change the buttons and the related actions totally! For details, look here.

If you are lazy and just want to get it working with Pocket Informant, here's how:

New Note - Change registry value for the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\Biotouch\ActionScreen\APP_2\Path to \Program Files\WebIS\PocketInformant\PIAlarmNoteCreate.exe
New Appointment - Change registry value for the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\Biotouch\ActionScreen\APP_3\Path to \Program Files\WebIS\PocketInformant\PocketInformant.exe
New Task - Change registry value for the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\Biotouch\ActionScreen\APP_4\Path to \Program Files\WebIS\PocketInformant\PocketInformant.exe
New Contact - Change registry value for the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\Biotouch\ActionScreen\APP_5\Path to \Program Files\WebIS\PocketInformant\PocketInformant.exe

WebApp Security Test tool - IBM Rational AppScan

2008-08-08T23:24:00.002+08:00

This is part 3 (after Introduction, HP Application Security Center) of the series on web application security test tools. This week, I invited IBM to present their offering called IBM Rational AppScan.

Formally Watchfire Corporation before its acquisition in July 2007.
Does not have a code analyzer component like HP. [Edit: Will have one in the upcoming version come Sept 2008 as pointed out by Chris.]
Run-time analyzer comes in three flavors:

Standard Edition

Targeted at standalone usage scenarios.
Black-box testing tool (does not require source code but requires a running system).
Underlying implementation technology independent.
Works by crawling an entire website (link depth and type is configurable) after been given a root URL.
Suggests common fixes when vulnerabilities are found but cannot automatically fix them. (Obviously since it has no knowledge or access to the underlying code!)
Will not be able to detect threats on pages that are not explicitly defined in the test, exist as links in the website or directories that do not allow listing.
Supports legal and regulatory compliance by scanning against well known policies (e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, PCI Data Security Standard, OWASP Top Ten) and generate the necessary reports.
Requires regular updates to keep up with latest threat signatures (like anti-virus software).
Must run full suite of tests after an update as the tool is unable to determine the delta.
Includes a whole bunch of advanced tools for penetration testers.
Supports only Windows Platform for running the tool.

Tester Edition

Targeted as part of the Quality Assurance process usage.
Contains same features as the Standard Edition plus the following.
Automatic test creation, modification and maintenance capabilities to enable testing and remediation.

Enterprise Edition

Targeted at multi-user environments.
Contains same features as the Standard Edition plus the following.
Centralized test management and reporting, remote scanning administration.
Continuous monitoring and aggregation of metrics to ensure remediation and trend improvement over time.
Sophisticated dashboards and flexible reporting views to provide enterprise-wide visibility of risks and remediation progress.
Web based access for users.
Supports only Windows Platform for server components.

Diamond TIP: Customize Comms Manager!

2008-08-05T14:25:00.007+08:00

The default Comm Manager in the Diamond include options for Push Mail and Data Connection. If you don't use Push Mail or GPRS, then these buttons become white elephants. Even if you do use GPRS, you can easily turn off data connection via the notification bubble so why duplicate the function here?

So how would you like to replace them with more useful functions like (1) 3G switching (i.e. switching between normal GSM mode and 3G mode) or (2)turning beam on/off (i.e. making your device discoverable to others via bluetooth)or (3) switching between vibrate and ringer mode or (4) ActiveSync (just a hot key to launch ActiveSync) or (5) IP Phone or (6) Internet Sharing (not sure what the last two do)?

For me, I chose (1) and (2) for the following reasons:

3G coverage is really patchy compared to GSM hence the phone will be searching for 3G signal more often and in the process wasting more battery life. Given that the Diamond has a small capacity battery, this situation is something you should really avoid. So from a power perspective, its best to stay in GSM mode and only switch to 3G mode when you need to. With this button, I can now quickly and easily switch between the two networks as compared to having to navigate through the phone settings in the settings menu.
Turning Beam off simply means turning off the discovery mode in Bluetooth. Note that without discovery, previously paired devices can still communicate with your phone via bluetooth. However, new devices will not be able to pair with you unless you turn discovery back on or you pair with them instead (their discovery setting must be on of course). Turning discovery on only when you need to do pairing is considered a good security practice. For details, read this. Again, having the option in the Comms Manager is much easier and quicker to access than navigating through the bluetooth settings in the settings menu.

Ok, enough talking. Let's get on with the customization already! First, download and install Advanced Configuration Tool 3.0 if you haven't already done so. It is a third party application with a nice UI that allows you to tweak the default applications without having to dirty your hands working with a registry editor. And yes, its free!

Start the application, tap on "Menu" and then "Comm Manager settings...". You can then enable/disable the functions you want as well as reorder them accordingly. Note that most if not all non-default options will not come with icons. To add them, you will have to create the icons in PNG format and throw them into the \Windows folder. The naming convention used is as follows:

Function	Filenames
3G	Function_3G.png and Function_3G_Disable.png
ActiveSync	Function_ActiveSync.png and Function_ActiveSync_Disable.png
Beam	Function_Ir.png and Function_Ir_Disable.png
Phone	Function_Phone.png and Function_Phone_Disable.png
Internet Sharing	Function_InternetSharing.png and Function_InternetSharing_Disable.png
Ringer	Function_Vibrate.png and Function_Vibrate_Disable.png
Wireless LAN	Function_WLAN.png and Function_WLAN_Disable.png
Microsoft Direct Push	Function_AUTD.png and Function_AUTD_Disable.png
Bluetooth	Function_Bluetooth.png and Function_Bluetooth_Disable.png
Data Connection	Function_DataDisconnection.png and Function_DataDisconnection_Disable.png
Flight mode	Function_FlightMode.png and Function_FlightMode_Disable.png

I have created a couple of icons for my own use. You are welcome to download and use them as you wish. Simply right click on each icon and select "Save Picture As...". Remember, you need to drop them in the \Windows folder in order to use them!

We are Singapore....

2008-08-02T23:37:00.002+08:00

My my.... Ain't we patriotic now.....

WebApp Security Test tool - HP Application Security Center

2008-08-01T15:14:00.000+08:00

The first product we are looking in the area of web application security testing tools is from HP. This is actually a suite of products collectively called HP Application Security Center. The following are some notes I have taken after hearing their presentation and browsing through their website.

Formerly SPI Dynamics before its acquisition in June 2007
Full security test suite that offers tools for different phases of the SDLC:

DevInspect – Development stage

Primarily a source code analyzer or white-box testing tool (i.e. requires full source code but does not require running system).
Underlying implementation technology specific (C#, Java, JavaScript, HTML, XML, AJAX).
Tight integration in development process (via the IDEs) hence allowing threats to be detected early (even before a developer checks the code in).
Suggests and can automatically apply code fixes when vulnerabilities are found.
Requires regular updates to keep up with latest threat signatures (like anti-virus software).
Note that this tool catches only compile-time threats, not run-time threats. Hence needs to be partnered with one of the below.
Deploys as plugins to Eclipse and Visual Studio.

QAInspect – UAT/SIT stage (maybe even as part of continuous integration)

Black-box testing tool (does not require source code but requires a running system).
Underlying implementation technology independent.
Works by crawling an entire website (link depth and type is configurable) after been given a root URL.
Suggests common fixes when vulnerabilities are found but cannot automatically fix them. (Obviously since it has no knowledge or access to the underlying code!)
Will not be able to detect threats on pages that are not explicitly defined in the test, exist as links in the website or directories that do not allow listing.
Supports legal and regulatory compliance by scanning against well known policies (e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, PCI Data Security Standard, OWASP Top Ten) and generate the necessary reports.
Requires regular updates to keep up with latest threat signatures (like anti-virus software).
Must run full suite of tests after an update as the tool is unable to determine the delta.
Tight integration with HP Quality Center and HP TestDirector hence allowing security tests to be managed as part of an overall test plan/run including functional and/or performance tests.
Automatically generate defect logs in HP Quality Center based on vulnerabilities found during the tests.
Integrates with HP AMP (Assessment Management Platform) to provide enterprise assessment management. i.e. centralized control over user permissions, security policies and remote scanning administration.
Supports only Windows Platform for running the tool.

WebInspect – anytime (after you have a running system of course)

Essentially the same as QAInspect except that its targeted for standalone use.
Includes a whole bunch of advanced tools for penetration testers.
Does not offer integration with HP Quality Center or HP TestDirector for overall test management but can push vulnerabilities as defects to HP Quality Center.
Does integrate with HP AMP for enterprise assessment management.
As far as licensing goes, in Singapore, comes in two flavors:

Single User (i.e. one PC), Single Target (i.e. one IP address)
Single User (i.e. one PC), unlimited Targets (for about double the price of the above)

IBM to buy ILOG for US$340m

2008-07-30T17:26:00.005+08:00

IBM has just officially announced that they have signed an agreement with ILOG regarding a proposed acquisition by IBM of ILOG to be implemented by way of concurrent cash public tender offers in both France and the United States.

