Attack Of The 7 Year Old PC

Success! My PC's up and running again after buying a generic power supply ($40) from CyberActive at Sengkang Compass Point.

It's been down for almost a year as I simply couldn't find the time to go and buy one.

I have totally forgotten what crappy specs it has.

Gotta get some new parts so I can install Windows 7 RC and enjoy Aero.

2 x 1GB DDR SDRAM 266MHz at $50 each

http://sg.hardwarezone.com/priceguide/priceguide.php?id=121

Currently, BIOS says I have 768MB RAM.

Manual (http://downloadmirror.intel.com/15322/eng/D845RG_D845BV_ProductGuide_English.pdf) says 'board can support 2GB of RAM max.

Largest 3.5" IDE HDD I can find:

http://sg.hardwarezone.com/priceguide/priceguide.php?id=60&filter=&sortby=price&pg=0

500GB at $80

A new LAN card $20

http://sg.hardwarezone.com/priceguide/priceguide.php?id=34&filter=&sortby=price

I have no idea where my current LAN card or it's driver comes from. Windows 7 and Google can't find the drivers either

That's $200 to run an OS that WILL die in March 2010

Now I'm wondering if it's worth it

Work Stuff: System.Net.Mail Notes

Spent a rainy afternoon wrestling with Windows Server 2008, IIS 7

First Error:
System.Net.Mail.SmtpException: Failure sending mail. ---> System.Net.WebException: Unable to connect to the remote server ---> System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it 127.0.0.1:25
at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.DoConnect(EndPoint endPointSnapshot, SocketAddress socketAddress)
at System.Net.ServicePoint.ConnectSocketInternal(Boolean connectFailure, Socket s4, Socket s6, Socket& socket, IPAddress& address, ConnectSocketState state, IAsyncResult asyncResult, Int32 timeout, Exception& exception)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at System.Net.ServicePoint.GetConnection(PooledStream PooledStream, Object owner, Boolean async, IPAddress& address, Socket& abortSocket, Socket& abortSocket6, Int32 timeout)
at System.Net.PooledStream.Activate(Object owningObject, Boolean async, Int32 timeout, GeneralAsyncDelegate asyncCallback)
at System.Net.PooledStream.Activate(Object owningObject, GeneralAsyncDelegate asyncCallback)
at System.Net.ConnectionPool.GetConnection(Object owningObject, GeneralAsyncDelegate asyncCallback, Int32 creationTimeout)
at System.Net.Mail.SmtpConnection.GetConnection(String host, Int32 port)
at System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient.Send(MailMessage message)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient.Send(MailMessage message)
at webservice.sendNotification(Int32 iAppID, String strFromUID, String strToUID, String strMessage) in c:\inetpub\wwwroot\webservice.ashx:line 1001

Solution: Go to Services and make sure the SMTP Service is running (Don't trust the Feature Manager)

Second Problem:
System.Net.Mail.SmtpFailedRecipientsException: Unable to send to all recipients. ---> System.Net.Mail.SmtpFailedRecipientException: Mailbox unavailable. The server response was: 5.7.1 Unable to relay for nickfurry@live.com
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at System.Net.Mail.SmtpTransport.SendMail(MailAddress sender, MailAddressCollection recipients, String deliveryNotify, SmtpFailedRecipientException& exception)
at System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient.Send(MailMessage message)
at webservice.sendNotification(Int32 iAppID, String strFromUID, String strToUID, String strMessage) in c:\inetpub\wwwroot\webservice.ashx:line 1001

Solution:
SmtpClient objClient = new SmtpClient();
objClient.DeliveryMethod = SmtpDeliveryMethod.PickupDirectoryFromIis;
objClient.Send(objMail);

The Delivery Method is the key.

Heroic Dinosaurs

The real reason they're extinct

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

It was a dark and stormy night, almost a conclusion to the long day I've had. But the day was not yet done with me.

The Mrs was sick, Sarah's fever had shot up overnight and Johan got his new nickname, "Grumpy Bear".

All alone and awake, after everyone has had their drowsy medicine, I decided to check in on Sarah in her room, to see how she was doing.

I opened the door and a careful glance told me she wasn't in her bed or mine. Since it was very dark, I entered the room silently and carefully explored the beds with my hands...

