Jason Ong's Blog - Personal, Technology

Enhancing UniFi HyppTV Experience with Powerline-Ace

2012-02-17T03:47:00.001+08:00

Back in mid-2010 when I had just got my UniFi high-speed broadband service installed, I wrote a detailed post describing my setup. Since then, I had received numerous questions from blog readers pertaining to UniFi installation in general. It’s 2012 now and I’m writing this post because I’ve got an interesting technological bit to share. Read on…

My UniFi Setup – A Recap

As described in my earlier post, here’s how my devices are set up: The fibre broadband termination unit (BTU), the residential gateway and the DECT phone are situated near the middle section of the house. The IPTV set-top-box (STB) is located next to the TV in the living room. I felt that it wasn’t practical for me to pull a cable from the middle section of the house to the living room to stream IPTV content to the STB; so, I settled for a pair of HomePlugs (or Power Line Communication Adapters). These HomePlugs transmit network data via existing home electrical wiring. No unsightly long cables. Pretty cool right?

The HomePlug “Gotchas”

The HomePlug solution does work…well, to a certain extent. Yes, I was able to get UniFi HyppTV to stream to my TV. However, the streamed video would occasionally stutter—visibly seen in the form of pixelated blocks on screen. The experience is analogous to watching Astro while it’s raining…if you know what I mean.

Although my Aztech HL110E HomePlugs are rated at 200Mbps, from what I understand, the numbers are usually no where near that under real-world scenarios.

It’s recommended that for best data transfer rates over power lines, HomePlugs should be plugged straight to the wall socket but unfortunately, I don’t have that luxury. As mentioned in my earlier post, both my HomePlugs are plugged into a power strip on each end, respectively. Having other devices sharing the power strip introduces “noise” to the power line and therefore impacting the data transfer rate. In fact, other appliances within other parts of the house are also adding noise to the power line.

During usage, the Aztech units in my setup were mostly showing “red” on the data transfer rate LED (green = best, amber = good, red = fair, none = failed). This is certainly far from ideal!

The Solution for the Solution

It came to my attention lately that there’s a new add-on device that can solve the transfer-rate issues typically associated with HomePlugs. This device is developed by Cal-Lab (the Malaysian-based company known primarily for its patented lightning isolators) and is called Powerline-Ace. I had the privilege of testing the product out during this pre-launch phase.

The Powerline-Ace model as shown in the picture (above) has three sockets. One socket is reserved for the HomePlug and the remainder two sockets are for attaching other electrical items like a power strip. Apart from being a power line network conditioning device, the unit is also a lightning isolator. On the side of the unit, there are two available grounding points for attaching earth leads from Cal-Lab LAN lightning isolator—for example.

In my test setup, two Powerline-Ace units were added to the mix i.e. one unit on each end. Other than that, nothing else changed.

The Result

After about a month of usage, all the video streaming issues that I had mentioned before has gone. Even the HyppTV HD channels like Travel Channel and LUXE.TV streamed flawlessly.

This was evident by the transfer rate LED on my HomePlug. Both HomePlug LEDs sustained at green (previously red) throughout usage. I have a mini-HiFi which is on the same power strip as the TV and STB. Even with all of these appliances turned on at the same time, IPTV streaming remained smooth and the HomePlug LED remained at green.

In fact, when other noise-generating appliances (e.g. the water heater, rice cooker, etc) from the other parts of the house were in use, the Powerline-Ace units remained steadfast—performing admirably.

In the following video, I documented how turning on the vacuum cleaner did not negatively affect the HyppTV viewing experience at all. Also, take note of the middle LED on the HomePlug.

Powerline-Ace Test – Streaming UniFi HyppTV content over power line with vacuum cleaner turned on.

For a more robust experience, Cal-Lab also offers a single-socket power line network conditioning device (see below – left) for attaching to noise generating appliances. I had the opportunity to test these units out too.

Since I already had good results without these additions, there was nothing much else to look out for (with respect to my HyppTV viewing experience). I suppose these units would make a difference if the HomePlugs were used for regular Internet usage (i.e. surfing, P2P transfers) where squeezing every bit of the bandwidth matters more or if complete lightning protection is required.

To sum it up, the Powerline-Ace units performed exceedingly well and it definitely enhanced my UniFi HyppTV viewing experience. Now I know there’s finally a technically viable solution for HomePlug or power line network related issues!

Discovering Windows Phone 7 – Part 2

2011-02-11T16:21:00.001+08:00

Having played with a demo unit of the HTC HD7 at a roadshow (as mentioned in Part 1 of blog post), I was left drooling but it’s not enough to make me splurge well over RM2K for a no-contract set for a few reasons.

Not having an official apps marketplace for the country is a big no-no for me for a high-end smartphone. Apps are what make a smartphone smart, right?

At time of writing, only 30 countries in the world have official Marketplace access. So, the only way to have some form of Marketplace access is to fake the country that is tied to the Windows Live ID bound to the phone.

With that, accessing free apps or trial apps from the Marketplace is at least possible. To buy apps, one need to register their credit card info but then, the country information would not match…so this is an issue.

Well, I thought if I were to spend so much on a WP7 smartphone, I’ll wait till Marketplace access is officially supported for the country but I don’t mind owning a WP7 phone “now” if I can get it for a real bargain but I guess it’s only a dream…NOT…read on…it gets better!

