Jason Ong's Blog - Personal, Technology

Best of Online Maps Covering Kuala Lumpur

2008-04-28T00:40:00.001+08:00

I've been using online maps for quite a while and I've noticed that the map coverage for Malaysia has improved over the years but freely-available geocoding services covering Malaysian city streets are still sorely lacking.

Multimap

However, one mapping service comes close. It's Multimap (now a wholly-owned Microsoft subsidiary). While street-level geocoding support for KL is not quite there yet, there's postcode geocoding. The street map quality is much more detailed than the one in Google Maps, MapQuest or Microsoft Virtual Earth.

In Multimap, you can view the lot number of homes/buildings and names of street landmarks. However, Multimap's aerial/satellite view (which leverages on Microsoft Virtual Earth) is not the best for Malaysia. In that respect, Google Maps offers much higher-resolution visuals.

StreetDirectory.net.my

Another cool street mapping service for KL is found on streetdirectory.net.my. You can enter street names or even building names. It even lists how far away a location is from nearby landmarks such as banks, restaurants, monorail stations and even pubs!

Google Earth and Google Maps

For virtual 3D visualization of KL, there is Google Earth (essentially 2D Google Maps mapped on a 3D terrain). With Google Earth 4.3, you can view photo-realistic buildings for several cities around the world. As for KL, you'll only find the Petronas Twin Towers in 3D though.

One thing to note is that the satellite images in Google Maps (hence Google Earth) for most parts of KL are not very recent. Most of the image tiles date back to 2005. However, Putrajaya has more recent visuals (May 2007).

I'm looking forward to the day when we can enter a Malaysian street address in Google Maps or Google Earth and the specific location is returned. At the moment Google Maps supplements the search results with community-tagged locations. Quite often, there's too much redundancy in community-based results and it only adds to lots of noise.

So while we wait for real geocoding service from Google on Malaysia, we'll make do with the services mentioned above.

Technorati tags: google maps, mapquest, multimap, microsoft virtual earth, geocoding, kuala lumpur

Lightning Scare

2008-04-15T23:09:00.001+08:00

Just about more than a month ago (on March 7th), both my Aztech broadband modem and D-Link wireless router were fried by a nasty lightning strike.

More Misery

Two network cards within my home network later turned casualties too. Within weeks, my two-year old Brother laser printer refused to work. Brother customer service told me that the printer mainboard could be the issue. Repairs would not have been worth it.

The Belkin Deal

I replaced the router and modem with a Belkin 7632 wireless router cum broadband modem combo and it came with a lifetime warranty and one-to-one swap deal. For that, Belkin's product came at a premium price and it took some convincing before I decided to put my cash into it.

Lightning Strikes Back!

Not taking anymore chances, from that day onwards, I was diligent in disconnecting my network equipment on the slightest sound of thunder. Thunderstorms are getting more frequent in KL these days. But today, I missed the hint by probably a few minutes. There was slight rumbling of the thunder and without much warning, my Belkin was zapped...just like that!

The Calm after the Storm

I went to the dealer and got the Belkin checked. Within 10 minutes, I was given a brand new unit (in shrink-wrapped box). They didn't even need my old box! So, the one-to-one swap was indeed a real deal. The unit I was given has an updated firmware and slightly different port arrangement. Other than that, it looks the same. I must thank the original sales rep who sold me the product.

I got back home and got the new Belkin configured for Streamyx broadband within minutes. Thankfully, so far, no problems with my network cards.

So, if you're living in a lightning prone area, I strongly recommend getting a Belkin even if you have to pay a little more!

Technorati tags: belkin, modem, router, lightning

Random Reboots, Driver Updates and Vista Activation

2008-02-25T14:12:00.001+08:00

Of late, my Windows Vista desktop system has been terribly unstable. I'll get several random BSODs and lock-ups in a day and the reboots have become more frequent. I'm inclined to believe that my hardware is to be blamed.

Northbridge Chip

A few months back, my Abit KV8 MAX3 motherboard Northbridge (NB)fan made grinding noises and one day the stock fan just died. I got a Cooler Master NB heatsink to replace the fan and added an additional Cooler Master casing fan (bringing it to 2 casing fans). The NB and CPU temperatures looked okay (both hovering around sub-40C) and yet the random reboots continued.