"Just a bunch of pillows and blankets," I thought. "The Mrs must have picked her up into her room. Or she got up and wandered in."

Knowing that the Mrs was in no state to take care of Sarah, Johan and herself that night, I went into her room with the intention of "kidnapping" Sarah back. The night light in the room was on. The Mrs was sleeping soundly with Johan beside her. There was no sign of Sarah.

Concerned and puzzled, I stepped into the room for a closer look. As quietly as I could, I searched the room. Johan was there. My wife was there. Asleep. Looked at the corners of the room: nothing. Checked the master bedroom bathroom: nothing.

Fought the urge to wake my wife up and ask her where Sarah is.

Went out, closed the door behind me and went back to Sarah's room and turned on the light. No Sarah on the bed.

Went into the hall, checked her play area. Nothing. Into the kitchen. The bathroom. Nothing. Opened the front door and checked her shoes. All accounted for. And the gate was locked.

Earlier in the evening, Sarah finally managed to open up the unlocked gate by herself, put on her slippers and wandered out. A small scare, but I caught her just in time.

A small lightbulb went off over my head.

I went back to her room, climbed into bed and examined the tiny gap between my bed and the wall.

There she was, face down and quiet, almost halfway under the bed.

Always fearing the worst, I checked her body temperature and for signs of breathing. She's alive!

Somehow, I managed to carefully pick her up from the cramped space without waking her up and settled her into her own bed.

Then I settled into my own bed and blogged about it.

The Next Singapore IT / PC / Computer Show

So... how do you plan to blow your cash away? By following the annual IT / PC / Computer show timetable of course!

March

http://www.itshow.com.sg/

June

http://www.thepcshow.com.sg/

September

http://www.comexshow.com.sg/

November

http://www.sitex.com.sg/

Did I miss any?

How to set up (additional) MemCacheD servers on Windows

Go find the latest Windows binary. Such as: http://code.jellycan.com/memcached/

Install the application somewhere like C:\memcached\

Open up command prompt

Type in the following line:

sc create memcached11211 binPath= "C:\memcached\memcached.exe -d runservice -p 11211 -m 2048" start= auto DisplayName= "MemCacheD 11211"

Notes:

-m 2048 is the amount of memory to use in MB. Default value is 64. Maximum value is 2048.

Don't use up 100% RAM. Remember to leave some RAM for the OS.

To utilize more memory on the same machine, repeat the steps given on the same machine but assign a different port number.

In the example above, all instances of the string "11211" refers to the port number.

Do take note of the space after each "=" sign.

Check out Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services for results.

This post is derived from:

http://www.mail-archive.com/memcached@lists.danga.com/msg02791.html

The (Growing) Movie List

I've finally sat down and wrote a list of movies that I kinda wanted to see but missed since the kids were born. My goodness, what a crappy list it is.

Mostly involves comic books, video games, science fiction or Jason Statham.

Don't Promise Sarah Anything

Sarah's memory at this point surprises everyone around her.

Top Things Not To Promise Sarah:
Go swimming (She'll bug you and bug you for days and when you finally go, and discover the swimming pool is under renovation, you jump into a cab immediately to go to another)
Go to the playground
Eat ice cream (if you do, she'll start licking an imaginary one)
Bathe

My BIL's A Funny Guy

BIL = Brother-In-Law

Flickr Panda Madness

I found some crazy API calls in Flickr called "panda".

The "Description" pages didn't help much, so off I went to Google "flickr panda" to get to the bottom of the madness.

Here's the direct URL to the Flickr DevBlog that sort of explains the crazyness.

http://bit.ly/vlm8s

Magmaniac Fish

Caught with the following stats:

1,425,581pts
Fire Sludge Chum
Level 38 Cubey Incinerator
Top Skill: Secrets Of Favoria

Just documenting...

Catching Up

Day 10162:

I wonder why I always feel apologetic whenever I think about my blog. It's probably due to the fact that I don't update it as often as I like to. I'm actually a pretty busy guy, even though probably don't look it.

A lot's happened in the past month. Johan finally came out and everyone's rushing about, acclimatizing themselves to his presence.

I saw in the papers about Singapore's first tweeted wedding. WTF? That got into our newspaper? The reporter probably knew the couple or something.