The Opportunity

It was just about a week before Christmas of 2010 when I came across a Facebook posting about a HD7 contest or more formally the Microsoft Web Camps @ KL HTC HD7 contest. I read the details of the competition, and hey…this is no big deal for me!

As mentioned in Part 1, I had already developed a few WP7 apps though these apps were not quite complete. In a heartbeat, I jumped at the opportunity and got myself registered for the contest.

The contest required participants to write a WP7 app and the top 3 apps win. The top two prizes were HTC HD7 phones and the last one, a Zune HD player.

There was an informal community meet-up to discuss about the contest details at a Starbucks just 10 minutes walk from where I live. How convenient!

Since I already had a basic working app which was capable of displaying live traffic cam images, all I needed to do know was to add the features required to meet the contest criteria. These criteria included integration with one of Windows Live services or Bing, and Facebook or Twitter.

I did get some useful ideas from the Microsoft MVPs who were also part of the organizers. We had about two weeks to complete the app from the time of meet-up.

So, my app would enable users to pick the nearest traffic cams from the current GPS location from within Bing Maps, and show a live traffic view which refreshes every few seconds. The user is also able to alert other Twitter users by posting a tweet and a snapshot of the current traffic image (via Twitpic). On top of these, there are many more “convenience” features in the app which you can read about here.

I submitted my entry on the last day of the contest and kept my fingers crossed.

To be continued in Part 3…

Discovering Windows Phone 7 – Part 1

2011-02-10T19:46:00.001+08:00

Just two weeks ago, I became the proud owner of a brand new HTC HD7 phone running on the new Microsoft Windows Phone 7 (WP7) OS. Woohoo!

I thought I share a run-up on how I first got to know about the new phone platform, and then learnt how to develop apps for the phone, and finally, got the phone in full flesh itself.

Getting to Know About Windows Phone 7

I had my first glimpse of Windows Phone 7 in action at a local developer event way back in early 2010.

What intrigued me was the phone UI. It was…radical. It’s nothing like the UI on the iPhone, Android, or even Windows Mobile. At that time, I had my reservations on how well it would work in the real world though.

In fact, I thought the use of lots of text, black background (much like in the DOS era), and the absence of chrome for the UI were a little strange for a modern smartphone. Other than that, the animated transitions seem fluid and contemporary.

Apart from the new UI, what was under the hood of WP7 was then still pretty much a mystery at that time…

Diving into Windows Phone 7 App Development

Just when the WP7 range of phones were officially launched in the US in October of 2010, my growing curiosity with the new mobile platform eventually led me into tinkering with the newly released WP7 software development kit (SDK).

The nice thing for developers is that, apart from the SDK, Microsoft has provided the phone development tools including the emulator for free! The emulator allows testing apps for the phone without requiring a real WP7 phone. The learning experience was made easier with the many online tutorial videos already available then.

Thankfully, the learning curve was manageable since I can leverage on my existing WPF programming skills. The development platform uses a flavor of Silverlight (which is very much based on the regular Silverlight and WPF) and C#.

There is an alternative development platform called XNA used mainly for developing games but unfortunately, my current hardware just couldn’t support it. Ideally, one would need a DX10 graphic card. Mine is only a DX9. It works for Silverlight phone development but apps run slow on the emulator as they can’t take advantage of full GPU acceleration. Guess it’s time to upgrade my graphic card?

What I also later discovered is that developing for the new platform is not solely about having the right coding knowledge and skills but also a good appreciation and understanding of the new Metro UI design language and the Marketplace app requirements. The Marketplace is Microsoft’s version of of the iPhone App Store or the Android Market, if you will.

Microsoft imposes strict certification guidelines for apps that wish to make it to the Marketplace. At time of writing, the only legit way to load apps onto the phone is via the Marketplace.

Armed with some newly acquired knowledge, I took upon a challenge on myself to develop simple apps that could potentially appear in the Marketplace some day. I thought that would be the most effective way to master the platform in the fastest time. In the process, I developed several proof-of-concept apps like a Malaysian live traffic cam viewer, a traditional board game, a physics game, and other silly utilities.

Marketplace Woes

Unfortunately, not only is Malaysia NOT in the list of countries having access to the Marketplace, Malaysia is also NOT in the list of countries eligible to enroll in the developer App Hub… i.e. I can’t sign up as a registered WP7 developer and list my apps for distribution in the Marketplace! Oh bummer!

The irony is that Microsoft has officially launched the phones in Malaysia. I gather it’s only a matter of time before Malaysia appears in the supported country list.

Getting a Feel of the Real Thing

After much publicity of the phone in Malaysia, I decided to drop by at one of the truck roadshows to get a feel of the real phone. I managed to spend some time toying with one of the HTC HD7 demo units.

Because the roadshow truck was parked outside of a mall, the sunlight was interfering with the experience; I could hardly see the stuff displayed on the HD7’s LCD screen. I thought a more conventional indoor roadshow would have been more effective.

Anyway, after having played with the OS on the emulator, it’s good to finally have a feel of the real thing. At least now I get to experience the phone dialer, Office, the various “hubs”, utility apps, etc. which are not available in the emulator version.