Through this proposed transaction, IBM will combine its business process management, business optimization, and service oriented architecture (SOA) technologies with ILOG's Business Rules Management Systems software (i.e. JRules).

Comments:

This news came as no surprise to me, if not a little overdue. Why do I say this?

In terms of enterprise middleware offerings targeting application development, IBM has all the major pieces (EIP, BPM, ESB/EAI) except for a BRMS. It has a rather basic and crude implementation of a "rules engine" embedded in the WebSphere Process Server (WPS) product but I would hardly call that an "engine". Plus you cannot possibly use that to manage your business rules in the other areas like ETL or as a central, reusable rules repository for the enterprise (er... SOA anyone?).

ILOG, on the other hand, realized that it has a winner on its hand (which company does not have business rules?) but needed to latch on to players in the platform (e.g. WebSphere) and other verticals with complex business rules such as BPM (e.g. FileNet) and ETL (e.g. DataStage) in order to spread its wings. So rather than spreading itself thin by trying to support the myriad of vendors out there, why not stick with just one and do it well? Guess what? It appears that they may have been doing just that all along. FileNet, DataStage and WebSphere are all products under the IBM family and what do you know.... ILOG has out-of-the-box support in JRules for them all!

Questions:

Given the way the press release was written, it is clear that the golden boy here is JRules. So what will happen to the other products in ILOG's family? Like the CPLEX constraint-based optimization engine and visualization toolkit JViews? Will they end up as just another faceless product in IBM's vast array of offerings? Personally, I've used CPLEX and JViews before and it will be sad to see them flounder under new management.
And the million dollar question (or should I say a few million dollars question)... Will this acquisition prompt Oracle (now owner of BEA) or SUN to make a bid for Fair Isaac for its Blaze Advisor BRMS?

Kids and their sleeping postures

2008-07-27T14:41:00.002+08:00

This is Joel, fast asleep at grandma's house. I find it intriguing that he can be sound asleep in such an awkward position; Chest flat on the floor, arms wide open, head turned at right angles to one side and bum lifted a couple of inches off the ground.
And this is Jarrett... Sound asleep with his arms and legs sprawling across the width of his cot. Check out the way his legs are spread wide open and even perched high on one side of the cot. How is that even humanly possible?

Yep, one of the little wonders of kids ...

Web application security testing tools

2008-07-23T23:23:00.004+08:00

Ever heard of XSS and/or SQL Injection? How about CSRF? You should if you are a web application developer. In fact, beyond just knowing what they are, you should be well versed in its countermeasures and make them a part of your day-to-day coding routine.

Unfortunately, these are just a tip of the iceberg and there are many more exploits and vulnerabilities that exist today as web technology advances and attack surface increases. It will not be feasible and practical to know them all, not to mention ensuring every single line of your code to free from them; Just like it is not possible to write code that is bug free.

Web application security is no longer an area that can be ignored or treated as second class citizens. Given the exponential growth of online applications that deal with valuable data (e.g. B2B marketplace, partner self-service apps, consumer ebanking and ecommerce, webmails, online docs and spreadsheets, even online data backup services, etc), the implications (usually financial) of losing them to hackers are not to be taken lightly.

Even if a company's web applications do not contain personal and private data, any defacement due to web exploits can cause loss of customer confidence and/or negatively affect the branding, all of which will ultimately hurt the business.

Having established the need for more emphasis on web application security, what can one do about it? Well, you can:

include the skillset as a requirement in recruiting your development team,
skill up your development team in this area,
create development guidelines/policies that encourage/enforce exploit-safe coding practices,
setup regular peer reviews focusing specifically on web application security,
develop test cases that attempt to flag out possible vulnerabilities.

You can look into acquiring some web application security test tools to offload your development team from some of these worries.

Generally speaking, here are some key benefits that you can hope to reap from using such tools:

Consistency in overall quality of code produced as you no longer depend on skill levels of individual developers.
Quickly and easily satisfy regulatory compliance to well known standards such as SOX, PCI, HIPAA, etc as most tools can run tests against the standards and generate the necessary reports.
Keep up with the latest threats via the auto update feature in the tools.
Include the security tests as part of the QA cycle (test planning, execution, even defect tracking).

Here in Sony, I am leading the initiative to explore and evaluate the product landscape with the goal of creating a Centre of Excellence (covering both governance and service provisioning) for web application security to support our internal IT operations.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will be meeting up with the various vendors to understand their offerings as well as evaluate their strengths and weaknesses in depth via PoCs.

Stop Vista from messing up your display(s)... Part II

2008-07-18T13:19:00.001+08:00

This is a follow up on the issue I had with Vista's multi-monitor support back in June. Just a recap, Vista tries to be smart by configuring your dual view displays (and their resolutions) automatically (unfortunately to its liking, not yours) upon certain triggers like when a user logs on.

After having done the fix described in my previous post, I managed to stop the screen flicking and screen reconfiguration at user log on and returning from a locked Windows session. But to my dismay, I was still getting weird behaviours with my dual monitor displays at times. i.e. changing my laptop display to secondary or even blanking it out completely.

After many hours of troubleshooting and googling, I think I have finally nailed the other triggers for the automatic configuration of dual view displays of Vista to the following:

1) If you have your external monitor plugged in (it doesn't matter whether the monitor is on or not) when booting Vista, it will assume that the external monitor is your default display (i.e. Display 1) and your laptop display is secondary (i.e. Display 2).

2) If your external monitor is plugged in and Vista is running, closing the lid of your notebook will cause the display configuration to change the default display to external monitor (if its not already default). Oh, and unfortunately, its not smart enough to switch back when you open the lid the next time.

If you have fiddled with "Display Settings" under "Personalization", you will have realized that you can change the default monitor back by checking the "This is my main monitor" checkbox. However, the setting will not stick and the next time one of the above happens, your external monitor becomes the primary display again.

The permanent fix I have found so far is to change the setting in the native display control panel provided by the hardware manufacturer instead. i.e. If you have a NVidia graphics card, use the "NVidia Control Panel" applet. If you are using the Intel embedded graphics card, then use the "Intel Graphics Media Accelerator" applet.

Hopefully, this will be the last time I'm going to blog on this topic. *fingers crossed!*

Byebye SmartFTP... Hello FileZilla!

2008-07-15T00:38:00.001+08:00

I have been a long time user of SmartFTP (a fast and feature-rich FTP client) and were grateful that it was free for personal use. However, as of 7th July (version 3.x and up), it is no longer being offered free for personal use and the software is time-bombed so that you cannot continue to use the free version. I would love to support them by buying a license but unfortunately, their $36.95 pricing is just a tad too much to pay for my very basic and ad-hoc FTP needs.

So out it goes and within five minutes, I found its replacement; The open source project FileZilla. Apparently this is a very capable FTP client and has won top honours from download sites such as cnet, softpedia and snapfiles. I did a quick tour and found it more than adequate for my needs (side-by-side local/remote view, drag-n-drop from explorer, site manager aka favourite's list, concurrent uploads/downloads). Best of all, this is a sourceforge project so I can be pretty sure that I won't be getting any nasty surprises like its predecessor!

Jarrett can climb stairs!

2008-07-13T23:03:00.003+08:00

Check this out... our little boy can climb stairs even before he can walk!

Gsen - Auto-rotate ANY app in HTC Diamond!

2008-07-11T09:54:00.001+08:00

The guys at SKKV (makers of the excellent SK Tools) have done it again. This time, they have released a new tool called Gsen which unlocks the hardware accelerometer for all applications running on the HTC Diamond! This means that you can now auto-rotate the screen layout of ANY applications just by turning the device to the orientation you want. Rotate it to the left or right and even upside down! One other nifty feature that is included in the tool is that it can optionally turn off the device (or screen) when you flip the screen facing down. Best of all , this is currently released as freeware so grab it while its hot! Check out the video demonstration below.

Gsen sur HTC Touch Diamond
Uploaded by comic0

Understanding Defense in Depth

2008-07-08T15:46:00.000+08:00

Some IT folks I speak with seem to think the phrase "Defence in Depth" in the IT context refers to how a computer network is segmented or zoned. For example, having demilitarized zones (DMZ) and secured zone, implemented via firewalls and routers constitute defence in depth.