Check out mine: Singapore's (first?) tweeted birth! Starting from http://twitter.com/supersuf/status/1727134905

Sarah's in her 2nd month of full-day child care at Cherie Hearts. It's costing us a bomb, in terms of money AND time. The Mrs knows this and sometimes offers to pull her out, but I really like it, compared to the alternatives she offers.

She also misses her mummy terribly. I know this - as I'm now her sole, full-time caretaker at home. The Mrs already has her hands full with the newborn. But Sarah's coping well.

The workload at the office also eased up too - thanks to the nice people in the office. But I'm feeling bad about it and plan to start pulling my weight more.

Time! Did I say I'm a busy guy? Pick Sarah up by 1730hrs, feed her dinner (if the Mrs is busy), entertain her, bathe her, tuck her into bed, make her formula at 0100 and 0500hrs. Changing diapers.

Missed so many movies in the theatres. At this point in time, the last movie we watched was "Confessions of a Shopaholic" before Johan popped out. Next, the Mrs plans to dump the kids somewhere to go catch Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen. Really hope we can pull it off.

Flickr upload complete. Take a look-see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/supersuf/

Cicak Cicak Kita Yang Mulia

Translated: Our Noble House Geckos

Sarah says the strangest things these days. Actually, the title above comes from her favourite line from the national anthem, which they've been singing in school. It just comes out of her mouth like that.

Also, according to Sarah, Daddy (that's me) has a space giraffe that he keeps outside the house. (Because he's too tall?) and Grandpa has an elephant in his room.

She also talks like a gangster on the phone. "Hello?!" she demands of the person on the other side.

Working Dad / Stay-At-Home Dad

With the expected arrival of baby boy, things have gotten pretty hectic around here.

The Mrs is effectively immobilized - simply walking to the bus stop leaves her breathless, and takes her a good 1/2 hour. (It's a 5 min walk for me)

That means I've got to take a over a whole lot of responsibilities that were mostly taken care of the Mrs.

Here's what I've been doing the past couple of weeks:
0700-0800: Get up and get ready for the day
0800-0830: Send Sarah to school
0830-1200: Go to office and work
1200-1300: Journey back to Sarah's school to fetch her home
1300-1400: Journey back to office
1400-1830: Work
1830-2030: Home / Dinner / husbanding / fathering / son-ing
2030-2200: Shower Sarah / wind down / Sarah's bedtime

If I'm lucky, I'm still awake at 2200hrs to do my own things. Else I usually fall asleep beside Sarah.

This past week though, contractions have started.

So, after fetching Sarah home, I wind her down for her nap.

I feel like my days are really full and occupied. And tiring too! Bleargh.

So, as a compromise, Sarah's gonna start on full-day child care starting May. I can't, in good conscience, carry on taking half-days off from work even though the peeps there are so nice and understanding.

And last Wednesday was the Mrs' birthday too!

Went to Sakae Sushi. No pics yet though. It's somewhere in our phones.

Delicious!

Been using delicious for quite some time for my online bookmarks and only recently discovered their widgety thingies.

Implemented them onto my sidebar under.... Delicious

I like tag clouds.

The Week Sarah Turned 18

And what a week it was!

No wild parties. Just earlier bed times and earlier wake-up times.

18 months is the minimum for a childcare centre to accept a child (which is not classified as infant)

So what does that mean? It's Sarah's first days of school. Ever.

Monday:
The first day of school:
Mummy and Daddy sit in in class, hoping Sarah will get used to the atmosphere

Tuesday:
Mummy and Daddy send Sarah to school
Daddy goes to work and says "bye"
Mummy sits in to observe

Wednesday:
Daddy sends Sarah to school
Mummy stays behind, wringing her hands
Daddy goes to work after half an hour. Says "bye" to Sarah
Heartbreaking

Thursday:
Mummy and Daddy send Sarah to school
Mummy can't stand being Sarah-less
Daddy says "bye" and goes to work

Friday:
Daddy sends Sarah to school
Mummy goes off to see Grandma in hospital
Daddy says "bye" and joins Mummy
Daddy picks up Sarah
Sarah asks, "Where? Mummy?"
Daddy distracts Sarah with something else, takes her home, feeds her lunch and pats her to sleep for her afternoon nap.

As for Saturday, I think I won't dump her in. Let her enjoy sleeping in and being with her parents. (Haha! Actually, the parents want to spend more time with her!)