RAM and CPU

Could it be the RAM or CPU then? I tested the RAM modules with Memtest86+ as well as Vista's own memory test utility. No reboots during the tests and not a single error. I ran Prime95 torture test, I didn't get any errors but there was one occasion it blue-screened.

Power Supply

I was thinking of more suspects and I came down to the power supply. The power supply of my system came with my casing and it has a 200W continuous power output rating (450W standard output rating). It's able to offer only 10A on +12V. I thought with that spec, the power supply would not have been able to provide enough juice for my system. So, I replaced the original power supply with an Enermax Tomahawk 500W dual rail power supply with 80%+ efficiency. The Enermax is able to offer 22A on each +12V rail. Cool....but alas, my system was still acting up.

BIOS Settings

Next, I took a closer look at the motherboard BIOS settings. I lowered the FSB speed from 204Mhz to 200Mhz and adjusted the CPU core voltage accordingly. That made a difference! No more blue screens but I now got Vista to lock up at random though not frequent. Could it be a driver issue?

Chipset Driver Update

While I always use the latest Vista device drivers for my system, I have neglected updating the third-party VIA chipset drivers all these while. So, I updated my system with the latest VIA drivers and guess what? Vista is now deactivated and I have 3 days grace to reactivate it. What's going on? How can a simple driver update trigger a Vista deactivation? That led me to this article: WARNING: device driver updates causing Vista to deactivate.

Windows Vista Activation

I tried reactivating Vista online but it reported that my activation ID has already been used (yes, by me...duh!). I called up Microsoft "toll free" automated activation service on my mobile but got an automated reply that my activation request is denied. So I opted to speak to a customer service agent, explaining the reason for activation and finally got Vista activated. However, it is not without incurring a call cost of over RM10 on my mobile.

So, it's now a wait and see game. As I type this long post, my system has not crashed and I hope it stays that way...

Technorati tags: vista, via, abit

Angkasawan Lift-Off in Retrospect

2007-10-14T03:54:00.001+08:00

Watching history unfolding before your eyes is always interesting especially when it has got to do with space travel.

I watched the lift-off of the Soyuz TMA-11 via live TV coverage on Astro on October 10 with much anticipation. Malaysia's first spaceman (Angkasawan) Dr. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor looked like a happy camper as he boarded the Soyuz. He was always smiling!

Before the lift-off, Astro was carrying live telecast of scenes inside the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC) where Malaysian PM, dignitaries, and schoolchildren were set to witness the lift-off event via video link.

The Lift-Off

Then came the moment of history -- the lift-off at 9:22 p.m. Malaysian time. The telecast switched to the live feed from NASA TV with professional commentary on the lift-off sequence of events.

All was good and exciting...until.....

The Anti-Climax

Moments before and after lift-off....our hyped-up dear MC (Mahadzir Lokman) at KLCC just have to "dub" over NASA's expert commentary with his own version.

Also, he was getting the audience to repeat MalaysiaKu Gemilang patriotic cheers after him...which actually was a cheesy thing to do at that critical moment in time (not that I'm not patriotic).

There were lots of interesting things going on like communications between ground control and the Soyuz which I'm sure viewers at home and the 500 schoolchildren at KLCC would be more eager to hear.

Angkasawan - You're the Man!

Anyway, congratulations to Malaysia's first man in space. I can see he has trained hard for the mission. With his kind of spirit, I'm sure he'll do the nation proud.

See also:

Touchdown Discovery!

Technorati tags: angkasawan, soyuz, expedition 16, nasa, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, cosmonaut, astronaut

Windows Vista Launch Flashback

2007-10-02T19:56:00.001+08:00

It's coming to 8 months since Windows Vista was launched in KL. I thought I share some of the pictures I randomly caught on launch day (Feb 3, 2007). By the way, the launch venue was Low Yat Plaza.

See more of my Windows Vista Launch Day pictures here!

My Vista Experience: The Story So Far...

I bought my copy of Windows Vista Ultimate (genuine copy...mind you!) on May 22 -- just about the time when my then existing Windows Vista Ultimate RC1 copy was about to expire.