To be continued in Part 2…

UniFi HyppTV Review

2010-07-30T19:22:00.001+08:00

In my last blog post, I’ve written about my UniFi IPTV setup. In this post, I thought I share my brief experience with the UniFi IPTV service itself — namely, HyppTV.

Channels

The HyppTV IPTV service runs on its own dedicated network. For IPTV, TM has allotted 8Mbps of bandwidth which is good enough for HD streaming and more than enough for SD streaming.

There are currently 22 channels with more channels to come by the end of the year. Out of these channels, only 2 channels are in HD.

Channels are classified into three — Live TV, Video On Demand (VOD) and inter@ctive.

Live TV includes local and international broadcast channels. Local channels include free-to-air channels like TV1, TV2, TV3, NTV7, 8TV, TV9, etc. Some of the international channels include Australia Network, BBC Lifestyle, BBC Knowledge, Fashion TV HD, LUXE.TV HD, Star Chinese Channel, etc. Some of these channels are Premium channels.

Come September 2010, for VIP5 and VIP10 customers, a separate subscription will be required for Premium channels. For VIP20 customers, the Premium channels will be part of the package.

In VOD or pay-per-view if you like, there’s a selection of Hollywood, Malay, Chinese as well as Bollywood titles.

Movies typically have a validity of 24 hours. Within that 24 hours you can watch the movie as many number of times as you like.

One of the highlights in the VOD offering is the Hollywood Premiere Series; this selection contains the latest TV series — available 24 hours after the US release.

For TV series, validity is typically 30 days or longer.

For some titles, free previews or trailers are available on demand. Purchasing a VOD title is easy; just select the title from the on-screen VOD catalog (see above) and enter a PIN. During this preview period, TM is giving out free trial tokens.

Once purchased, the title is ready to be watched immediately or anytime within the validity period.

For VOD, playback control is available i.e. pause, fast-forward, reverse and bookmarking.

There’s even an option to rate a title. The average rating for a title is displayed in the on-screen VOD catalog.

inter@ctive channels include flight info, Malaysian history, Malaysian football and games (see below). I understand more interactive services will be added on later. Can we expect a YouTube channel? That would be nice isn’t it?

IPTV Video Quality

In general, the colors from IPTV seem more vivid compared to the colors from Astro — at least on an SDTV. HD channels will still play on an SDTV but the aspect ratio need to be manually adjusted.

Though UniFi’s IPTV service is not affected by the rain as in Astro, occasionally, there’ll be those nasty picture artifacts similar to Astro. Nevertheless, those artifacts often disappear fast enough before becoming annoying. Note that I’m using HomePlugs for my IPTV setup. A wired network connection to the IPTV may give better experience.

Switching between channels is almost instantaneous but I’ve observed some stuttering in the first few seconds after a channel switch — possibly due to buffering?

There’s also Picture-in-Picture (PIP) (see below).

Concerns

To view IPTV on the television set, all equipment necessary to support IPTV like the fiber broadband termination unit, residential gateway and set-top box (STB) must be turned on. If HomePlugs are used in an IPTV setup, that must be switched on too. So, as you can see, should any of the equipment fail, IPTV won’t work!

To add to the concern, the residential gateway (DLink DIR-615) provided by TM has been reported to be very fragile; it tends to get fried.

I’ve placed the gateway unit on a heat sink and hooked it to a surge-protected electrical socket as one of the measures to add more robustness to the whole setup.

Is HyppTV another Astro?

Well, one of the inevitable questions is whether TM’s new IPTV service is a worthy replacement of Astro.

At least for now, I don’t think so. Content is a bit limited at the moment though there are channel overlaps. However, things might change in the future!

Technorati tags: tm, unifi, hsbb, broadband, iptv, hypptv

My UniFi IPTV Setup

2010-07-26T16:47:00.001+08:00

It’s about 3 weeks since I’ve got my UniFi high-speed broadband service deployed. In my previous posts, I’ve written about my UniFi installation experience and some speed tests that I’ve done.

This time around, I’m going to share my experience on one of the UniFi service triple-play component, namely the HyppTV IPTV service.

Getting IPTV Up and Running

As part of the UniFi VIP5 offering, an IPTV set-top box (STB) is provided free by TM (see below). The STB connects to the TV via a regular set of A/V cables. An HDMI cable is also provided but we’ve only got a Standard-Definition TV (SDTV).

This STB is connected to the residential gateway which in turn is connected to the fiber broadband termination unit. The IPTV stream runs on a separate LAN (a Virtual LAN or VLAN) at an allocated bandwidth of 8Mbps. On the TM DLink DIR-615 residential gateway, the VLAN for IPTV connects to one of the ports (i.e. port 4).

In my home setup, the broadband termination unit and the residential gateway are placed in an area where the internal CAT5 wiring from the bedrooms terminate. This area is near the center of the house. The CAT5 wiring was done several years ago.

However, there’s no permanent wired network connection leading up to the living room where the TV and STB are located.

During installation day, I loaned the TM technicians a loose CAT5 cable for setting up and testing the IPTV service. Testing went well but I still need a permanent network connection for the IPTV.

Why not go wireless? For one, it’s simply not reliable for IPTV streaming. Wired connection seems to be the way to go but then I’ll need to pull a cable up the ceiling. Having wires snaking around wouldn’t play well with the home aesthetics either — especially the living room.

