Scam......again!?!?!?!?!?!?

wow...... early morning already got scam email again. This round is not from Nigeria but from Cote D'ivoire. And the email is not being sent to email but send thru Koolred. Koolred supposely started by AirAsia to promote traveling, now it become tool of scam. Tony, what you going to do with this?

Here is the email sent to Koolred inbox: (click to see in full size)

Look at the profile:

You should able to see the profile at here: link
Register first if you want to see in detail, hehehe.


Search in google, got 3 links talking about it. 2 of them in English, but 3rd one in some Europe language (German?).


People, be careful.

Post regarding facebook, good one!

http://ahsiangboringdiary.blogspot.com/2009/12/haha-i-just-like-this-post-about.html

Validate your phone!

Normal people like me consist of 90% of the population that hold 10% of the wealth of the world. While the other 10% hold 90% wealth of the world. So by saying that, most of us want to buy phone (handphone/cellphone/ppc/smartphone/etc) with cheap price but want it to be original (not flashed or fake or 山寨*). Now you can take the IMEI number (can't be fake 99%) and check it at this website:

http://www.numberingplans.com/?page=analysis&sub=imeinr

*note: made in China, not fake, but similar hardware, just the quality might sucks, depend on your luck!)

p/s: how to find out your IMEI:
http://www.gsm-technology.com/gsm.php/en,unlock,subpage_id,free_codes.html
http://www.wikihow.com/Find-the-IMEI-Number-on-a-Mobile-Phone
For ppc, Start -> Settings -> System -> Device Information -> Identity

How to capture/download/save files from IMEEM/YouTube/etc

You want to listen to a song, but you don't want to pay for the money to iTune (coz Apple is too rich already), or some other paid song downloading website.

But then you scare of the virus you might catch on your computer using torrent search website (it is true, 1/2 of them could be virus/malware/Trojan/etc).

You want to use Thunder (迅雷), but it is in Chinese only (got people translate for that, but it is just too Chinese :P) and also the website that provide Thunder links are almost all in Chinese.
You might also already tried eMule (or whatever Mule), but then some of the time the file you looking for is not there anymore (too old or too rare) or too few people share it (takes you months to download a mp3, by that time you might have forgotten it already) or the file is a porn video but named the same name of the mp3 you wanted (that's true, I tried to download Baby Einstein video for my baby, but the video turn out to be a porn, luckily I checked before show to my baby :P)

And then you turn to Imeem, you can listen to endless songs there, and most of the time the quality is quite good. One problem, you want to put this song into your ipod/iphone/whatever phone or keep in your computer so that you can listen to it whenever you want. There are some websites that help you to download it from Imeem, but Imeem keep on improving what...... Sometime back I found out that you can search the flv file in your browser cache, the trick is it is to look for file named .gif. It will works for sometime, but recently when I checked the cache for FireFox, the .gif is not in there for anyhow, so Imeem did keep on improving, heheheh.

Okay, so I tried to record it on the fly, but the cheapskate sound card/driver only allow record from microphone (HUH?). So google around found that the RIAA people bully everyone so that we can't record music on computer. Unless you get a SoundBlaster, there is not way to get it working. I can use wired the phone output to the microphone input, but I bet the quality still sucks!

Oh wait, I found one software to get it around, Virtual Audio Cable. This one can route the output of computer back to input virtually, basically is make the computer to works like you have a cable connect from phone output to microphone input. But but but (huh?) you need to pay for it la...... You get free trial, but you have to pay for full working version. Aiya...... Also it works for sound only, no video.

Then I found this one: PIAFCTM.
This powerful software monitors whatever traffic go through the network port on your computer (oh... it can be use for spying people lo......). So no matter how smart the Imeem people la, they still have to transfer the file to your computer before the song can be play on your computer. So this PIAFCTM can save all the files to your preferred directory. And yes, of course you can apply filter to save .flv/.mp3/etc etc files only, otherwise you get all the junks, including data by MSN/skype/whatever IM. I have tried it for Imeem (get the .gif file, with a few Meg of size), YouTube (get the .flv/mp4), both of them works!

For .gif from Imeem, rename it to .flv and then convert it using flv -> mp3 software. I like SUPER the most, coz it is free and handle almost all the audio/video format. The only thing the SUPER website I don't like is you have to click and click and click to get to the download page (it still worth it, since it is free!), heheheh. As for the .flv from YouTube, SUPER also can handle it.