My experience with Vista has been mixed. While I love a lot of things about Vista, some features take some getting used to. e.g. the UAC (User Account Control) feature.

The Blue Screens

I've been getting frequent mysterious BSODs (blue-screen-of-death) and I couldn't pinpoint on what is really at fault. Perhaps it's a driver issue, or perhaps it's a hardware issue...I don't know.

The Vista problem reporting logs did record down the "unexpected shutdowns" but the log details were too cryptic for me to interpret. I did a chkdsk ... no problem. I did a RAM test ... no problem. I checked my motherboard temperature and voltage parameters... don't see any problem there. However, my chipset fan has been giving me this grinding noise but looking at the chipset temperatures, nothing indicates there's a problem.

Windows Update Problem

Recently, I've been encountering error 80073712 (yeah...go figure!) in Windows Update. Some googling led me to a few possible solutions but none of them worked.

I did a scan (using sfc) to check the integrity of the system files and indeed, some corruption had occurred and the errors couldn't be fixed. I suppose the frequent BSODs might have caused some system files to be thrown into a zombie state.

In-place Upgrade

This prompted me to do an in-place upgrade i.e. upgrade Vista with Vista. I pop in my Vista DVD and after two hours, the upgrade successfully completed. I got my Windows Update functioning again and all of my previously installed applications seemed to work fine except for one -- Visual Studio 2008 Team System Beta 2.

I uninstalled VS2008 beta and attempted to reinstall it but .NET Framework 3.5 beta failed to install. So, I went back to scouring the web for possible solutions and I found one. I uninstalled IIS7, installed .NET Framework 3.5 beta manually, reinstalled IIS7, and then pop in the beta DVD and to my relief, the installation went smoothly.

I guess I'll stop here before I start to rant endlessly. :-)

Read also:

Evaluating Windows Vista RC1 Build 5600

Technorati tags: windows vista

Looking Back at Microsoft Tech·Ed SEA 2007, Kuala Lumpur

2007-09-29T14:19:00.001+08:00

Dear Tech·Ed fans: Here are some photos of the Tech·Ed Southeast Asia 2007 conference held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre on the 10th-13th September. Enjoy!

The venue...actually you're just seeing half of it. I captured this shot from another wing.

Tim Huckaby presenting building data visualization applications using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). I've seen Tim at every Tech·Ed in KL. Doesn't he just love Malaysia? :-)

Doug Mahugh on Open XML Architecture.

Games area.

Dina (of Malaysian Idol) and SerenaC (of Mix.Fm) at the Tech·Ed SEA 2007 GeekOut 2 Party at the Zouk, KL. Geeks do know how to party eh...

Dina in action! She really brought the house down!

See more of my Tech·Ed SEA 2007 photos here!

Read also:

Looking Back at Microsoft Tech·Ed 2006 SEA, Kuala Lumpur

Technorati tags: teched07, techedsea2007

Windows Live Writer Beta 2

2007-06-24T23:46:00.001+08:00

I've just installed the latest beta release of Windows Live Writer (WLW). It took Microsoft quite a while (9 months to be exact) to release this second beta.

What's New

There's a new look and feel to this neat blogging tool. There are now inline spell checking, table editing, ability to add categories, page authoring for WordPress and TypePad, support for excerpts and extended entries, improved hyperlinking and image insertion, Paste Special feature, and new integration and compatibility features.

My Experience

Installation of Beta 2 was a breeze. There's now a new installer. My original weblog account settings in Beta 1 appeared intact in Beta 2 (even though I uninstalled Beta 1 from the Control Panel).

As for the new look, it seems to share the same design cues as Windows Live Messenger 8.5 Beta which I also just recently installed. Changing the color scheme is easy; just click on the brush icon on the rightmost corner of the toolbar and pick a color.

As for the plugins, I installed the Flickr4Writer (for embedding Flickr photos), Insert Video (e.g. for embedding YouTube videos, etc) and the Code Snippet plugin for WLW. All the plugins seem to work fine.

It's a pity that it's not possible to upload images to Blogger from WLW. It's not so much of a limitation of WLW, but rather, the Blogger APIs apparently do not support image uploading at this time. I'm sure this will change in the future.

I've not really dug into all the new features but if there's something worthy of mention, I'll blog about it more in the future.

