Home Grown Laptop Engineer

We have this 3 years old laptop (one which I 1st bought with staff purchase when I joined the co). Daddy been complaning that it heats up. We actually bought a heat sync to see if that helps, but doesn’t.

So I told him, why not send in for service and ask the technician to clean it up. So I went to enquire bout it (just downstairs my office) and it cost a whooping RM200+ just for checking. Not even doing anything. Wah liaoo……

So one evening, we decided to be laptop engineers (yeah both Daddy & myself). I’m experienced but with other laptops like Toshiba & Compaq. But that was like 4 yrs ago. So we started unscrewing every screw that we could find…until we got stuck somewhere…

Then I went to google for the laptop-dismantling-manual online and to my surprise, we found it!!! So we looked at where we stop and we continued from there with the manual’s help. We actually manage to dismantle the whole laptop and it was really dirty. Full of dust.

We gave it a bath vacuum and put all the parts together. Well of course since we are not trained technicians, we left about 8 screws we didn’t put it back LOL…But hey, it’s working fine and there are no loose parts. In fact the laptop has travelled to overseas and still in working condition.

And ever since we clean it up, Daddy no longer has the heat up problem. So we saved 200+ and gain some knowledge out of it.

iGoogle

I was chatting with Eve yesterday. Ahh..it’s been a long long time since I ever chatted with her. Either she’s on or I’m off or vice versa. So while we were chatting about, then she asked me if I know iGoogle. No leh..haven’t heard of it. Have you?

She asked me to go to google and click on top right hand corner (iGoogle link). Ahh…got it. And you can start customizing your google site. Very cool!!!

Eve got the steps documented, if you want to know go visit her site hehe…

Meanwhile I’ve done mine. A lil ladybird & frog doing barbeque kekeke…You know that top banner thingy, it changes when your weather forecast changes!!! Cool eh.

OK I’m gonna go check it out when it’s sunny, night and raining…haha…..see what the 2 jokers up there doing :P .

Go customise yours today ;) . This not sponsored OK, but I thought I want to share with all bloggers. You know lah, girls all like frivolous stuff kekekeke……enjoy ;) .

The screen cap I have here is at night..that’s why the 2 jokers enjoying BBQ lah. So cute!!

TO-DO List I: Setting Up New Blog

Here is one of the to-do list that I owe some blogger. Lately alot of blogger Mommies migrating to their own domain. So far I know at least 3 (done or still doing). And I’ve been getting alot MSN messaging, emails..how to do this n that. So I thought might as well I write it here and share with everyone.

I can vaguely remember how to setup 1 cause I did mine like last year. So happen lately I setup my photoblog, so I took down the steps and some print screen. Hope it helps. I hope I didn’t miss the step.

Disclaimer: This is just one of many ways of setting up. My way. It is not the 1 and only way and it’s not the 1 and only correct way. Use at your own risk, if I did miss any steps, I’m really sorry OK. And some parts I’ll just write quite brief, you should be more bold in playing with it :) .

1. Get your domain
OK first thing, you have to get a domain name (your website add, e.g. jazzmint.net). How to register. Look for some hosting co that provides this service. I subscribe mine via Eternal Solutions. Well I don’t get commission from them haha..but so far I find they are quite OK.

The package: FreeBSD Hosting (RM135 – RM100 for space, RM35 for domain name). This is yearly payment.

It’s very cheap…downside is no backup. But OK lah, can DIY backup one hehe.

2. Get some space to store stuff
Notice on top the package includes space. Yup, that’s the one we talking about. Why you need space. Well, I’m sure you rather post your photos to your own site that host it at flickr or whatsoever rite. I paying for 10GB of space…more than enough for a few blogs hehe..
OK so once you got that sorted out, make the payment, bla bla bla…..they will send you email, with some password and what nots. Keep that first.

3. Download WordPress
I use WP to do my posting. Not MT or Pixelpost :P . So go to WP website and download the installation file. Unzip it on your PC.