I only use PIAFCTM at YouTube only if keepvid.com does not works. Keepvid still is the primary method to save the video from YouTube, but recently a lot of attempt failed.... I like to watch YouTube when I am free, but I don't always have internet access (also the 3G/data plan in my country still burn the wallet, not a hole only :P).

update Dec15, 2009: I just found out that this PIAFCTM also can monitor the traffic through USB ports as I was synchronizing calendar and email between laptop and pocket PC. Cool!


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MS office tips

For those using MS office a lot!

Some tips for you:
http://www.beinetworks.com/pubs/beinetworks/Tech_Tips_for_End_.cfm


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DO NOT INSTALL la!

Nowadays thumb drive (or some call it USB drive/flash drive/some drive la) just very cheap these day. Well although it is not as cheap as hard disk per GB, the price is damn cheap compare to the day I bought my 128M thumb drive (it is M, not G).

Anyway, the main topic today is not thumb drive, but portable software. We no longer need to install the software that we want use every time we go to another computer/laptop/etc. Some nice people out there just too kind to create the portable version of the software (some might piss off the original author though :P). What you can do is to download and unzip them into your thumb drive (and some need to tweak a little bit maybe, depend on how portable it is), and you can bring it anywhere with you.
So when you see your friends don't have a software on his/her laptop/computer that you want to use, you can just plug your thumb drive into the USB and you are good to go!

So here are some of the web sites that provide the portable software:
1. http://portableapps.com/
This web is super fast with the updated version of the software they have it there. I got most of the software I wanted at here. All of them are legal to be portable (I think).

2. http://www.portablefreeware.com/
More choices here, but update is slower. But it still a good source of portable software, in fact this is the most portable software I could find so far. Not all are legal to be portable (I think), just be careful.

3. http://devrexster.googlepages.com/mmk
Only Microsoft Movie Maker. I just found out this one after I was frustrated the way you have to go through to download this Movie Make from Microsoft website.

4. http://www.opera-usb.com
Only Opera (web brower). The people at Opera are kind enough to give out free version of portable Opera. So this one is legal one lo.

5. Torrent
You can find all sort of pirated and portable at the same time software at some torrent site. I wouldn't tell you, but you know how to find them la...... heheheheh.

"Install" this word going to be disappear some day, I hope the sooner the better. YEAH!

Stop and relax for a moment

I found this site by accident and it is kind of fun to play with it once in a while. Try it la.

Making your own tone by clicking on the boxes. Click at same box for 2nd time to clear it.
http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix

Running IE8/7/6 or Firefox3.5/3/2 or Safari4/3 or Google Chrome or Opera10/9 without installing them

Running software without need to install is getting more popular, well, at least I like it, very much, very very much. Because there will be no hassle or worry if want uninstall it. Sometime some software are too stubborn to be remove even though you use the “legal” uninstall process that come with the software. I have been using some software that just can be run from a thumb drive, it is kinda cool coz I could run them on almost all desktop/laptop as long as the OS support them. :)

I found this thing call “Browser Sandbox”few days ago. It actually available since Q1 2009 by a company that famous in virtualization technology called Xenocode. It is not 100% no-installation yet, you still have to install the sandbox for the first time, so that you can launch the browsers from the webpage.

What you need to do is to go to the webpage (link at below), click any of the browser you want to use, install the sandbox for the first time. (I think there was 2 stuffs you need to install, but I might be wrong). After sandbox being install, it will start to load the browser from the server. So it will depend on the network speed, I would not do it at my home, because I am OutdatedPenangUncle that uses the very famous (and always down) Streamyx and the most I get is 512k (actually is 64kbytes, coz 512k is in bits)…… Okay okay, I am too stingy not to upgrade to 1M or 2M, 512k is enough for normal surfing.