Unfortunately, this is not entirely correct. The concept has a much larger scope than just network. Generally speaking, it refers to how one can use multiple methods at varying layers for a more comprehensive defence strategy. The layers (and corresponding methods) can be classified as follows:

Security Policies
Physical Security (e.g. dead bolt locks, biometrics)
Perimeter Security (e.g. Firewalls, Routers, VPN, RAS)
Network Security (e.g. IDS, IPS, Packet filters, IPSec)
Server Security (e.g. Antivirus software, access control at host levels)
Application Security (e.g. access control at app level)
Data Security (e.g. data encryption)

The good news is that in most circumstances, these folks are already using the strategy without knowing it. i.e. In a typical data center setup, you will have some form of security at each of the first five levels;

Some form of security policy governing access and use of your networks/servers/applications
Locked gates/doors in front of your data center building/room
Routers and Firewalls in front of your application servers
Intrusion detection/prevention systems monitoring the network traffic for abnormalities
Access control at the operating server level of the hardware boxes

For more information on this topic, you may want to check out Microsoft's Defense in depth security model in these series of webcasts.

Back in Istanbul again...

2008-07-04T11:43:00.011+08:00

I'm back in Istanbul again for a 2 days workshop with our counterparts in Europe to discuss and confirm the architecture for Homepage Phase 2. This is a working level meeting and our main points of contact were Fabian and Fabrice from the GISS-E group.

For this trip, I am putting up at Conrad Istanbul instead of Radisson SAS (where I stayed previously) as it was full. Conrad is much bigger than Radisson in terms of hotel size and room size. The hotel is perched on top of a hill and offers a wonderful view of the city and the Bosphorus strait in most of the rooms (unfortunately not mine).

On the night of our arrival, our hosts took us out for dinner at an upmarket and classy joint called the Sunset Grill & Bar which is famous for its Japanese fusion cuisine (and sushi!) as well as its wine list. Apparently a popular dining destination with locals, I was told that this is the place to rub shoulders and mingle with the local celebrities and corporate head honchos.
As luck would have it, Simon and Frank (the top guys in Sony Europe, on the left towards the end of the row) were in town and joined us for the welcome dinner.

The restaurant is perched on the hills of Ulus and overlooks the Bosphorus. The view is spectacular in the day and even more so at night when the city lights up.

I finally get to try a Turkish wine this time round (Turkey wine exports are limited in quantity and I don't think I have ever seen one in Singapore before) and it was a 2004 Kayra Buzbağ Rezerv Öküzgözü-Boğazkere. The taste is refreshing and I enjoyed it very much. Needless to say, I had quite a few to drink as I savored the excellent T-bone steak and talked shop with the hosts till late into the night. Side note: It's usually times like this, in a casual setting outside the office with lots of booze, that you get to have frank and honest discussions on work topics!

Diamond TIP: Word completion annoyance

2008-07-01T17:09:00.000+08:00

It is nice of HTC to add a couple of its own SIP (i.e. Compact QWERTY, Full QWERTY and Phone Keypad) in the Diamond that even comes with word completion feature. But it isn't nice of them to do this at the expense of the built-in ones - Have you noticed that the word completion feature in the built-in SIPs (like keyboard and block recognizer) now no longer works?

What ticks me off most is that the settings for word completion for these stock SIPs still exist in the options screen hence giving the false impression that it must be something I did which caused it not to work. (That's a -1 for you HTC)

After countless futile attempts at configuring whatever options I can find related to word completion, I gave up. Did a google on this problem (should have done this in the first place) and found the cause as well as the not-so-perfect fix for this. Why not-so-perfect? Because its a case of one or the other; you can have word completion in either the HTC SIPs or the stock SIPs, but not both. (That's -2!)

Made your choice? If you are still keen on having word completion for the stock SIPs, follow the steps below:

IMPORTANT: be sure that HKLM\Software\Tegic\eT9\XT9SupportMSSip has a value of 0.

Change these two registry keys under:
HKLM\system\currentcontrolset\control\layouts\e 0010409

Value of Ime File from \windows\xt9ime.dll to \windows\compime.dll
Value of Layout Text from XT9 IME to COMP IME

And soft reset. To revert back, simply reverse the steps above.

Happy Birthday Jarrett!

2008-06-29T23:23:00.003+08:00

We celebrated Jarrett's first birthday today by throwing him a party right at home. It was a family only affair but the turnout was already more than we can cope. I did not manage to do a count but I suspect it to be around 50 pax with a fifth of them being kids. Thanks for the strong support guys!

Moving ffp to a USB stick

2008-06-25T01:11:00.006+08:00

Ok, I finally got down to moving ffp to a cheap 1GB USB stick. The motivation for doing so are:

Power saving - When there are little to no activities in the box, I do not want the hard disks to spin up unnecessarily.
Clean HD_a2 file system - I still haven't figure out why cleanboot is not working on my box hence I rather risk a corrupted USB stick containing only ffp than my precious 500GB of real data.

Here are the steps I took to get it working on my box: [Edit: The instructions below is no longer valid for ffp 0.5 dated Aug 20th and later. Please look here for the latest instructions.]

Get a cheap 1GB USB stick and plug it into the USB port behind the device. (duh!)
Download the necessary module (i.e. usb-storage.ko) from here and put it in the folder /ffp/lib/modules/[kernel_version]/. Note that this is a new directory that you will need to create. (TIP: run 'uname -r' on the command line first to get the kernel version and then substitute it in the path above)
Test the compatibility of the USB stick by running the usb mounting script that came with the ffp v0.5 package.

Note: you may need to edit the script var usbdisk_dev if you have a second HDD as the default value is sdb1.
run the script using the command ". ./usbdisk.sh"
If everything is ok, you should see the message "Mounting /dev/sdc1 on /mnt/HD_a2/sdc1". You may also want to run df to confirm that it is properly mounted.

Now that you are sure your USB stick works in the DNS-323, its time to format the stick in ext2. To do this, unmount the stick and run "mke2fs /dev/sdc1".
Now, mount the new fs and copy the entire ffp folder to the stick. i.e. run "mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/HD_a2/sdc1", followed by "cp -a /mnt/HD_a2/ffp /mnt/HD_a2/sdc1/".
When we get here, we are now ready to replace the stock fun_plug script with one that will run ffp from the USB stick. There are a couple of variants floating about in the forum. Personally, I like the one by SilentException best as it identifies the stick via its UUID hence making sure it grabs the right stick for our mount point even if you have multiple USB sticks attached to the box.

Backup your original fun_plug script. (This is always a good idea)
Grab the script from here and put it in the root directory of /mnt/HD_a2.
Locate your device's UUID by running the command blkid /dev/sdc1.
Copy the UUID and replace the value in the variable USB_DEV_UUID in the script.
You may also want to edit/remove the portion after #MS (but before # run commands!)
Reboot the box and when it comes back up, check the log /mnt/HD_a2/ffp.log to make sure that you are now running ffp off the USB stick instead of the HDD.

Note that for convenience, this script also defines the shortcuts /hd and /usb to refer to /mnt/HD_a2 and /mnt/USB respectively.

Things I don't like about the Diamond

2008-06-18T11:24:00.005+08:00

A few observations, gripes and questions after a week with the device:

For the sms wakeup problem, i noticed that in my unit, i do get the audio alert even after the phone went to sleep. however, there are a couple of times when it just flash the ring of light with no alert. I know this as I got the phone in front of me on my desk most of the time. Oh, and most importantly, i did not do the sms wake up fix.

For Voice Command, it is mapped to button 1. But for the life in me, i can't find button 1! Oh, and I did search the manual but the diagrams does not show any button 1! [edit: Ok, apparently, this is the call button. Thanks to a fellow diamond user for telling me.]
For the issue on screen going blank on connecting a call, I believe this is only true when the light sensor near the ear piece gets cover up. I suppose the assumption is that it happens when you put the phone to your ear hence you will not be requiring the screen. (plus it saves on battery and prevents accidental screen press!) So its really thoughtful of HTC to put in this feature. HOWEVER, the implementation comes up short. Why? cuz

when you wanna end the call, you need to do two actions - (1) turn on the screen via the power button and (2) end the call via the on screen button. Or on my unit, I found out that the first press on the end call button while the screen is off does not end the call but power up the screen so you have to press twice to end the call.
say you picked up a call by putting the phone to your ear, then u decided to use the notes app to enter some data. Yeah, pulling out the stylus will turn on the screen and open up the notes app. That's a nice touch (sic) but the damn screen turns off a split second later. just brilliant. Oh, and if you manually turn the screen back on, it goes off after a split second again (as long as the call is still active). sigh... nice idea but half baked implementation.

[edit: Apparently, I was wrong on the light sensor part. It is really the accelerometer that is behind this. Granted that under _certain_ circumstances, you will lay it flat to enter data but there are _many_ other scenarios where you won't have it flat (e.g. when you are out and about!) and yet you need to enter data or just to check your appointments!]