HomePlugs to the Rescue!

At the end, I settled for a pair of Aztech HL110E 200Mbps AV HomePlugs. Each unit comes with a yellow 2-meter CAT5 patch cable (see below). It’s pricey but at least there’s no need to drill holes through the ceiling. Essentially, the HomePlug technology utilizes the wall electrical wiring to transmit network data. Pretty smart eh?

200Mbps sounds like an overkill for a max 8Mbps video stream. Operational speed actually depends on many external factors. In the worst case, both HomePlugs won’t even detect each other.

It’s recommended that a HomePlug be plugged directly to the wall socket for best signal quality but I didn’t have that luxury. There are simply not enough wall sockets in the house. I had no choice but to plug each of HomePlugs to a power strip on both sides (network hub area and living room).

Here’s my exact setup:

1. Network hub area:

Residential gateway > HomePlug > Surge-protected power strip > Lightning isolator > Wall socket

2. Living room area:

STB > HomePlug > Power strip > Lightning isolator > Wall socket

Despite getting only a red LED status (green = best, amber = good, red = fair, none = failed) on the HomePlugs, IPTV streaming still works although the setup wasn’t very ideal as you can see.

Note that I didn’t get it working the first time; one old power strip caused a failed pairing but a newer one works. So, a little patience and experimentation paid off.

Now that everything works, I’ll follow up with a detailed review of the TM UniFi HyppTV service next. Stay tuned!

Technorati tags: tm, unifi, hsbb, broadband, iptv, hypptv, aztech, homeplugs

UniFi Speed Tests

2010-07-22T19:35:00.001+08:00

Having been using TM’s UniFi high-speed broadband service for slightly over two weeks now, I’m quite pleased with the service. It’s been surprisingly stable for me.

Internet Speed Test Results

I’m currently on the VIP5 package (over FTTH) i.e. 5Mbps download and upload. In my previous post, I had written about my UniFi installation experience.

Here are the speed test results from Speedtest.net:

As you can see from the above, download speeds were generally within the package speed limit.

I believe some of the upload figures from Speedtest.net were slightly inflated.

It appeared that there was some kind of speed throttling going on here as I saw the upload speed meter going down in sudden decrements at certain intervals as the upload test progressed. Had the upload test been longer, I would think it would have stabilized at around 5Mbps.

I have seen various speed meter movement behaviors over the past two weeks which lead me to think that TM was probably experimenting with various traffic flow or routing configurations?

In fact, in the initial days after I got my UniFi service deployed, I had seen insane speeds from Speedtest.net — even up to 50Mbps; but that has changed in the recent days.

Note that for some servers around the world, I got lousy speeds and slow ping times (see below).

My guess: This could be caused by a slow server or slow path to the server or both.

Ping Performance

Pinging to Google’s public DNS (8.8.8.8) averaged 4ms. I also got the same results pinging to a local web server.That’s pretty fast. On Streamyx, I normally get about 11ms.

Foreign server ping times were more or less the same, if not, just slightly better over ping times on Streamyx (typically >200ms for US servers). This is understandable since foreign traffic for both UniFi and Streamyx is probably routed over the same international backbones. The ping time advantage came mainly from the local side.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned for more UniFi reviews!

Technorati tags: tm, unifi, hsbb, broadband, ftth, speedtest

The UniFi Installation Experience

2010-07-12T17:30:00.001+08:00

In my post on HSBB last year, I wrote about the arrival of FTTH (Fiber-to-the-Home) in my area of residence.

Well, I finally made the move of switching away from Streamyx broadband for the newly-introduced UniFi high-speed broadband (HSBB) service. In particular, I signed up for the VIP5 package which is a triple-play service i.e. 5Mbps Internet, IPTV and VoIP.

In this post, I thought I share my experience on the UniFi installation process.

Installation

It was a Tuesday morning at 10am on July 6, a crew of four installers from TM came with two reels of cables (see below) and big bags containing equipment.

After the normal introductions, I lead the crew to the back of the house where the nearest pole with the fiber distribution box is located. I also took them to the rooftop.

I told them where I wanted the broadband termination unit, residential gateway, phone and IPTV set-up-box (STB) were to be placed.

After a quick survey, the crew leader briefed me on how the installation was going to take place.

In no time, they started working — first tackling the aerial fiber distribution box on the pole. At the same time, the crew made a hook on the side of a concrete structure on the rooftop (see below).

That hook was to hold the black fiber cable pulled from the pole. The black cable ran along the side of the concrete structure leading to another fiber box which was affixed to the concrete wall (see below).

From this box, a thin white fiber cable was pulled to a nearby window. The cable was so thin that only a small gap at the bottom part of the window was sufficient for the cable to gain entry into the house (see below).

Though not the most elegant way of bringing the cable in, at least there was no need to drill a hole through the wall as in some other installations.

Inside the house, this white cable ran straight down to another fiber box (see below). For this cable-run, the crew housed the cable in a conduit.

It was about 11:15am (after about an hour plus of outdoor work), all crew members gathered indoors and started hooking up and configuring the equipments (see below from left to right: DECT phone, broadband termination unit, residential gateway). They brought their own laptop for configuration and testing.