Read also:

Technorati tags: windows live writer, live writer, microsoft, blog tools

Windows Live Writer Beta - Take Two

2006-10-09T17:34:00.000+08:00

A few weeks' back, I blogged about test-driving Windows Live Writer (WLW) for the first time. I'm quite pleased with the usability as a whole. The whole WYSIWYG desktop experience feels simply much better than the sluggish web-based blog editing experience. Here's a screenshot of WLW:

Inserting a map is easy! Click on Insert Map on the sidebar and you can embed a map taken from Virtual Earth in the blog post.

What I like about WLW is the support for plugins. Already, there is a growing community out there writing interesting plugins for WLW.

Inserting photos from Flickr is also easy with the Flickr4Writer plugin by Tim Heuer. You can choose the image size you want and have the image automatically link back to the corresponding Flickr photo page.

Build 145 now has tagging support built in. There's even an autocomplete feature in the tag editing box. Also, unlike the previous builds, this build now works with Blogger Beta.

I'm now hooked with WLW. I like the idea of maintaining different blogs — of different blog engines — from a single desktop application. More information on WLW can be found here:

http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/

Read also:

Test-Driving Windows Live Writer

Technorati tags: windows live writer, live writer, microsoft, blog tools, flick4writer

Microsoft Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 Sneak Preview

2006-10-04T12:37:00.000+08:00

I came across this web promo (see picture above) when I was looking up for some information on Microsoft Malaysia's site. It's the Microsoft Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 sneak preview event! It'll be held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre on November 14, 2006. There will also be a Technical Preview aimed at IT professionals.

The Technical Preview will feature:

Exchange Deployment and Operational Efficiency

Infrastructure Protection

Optimizing Windows Vista and Office 2007 Deployment and Management

Secure Mobile Productivity and Windows Mobile 5

Other highlights:

On the spot contest

Mobility smackdown

Tips and tricks showdown

Exhibition and solution showcase

I promptly registered for the event even before the e-mail invitation reached me. Well, it should be one exciting preview!

Read also:

Evaluating Windows Vista RC1 Build 5600

Looking Back at Microsoft Tech·Ed 2006 SEA, Kuala Lumpur

2006-10-02T00:49:00.000+08:00

Dear Tech·Ed fans: Here are some photos and a video clip of the Tech·Ed conference held at the KLCC Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur on the 5th-8th September. Enjoy!

Dan Fernandez presenting Visual C# Tips and Tricks.

Tim Huckaby in action.

Dining hall: It's huge. This shot doesn't do justice. There's another half not seen in the picture.

Exhibition area.

See more of my Tech·Ed 2006 SEA photos here!

Video shots around the conference venue.

Evaluating Windows Vista RC1 Build 5600

2006-09-29T23:25:00.000+08:00

It's been 3 weeks evaluating Windows Vista RC1 and I'm actually quite happy with it — so far at least. I have seen early builds of Vista in demos, but this is the first time I'm testing Vista on my own machine.

Getting the ISO

Downloading the 2GB+ ISO image took around 12 hours on my local Internet connection. After verifying the integrity of the downloaded file via a MD5 checksum checker, it was straight to burning to DVD. At a burn rate of a little over 2X on a DVD+RW media, it took around 15 minutes for the burning process to complete.

Installation

This is the one thing that really had taken me by surprise. With such a mammoth OS, installation was actually easy and fast. With XP Professional x64, installation took a solid one hour; but with Vista, all it takes was 30 minutes on the same machine — a year-old AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1GB machine, with a Windows Experience Index of 3.3. Windows Experience Index is Vista's built-in machine performance benchmarker.

I used the Vista Beta 2 product key from the DVD set I got at the recent Tech.Ed conference to activate Vista. [This was before the Vista Customer Preview Program (CPP) was re-open to the public.] The Vista version installed is Vista Ultimate.

First View of Vista

This is probably the best part. The new glass-effect UI is indeed a visual feast! I mean I've seen demos and all, but to experience it oneself is another thing. I now have a reason to put my ATI Radeon DirectX 9 128MB card to good use; you see, I'm not really a gamer. Navigating around menus, closing and opening windows actually felt surprisingly snappy. Even the 3D animation felt silky smooth.