4. Create DB
Login to control panel via the password given. The link should be blabla.net/cpanel or something like that.

Click on the create DB icon and go create a new DB. Put the name you want it to appear as your blog name..e.g. photoblog, then your blog will be blabla.net/photoblog

Click on create user and create a user for your DB. Whatever name you like (no spacing)

Give access to the user to access the DB (refer to screen) by selecting ALL.

Once that’s done, you will see some funny coding on top of the DB creation page..something like:

Connection Strings Perl $dbh = DBI->connect(“DBI:mysql:jazzmint_x-x-x-blog:localhost”,”jazzmint_x-x-x“,”"); PHP $dbh=mysql_connect (“localhost”, “jazzmint_x-x-x“, “”) or die (‘I cannot connect to the database because: ‘ . mysql_error());
mysql_select_db (“jazzmint_
x-x-xblog”);

5. Create blog folder and give access
Next, create a blog folder in your wwwroot/public_html folder. Like a subfolder lah. Make sure you change the permission of that particular folder to 777. Save and close.

You can now exit from Control Panel.

6. Configuring config.php
Now, go back to your WP folder, look for wp-config sample.php (something like this name). Open and edit with notepad. You will see likes like this:

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘jazzmint_x-x-x‘); // The name of the database
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘jazzmint_x-x-x‘); // Your MySQL username
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘x-x-x‘); // …and password
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value

This is where you gotta do some work. Those x-x-x values, you have to put in base on what you copied from the control panel earlier when you setup the DB thingy.

Make the changes, go save the file.

7. FTP software
I use Filezilla as FTP, there are alot out there you can get from download.com website. But don’t ask me how to use if you download other FTP software haha…

8. FTP WP to server (Left is your PC, Right is your host server)
Remember you got 10gb space..ahh now it’s the time to use lah. Login to your ftp, again base on the info provided in that email the host sent to you.

Once you are in, you should be able to see wwwroot or public_html. Double click that folder, go to blog (or whatever folder that you created earlier).

Now copy all those php files and folders all into the blog folder. Done.

9. Install WP
Launch your IE or Mozilla, go and type: http://sitename.net/blog/wp-admin/install.php (these steps are available from the WP setup tutorial, just follow oni lah)

It’ll prompt you for username and pwd, key it in…then it will scroll some words let you see, click Next. Done!! Fast eh

Don’t forget to copy down that pwd that wp gave you. You can change it later once you login.

10. Themes
OK so can login, very happy lah..now must put some mekap for the blog. Go google for some WP Free Themes. You can find tonnes of it out there. Choose 1 you like. You can choose alot and then try out. I very itchy, I chose like 10 last time hahaha…

Download all the zip file they give you. Unzip.

Login to FTP again. Go to public_html/blog/wpcontent/themes.

Dump all your theme files here.

Then login to WP, go to presentation, you can see all your themes there. Go have fun yah ;) .

Whoa………I don’t believe that I can finish this in 10 steps!!!

So everyone, lets migrate to WP and start your own domain today :) .

Any questions, pls drop me email or MSN me off-office hours, as lately my comment box seems to be gila gila…..sometimes termasuk spam and I deleted it *oops*.

Back in Action

My broadband at home is finally back in action after it went down for 5 days!!! And I really curse the ISP for taking so long and FFK me yesterday. I’m am so so P*ss…I called them and scolded the supervisor (2 of them) and ended up they have to call me every hour to ask me if their vendor call me.

I even went to the extend telling her that if this is not fixed, I’m gonna call Ananda Krishnan (like I have his number LOL). I don’t wanna go to the extend of the details of the calls I made and all the words I’ve use, (no, non of it is brutal…but I’m challenging them with words like SLA, Customer Experience etc..based on my experience in the service line) which made them dumb-founded cause they never expect me to ask about the SLA.

Now I’m gonna call them and ask them to waive for 1 month as per the bad experience…lets see if they’d give that to me.