The process:

Anyway, I can run IE8, IE7 and Opera10 at same time with the sandbox. I have these below installed, so don’t bother to try on the sandbox:
1. The very outdated IE6 that came with the Windows (many links in my company still have to use this guy)
2. The very updated Firefox3.5.3 (the most use)
3. The long time no use Safari4 beta (coz I fall in love with Firefox…ooppssss, Honey, this kind of love is not the same love that I have with you ya :P)
4. The long time no use Chrome (this guy is too slow, going to uninstall it)
5. and yes, Maxthon (this guys is not a real browser, it just use which ever IE engine in your window, the usage come back up due to a web that still have to use either IE6 or this)

Opera10, IE8 and IE7 in action, the background is the sandbox webpage:

Why need to open so many type of web browser you might ask, because I am a geek, I just want to try out. But I don’t want the trouble to uninstall them in case I don’t like it. Also IE6/IE7/IE8 wouldn’t co-exist if you choose to install any of the newer version.

Oh ya, not to forgot the link to access the page to launch it
http://spoon.net/Browsers/

Citibank Malaysia service is getting worse......everyday......

It will started way back few weeks back when I have problem login into Citibank Malaysia online banking website. I made a call to the call center and after being route to here and there, some one from the bank said the system has been updated, some people will get affected. So mar, I asked to reset the password, after trying 2 methods, only left the ATM card method, which mean use the ATM card password to activate the online account again. The thing is I forgot the ATM card password at all, because I haven't use it for more than 3 years...... Okay, then I asked them to send me a new password. I waited and waited for 2/3 weeks but still haven't get the new password. So I call them up again today, after waited for more than 5 mins someone pick up and after I told the story, he divert me to a banker. Okay, after waited for another more than 5 mins, the call divert back to the the first person saying banker is busy, they will call back tonight.

Last night I made a call to EON bank and it took me less than 5 mins to verify and activate a new credit, I have also ask some questions to that guy, it all took less than 5 mins!

Huh? You don't have enough staff r? Who make the changes one? Why don't you have backup plan in case the new system screw up r?

This Scramble is not that Scramble :P

When I downloaded this JAVA game I thought it is the "scramble" game. After install it I only realize this scramble is not THE scramble, haha.

It is a freeware Java game. So no need to pay lo. But you need to have MIDP2.0 installed on your phone first la. What is MIDP? It is like the JAVA runtime on your computer, except this is the lighter version of it and use for handphone/PPC/smart phone. Some phones which are not ppc/smart phone (meaning dumb phone :P), but the manufacturer per-install the MIDP in your phone and you have some spare space in the phone, then you can download the JAVA games/apps to play/use on your phone. The advantage of JAVA is you just need to write the games/apps in JAVA language and it can be play/use on any plateform that has JAVA runtime. Meaning hor, don’t care it is window9* (do you still have it??????), WinXp, Win Vista, Win7, linux, unix, (mac? not sure le), etc etc, as long as you have JAVA runtime installed in your pc/laptop, you can run it. For phone, don't care you have Nokia (or China made Nokla :P), Sony E, iphone, HTC, dopod, etc etc, you have MIDP, you can play/run the JAVA games/apps.

Anyway back to the game, it is just a 2D shooting game. You need to rescue the people and avoid being hit by other planes, or hit on floor and castle. And at the end land on a landing area to complete a round. No sound at all, so very boring lo after a while. This is another game that is not suitable for My HTC touch, because pressing up down left right and fire is very inconvenient.

Use your phone as ruler?

Ever thought of your phone can use as a ruler? Well, by attaching a laser transmitter and laser sensor and also a measurement software, you should able to get very accurate ruler. Just joking, but this kind of software does exist, not as accurate as laser ruler la.
Introducing dwRuler. It is a freeware, so don't need to be worry about the money. Haha.


After install it and before start to use you need to calibrated it with a real ruler. IMHO, the software will based on the length you key in and make some simple calculations to determine the ruler that going to show on your phone screen. You can also set the unit in cm or inch. As for the dm/m/ft, I am not sure why it is there at first place, haha.

I did compare the ruler this software rendered with the real ruler, quite accurate. What can I expect more when the real ruler I have also not very accurate one la. Haha.

RON92, 95, and 97 petrol compatibility for Malaysia's local and foreign cars

Outdated Penang Uncle put non-tech related stuffs in another blog:

http://ahsiangboringdiary.blogspot.com/2009/08/ron92-95-and-97-compatibility-for.html

Wolfenstein 3D...... for PPC

The first 3D action game on PC...... is now available for PPC. I don't think youngster nowadays know this game. Only uncle like me knows only :P
The 3D is quite smooth on my old HTC Touch, but the drawback is just like a few games I posted here before, the control. With very few buttons on HTC Touch, all control have to be on the touch screen. I still like it better on PC. Anyway, it is good to kill some time right? Hehehe.