According to the manual, hitting the left softkey (labeled "send text") during an incoming call automatically sends a canned SMS reply (which you set in one of the options field) to the caller. However, when I finally got a chance to use it today (a call came in during a meeting and I simply pressed on the softkey followed by hitting the "off" hard button), I found out that the softkey launches a new sms input screen with the "to" field set to the caller and your canned text in the message body BUT it does NOT send out the message. Woah... is it just me or does this not tally with what is described in the manual?

I'm also suffering from the "thou shall not accept any settings for the backlight other than 10secs" syndrome and have found no workarounds. How annoying is that!

The messaging app is just so damn slow! Sending an sms involves a 3-5secs wait just to get to the editor screen. How annoying is that x2!!

I sync my calendar items with two Vista machine, a pc and a notebook. Every time I connect to one of them for the first time in a day, I get the error "Activesync encountered an error on the desktop" (support code 86000107). So far, the only remedy is to remove the sync setting and then add it back again. How annoying is that x3!!!

Time out with the kids... Kungfu Panda... and PC Show

2008-06-12T22:36:00.009+08:00

I took the day off to spend some time with my wife and the two boys today. The plan was to head down to Marina Square to catch the movie Kungfu Panda, give the boys a treat at their favourite lunch place (yes, the one with the M), do some window shopping and perhaps drop by the PC Show next door over at SICC if time (and my kids) permits. Phew, a pretty ambitious plan and I'm glad that it turned out ok. In fact, I even managed to squeeze in an extra bonus (getting my diamond) so I'm happy.

Jarrett, unfortunately, will have to sit this one out as he is neither old enough to appreciate the movie nor has the stamina to be out the whole day. Sorry buddy! But look on the bright side, you will be having your first birthday bash in just a couple of weeks!

Ok, back to the outing. As it was an early show on a weekday, we pretty much had the whole theater to ourselves. We spotted a few group of teenagers and families but thank goodness there were no noisy kids or crying babies. Since it isn't often that we have movie outings, we decided to let our kids indulge in the full movie experience; Yep, that means popcorn, nachos and soft drinks.

Joel did not take to the popcorn much but Jordan had a blast with it. It was such an adorable sight watching him sitting straight up on my lap, eyes peeled on the big screen in front and little hands reaching deep into the box, grabbing fistful of popcorn and stuffing them into his wide open mouth that is lined with sticky popcorn bits all around. Too bad it was mid way through the movie else I would love to snap a few shots of this messy look.

The movie itself was great and the boys thoroughly enjoyed it. Joel, as usual, got visibly upset during scenes where bad things are happening to the good guys, like when Master Shifu got badly beaten up by Tai Lung, but he liven up and laughed at the scene where Poh was being trained by Master Shifu, especially the chopstick fights. Jordan was fascinated by the kicks and punches that he has been imitating them ever since, luckily not on his Kungfu Panda backpack.

After the show, we brought them to MacDonald's as promised where they wolfed down a happy meal each in double time. How I wish they can eat just as fast when they are at home. This was then followed by a trip down to Toys R Us over at Suntec to grab some swimming toys (the foam tubes that shoot water out from one end) which I promised to buy for them.

By the time we were done with our planned itinerary, it was past 2pm and the boys were visibly tired. But when I asked if they were tired and if we should head home to rest, the answer was a resounding no, which did not come as any surprise. Kids will be kids I guess.

Since we had hit all our (kids) targets for the day, we decided to shift focus and went shopping for some big boys toys instead. To the PC Show we go! Yippee! (Edit: on further reading, it sure sounds to me like this is still a kids target afterall!) It was the first day of the show, coupled with the fact that it was a work day, I was hopeful that it would not be crowded. Slightly worse than expected but still very much bearable, people were everywhere and we literary handcuffed ourselves to the kids to make sure we don't loose them in the crowd.

In terms of offers, there wasn't really much. I was shopping for a new laptop for my wife but the prices were no different from SLS or anywhere else on any other days. Even the freebies thrown into the package were not attractive at all. Lenovo for one is just throwing in a bluetooth mouse (worth say S$50 max?) for the purchase of a T61. What a waste of time.

I was also looking to replace my standalone AIO printer with one that has network capabilities (not just for printing but also can scan and save fax to samba shares). There was a promotion for a new launch model MFC-885CW from brother but alas it cannot do the scanning and fax receiving to network folders without the assistance of a PC. It really bugs me why these devices have network capabilities when they still require an attached PC to function. Granted its now attached over the LAN instead of USB but what is the point in that?

The only gem in the show (as far as I'm concerned anyway) was the launch of the HTC Touch Diamond. Singtel had the most attractive offer of the lot; at S$498 with a two years plan (RRP is S$1098), it was a steal really. I jumped at the opportunity and got the recontract and phone in less than 30 mins. Not only did I get the phone cheaper (Its a roadshow offer only as Hello shops are retailing them at S$798), the transaction also took considerably less time than if I were to buy it from any Hello shop. Hello shops are known to be incredibly inefficient. Either that or they are grossly understaffed.

All in all, it is a nice change to finally have one day where everything just works for you; I bonded with the kids, they were on their best behaviour throughout (well, most of the time anyway), and I get to check out the PC Show and even managed to get a new PDA phone. My kind of day indeed!

Woot! I got my Diamond!

2008-06-12T22:06:00.002+08:00

Ok, so I did say before that I am not likely to get this device. But... but.. the deal was just too good to resist. Check this out... The HTC Touch Diamond was launched today in conjunction with the PC Show and there are quite a few retailers promoting it at the show. The price was mostly fixed at RRP which is S$1098 and no freebies to boot.

However, Singtel came along and spoilt the whole market by offering it at... get this... S$498 with a free leather case, a second battery and SPB traveler or organizer pack. (with the mandatory 2 years contract of course) That is close to 50% off RRP and with freebies!

I was at the PC Show shopping for a laptop but ended up buying the phone instead. I figured that with the second battery, it should solve my power issue some what. In the event that it doesn't, I can always pass it to my wife when the HTC Touch Pro is released. Given the tiny form factor (it is even smaller than her current Nokia!) and the improved usability (not to mention the eye candy), she will feel right at home with it. :)

Can you guess our names?

2008-06-08T02:10:00.003+08:00

Ans: From top to bottom - Joel, Jordan and Jarrett! Did you get it right?

Tip: Search in SMS inbox!

2008-06-07T09:16:00.001+08:00

Found this out by accident recently and have been loving it since. If you are running Windows Mobile 6, here is a tip for you.

In the list view for SMS, enter a character and WM6 will automatically search and filter into view for any message with that character in the contact name AND message body! Continue to type in more characters and they will be added to the search query (exact pattern case-insensitive search only. i.e. *xxx*). What's more, it will even highlight the queried text in the filtered view! To get back to normal view, just hit the delete character.

I believe it works for email and MMS as well but I've not personally tested that since I don't have messages in those categories. Perhaps someone out there who have tested this may want to share with the rest.

RAM upgrade... finally

2008-06-06T00:13:00.006+08:00

Back in Feb, I took the poor man's route to improve performance in Vista running on my aging hardware; by adding a 1GB USB stick to activate ReadyBoost for under S$15. It did help somewhat but you quickly loose that perceived improvement when it still takes seconds to load and switch between windows.

I was seriously thinking of junking this box entirely in favor of a brand new setup (with maybe BluRay drive and HD capable graphics card thrown in) but figured this move probably won't go down well with the missus. Plus the fact that PC Show is just around the corner and maybe by then I can come up with a reasonably good excuse ahem.. reason to do just that.

Anyhow, this morning while browsing the HWZ price list, I noticed that the market rate for DDR400 1GB Ram modules has fallen somewhat (S$58 a pc now). A quick search on HWZ marketplace yielded a chap selling off his DDR400 2x1GB sticks for $100 and decided to jump at it. The sale went very smoothly (2mins in front of an MRT station was all it took) and the installation was a breeze; I was back up and running with 2GB in the box within the hour.

Vista now reports 60+% free memory after initial boot compared with only 30% free previously. And running outlook, three instances of IE (with about half a dozen tabs each), trillian, plus four gadgets on the sidebar leaves 40% memory free as compared to only 6% free previously. No more harddisk trashing when I switch windows or launch new applications. Morale of thee story is... If you want to have a usable Vista system, you will need 2GB of RAM at least. ReadyBoost can certainly help alittle but ultimately, it is the amount of RAM that makes the difference.

Still no joy on aero though but that is because I'm running on embedded graphics that is four years old. Perhaps I should start sourcing for a second hand AGP 8x graphics card next...

Home network topology recap

2008-06-05T01:40:00.005+08:00

Back when I started exploring options for home networking, I pretty much concluded that WiFi was the best option, or rather the only cost effective solution for me at that point in time. (*) I was up and running very quickly as all it took was to setup the router (I had an existing 802.11g device) in a suitable location (I have it in the living room) and configure the clients for access (a PC in level 2 master bedroom, and a laptop that is floating).