Since the household TV set is in the living room (front part of the house), I wanted the IPTV STB (see below) there. I provided them with a long CAT5 cable to connect the STB with the residential gateway for temporary testing purposes.

All these configuration and testing took about half-an-hour.

I was then given a sheet of paper containing several access passwords for different services.

Happy that everything was working, I did the sign-off and the crew left in their van at about 12pm.

So, the complete installation only took them 2 hours — a big contrast from the full day installation that I was initially told.

By the way, hats off to the TM installers. They were an efficient bunch and I appreciate their professionalism. I don’t normally give such a compliment after having had a bad experience with my Streamyx implementation in the past.

Terminating Old Phone Service and Streamyx

After doing some testing on my own and satisfied with the outcome, I went to TMPoint Bangsar to terminate the old phone service and my Streamyx broadband service just before their counter closing at about 5:30pm. I returned their old phone to them to avoid a penalty.

So, there you have it! I hope to share about my experience with the UniFi service itself in the near future.

Technorati tags: tm, unifi, hsbb, broadband, ftth

Getting Hyped-Up Over HSBB

2009-11-19T00:44:00.001+08:00

There’s so much buzz around HSBB (High-Speed Broadband) in Malaysia lately that I can’t help but write a blog post here.

Word has it that HSBB residential customers would be offered download speeds between 10Mbps and 100Mbps. These speeds are unheard of for residential “broadband” users in Malaysia and should get a lot of people excited — me included.

For years, Malaysian broadband users have been lamenting over the poor speeds. Being one of the early Streamyx adopters, I had my fair share of complaints.

The fact is the law of physics also plays a role here. The copper lines can only do so much. As they say, wired-broadband in Malaysia will never progress much until something is done to the last mile.

And indeed, certain prime areas will finally see something done to that tune. These areas will have fiber connection to their premises or homes.

Triple-Play to the Forefront

Data services is only part of the HSBB equation.

TM, the sole HSBB provider is aiming to offer triple-play services (voice telephony, data, IPTV), made possible by the FTTx (Fiber-to-the-X) technology. Triple-play is something new to the general Malaysian consumers.

Quite possibly in the future, we could have a new Astro alternative when TM’s IPTV offering comes into reality. With IPTV, residential users can look forward to Full HD programming.

For a peek of what the home of the future (enabled by HSBB) is, check out TM’s Digital Home.

International Bandwidth Capacity

All the speed advantages promised by HSBB will come to zilch if our international Internet lines are still choked up.

Let’s face it, a bulk of the traffic is international traffic. As the international bandwidth capacity is being gradually increased, we could see stricter fair-usage mechanisms to be put in place.

HSBB Roll-Out

HSBB is due to be launched at the end of Q1 2010. Residents from Bangsar, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Subang Jaya and Shah Alam will be amongst the first to experience HSBB.

In the past weeks, the TM guys were seen stringing fiber cables along the existing telephone poles in Bangsar.

The picture below is the pole just behind my house. Notice the aerial fiber distribution box that is marked with a TM logo and FTTH (Fiber-to-the-Home). Click to see larger picture.

With the residential infrastructure already in place in the key areas, HSBB looks set to see the light of day!

Now, the big question: How much would subscribing to HSBB cost?

Technorati tags: tm, hsbb, broadband, ftth, fttx, triple play, bangsar

Introducing SpeechPlayer

2009-01-23T15:47:00.002+08:00

I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce a nifty text-to-speech (TTS) application that I’ve been working on for the past few months. The application is called SpeechPlayer and is near final release. You can download ~~the beta today~~ and give it a try.

(UPDATE 06/2009: Version 1.0 has been released.)

Why SpeechPlayer?

There are tons of TTS apps in the market — some free and most of them shareware. Some of them give you a browser plug-in and with a press of a button…voila!…the web page speaks!

Others require you to copy a piece of text into the clipboard or into the TTS application window for the text to be read out aloud. The TTS application window will then “highlight” the word that is “spoken” out. Great but then when you want to do some multitasking like switching to your browser window to view other stuff, the TTS window is obliterated and basically, the word-highlighting visual cue provided by the TTS application is hidden from the user.

Though not necessary, having some form of visual cue is useful as not all words pronounced by the TTS voice will be correct. Although text-to-speech technology has improved over the years, it’s still far from perfect.

SpeechPlayer closed captioning feature

SpeechPlayer is not much any different from other TTS app; it can read most text files directly, or read text inside the Windows clipboard.

In SpeechPlayer, I introduce something which is similar to closed caption, or subtitles, or even news ticker bar on your TV (see image above).

When SpeechPlayer is reading a piece of text, it will display the words being read on a little semi-transparent strip at the bottom of the screen. This allows the user to continue working on other stuff while being able to listen and yet, still able to view the spoken text. I’m using SpeechPlayer regularly and I find it greatly enhances productivity!

SpeechPlayer export capabilities

SpeechPlayer can also export the speech in the TTS voice of your choice to an audio file like WAV or MP3. You can then transfer the audio files to your portable MP3 player and take them with you to the gym for example.

I’ve also included a feature where you can embed the speech transcript into the MP3 file (i.e. as MP3 lyrics). Some MP3 players are capable of displaying these “lyrics” — which is again, useful — as it complements the listening experience.

