Felix Ker's blog

I’ve always received songs or pictures via bluetooth from friends, but this is actually my first time getting something so special. This person actually searched for bluetooth names and found me — “郭老师”. He/she then changed her mobile’s bluetooth ID to “郭学生” and started sending me something.

I had a great laugh when I saw that actually coming in. Super funny since I’ve never encountered something like this before. The above image was what I received. Not to be rude, I replied by sending over a business card contact with the full name being “Hello who are you?” Somehow, I enjoyed it. [For those who do not understand Chinese -- 老师 means teacher, 学生 means student and 郭 is my surname!]

The photograph was actually taken on a Sony Ericsson S500i on 9 September 2009 at 1.48pm. Cool, right?

Thanks, 郭学生!

I’m wondering what are the softwares people run everyday – be it at work or at home. There are several programs and softwares that I run almost daily, if not daily.

1. Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
   I’m a very logical hacker and I code in C#.Net.
2. Microsoft SQL Server 2008
   Programming related again. No choice I gotta run this memory hogger just to get some SQL data.
3. Pageant / Putty
   I usually run a shortcut containing “pageant.exe “C:\keys\private.ppk” to get secured shell access. I’m a lazy person.
4. Mozilla Firefox
   How can I ever miss this?
5. GlobalScape CuteFTP 8
   Not as frequent as the above few, I have to upload files through FTP.
6. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 / Adobe Photoshop CS3
   I use Lightroom for my workflow and Photoshop for further modifications. Very satisfied with this software. I get to save lots of my time.
7. QianQian Player
   This is my favourite lightweight player for most audio extensions. I love the part whereby lyrics get loaded automatically. Oh, the software is in Chinese though.

Guess that’s about all the programs that I frequently run. I decided to skip a few such as Windows Live Messenger, Internet Download Manager, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 8.

I have Launchy set to run at Windows start up. Launchy is my best friend when it comes to launching the above programs.

So, what are the programs that you run most frequently?

I’ve seen gladlyCast around for quite awhile but only decided to give it a try. I’ve never wanted to try because Internet was almost available to me anytime.

My short experience with gladlyCast was smooth, but not so smooth too. Here’s why.

That’s not my number!

I purposely tested the server with a few mobile numbers. After sending in, I clicked on “That’s not my number!”, I was redirected back to the same “Confirm your number” page within seconds. That wasn’t so helpful. I don’t know why this happened and I’m making a guess that the page already discovered that I’ve sent a message to the service with the “secret message”.

Phone number display – could be improved!

I verified my mobile number with a Singapore line. Why did the site show me a Malaysian number and expected me to mouseover to find the other. I thought since the site was so sweet and simple, they could lay it side by side.

Oh, when I was shown the secret message, I was given the same screen whereby I could mouseover and select a number and click. I clicked on the Malaysian number, but confirmed with a Singaporean line. Amazingly, everything worked! I thought this would be alittle misleading. Heh.

What mobile network?

+6012795 9876 looks like it’s running on Maxis, but since Malaysia telcos allow number porting, the number could be on DiGi or even Celcom. gladlyCast, will you be able to specify the network, and maybe expand on the mobile lines? I’m on Digi and I am willing to sponsor a Digi prepaid card for a year or two. (I do know Digi has a plan that allow free smses after first 50cents each day!)

P.S I’m not trying to find fault, but my first secret message was “Jack likes Brian”. Isn’t that gay?

There are really too many complains that I’ve read online with regards to the lousy and slow Internet in Malaysia. I’ve done research and feel that the government is already slowly improving it. Following articles here, here and here, the government is already in a partnership with Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) to slowly improve and provide us with Broadband from 10Mbps to 100Mbps. God knows when that will happen.

What are your alternatives

• JARING. Back in 2001, I was surfing the Internet with Jaring’s 56k Internet. Pretty much satisfied with what I had, until 3 years later, I decided that 56k was too slow since I download quite a bit. They do have different packages running, such as wired and wireless (which comes with a free 015 line which enables really affordable International dialing!) Oh, and please ensure that the service is available in your area. As far as I know, it’s not available in my area (Johor Bahru) yet!
• P1 WiMAX. Shame on you if you haven’t heard about it. But that’s fine since it’s not so widely available to everywhere yet. Check out the availability map before you start deciding if you like it. I’ve heard of people who say it’s good and others who will never recommend that. Seriously, it depends on your area and your expectations.

I seriously only recommend the above two ISPs. There are always people unsatisfied with everything, no matter where you go. Even when you get over to Japan, with the cheapest Internet (In terms of USD per Mbps), there are people who are complaining that it’s bad in a way or another. Learn to be satisfied with what you already have.

What do I ask for?

I’m only expecting stable Internet, with less ping timeout to anywhere. The latency (or lag) cannot be prevented. 4 or 5 (or even 6) years ago when I first subscribed to TMNet Streamyx, can you imagine that I was unable to connect to certain IPs due to the incomplete route? Things definitely have improved.

I’ll ask for more speed when I know they can afford to provide. For now, I’m satisfied with 1Mbps. Oh, and I just upgraded from 512kbps to 1Mbps, which I feel is around the same, no much difference.

The government is already slowly moving into IPv6 from IPv4. What else can I ask for?

While trying to send an email out, I encountered this problem. It’s been quite awhile since I had a problem with Gmail.

If you remember the previous Gmail outage, that was pretty long ago and I wasn’t affected due to the different time zone we operate on.

Problem solved

I actually didn’t even bother to Google and check the problem. What I did was:

1. Save the current email that I was going to send as a draft, left it open, in case there’s really a problem and my email could be gone.
2. Opened a new tab in my browser and went to Gmail (Custom domain/Google Apps).
3. Opened up the email I saved in draft.
4. SEND! TA DA! It’s out.

I guess somewhere there was a fault, probably the connection to the servers or some javascript problems. If using the above method doesn’t help, copy and paste the email any application such as Word or notepad, switch to Gmail basic and you’ll be fine.