However, the results was less than satisfactory; I had large dead zones and weak spots all over the house. My PC (in level 2 bedroom) could only connect at 2-5Mbps stable and my laptop failed to connect at level 3. Even when I had clear line of sight between the client and the router (my laptop was just sitting on the opposite end of the room from the router), large file transfers to/fro my NAS (which has a direct connection to the router via cat 5e cable) via Windows Explorer would fail at times due to interference from neighouring APs.

In late January, I managed to get hold of a pair of homeplugs for just S$50 as part of the mioTV signup bundle (*) and that fixed my connectivity issue with the level 2 bedroom PC. I am now getting a stable connection at speeds of 80-90Mbps.

I did not stop there as I still needed to have connectivity on level 3. So I upgraded the router to one with MIMO technology, built-in amplifier and high-gain antenna. (*) That did solve the problem somewhat but stable speed at level 3 open areas was still hovering around 5.5Mbps and I still have dead zones in critical areas like my study.

Since the homeplugs are doing a good job, I decided to go hunting for a few more. I also figured that there will be people trying to cash in on the MioTV offer so I can probably get a few cheap. True enough, I found quite a few brand new sets in HWZ marketplace and I managed to grab one set for S$100 earlier this evening. Just for comparison, normal retail sets are going for S$180 at Challenger. At S$50 per connection, it is still alittle on the expensive side but TCO is still lower than the other options.

This pair of homeplugs are being deployed as follows: one is used to hook up the XMBC located in the lvl 3 den and the other will be connected to a 4 port switch in the lvl 3 study serving another PC and the printer.

In summary, my home network now comprises of a core backbone based on 4 homeplugs (real world throughput around 80Mbps), a satellite switch (the 4 port 100baseT switch) in the study and another switch (the 802.11g MIMO WiFi router com 4 port 100baseT switch) in the living room. And lastly, I still have the patchy WiFi coverage for mobility and low bandwidth scenarios.
What's next? Hmm.. maybe explore using directional antenna to extend my WiFi range to the pool so that I can get online while lounging out by the pool :)

Stop Vista from messing up your display(s)

2008-06-03T13:24:00.000+08:00

Have you noticed that whenever your Vista machine (especially laptops) resume from standby, hibernate or just plain screensaver and you have Windows lock enabled, your screen will flash at least once or twice? And if you are like me, running on multi display, Vista will try to reconfigure both displays for some reason but usually ends up messing up both displays? In my case, my laptop display's resolution gets dropped to 800x600 (and in the process messing up all my windows layout) and sometimes I get blank screens on both displays (after which I had to hard reset my PC to recover and lose all my unsaved work in the process.. geez.. thanks Microsoft).

It took me awhile to track down the problem but I finally managed to pinpoint the root cause. There is a new component in Vista called "Microsoft Transient Multi-Monitor Manager" that manages the switching of displays. By default, it is configured to run everytime a user is logged on (apparently, unlocking your desktop is considered as such).

To solve the problem, follow the steps below to disable it.

Open up Computer Management window. i.e right click on Computer in the Start menu and select Manage.
Expand System Tools -> Task Scheduler -> Task Scheduler Library -> Microsoft -> Windows and click on MobilePC.
In the top middle pane, right click on the item named TMM and select Disable.
Reboot your PC.

Woot! I got my Harmony!

2008-06-01T00:53:00.004+08:00

I have been eyeing on a Harmony remote for awhile now but have always managed to held back as I couldn't bear parting more money on a remote than on say a branded DVD player. Until today that is.

Logitech is running a promotion for all its models in the Harmony range and the best bang for the buck offer is the Harmony 525 at 50% off. This is the entry level model and even at 50% off retail prices, still costs a good S$99. Thank goodness it falls just shy of the triple digits psychological barrier which otherwise would have made the purchase a no-go by The Significant Other.

Anyhow, so what's so good about the Harmony you say? Well, simply put, it is a universal remote control with macros. Yes, how we geeks just love macros... to the layman, macros is the ability to program a series of steps with just one shortcut, in this case, button.

In the Harmony world, this is introduced as "Activity". So say you have an activity called "Watch DVD". This macro can turn on your TV, Home Theater system, and DVD player, set them all to the right input source and even eject the DVD tray with just one click of a button.

On top of that, all keys on the remote then get mapped to functions related to the activity which you have just activated. For example, the volume keys controls the volume on the Home Theater, while the navigation keys (i.e. play, stop, forward, reverse, etc) controls those on the DVD player. How convenient!

Another differentiator from other remotes is that the Harmony remote remembers states. So for example, if you are currently listening to CD via your DVD player and your Home Theater, and you decide that you now want to watch TV, clicking on the "Watch TV" activity will turn on the TV and at the same time, turn off your DVD player and Home Theater!

Although this is generally a good thing most of the time, but some times, it does get in the way when it falls out of sync with the real state of the appliance. For example, when you have manually turned on your TV, the remote doesn't know it so when you hit the "Watch TV" button, it will still send a "power on" command to your TV which may turn it off instead if this command happens to be of toggle type. The way around it then is to try programming discrete commands for power on and off, provided that your device supports it of course.

Talking about programming, Logitech tries to make it easier by hosting a central database of devices online where you can select and import into your Harmony remote directly. This will mean that a pre-requisite for owning this remote is access to a Windows PC with a USB port and Internet connection.

All in, I will rate this a good buy and a necessary piece of gadget in any living room setting where you have three or more appliances to control. FYI, I have a TV, Home Theater system, DVD/HDD player cum recorder, MioTV and Xbox (running XBMC)!

Show me the money ? How do you define "financially free"?

2008-05-29T23:18:00.001+08:00

Someone asked this question on Linkedin and I decided to share my two cents since it is a question I ask myself almost everyday. Below is what I answered.

This is the exact same question I ask myself every waking moment, especially since I'm nowhere near there. :(

To me, "financially free" or "financial freedom" or "financial independence" all refers to the state where you no longer need to "work to live" but rather you "live to work". i.e. You have a net worth that is enough to sustain your desired lifestyle from now till the very day you leave this world.

I believe most people will agree with me up to this point. The next logical question to ask is then "what should this net worth amount to in today's dollar?" and here is where it gets personal and subjective.

To the risk adverse, this magic number will probably be obscenely huge and requires you to work till you kick the bucket (or alternatively strike the lottery _a_few_times_) as they factor in high inflation rates, zero return on investment (i.e. spending the base amount and not investing it), providing for their kids, parents, grand parents, grand children, ... (you get the idea) and even throw in a few exceptions aka worst case scenarios (like accidents or suffering from critical illness although this should really have been taken care of by proper insurance planning) for good measure.

Likewise for the materialistic folks whose desired lifestyle includes a jet, Rolls or Zonda, an estate perched on a cliff overlooking the ocean, wardrobe decked out in Prada, LV and Gucci, this number will probably be something that only 1% of the population can really claim to have or your surname happens to be "Buffett" or "Gates". (ok, I'm exaggerating here)

To the easily contented and happy-go-lucky folks, this number can be reached well within their working lifetime. But bear in mind that this number will probably be a moving target (usually upwards) as your situation changes (desire for higher lifestyle, having more kids than expected, etc) and being influenced by this global economy (I attribute all these to capitalism being evil but lets not open that can of worms)

In short, "financial freedom" is really a state of mind for most people and all boils down to your expectations and the amount of risks you are willing to take and adjustments you are willing to make.

Of course, all this means zilch to the filthy rich who can truly afford to say that and never have to worry about it in the first place... Hmm... Hey Bill, are you by any chance looking for a godson? :)

DD-WRT TX errors and v24 upgrade

2008-05-24T00:34:00.003+08:00

Recently, my wireless router (running DD-WRT v24 RC6) had been experiencing a high number of TX errors (around 10 per sec!). And the weird thing is that I did not even have wireless clients active then. At first I thought it was due to the interference from a new neighborhood WAP that is running on the same channel. But even after I switched away to an unused channel, the TX errors did not go down.

So I pop over to the forums and did a quick search on this topic but unfortunately found nothing helpful. Seeing that the final release version for v24 is out (for just a couple of days actually), I took the plunge and did the upgrade hoping that this will solve the problem.

The process went well and was completed in under 10 mins from the time I started downloading the new firmware to my router back up and running on the new version. Even my old settings remained intact. I'm impressed.

However, the upgrade failed to solve my TX errors problem. The count did drop somewhat (its now happening at a rate of 1-2 errors per min) but it is still happening even when I have no active clients. If anyone has any idea where that is coming from, please drop me a clue. Thanks!

Xbox as a media ripper

2008-05-19T08:54:00.001+08:00

When I first started out on the Xbox modding project, all I had in mind was to use it as a cheap media player that plays content (i.e. video, music, photos) from my media server cum NAS (i.e. my DNS-323) on my big screen TV in the living room.