Drilling Further into Vista

Except for the RAID component, Vista had drivers for the rest of my PC components. I downloaded the beta version of the ATI Radeon driver from ATI's website to see if the native driver performs better than the default one. Well, to be frank, I can't tell the difference. Maybe, it is a little faster but that's probably a psychological thing. Other than that, my pendrive, MSI Bluetooth adapter, and Creative Webcam Go webcam all worked fine. For my webcam, I installed the Creative WDM driver for XP and it actually worked! I've not tested my USB laser printer though, even though there's a driver installed for it.

Running Applications on Vista

Well, I'm not going to say much about Vista's applications. Some highlights: Instant search from almost anywhere, better photo management, direct to DVD burning, IE7, Windows Media Player 11, to name a few. You can read all the features here.

On third-party apps, I installed Adobe Acrobat Reader, ICQ, Paint.NET, Google Earth and all of the apps worked fine. I've not tested my favorite software dev tool (Visual Studio 2005); from what I heard, there might be issues with debugging and the upcoming VS 2005 SP1 should solve these issues. I shall be testing Microsoft Office 2007 on Vista soon; a Technical Refresh must to be installed to run Office 2007 Beta 2 on Vista RC1.

RC1 (Driver?) Quirks

There are a few operational quirks that I've come to observe:

At times, after returning from hibernation or sleep, the screen resolution and the single/dual monitor setting did not stay at the previous setting.
There is a case of stuttering with the sound.

Just nit-picking: Fonts used in some Vista core apps are not consistent — still a mix of old and new. In addition, some of the icons still spot the classic Windows icons e.g. WordPad toolbar. I suppose that will be fixed in the RTM version.

To sum it all...

The core of RC1 build 5600 is quite stable. I haven't had a fatal crash yet. It has the looks, the features and functionality, and to my surprise, the speed. Okay, okay, it feels much more secure too. On the flip side, it's definitely not production stuff —yet— due to some of the quirks I've pointed out; but hey, it's pre-RTM software after all!

Test-Driving Windows Live Writer

2006-09-14T19:20:00.000+08:00

I'm writing this post from the new Windows Live Writer — Microsoft's new desktop-based blog post editor that works with most blog engines out there. So far, everything looks cool. Perhaps once I get into the meat of the app, I'll have more to write home about.

Technorati tags: windows live writer, live writer, blog tools, microsoft

Brother HL-2040 + x64 = Simply Works!

2005-12-12T23:14:00.000+08:00

Got this 20ppm baby today. The Brother HL-2040 personal laser printer works flawlessly with Windows XP Professional x64. The 64-bit WHQL certified printer driver is available from Brother's website.

Printing speed is excellent. I did not notice any paper curl as mentioned in some of the reviews at Amazon.com. (I'm using 80gsm multi-purpose paper.) Text quality is good.

The bad: The printer is a little on the noisier side while printing. However, on standby, the printer is dead quiet.

All in all, a good buy! (The HL-2040 has been rated "Best Buy" in PC World - Nov 10, 2005)

Christmas in the Mall

2005-12-12T22:51:00.000+08:00

Christmas 2005 at Mid Valley Megamall Kuala Lumpur. Simply stunning!

ASPNETWorld.com Site Blog is Live!

2005-11-13T00:15:00.000+08:00

Announcing the official ASPNETWorld.com site blog!

http://www.aspnetworld.com/blog/

AJAX mania

2005-10-21T17:06:00.000+08:00

With all the hype around AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML), I've put a compilation of how-to articles on implementing this piece of technology using ASP.NET 1.1 in the link below:

HOW TO: Implement Remote Scripting or AJAX using ASP.NET 1.1

Enjoy!

Feeling nostalgic with Google Maps

2005-08-27T15:05:00.000+08:00

Notice the L-shaped building? That was the place I stayed for 4 years...about a decade ago. Thanks to Google Maps, I'm feeling nostalgic now. :-)

See the full aerial view here!