SpeechPlayer also features a convenient one-click export to iTunes playlist. From iTunes, you can then sync the playlist with your iPod.

Releases

There are two versions to SpeechPlayer — a shareware version and a freeware version. The shareware version ($19.95) comes with all the bells and whistles, and features a 15-day free trial.

On the other hand, the freeware version only provides basic functionality (e.g. no caption appearance customization and export features) but has no time restriction.

Give it a try!

Technorati tags: tts, text-to-speech, screen reader

US 2008 Presidential Debate at My Alma Mater

2008-09-25T19:00:00.001+08:00

The first US 2008 presidential debate will be held at my alma mater — The University of Mississippi (also known as Ole Miss). Ole Miss is where I got my four years of Computer Science education from; that's slightly more than a decade ago.

US foreign policy and national security issues will be the focus of the debate. The debate will be held on September 26, 8pm Mississippi time (September 27, 9am Malaysian time).

It's rare to see my alma mater on such an elevated platform. All eyes of America (and perhaps the world) will be set on the debate between the two presidential hopefuls — McCain and Obama.

The countdown to the debate has started. I hope to catch the debate live on CNN via Astro!

Technorati tags: presidential debate

I'm Tech·Ed SEA 2008 Blog & Win Contest August Winner!

2008-09-15T12:11:00.000+08:00

I was doing some housekeeping on my personal mailbox today and discovered an e-mail that I had earlier missed during my daily checks. It's a notification message that I'm the 4th round (August) winner of the Tech·Ed SEA 2008 Blog & Win contest!

I get so many junk mails these days that authentic mails do get overlooked occasionally. Having several email accounts to check does not help either!

All that aside, I'll be going to collect my prize coming Monday. It's a Microsoft Wireless ~~Optical~~ Laser Mouse 5000 (updated). Woo hoo! This is what I just need! My current A4Tech BatteryFREE Wireless Optical Mouse is acting quirky — it's double-clicking when it should only click once and the scrollwheel is losing traction; I certainly look forward to its replacement!

Technorati tags: tech.ed

Downloading the Tech·Ed SEA 2008 Conference Slides

2008-09-13T12:57:00.001+08:00

Having been to several back-to-back Tech·Ed conferences in the past and having to miss this year's edition (due to other pressing commitments) is quite a departure from my annual "routine". I hope I didn't miss too much this time. I did manage to slip in a few hours at the venue and I've blogged about it here.

Well thankfully, the conference slides are available for public download at time of writing.

I'm downloading the Developer Tools & Languages Track slides (64.2MB zip file) and the Web & User Experience Track slides (66.6MB zip file) as I type this post.

Here's the slides download landing page URL: http://www.microsoft.com/malaysia/techedsea2008/

I hope to gain a few juicy tips out of reading the slides even though it's nothing like having the speaker taking you through the slides and demos.

Technorati tags: tech.ed

The End of Software Piracy in Malaysia?

2008-08-29T01:07:00.001+08:00

If you're using pirated software, watch out!

Here's an excerpt from The Star (August 28, 2008):

Starting Wednesday, users with pirated copies of Microsoft Corp's Windows XP Professional operating system (OS) on machines that are Internet-capable could find their computer displays going black and with no screen icons visible.
There are 8.6 million users of Win XP Pro in Malaysia and about three million are expected to suffer the “blackouts,” according to Microsoft Malaysia.

Ethical and Practical Issues of Using Pirated Software

I never subscribed to using pirated software. Using pirated software is like using stolen stuff. Let's ponder about it: Would you own a stolen car? Would you use a stolen phone? Why the double standards when it comes to software? Obviously, there are hypocrites amongst some of us, isn't it?

By using pirated software, the hardworking people who made the software is being deprived of their livelihood.

On the issue of practicality, pirated software may bring unknown risks to your PC and even you; some unscrupulous programmer might have embedded a keylogger into the pirated executable and the next thing you know is that your credit card information is in someone's hands.

The "Software is Too Expensive!" Excuse

I suppose that software being expensive is the biggest excuse for using pirated software. Then let's ponder on this point: If one can't afford a BMW, does that give the person the right to steal one?

Thankfully, there are some very good shareware and free software out there. Some of them are almost as good as their commercial equivalents. So, if you can't afford those commercial software products, give shareware and free software a try!

It's encouraging to see that Microsoft Malaysia has made some of its software more affordable to home users and students. For instance, students in some institutions of higher learning can now enjoy big discounts on certain Microsoft SKUs. Recently, Microsoft Malaysia has lowered the price of the retail version of Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Edition (which comes with 3 licenses for non-commercial use).

Towards Responsible Consumerism

Will we see the end of software piracy in Malaysia soon? If consumers create a demand for pirated software, then the piracy problem won't disappear overnight for sure. Let's hope that there'll be more antipiracy awareness campaign in the future.

Technorati tags: software piracy

Tech·Ed SEA 2008 - Just Popping In

2008-08-13T16:49:00.001+08:00

Even though I'm skipping the Tech·Ed SEA conference sessions this year, I managed to squeeze in a few hours at the venue.

Lunch with Steve Riley

As mentioned in my previous post, a friend of mine, Jessica has won a lunch date with Microsoft Security Guru, Steve Riley. I'm honored to be brought along as her guest.