My First WMD - MWg Zinc II

WMD = Windows Mobile Device
...but you can also call it a Weapon Of Mass Destruction. Originally created by Microsoft but innovated by countless OEMs.

After years and years of gadget envy, I finally brought myself to get a "smartphone".

Apple's iPhone 3G, of course, would have been preferred, but it was still way out of budget. So what did I get instead? A real steal, I thought. A Windows Mobile 6.1 device for $98 with a 2 year contract plan from SingTel.

What's more, I bought it online from www.singtelshop.com as it said the offer would expire the following day. So no prior hands-on before buying. Just a quick Google which resulted in mainly positive reviews.

...and so I waited for a week in glee. And in that time I Googled and Googled about the phone. Seems like I really did get a pretty good deal.

WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, 3G. This is one connected gadget.

Finally, it arrived. I popped in my SIM card and away we go.

Now, how do you copy all your contacts over from the SIM to the phone?
Answer From The Manual: Use the "SIM Manager" to copy contacts from SIM to phone.
Real Answer: Create a new Outlook contact, copy the number from the SIM contact and paste it in your new contact. The "SIM Manager" shows what contacts you have...but doesn't have the copy fuction at all. Bad.

I'm still slowly migrating all my contacts over to the phone from the SIM. I believe I'm somewhere in "F". Strangely, I'd rather do this on the phone rather than doing it in Outlook and syncing them in.

Okay, let's forget that. Let's do ActiveSync. And then, I realized with horror, that it only syncs with MS Outlook. I haven't loaded Outlook on my home PC for ages. Contacts, email, tasks, calendar, notes. Bugger. Most of my PIM bounces between Yahoo and Google (and occasionally Live). And so, I had to go and get MS Outlook and OneNote installed.

Solution?
I had to get a Google Calendar Sync gadget which syncs Google Calendar with MS Outlook, which syncs with my phone.

How about media?
Had to do LiveUpdate to get Windows Media Player 11.

How about movies with special codecs?
WMP11 just does syncing, and not conversion, so I had to go get Windows Media Encoder to do that. Great, now I can watch Bleach while commuting. Not really. The subs are way too small. Clone Wars, maybe? Oh, and conversion seems to be in real time.

How about GPS?
The pre-installed GPS Viewer doesn't seem to work for me. It always seems to be searching and never gets a fix. So I went and got myself Google Maps.

Simply beautiful. Clicked the blue icon and it showed a blue transparent circle layer and states that I'm within an 80 metre radius of this circle. All I need now is a simple app that gives me my lat / long / alt and speed.

Other apps I've installed over the week is Adobe Reader for Pocket PC - to read my PC Game manuals on the go. (currently Homeworld)

Another one is ComicReader Mobile for my DCP *.cbr files. (I'm currently catching up on Marvel's Secret Invasion). Had to install some Microsoft compact framework 3.5 .Net thingy to get it working.

Downloaded GMail's java applet for GMail, which is hidden in WinMo's Java engine. It's not in the All Programs menu.

Installed SkyFire web browser - just to have an alternative to IE. I heard Opera's better. Will get that soon.

Yahoo! Go finally got installed after avoiding me for the past 2 phones. Kinda disappointing.

TinyTwitter for my Twitter needs.

Today, I realized I don't have MMS. Which was strange. I heard iPhones don't have MMS. But WinMo's been around for a while and I don't hear anyone complaining about lack of MMS.

I'm kinda pissed off about that. I do use MMS regularly. (which was another reason for putting off the iPhone)

I lost the stylus too. Within a week. Unbelievable. Attempts to find a replacement have come up with nothing. http://shop.mwg.com has been down for the past week.

I'm suddenly itching to find out what a Symbian powered Nokia is capable of. And I think I “type” faster with the 12 button numeric keypad.

Catching Up

Things have been busy the past month.

Clients coming down from the US for a 1 month stay to go over the entire project (main source of busyness here).

Home equipment breaking down: The PC was mostly down and out of commission due to being in the hands of a certain niece and nephew for the past couple of months. It was returned in an unworkable condition.

While I was busy fixing up the PC, the laptop finally died. Hardware problems. First it was the battery. Couldn't hold much of a charge. Then the power supply. The wire finally frayed apart.