Another good old game - Moonlander

Moonlander, I definitely remember this game during 386/486 time. It might be different people writing this game for PC vs PPC, but the game play is more or less the safe, which is to land your rocket on the moon platform, safely. What else you want to do? :p
For my HTC Touch which has no phone keypad or keyboard, it is much more difficult to control the rocket with just the navigation buttons. I can't really press up and right at same time to keep the rocket from falling to left side, which I can easily do on PC or phone/PPC with keypad. Therefore my high score until today still sucks. :P For those smart phone/PPC with keypad, it will be a lot more fun to play.

Anyway, this game is a free game. And pretty damn small, so please enjoy yourself killing some time with this game while waiting for some one or something, you know what I mean. :)

MLT - Not Free Game

Today I am going to introduce this "not-free" game. Meaning you need to pay for it to get the full game features out of it. But it is too wasted if not introduce it, hence this "My Little Tank".
The name is err.... a bit childish (Hongkie would call it "dai-B" :P). Why not just call it Tank!
Anyway, Astraware had a short-form for it -- "MLT", sounds cooler, hahah. The loading actually is quite fast on my HTC Touch, consider it is quite old and slow compare to all those new smartphone/ppc.

If you don't want to pay for it, you still can download it and play it as demo. The drawback with demo is you have to wait longer and longer from one stage to another, and you cannot change the tank color. Other than that, the game is not bad at all!

If you have keypad, that would be better with this game, coz I tried this game on my HTC Touch, it is a bit hard to press the fire button. But I think it would be easier for phone with keypad or keyboard. For me, I want to use the stylus to control the tank, so it will fire automatically. The bad thing about autofire is when you need to fire, it will not, coz it is waiting for the bullet that it just fired just now to hit something first. So end up being blow up by enemy :P. You will know what I mean when you play it, heheheh.

Anyway, it just controlling you tank and destroy other tanks or some specific targets. It will be come more and more tanks to destroy. At some stages you have to defend your base from being destroy by your enemy. Got a few types of tanks, you will getting more and more "harder-to-destroy" tanks at later stage. Meaning you have to fire a few times to destroy it lo. Basically it is about blow up your enemies. That is shooting game all about right? heheheh.

The sound is very good and clear. I like it the part it shake the screen a bit when you destroy a tank nearby. This make it more realistic although the color is not that real, hahah.

It is very easy to addicted to this game, every time I play it I play until my finger numb coz need to hold the phone what...... You should pay for it if you really like the game. It is some nice hardwork from the people that design and code it......

Now can I get a complementary copy from you there in Astraware? heheheh.

Parachute - bring back the good old memories......

I didn't remember I see this game during my childhood, but this game does bring up the memories back then. I was from poor family, only got the chance to see rich friends/cousins that playing their games. It was quite fun to watch the game play. Anyway, this Parachute is to emulate those kind of games. So the game is pretty straight forward, you must catch the parachuters the jumping down from the helicopter. The longer you play, the faster the parachuters come down. That's it. You can find the game from http://app.sj.91.com/game/WM/parachute-4.1.html or other free ppc game web portal.


p/s: oppsss...... :P I onli realize that onli chinese websites has this, sorry for those couldn't read chinese, probably you can google it "Luke Game&Watch Parachute".

photo

Photo of calculator that I want to show to my co-workers.

DownThemAll! - The best Firefox add-on

As promised in previous post, I will introduce the best Firefox add-on...for now (I am sure got newer and better add-ons come out everyday, hehe). But for now, this add-on suites my needs.

Introducing "DownThemAll!"

I was looking for something else when I found this add-on. Being curious I install this add-on and went to a blog that provides lots of photos. With a few clicks, this add-on is downloading the photos that I wanted, yeah! I no longer need to open/save the picture one by one. Just right click on the page that links to photos, select the file types you want to download (jpeg, png, html, mp3, you name it), and it will download them all.

DownThemAll! in action!