Installing Windows XP Professional x64

2005-08-20T23:30:00.000+08:00

This is the day I braved myself to install WinXP x64 on my Athlon64 desktop machine. It's a weird situation because there will be a few things I'll have to do without. For instance, I can't attach my existing Acerscan flatbed scanner or even my Creative Webcam Go as there are simply no 64-bit drivers for these devices. Oh well, at least for now, I'll keep these devices tethered to my trusty old Pentium II/W2K machine.

These are the drivers I used to set up WinXP x64 on my AMD64/ABIT KV8-MAX3 machine:
- VIA VT8237 SATA RAID driver
- 3COM 3C940 NIC driver (unofficial)
- Realtek ALC658 sound driver
- AMD64 processor driver
- ATI Radeon 9550 video driver

In slightly less than one hour, I've got the new OS installed. Everything looks and feels the same as before (as compared with XP Pro 32-bit) but wait a minute...there are two versions of IE -- 32-bit and 64-bit! And under Task Manager, 32-bit process names are tagged with "*32". There are now two program files folder i.e. "Program Files (x86)" and "Program Files". I bet there are more differences under the hood but more of that later.

Touchdown Discovery!

2005-08-09T22:47:00.000+08:00

Space shuttle Discovery landed successfully at Edwards Air Force Base in California. I was following the mission on NASA TV and saw the landing on CNN. Shuttle Program Manager, Bill Parsons must have been elated. I'm sure the Ole Miss (The University of Mississippi) alumni community must have been proud of the success of the mission. I'm definitely one of them. Congrats Bill!

Got my XP x64

2005-08-08T22:31:00.000+08:00

After a month-long wait, I finally received Windows XP Professional x64 Edition at my doorstep. *GRIN*

Eventful Saturday

2005-08-06T08:04:00.000+08:00

What a day! It's PC Fair event again but this time at the spanking new Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. I went there about lunch hour for a "short tour" -- just in time before the monthly MIND meeting at Tower 2. As for the MIND meeting, it was one of the more interesting meetings as both Akila Manian and Justin Lee gave insightful presentations on ASP.NET 2.0.

After a stimulating half day, I couldn't resist taking a night shot (photo) of one of the towers as I was about to head home.

Preparing for 64-bit computing

2005-07-02T14:19:00.000+08:00

Yes, I finally took the plunge and ordered Windows XP Professional x64 Edition via Microsoft's Technology Advancement Program. To be eligible for the program, the x64 machine must be purchased or built between March 31, 2003 and June 30, 2005. International shipping charge is US$22.

My first AMD

2005-07-01T22:40:00.000+08:00

For the past 7 years or so, I've been chugging along with a Pentium II machine cruising at a "speedy" 266Mhz. Yeah.....right. ;-) Seriously, it's not really that slow. It just proves having a good memory, storage and video subsystem can help boost overall system performance. With 320MB SDRAM on board, a good Leadtek AGP video card, a 7200RPM Seagate drive, it "feels" just as fast as some of the newer generation machines with under-equipped subsystems.

Today, I took delivery of my first AMD desktop machine (after having owned 4 Intel desktops) The one I got is an Athlon 64 3000+. Not really the high-end one, but just enough to get me into 64-bit computing. The motherboard hosts the aging but proven 754-socket and is AGP only i.e. it doesn't come with PCI Express. I'm not a gamer, or rather, I'm just a casual gamer; so, I don't really care much about frame rates. 8X AGP does fine for me.

For the video card, I chose an ATI Radeon 9550-based card -- pretty much an entry-level DirectX9 card with cool multi-monitor support. For the hard drive, I've decided to break away from the tradition of using Seagate drives and move on to something fresh. Guess what? It's a Samsung SATA drive! Err...I gave a blank look at the sales person who recommended me this drive. What? Samsung makes hard drives too? Ah...now I remember. They have been in this business for quite a while but have kept a low profile. Samsung is not the fastest performing drives but is one of the coolest and quietest around. To be continued...

Avalon and Indigo for All!

2005-03-28T23:49:00.000+08:00

Taken from Chris Anderson's blog:

"Avalon and Indigo March CTP is now available for anyone to download!
Get it while it's hot!"

TechEd 2005

2005-03-26T21:24:00.000+08:00

Unveiling TechEd 2005! I've listed some of the worldwide date/venue information on www.aspnetworld.com/events.aspx

Oh...also check out TechEd Bloggers.