No power = no laptop

The Mrs has been bugging me to fix it, but I've got no spare funds to do so.

Spent most of the IT budget on getting the PC up and running again. Bought an nVidia AGP card and a DVD Writer.

Then the Mrs lost her phone.

So I pounced on a chance to get a new one. Let's try a "smart phone" this time around. Was eyeing a Nokia with a Symbian OS initially, but a good deal for an MWG Zinc II caught my eye.

For less than a $100 too! (with a 2 year contract, with SingTel). Probably one of the few rare purchases I made without having some "hands-on" research first. After entering credit card details, I spent some free time over the next few days digging up reviews. Sounds like I made a good purchase!

Can't wait to get my hands on it. It'll be delivered in a couple of days.

I've finally made an effort to blog again 'cause more than 1 person asked me, "When was the last time you updated your blog?"

Looks like I got some readers!

That makes 3, I think.

To Rent

The Mrs is proposing we rent out our spare (Sarah's) room for some income.

Will be weighing pros vs cons over the next few weeks and will decide by CNY.

Anyone got any input on this?

Day 10,000

2009 January 2nd is my 10,000th day alive.

Rez and myself were having lunch some time back and he was saying how he's ignoring the "New Year" hype as just another typical day by living day to day. And we spent some time calculating leap years and how many days he's been alive and kicking. It was around the figure of 9,000 plus plus, and I told him that he should celebrate his 10,000th day as a landmark number.

The idea bugged me for the next couple of days and I finally relented to it and counted when Day 10,000 was for me. I had assumed that it was already over. Surprise, surprise, I found out that Day 10,000 would be in a week's time, a day after New Year's 2009.

And so I booked my day off on that day. Really undecided on what to do actually and so I asked around. Didn't get any definite answers so I thought I'll just live the day just the way I like it.

And so, here it goes:

0000 to 0300 hours: Did some work at home. Which I really wasn't supposed to. ("You promised!" the Mrs kept reminding me.) But heck, client's servers really pick the worst times to pull a stunt, I technically didn't do any work. I just assigned stuff for a colleague to look into when he came in the office.

Around 0800 - 0900: Awakened by the Dynamic Duo. I was really groggy due to lack of sleep from the last few days. I followed through their request for a glass of milk for Sarah. Then I crawled back into bed and under the sheets. I was vaguely aware of the Mrs saying loudly that Sarah had thrown up, but I was already falling asleep....

1145: Woke up feeling cramped. (Fatherly) Instincts told me it was not wise to roll around in bed. Turned my head to the left to see Sarah sound asleep next to me. House was pretty quiet too. Crept out of bed to discover the time, but no sign of the Mrs. Crept around some more to find her in the kitchen preparing food. Told me she and Sarah had come back from the supermarket and lunch would be ready shortly.

1200 to 1530: Basically did my own thing. Had lunch. Played with Sarah. Lazed on the sofa with the Mrs. Put the final touches on fixing up the niece's PC. Even had time to play some Republic Commando.

Rez arrived. Picked him up from downstairs with Sarah. Got some drinks at the shop. Went up, had lunch. Chit-chatted. Basically hanging out and he got a chance to play with Sarah after she warmed up to him.

1700 to 1930: We left the house together. Rez heading home to deposit his stuff. Me and the family heading out to Novena Velocity. Got the Mrs the promised FitFlops. Sandals that makes you exercise whle you walk. She's really happy about it. I didn't get my FiveFingers though. It turned out to be way over budget. But it's still so cool. I've got a feeling I missed my chance to start a fad. Wandered around Velocity a bit, then to United Square before heading home.

2030: Arrived home just in time to catch the tail-end of Harrison Ford in Air Force One. Starting from the scene where the President takes out Gary Oldman. "Get off my plane," he growls. I also came to a realization that the older one gets, the more familiar faces he sees in the movies.

As the night wore on, caught up on the news. Recalled one of my ATC Instructors, Leslie, is missing and unaccounted for in the Bangkok New Year Fire. Hope he'll turn up fine. He's a nice guy.

We have dinner. Sarah goes to bed. I do the dishes. Caught the Friday night anime on TV. Nibbled on some cheesecake that Rez brought. The Mrs turns in. Cleared some bills. Wrote this blog.

It's now Day 10,001.