With this add-on, when ever you click to download a file (zip, exe, etc), Firefox will pop-up the same dialog box to as you where to save it and so on, you can choose to use DownThemAll! to download it instead of the original firefox download manager. I tried it with the snail speed Streamyx 512k line last night, usually it will take more than 10mins to download an 1M file (don't do the math, waste your time only, coz this is streamyx la), but it took less than 1/2 min! I will continue to try download from other website to see if this is consistent, heheh.

Configuration

Some configuration you set for DownThemAll!, but I use the default one, and it works for me. You might want to adjust the number of download concurrently to max if you have a fast broadband, hehe.

Those people that write this add-on are part time only, please donate to them if you think it worth it. I done my part by introducing them, so I guest I don't need to donate kua? :P

p/s: you might notice the pictures are low quality, this is expected since I want to reduce the file size so that they load faster on slow connection. You just want to see see nia, need so high quality mer? :P

Mozilla Firefox 3.5 bug

Last week I came across a web talking about Samsung Omnia2 simulator, being curious (kepo la), I follow the link and look at this Omnia2 simulator. This is really cool, coz it showcase the UI that this Omnia2 has to offer. If I don't have the money constraint, I sure will buy it, coz I heard the hardware also quite hardcore for a ppc. While checking it, I found out the memory on my computer suddenly left very few Meg only. Using Task Manager, I found out this simulator web eat up more than 500M of the memory. No wonder the simulator so nice la, 500M of memory le.

Anyway, this week I found out some people commented Firefox 3.5 got some high memory usage issue. I also experience the same, noticed that Firefox 3.5 could easily use up a few hundreds M when surfing the net. This seldom happen on the maxthon that I use. Not sure about Chrome though, coz I seldom use it nowadays. Although Google is pushing for it, but it is still lack of the features that I found useful on Maxthon and Firefox. Today I found out a very cool add-on for Firefox which works like download manager, but really cool, I hope I will remember to share it in future post. Remind me if you haven't see me share it in 2 weeks time, okay?

Samsung Onmia2 simulator opened on Firefox 3.5 (click to open the full pix):

After closed Samsung Omnia2 simulator (click to open the full pix):

See the memory usage dropped >500M (click to open the full pix)


I just chui sui only la......

Pocket Sudoku

What I did after getting my own pocket PC? Look for freeware/free games. So the first game that I installed on my HTC touch is Pocket Sudoku.



Sometime I play sudoku on news paper, or on laptop. But with this Pocket Sudoku, I can play whenever I want (except driving and bath la, hehehe).

Since there is no left/right click on pocket PC compare to laptop/desktop, the clicking the number of rely on the clicking using stylus (boxes too small for finger). And select number by clicking on right bottom edge to change the number to fill in. You can choose the level of difficulty. you can find out how to play at its help.

It is freeware, so meaning it is FREE la!

pTravelAlarm for pocket PC

The original Alarms that comes with Windows Mobile has some limitations:
1. only 3 alarm settings
2. the snooze button too small (just like task's reminder)
3. I don't like the alarm sound, although there are a few sounds to choose

pTravelAlarm overcome the limitations mentioned above:
1. big display, yea, anybody would need it when try know the time and see if can sleep for another 10 mins or not.

2. big snooze button, yea, I could easily press the snooze button and continue to sleep for another 10 mins (up to you to set it)

3. 10 alarms settings, yea, you could define different wake up hour from monday to sunday and still have 3 more you can use. Also you can have different alarm sound to wake you up for each day.

4. I like one of wave file came with the software - bugle.wav, yea, it sounds like the horn blow sound in military movies.
5. I could adjust the volume of the alarm sound for each alarm setting.


Anyway, today topic is very dry. Compansate yourself by look at the photos on Mr. Dali's blog la, malaysianfinance.blogspot.com, heheh.

Voice commander for pocket PC

I did notice I got this software came with my phone but I didn't understand the usage until after a few weeks after I got the phone when I read the ads about apple iphone 3GS talking about voice recognition somethings. Then I thought, what the hack, I got this thing all this while on my phone! Wau lau eh...... apple, apple, now only you try to bluff people that this is very new thing on iphone. oh ya, this is new to iphone 3GS la, but this thing already exist in pocket pc/smartphone all this while already. But have to recognized apple's expertise in marketing, people will buy it anyway. When you take out any iphone, your friends will say 'wah.... iphone wor.....', or at least they will raise the eyebrow a bit lo. When I take out my phone, people will ask 'what is that? oh...... htc touch/pocket pc, why not buy Iphone r?' :P Anyway, I tend to always chui sui until too far.