This setup has been working well for the past couple of months but recently while researching into how to get my kids' Xbox games on to the upgraded hard disk so that they no longer need to mess with physical discs anymore (let a 4 year old handle the discs and I guarantee you that you will be buying replacements in a matter of weeks), I found a new trick; There is a wonderful little program called dvd2xbox (included in an AID installation) which can rip DVDs, audio CDs and Xbox games onto the local hard disk or even across the network (e.g. to my NAS!) via samba. Its extremely user-friendly (everything is just a few clicks away) and it will even look up freecddb to auto name your audio tracks!

So now, in addition to solving my "kids with discs" problem, I also have a painlessly way to quickly and effortlessly rip my audio CD and movie DVD collection right in the comfort of my living room! Excellent!

BitTorrent client showdown - Transmission vs mldonkey

2008-05-18T11:18:00.006+08:00

I'm giving up mldonkey for transmission+clutch for the following reasons:

Smaller memory footprint and less CPU intensive - this is especially important in a small embedded system like the DNS-323. For comparison sake, top reports 54% memory usage(sometimes growing to near 90%!) for mldonkey but only 7% for transmission (or 25% including lighttpd and php for clutch)
BitTorrent protocol only - since I only use bittorrent protocol, I do not need such a heavy weight client like mldonkey (which includes other protocols like file download aka HTTP/FTP, edonkey, overnet, gnutella and fasttrack).
Separation of UI from the core - unlike mldonkey (which offers telnet and http interface by default), the only built-in interface in transmission is the CLI (aka Command Line Interface) via transmission-remote. This again gives you the chance to reduce resource utilization by (1) not running the Clutch interface hence no web server required or (2) running Clutch in a shared web server on the box (unlike mldonkey which uses an exclusive built-in standalone web server)
Efficiency of the client - after 3 days with both clients turned on downloading the same files, it seems that transmission is more efficient than mldonkey by achieving better sustained speeds and yet using less connections.

Transmission and Clutch setup guide here.

Jarrett on a tricycle!

2008-05-17T00:56:00.007+08:00

Enhanced transmission script for your DNS-323

2008-05-16T01:17:00.001+08:00

I miss the ability to auto-stop/shutdown the bittorrent client after all downloads have completed hence I decided to port the old mldonkey script over. Here is a quick summary on what it does.

Improved the robustness of the startup, shutdown and restart sequence.
Added function to auto-stop transmission when there are no more active downloads.
Added function to auto-shutdown the box when there are no more active downloads.
Added function to configure the behavior when there are no more active downloads. Valid arguments are:

set_stop_when_done - stops transmission when there are no more active downloads;
set_off_when_done - shutdowns the box when there are no more active downloads;
set_donothing_when_done - let transmission continue to run when there are no active downloads (i.e. seeding);

Use the function softstop_status to check what is the current configuration option.

The default behavior is set_stop_when_done. Command syntax is . /ffp/start/transmission.sh [cmd]. Here is the script below.


#!/ffp/bin/sh

###################################################################
# author: Sidney Chong (bfg100k[at]gmail.com)                     #
# version: 0.1                                                    #
# date: 15/05/2008                                                #
#                                                                 #
# Version History                                                 #
# ---------------                                                 #
# v0.1 - expanded original startup script to be more robust and   #
#        include auto-stop or auto-shutdown the box when          #
#        downloads are completed.                                 #
#                                                                 #
###################################################################

if [ -z ${TRANSMISSION_HOME} ]; then
  #setup the ENV variables if not found
  #this can happen when running from crontab
  echo "Environment variables not found, including default fun_plug profile."
  . /ffp/etc/profile
fi

TMP_CRONTAB="/ffp/log/crontab.tmp"

name="transmission-daemon"
command="/ffp/bin/transmission-daemon"
user=nobody

transmission_start()
{
  #check if daemon is already running. if yes, do nothing
  if transmission_status  grep -q "is running"; then
    echo "INFO: ${name} already running! Nothing to do."
    return
  fi

  if [ ! -d $TRANSMISSION_HOME ]; then
    su $user -c "mkdir $TRANSMISSION_HOME"
  fi
  echo "Starting ${name}..."
  su $user -c "$command -f -v 2 1>$TRANSMISSION_HOME/$name.log 2>&1 &"
  sleep 1
  if [ -S $TRANSMISSION_HOME/daemon/socket ]; then
    chmod 0777 $TRANSMISSION_HOME/daemon/socket
  else
    echo "Could not find Transmission socket"
    return
  fi

  #this step configures what to do if there are no more active downloads
  #default (stop_when_done) is to stop transmission.
  #change to off_when_done if you want to shutdown the box
  #change to donothing_when_done if you want to let it run (e.g. for seeding)
  _transmission_setup_softstop stop_when_done

  echo "Transmission startup sequence completed. Check ${TRANSMISSION_HOME}/${name}.log for more details."
}

transmission_stop()
{
  if transmission_status  grep -q "is running"; then
    echo -n "Stopping ${name}... "
  if [ -x /ffp/bin/transmission-remote ]; then
   /ffp/bin/transmission-remote -q
  else
   /bin/kill -9 $(pidof $command)
  fi
    echo "done."
  else
    echo "INFO: ${name} not running! Nothing to stop."
  fi
  _transmission_setup_softstop
  echo "${name} stop sequence completed."
}

transmission_status()
{
 _pids=$(pidof $name)
 if test -n "$_pids"; then
  echo "$name is running"
 else
  echo "$name not running"
 fi
}

transmission_softstop_status()
{
  if crontab -l  grep -q 'softstop_off';
  then
    echo "DNS-323 will shutdown when there are no active downloads."
  else
    if crontab -l  grep -q 'softstop';
    then
      echo "${name} will stop when there are no active downloads."
    else
      echo "softstop has not been configured."
    fi
  fi
}

transmission_restart()
{
  transmission_stop
  echo "Waiting for old instance to shutdown before starting new daemon..."
  while transmission_status  grep -q "is running"
  do
    sleep 5
  done
  transmission_start
}

# this routine checks to see if transmission is still alive
# and if there are any downloads active.
# if no downloads are active, it attempts to stop transmission.
# if "off_when_done" option is specified, it will attempt to
# shutdown the DNS-323 as well.
_transmission_softstop()
{
  echo -n "`date`: Checking downloads... "
  if /ffp/bin/transmission-remote -l  grep -q 'downloading';
  then
    echo "downloads are still active!"
  else
    echo "no active downloads found!"
    transmission_stop
    if [ "${1}" = "off_when_done" ]; then
      echo "attempting to shutdown the DNS-323 now. Bye Bye!"
      touch /tmp/shutdown
    fi
  fi
}

# this routine sets up softstop as a cron job that runs every half hour
# to ADD the cron job, pass "stop_when_done" into the routine,
# to ADD the cron job with shutdown option, pass "off_when_done",
# any other values (or no value) means REMOVE by default
_transmission_setup_softstop()
{
  echo "Setting up softstop on crontab... "
  crontab -l > ${TMP_CRONTAB}
  sed -i -e '/transmission.sh softstop/d' ${TMP_CRONTAB}
  TMP_NAME=""
  case "$1" in
    stop_when_done)
      TMP_NAME="softstop"
      echo "INFO: This job will stop $name when all downloads are completed."
    ;;
    off_when_done)
      TMP_NAME="softstop_off"
      echo "INFO: This job will attempt to shutdown the DNS-323 when all downloads are completed."
    ;;
    *donothing_when_done)
      echo -n "Removing job from crontab... "
    ;;
  esac
  if [ "${TMP_NAME}" != "" ]; then
    # sanity check - do not allow adding any job if transmission is not already running
    if transmission_status  grep -q "is running"; then
      echo -n "Adding cron job to run every half hour... "
      echo -e "0,30 * * * * /ffp/start/transmission.sh ${TMP_NAME} >> /ffp/log/${name}.cron.log 2>&1" >> ${TMP_CRONTAB}
      sed -i -e '/^\s*$/d' ${TMP_CRONTAB}
    else
      echo "ERROR: ${name} is not running. NOT adding job to crontab."
    fi
  fi
  crontab ${TMP_CRONTAB}
  rm ${TMP_CRONTAB}
  echo "done."
}


case "$1" in
  stop)
    transmission_stop
    ;;
  softstop)
    _transmission_softstop
    ;;
  softstop_off)
    _transmission_softstop off_when_done
    ;;
  set_off_when_done)
    _transmission_setup_softstop off_when_done
    ;;
  set_stop_when_done)
    _transmission_setup_softstop stop_when_done
    ;;
  set_donothing_when_done)
    _transmission_setup_softstop donothing_when_done
    ;;
  softstop_status)
    transmission_softstop_status
    ;;
  restart)
    transmission_restart
    ;;
  status)
    transmission_status
    ;;
  start'')
    transmission_start
    ;;
  *)
    echo "Usage: $0 startstoprestartstatusset_off_when_doneset_stop_when_doneset_donothing_when_donesoftstop_status"
    ;;
esac

Second casualty of fever...