Now I have alot of Blog reading to catch up…..might not be able to leave comments :(

Micro SD

A lot of us might heard of the word SD Card. That’s the card commonly used for our digital camera. But micro SD, that’s really something new to me!! Sony Ericsson calls it M2. Whereas other phones call it Micro SD. It’s basically the chip they use for our phone nowadays. It comes with a SD size version where you can slot in the micro SD. Again this is very nice to use to transfer files from phone to PC vice versa if you do not have that *darn* USB cable to connect your phone to the PC.

I discovered this few days ago when Daddy went to get it in CompWar SS2. And it’s soo cheap!! only RM29!! And guess what’s the size, 1GB!! Whoa..I’m amazed. Can even use it for camera.

Gosh…I really can’t imagine nowadays technology are getting more n more affordable. Storage is definitely not any limit.

USB Card Reader

I hate to install additional software on my PC as it really takes on more memory and space. Usually, when you buy digital camera, it comes with a CD for you to install the software to download the photos. A lot of people usually do this. But for me, I’l really lazy to install the software. So I go for easy way. That’s getting a USB Card Reader.

This is a 8 in 1 or even more card reader. It’s just a small device which looks like the pic below, with 4 slots which can take most of the compatible cards in the market.

It’s very easy to use since it’s going thru USB. So just plug n play.

Everytime when I want to download my photos from camera to the PC, I’ll just take the card out and then load into the reader and copy the files. Very efficient. No need cables for the camera, no need additional software :) .

ISPs War

There are basically 3 main ISP Providers in Malaysia. Namely:

Streamyx – or better known as screamyx
Jaring – the oldest and first ever ISP
Maxis – the latest in town – as far as I know

I’ve used all of them and I must say their service varies from the best to the worst. Here are some of my comments.

Streamyx (Personal Rating: 6/10)
I used this for like 2 years when I was staying in TTDI. I have no problem with them, at least most of the time it’s up. VPN connection from here to my office is superb. The only *blardy* problem is launching a fault report. Sometimes it takes days or even weeks to get it fix. The best thing is they’ll tell you there’s nothing reported, you gotta tell your story again n again. Not ony that, sometimes the technician provides you with some realy stupid steps for troubleshooting purposes. C’mon lah..I’m a techie, so they don’t need to speak to me like that…I think I know even more than them.

Jaring (Personal Rating: 4/10)
I moved to BU 2 yrs ago, and I didn’t have a choice of getting Streamyx as it wasn’t available for this special BU area. So the only option that I had was jaring (webbit was full). And it was wireless. Initially when we first used it, it was OK, but it got worse over a period of time. I was paying for 1MB line, but the upload speed was only like 100k or even less!! I can’t even attach a simple attachment to email. It was really frustrating. Especially when I blog, I always get time out. So so fed up!!! Needless to say, VPN sucks too. I don’t recall working from home when I was using Jaring as it was totally useless. Nevertheless, I must say their customer service is good. They will come and fix for you within the SLA.

Maxis (Personal Rating: 8/10)
After the 1 year torture with Jaring, I was so relieved when Maxis was made available. I was one of the first few that went to register for it. Wired broadband at last. Nothing can describe how happy was I when Maxis was up and running. Ahh…I really can feel the speed. At least what I’m paying is really worth it (though my office is paying it actually). I’m able to post pictures to blog speedily, able to download very quickly. The best thing is VPN speed whoaa…so fast!!! I can now work from home more. I like their service best. You can call them anytime and they sure will have a solution. If they don’t they will surely pay you a visit the next day. At least there’s close follow up. The only darn thing bout Maxis is, the bill!! I have used it for more than 10 months now, but I’ve not seen a single bill. I’ve tried to calling them and informing them, and yet they’ve failed to mail to me. Nobody seems to know what is wrong!!! Gosh…..no bills, no payment..simple as that.

So where is our 10/10 rating ISP? I wish we have one someday..until then…I’ll be loyal supporter of Maxis :) .