Back to the topic, I was playing with this voice commander a bit only, but only know that this is very useful until I got my own outdatedpenanguncle bluetooth headset (will talk about it in near future, hopefully). I dunno is it the bluetooth setting or the voice commander setting (dun ask), but when I press the call button on the bluetooth headset, the voice commander will be activated and asking for my command on the bluetooth headset. This is very useful when I am driving, I don't need to look at the screen of the phone to look for a contact to call (safety safety!), I just need to say "call abc", and it will verify it before it make the phone call. It also can be use to find contact, play music, start an application, check new sms/email, call history and ask for the time. I haven't really got familiar with this software, so sometime it do other things that I said. This happen often when I use it on the old plotong car, but it responded quite accurate in a room. So this must be the glitch caused by noisy sound from the old plotong la.

p/s:
Did I get any incentive from doing the software introduction/review? Not now, but if really got software company want to rasuah me, I might blow blow a bit for them lo. What to do? Money can buy almost everything what...... Hey apple, rasuah me la, a few biji of your stock also can liao. :P

Sprite backup

This is the first software that I installed on my HTC touch by myself.

The shop that I purchased this phone already helped me to installed a few useful and un-useful (:P) software. I will go thru them one by one, hopefully I have time to do that. :)

I know I am going to do lots of funny stuffs on the phone, so backup is the first one I need to install.

Luckily this backup software came with the software CD, so I don't need to pay for it.
You need to install it on your PC/desktop/laptop first then it will ask for connection to your phone and it will install it on the phone. After a few times of rebooting your phone, it will eventually backup important files from \Windows and some others dir (I didn't check, don't ask).

I haven't went to the situation that need to restore from backup, so don't ask the restore. Actually it is very simple only, hook up your phone with PC, select ActiveSync (file access only wouldn't work), start the software on PC, select backup or restore, thats all.

terracrosser - Better than "Google Maps for mobile"

As promised in previous post, terracrosser offer a much better map viewer than google map for mobile. Actually this terracrosser used another program called mapper.exe (which come with the downloaded package) to download the maps from google map and yahoo map on your laptop/desktop. It then compiled the maps into a file that can be read by the terracrosser. The only trick is to copy the map file into your ppc.

This is much much much x12 better than google map for mobile la. why? coz google map for mobile required GPRS data connection. GPRS is very costly in my country (Malaysia). So why bother to make it only works with GPRS only? why not wifi? Why the smart engineers at Google make it such a way? That might be some marketing gimmick. Mobile providers: "You make the program become blood sucker and we share share the profit la"
Goooooogle: "sure, anything you say taukeh"

Anyway, back to terracrosser, you can download maps from google map and yahoo map, and choose the level of zoom. The more zoom-in, the bigger the file size lo. So if you have a few more Gigs to spare on your ppc's external memory card, why not? heheheh.

I have downloaded Penang island, Penang mainland, Taiping, Ipoh and Cameron Highland's maps from google and view them on my HTC Touch after copy the map files into it. If your ppc have GPS then even better, you can use it as a navigator. Syok!

Anyway, remember to read the disclaimer at below of the page before you try out ya, heheh.

Trying out this software......Stay tune......

http://terracrosser.com/
It is a map viewer + navigator. Too bad my HTC Touch don't have GPS, so will be trying for the viewer, downloading map now...... Stay tune for the review.

Create animated GIF

I use the step4 in the link (at end of this post) to create an animated gif for my WLM (window live msgr). Too bad blogspot and plurk cannot support animated gif, else I will putting the gif everywhere, heheheheh. I use GIMP as the tool, it is freeware la, so no need to pay and safe to install on your company desktop/laptop(?).

okay, back to the business:
1. Put all your photos into a dir, make sure you name it accordingly. (It should take alphebetically la)
2. Use GIMP to open first file. (GIMP=freeware, comparable to Photoshop!)
3. Open the remaining files in the dir as layers (File -> Open As Layers). All image in that dir should now as a layer.