Lunch was at Traders Hotel, just next to the conference venue. There were just five of us — Steve Riley, my friend Jessica, myself and two other Microsoft staff based in Singapore.

All in all, it was a friendly and cozy affair. It was fun listening to Steve talking passionately on security-related issues. It wasn't long before the topic of conversation turned from IT security to the all-universal topic — food!

A Lap Around Tech·Ed SEA 2008 Exhibition

I took the opportunity to take a short tour inside and outside the exhibition area. Here are a few candid pictures that I caught:

More Tech·Ed SEA 2008 pictures here...

Technorati tags: tech.ed

Skipping Tech·Ed SEA 2008

2008-08-12T22:26:00.001+08:00

Due to other pressing commitments, sadly, I'm skipping this year's conference. I've been to the previous four Tech·Eds in Kuala Lumpur and so I really miss the informative sessions at the conference.

Despite my missing the conference, I'll be at the Tech·Ed exhibition for a few hours tomorrow and for a lunch date with security guru and Tech·Ed speaker, Steve Riley — thanks to a friend of mine who's taking me as a guest.

I've not been to Riley's talks but I've heard he's a highly rated Tech·Ed speaker.

Hopefully, I'm able to capture a few interesting scenes on camera tomorrow and post them in this blog.

Last year's Tech·Ed SEA exhibition (above)

Incidentally, Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 went RTM today!

Technorati tags: tech.ed

Night Out at August KL Technite

2008-08-10T23:58:00.001+08:00

I was at August KL Technite at the Starbucks outlet at Bangsar Village II today. I enjoyed the talks as they were both informative and yes, entertaining — a rare thing in techie talks!

Maung Maung Phyo did a sleek demo on LINQ, followed by Edwin Sarmiento on Windows Small Business Server, and finally, Sarbjit Singh Gill on collaboration services. Amazingly, Sarbjit did all of his presentation on MS Paint!

I've been to many talks and conferences but this is the first time I'm listening to the three speakers.

Here are the photos of the speakers in action:

The speakers will in action again in the upcoming Tech·Ed SEA 2008 conference.

Technorati tags: technite, tech.ed

Run-Up to Tech·Ed SEA 2008 - August KL Technite

2008-08-09T20:41:00.001+08:00

I just got word of this event: MIRC - iTrain August KL Technite.

Venue: Starbucks Coffee Outlet, Bangsar Village II

Date/Time: 10th August 2008 (Sunday), 8-10pm

There'll be talks by MVPs such as Edwin Sarmiento, Sarbjit Singh Gill, and Maung Maung Phyo (who are also presenters of the upcoming Tech·Ed SEA 2008).

View the Technite flyer here

I might just drop by there since I could literally walk to the event from where I live. LOL!

Should I be there tomorrow, I hope to take a few photos and include them in this blog. So stay tuned!

Update: I've posted the photos here

Technorati tags: tech.ed, technite

Web Development Sessions at Tech·Ed SEA 2008

2008-08-07T23:55:00.001+08:00

Continuing with my blog series on the upcoming Tech·Ed SEA 2008 conference, the following are the ASP.NET or web development sessions to be held:

WUX211 - The future of ASP.NET is near
Session Level: 200
Speaker: Oliver Scheer
WUX241 - Creating a web enabled corporate data access layer
Session Level: 200
Speaker: Prasanna Amirthalingam
WUX332 - How to Build an App like Twitter?
Session Level: 300
Speaker: Dirk Primbs
WUX322 - .NET: ASP.NET MVC Framework
Session Level: 300
Speaker: Chad Hower
WUX325 - New Enhancements for Web Developers in Visual Studio 2008 and Beyond
Session Level: 300
Speaker: Jeff King
WUX242 - Breathe Life Into You Apps With Windows Live
Session Level: 200
Speaker: Rohan Thomas
WUX234 - Build Your Next Web 2.0 Windows Live Application
Session Level: 200
Speaker: Li Vooi Chong
WUX233 – Fly with Popfly
Session Level: 200
Speaker: Rohan Thomas

In addition to the above, there are two Silverlight 2 sessions:

WUX224 - Introducing Silverlight 2 – Media
Session Level: 200
Speaker: Oliver Scheer
WUX331 - Silverlight 2 – Building Rich Internet Applications Using Microsoft Silverlight
Session Level: 300
Speaker: Oliver Scheer

Full synopses of the sessions are available here

In the past Tech·Eds, I would typically attend the web sessions, though I wished I could attend all of the other tracks.

Looking back at the yesteryears, I really missed Scott Hanselman's zen-inspired sessions. Hope he'll come to Malaysia again some day. I also missed Clemens Vasters' sessions. Oh, in case you don't know, Clemens is the guy who created DasBlog — an ASP.NET blogging platform.

Anyway, I'm sure the coming Tech·Ed SEA will be a blast. If you're an ASP.NET developer who wants to get a taste of what's coming in the very near future, the ASP.NET MVC Framework session by Chad Hower a.k.a. "Kudzu" is the one to look out for. Here's my shot of Chad Hower in action taken last year:

While we count down the days to Tech·Ed SEA, don't forget to visit ASPNETWorld.com for my compilation of ASP.NET-related resources.