2008-05-15T20:39:00.010+08:00

Fever has claimed its number two victim in my household. And boy, what a pitiful sight it was (see pics on top and right). The good news is that the fever wasn't exactly high and we can all see just how wonderful an actor Jordan will become when he grows up.

Setting up transmission and clutch

2008-05-14T03:10:00.001+08:00

Setting up transmission+clutch is really simple if you have upgraded to fonz's fun_plug version 0.5. Here's a quick how-to.

Transmission (aka the core) setup

Grab the transmission package transmission-1.20-ffp0.5.tgz.
Grab the required package curl-7.18.1.tgz.
Install both using funpkg -i . (FYI, funpkg is found in the /ffp/sbin folder in case this is not setup on your path. This usually happens when you telnet/ssh in as a normal user and then do a su to root)
By default, transmission will create the directory /mnt/HD_a2/.transmission where it stores its working files and also your downloads. To change the location of this folder, edit the variable TRANSMISSION_HOME in the startup script /ffp/start/transmission.sh. To change the downloads folder, you will need to use the CLI or web interface (see below).
Start transmission by using the command . /ffp/start/transmission.sh start (note the dot in the beginning and the space immediately after).
Make the script /ffp/start/transmission.sh executable if you want it to auto start every time you boot. i.e. chmod a+x /ffp/start/transmission.sh.

For controlling the core, you have two options.

(1) Using the CLI via transmission-remote

No installation is required as this is bundled together with the core transmission package. For help on how to use, just type in the command without any arguments. Using the CLI also means that you have to first telnet into the box.

(2) Using the web interface by installing Clutch

Clutch is a web application that connects to the transmission core via the daemon socket file. As it is distributed as a web application package separately from transmission, you will need to go through some installation steps. Also, as it is just a web application package, you will need to install a web server (with PHP capabilities) on your box as a pre-requisite.

Assuming you have ffp v0.5 already, you will have lighttpd (i.e. the web server) installed (but not running yet) by default. To get the PHP capabilities, download the package php-5.2.6-1.tgz and run the funpkg -i command to install it.
Configure your web server by copying the configuration script from the examples directory. i.e. cp /ffp/etc/examples/lighttpd.conf-with-php lighttpd.conf
The web server assumes that your web document root is at /mnt/HD_a2/www and you will need to create the necessary directories manually. i.e. mkdir -p /mnt/HD_a2/www/logs /mnt/HD_a2/www/pages
Now that we got the pre-requisite setup completed, time to grab the clutch package Clutch-0.4.tar.gz.
Note that this is not a ffp package and you do not use funpkg -i to install it. Instead, you simply untar it into your web document root directory. i.e. tar zxf Clutch-0.4.tar.gz -C /mnt/HD_a2/www/pages
You may wish to change the path to the clutch package for URL easy access. i.e. mv /mnt/HD_a2/www/pages/Clutch-0.4 /mnt/HD_a2/www/pages/clutch
And finally, to allow clutch to find your transmission core, create the file clutch/remote/data/socket.txt and store the path to the transmission socket file in there. i.e. echo /mnt/HD_a2/.transmission/daemon/socket > /mnt/HD_a2/www/pages/clutch/remote/data/socket.txt
Once all the above setup is done, we are ready to start the web server. To do so run the command . /ffp/start/lighttpd.sh start.
Make the script /ffp/start/lighttpd.sh executable if you want it to auto start every time you boot. i.e. chmod a+x /ffp/start/lighttpd.sh.
To access the web interface, point your browser to http://[ip_address_of_your_box]:8080/clutch. Note that Clutch does not support Internet Explorer so you have to use Firefox, Opera or Safari instead.
Note that by default, anyone can access the BT client via the URL above. If you are paranoid over security or thinking of exposing it over the internet (so that you can control your BT downloads from office?), you may want to setup access control via directory ACL in lighttpd.

Jarrett having fever...

2008-05-13T11:56:00.006+08:00

Here is our poor Jarrett running a high fever of 39 degrees Celsius plus the usual accompaniment of flu and cough. Doc says its a throat infection (so there! Its not because we brought him swimming two days back) and we have to watch him closely for the next couple of days for signs of worsening (e.g. vomiting).

As far back as I can recall, this is the first major illness he is going through and we can clearly see the effects it is having on him; tiredness (it was a first that he fell asleep all by himself on the couch last night!), the constant coughing and wheezing and even losing his little voice... a heart-breaking sight even for third time parents like us.

But our boy is one tough cookie. He did fuss alittle over the discomfort but most of the time, he is his usual self playing and interacting with us although with a lot less energy. Even when it comes to medication, he takes them like a little man and happily gulp down whatever we gave... including the aweful tasting antibiotics! Yes, I know its aweful because I tried it before! Well done soldier!

Upgrading to ffp 0.5

2008-05-12T23:52:00.006+08:00

Since I'm in the mood to upgrade, I figured I might as well upgrade fonz's fun_plug to version 0.5. This can be considered a major upgrade as there are quite a few fundamental changes such as the directory structure, default shell and the default packages included. This means that all the addon packages you installed (or built) based on the older 0.4 version or below need to be reinstalled and/or reconfigured.

The upgrade from 0.4 to 0.5 is painless enough using the instructions found here. After the install, get rid of telnet and get ssh back up (note that the default ssh included is openssh, not dropbear). Instructions for this is here.

A couple of things to note:

First up, the new path to the fun_plug is now at /mnt/HD_a2/ffp. A symlink at /ffp allows you to move the binaries to say a USB flash to reduce disk access and also to allow a clean shutdown of the HD_a2 file system.

Next the default env variables such as BINDIR, FUNPLUGDIR are all gone. So if you have any scripts that reference them, you will need to get them changed (e.g. svnserve.sh and my nightly backup script)

The default installed packages can be found under /ffp/var/packages. Additional packages can be downloaded from here. To install them, follow the instructions here. (Note: substitute -u with -i for install and -r for remove).

Unrar will need to be installed again using this package.

mldonkey is not yet packaged for this version but moving it from the old is real easy; Just copy the file mlnet from /mnt/HD_a2/fun_plug.d/bin to /ffp/bin, copy the file mlnet.sh from /mnt/HD_a2/fun_plug.d/start to /ffp/start and edit it for the path changes.

Well, that about sums up my experience with this upgrade. Now to try out the various packages that are built for this version!

Jarrett goes swimming!

2008-05-10T21:31:00.000+08:00

DNS-323 Firmware 1.05b28 is out!

2008-05-10T20:59:00.001+08:00

The official 1.05 firmware for the DNS-323 is finally out over at the SG support website. The most significant change is the inclusion of a bittorrent client in the firmware! Not that it matters to me since I already use mldonkey but hey, its progress...

Anyways, the upgrade was uneventful (thank goodness for that!) and my data remains intact. It was a heart stopping ten minutes watching the progress bar inch towards completion as I had forgotten to pull out the backup drive from the device before I hit the enter key and a reformat would had been disastrous! (Note to self: time to get my remote backup going!)

Oh, one thing to note about flashing firmware, apparently, it will remove all your samba shares so you have to manually set them up all over again after the flash.

Introducing HTC Touch Diamond

2008-05-07T01:33:00.000+08:00

A new HTC device has just been launched and boy this is one pretty gadget; Not just the outer appearance but also the new user interface named TouchFLO 3D. This is essentially an evolution of the original TouchFLO interface first seen on the HTC Touch. It features a new home page and expanded range of functions like contacts, weather, photos, music and web browsing all being presented in smooth flowing 3D motions and using only finger gestures. Finally a real rival to the iPhone's interface.

In terms of outer appearance, HTC went with an all black exterior. The front is encased in a full glass panel with four touch sensitive buttons and a scroll wheel at the bottom. Even the back panel is not your usual boring flat rectangular block but features many raised facets making it look like the surface of a diamond (hence the name I suppose). Overall, it is a very classy looking device that you won't feel embarrassed using at a gala type event.

And looks is not the only thing going for it. With tri-band, 3.5G, WiFi, bluetooth, GPS, 3.2MP Camera, VGA screen and plenty of memory built in (including a 4GB internal storage), this is a very capable and full featured device.

The only downside to this device is the lack of memory expansion slot (you are limited to the 4GB internal space only) and the possibly short battery life (900mAh only). The combination of these two means that you probably won't be able to use the device as a serious music or video player.

In terms of availability, HTC has announced that it will first launch in June 2008 in Europe followed by Asia and lastly the Americas. Hmm... I wonder if this is intentionally arranged to avoid a direct clash with iPhone?

Will I be getting it? Hmm... Obviously there are alot to like about this gadget but the battery life is a big issue for me as I hate having to charge the phone on a daily basis and that is provided that a single charge can last you through the day! Yes, you can obviously get a second battery as standby but again, that means having to keep the battery with/near you so that you can swap it when you need it. Not exactly that convenient is it? So most likely no... until HTC or a third party comes out with a 1300mAh battery pack :)

Anyway, view the video below for the launch presentation by HTC CEO Peter Chou.

Introducing the Coxford Singlish Dictionary

2008-05-01T15:56:00.003+08:00

For all the ang mor out there, this is the boh beh chow reference guide to Singlish and a die die must have if you intend to live or work in the sunny island of Singapore.

Published by Singapore's Premier Satirical Humour Website, this pow ka leow list contains a mind boggling 817 terms in total!

For the locals, you may also want to go look see look see and brush up abit. Next time can act lao cheow and show your kakis a thing or two with your newly found tok kong Singlish. But do agak tarek abit or else you will be labelled ya ya papaya or worse L-cube L-square! (like now hor? :P)

One day in Tokyo... Part 2

2008-04-27T02:41:00.000+08:00

Well, my flight back to Singapore wasn't till late afternoon hence I had the whole morning to kill. Originally, I had wanted to stay in bed catching up with my much needed sleep (I hardly get to have a good night rest as Jarrett keeps waking up at night fussing). However, the weather was really good and it will be a real waste not to take advantage of it.

I decided to check out the Tsukiji Fish Market after having heard about the excellent sushi they have over there. As the decision was rather impromptu, I didn't have my cousin with me, nor any GPS or maps; I only had a set of scribbled directions given by a colleague a day back. Thankfully, the market is located right next to the Tsukiji Shijou Station on the Oedo subway line hence the only challenge was getting on and off the right trains (one transfer was required switching from the JR line to the subway line at Daimon station).

As I got off the train at Tsukiji Shijou Station, I saw a couple of locals with rattan baskets in hand and I decided to follow them as I figured that they should be going to the market too. I was right on the dollar as I found myself in the inner market a short while later.

The inner market is kinda like the wet market in Singapore; small cramped stalls under one roof hawkering raw and unprocessed foodstuff in a wet and smelly environment. Definitely not a place you visit wearing Gucci shoes and Armani suits. It was however, a really interesting place. I saw up close huge frozen tunas getting sliced into chunks with large band saws (see pictures below). I also saw live seafood such as boxfish, squid, eel, sea urchin and a whole lot of other fish and shellfish that I couldn't identify.

The outer market consist of mostly individual shops selling things ranging from hardware like knives and cutlery to cooked food like this stall in the pictures below selling various kinds of shellfish including sea urchin! I was tempted to try them but decided against it as I didn't dare risk having stomach upset during the seven hours flight back to Singapore later!

Towards the furthest end of the market, I spotted this ramen shop (pictures below) that has a long line of customers queuing up and yet more customers chomping down the ramen at nearby makeshift tables. Figuring it must be good, plus the fact that I was hungry from all the walking (I had been out for close to three hours by then), I decided to give it a try. (on a side note, Singaporeans are suckers for queues yes? I guess this is the proof :))

The queue was moving very quickly as the chef prepares eight bowls of ramen at one time (see picture) and I managed to get mine within twenty minutes after I joined the queue. The portion as well as the use of ingredients was generous and it certainly helped filled my growling tummy. In fact, I also kinda regretted having it as I was too stuffed to try out the sushi which was my main intention of coming to the fish market in the first place. Well, maybe next trip... :)

One day in Tokyo

2008-04-22T23:44:00.006+08:00

Here is a picture of my cousin and me in front of the Meiji Jingu, a Japanese Shrine in Shibuya, Tokyo. I am here on a short four days business trip while my cousin has been here for the past year as a student.

I had lost touch with this cousin of mine and I would not have known that he is here if my auntie had not asked me to help bring some stuff over to him. But I'm really glad that I did get to meet up with him and both of us managed to squeeze some time out to catch up over some sight seeing.

We first started in Akihabara checking out the many hardware shops that lined the streets. We also went into Sega World to check out the Senjou no Kizuna, which I believe is the ultimate mech simulator in the world. But alas, I did not get to play as the section was closed at the time we visited.

We then went for lunch at a wacky meido cafe called "@home cafe" and were amused by their unique "moe" culture. I'm also pretty impressed with the brains behind @home cafe as they went beyond just operating a cosplay cafe to include setting up a fan club for their "maids" and selling memorabilia such as CDs, mugs and other items.

After lunch, we left Akihabara and took the train to Harajuku to check out the "Harajuku girls" along the Harajuku bridge. Unfortunately, we failed to spot even a single one of them and my cousin attributed this to the fact that it was a Tuesday afternoon hence these folks might be in school or at work.

Next up, we checked out the Meiji Jingu which has an entrance right next to bridge. The entire compound is an amazing 175 acres (considering how dense the population in Tokyo is) and the walk to the main shrine from the entrance is a good 15 minutes. I am also very impressed with staggering height and size of the Torii in front of the shrine, which also happens to be the tallest Myojin Torii in the whole of Japan.

We then walked along Takeshita Street and the neighbouring streets where my cousin brought me to this popular kids fashion boutique called bape kids. Even though the T-shirts are really pricey (more than S$60 a piece!), I found them really cute and couldn't resist buying two of them for my kids.

This was followed by yet alot more walking as we window shopped in Shibuya (Harajuku to Shibuya on foot is only about 15 mins) and then tried to get to Shinjuku on foot thinking that its the best way to see Tokyo. It turned out to be an extremely bad idea as it took us more than two hours to get there and we ended up having dinner very late. It took us that long not because we went the scenic route but rather, my cousin wasn't really sure of the way and we ended up making alot of wrong turns; even with the help of the GPS service on his mobile phone.

Dinner was at a Gyu-Kaku branch located in the seedy Kabukichō area. Yes, it was deliberate that we went there but no, we did not do anything more than just walking down the street. As with all my other yakiniku experiences [1][2], wagyu beef is a must and as always, it was absolutely delectable. We parted ways not long after dinner as it was already late and we both were really exhausted from all the walking we did in the day. Moreover, we need to be up early next morning for work/school respectively.

Overall, I really enjoyed myself and am doubly glad that I was able to bond closer with my cousin at the same time. Hopefully, I will stay in touch with him from now on and I will be sure to look him up the next time I come to Japan.

P/S: Looking at the picture, you probably won't be able to tell that he is only just 19 years old or that I'm already 32!

Virtual CD/DVD drives in Windows.. including Vista!

2008-04-18T13:47:00.000+08:00

If you hate the hassle of burning ISOs to physical media before you can use them, then this tool is for you. Introducing MagicISO Virtual CD/DVD-ROM, a free software that works with most versions of Windows (from 9x to Vista) and on both x32 and x64 bit editions. It has a really simple user interface (right click on the taskbar icon) and it allows you to create/mount multiple virtual CD/DVD drives! All this for the price of ... nothing! And no, its not spyware or adware supported, as far as I can tell anyway. So download away!

The king of office chairs

2008-04-13T23:05:00.002+08:00

Every wondered who is the king of office chairs? Well, I believe the honour goes to the Aeron chair by Herman Miller. I was in the market for a good class working chair for my study and was recommended to get one of these by a friend. Sure it doesn't come cheap; at S$2000 a piece, I think expensive is probably an understatement too. However, you do get what you pay for.

Firstly, the build quality is superb. Unlike cheap mass market chairs, where the arm-rest and/or back support rattle or move as you move them, the joints on an Aeron are a snug fit and you won't find any loose moving parts or sharp/rough edges on chair at all. The rollers are made of good quality plastic that rolls evenly and smoothly. Most importantly, it won't damage your wooden (or any other types for that matter) flooring. The graphite (or titanium depending on model) frame and the pellicle mesh make the chair extremely durable so much so that they are even confident enough to give a whopping twelve years warranty.

Other than build quality, the best known aspect of this chair is actually the comfort. The seat and the back are made of a strong pellicle suspension system which conforms to each person's shape thus distributing the weight evenly and avoid strong pressure over your body. The mesh design also provides the much needed ventilation, leaving your bottom and back cool and dry even after many hours of working/typing/gaming/(whatever that is you do in your chair), especially in a non-air-conditioned room.

You probably won't be able to appreciate the comfort of the chair just by trying it out at a showroom. You really need to use it in your environment to feel the difference. I have it for a couple of months now and not once had I felt any soreness or discomfort in my back and bottom even after long hours. Overall, I will say that the S$2k is money well spent.