Technorati tags: asp.net, tech.ed, web, silverlight

WPF Sessions at Tech·Ed SEA 2008

2008-08-05T15:50:00.000+08:00

Still on the Tech·Ed SEA conference fever, here are the WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) related sessions for this year:

TLA312 - Building Smart Clients the Smart Way
Session Level: 300
Speaker: Maung Maung Phyo

WUX338 - Creating Dynamic UI with Windows Presentation Foundation
Session Level: 300
Speaker: Hoong Fai Lai & William Lim
WUX223 - Ultimate Data Visualization Experience with WPF
Session Level: 200
Speaker: Walter Wong
WUX221 - WPF Performance & Best Practices
Session Level: 200
Speaker: Dirk Primbs

Full synopses of the sessions are available here

As an aside, if you're looking for WPF-related resources such as WPF controls and WPF designer/development tools, take a look at my latest resource site — WPFPlex.com.

Feel free to add your own review of any of the WPF resources featured there or suggest your favorite WPF resource to be added in the directory.

Technorati tags: tech.ed, wpf, windows presentation foundation

Tech·Ed SEA 2008 Coming!

2008-08-05T15:25:00.001+08:00

There's just a week more to Tech·Ed SEA 2008 — Microsoft's premier and largest annual conference in the Southeast Asia region. It'll be held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center on August 11-14.

Since it's Tech·Ed fever, here are a few of my old postings on the past Tech·Ed events that I've been to:

Blog Postings

Photos

Video

Tech·Ed 2006

I have a few more videos in my personal archive. I'll upload them when I have the time (the videos need editing).

To learn more about Tech·Ed SEA 2008, visit the official site.

Technorati tags: tech.ed

Shopping for a Budget Lappie

2008-08-05T12:51:00.001+08:00

I was shopping for a budget notebook not for myself but for my other half. I was "given" the liberty to decide on the spec. The budget? Around RM2,000 or less.

The Lappie Hunt

So came PC Fair 2008 in KL last weekend and my plan was to get the new lappie there. I went to the venue on Friday but alas, all the car parks around the area were full!

I could have queued in line but I didn't have the luxury of time. I had to get the notebook that very day as the following day I had to head to Ipoh to "deliver" the new lappie.

In the end, I settled for an Acer Aspire 4715z for slightly less than RM2,000 at an Acer roadshow at MidValley Megamall. I believe it's a good deal and the specs are as follows: Pentium Dual Core 1.86Ghz, 1GB RAM (upgraded to 2GB), 160GB HDD, DVD Writer, WiFi ready, webcam (super clear!), Windows Vista Basic, 1-year Acer warranty, and a host of trial-wares (McAffee anti-virus, Office Home and Student 2007, games, etc.).

3G-ing with Celcom Broadband

Coupled with a Huawei 3G USB modem (on Celcom 3G broadband), the Acer-Vista combination worked beautifully. From Ipoh, I was able to get 300-400kbps on the downlink and 80-90kbps on the uplink. Ping times to local servers were in the 200-400ms range -- a little big on latency but not surprising for a wireless broadband technology.

A day later, we were in Teluk Intan. 3G is achievable there but the connection is not as fast as what we got in Ipoh. However, there is no 3G reception in a remote village in Bagan Pasir (quite expected); nevertheless, GPRS is still available.

Mission Accomplished!

The weekend hunt for a budget laptop ended well. My other half was happy with the buy. Now she can boast that her notebook is better than mine. I'm full of envy!

Technorati tags: acer, notebook, celcom, 3G

First Experience with Mozilla Firefox 3

2008-06-12T16:39:00.001+08:00

I've always been excited over new web browser releases. I still remember the early days of Netscape where I promptly downloaded each new release as it became publicly available. Now that Netscape is gone, I've been quite excited over the upcoming version of Firefox i.e version 3.0.

The Browser War

In the mid 90s, Netscape used to rule the browser war until IE came along. I've been an IE fan since. However, of late, IE seems to be having some serious competition. I have all the mainstream web browsers on my main desktop i.e. IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari. Since I develop web applications, having those browsers for testing are necessary.

I admit, I wasn't too excited over the early versions of Firefox and it wasn't only until the release of version 2 that I took Firefox seriously. Last night, I've decided not to wait for the final Firefox 3.0 release on June 17; instead, I decided to give Firefox 3.0 RC2 a try after reading that the release candidate is stable enough.

First Observations

The following are some of my own early observations of Firefox 3.

The new UI is more in sync with Vista's desktop theme;
Speedier browsing especially with Javascript or AJAX-oriented sites;
Smarter autocomplete functionality in the location bar;
Early beta versions of Silverlight plugin will cause Firefox to crash; however, the latest Silverlight plugin (Beta 2) works fine;
Firebug extension won't work (a new version of Firebug is in development and will work with Firefox 3 but I couldn't get to the Firebug download site at time of writing);
Consistently consumes less memory than IE7;
Able to save tabs for the next start on closing down Firefox.

Speedy Gonzales...

I've read of the multifold speed improvements in Firefox 3 and on subjective testing, the statement holds quite true. This is probably the strongest reason to upgrade to version 3.

So, go give Firefox 3 a try or wait till June 17 for the final release!

Technorati tags: Firefox

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

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.

Going in-depth with O/R mapping

2005-03-26T19:34:00.000+08:00

I've been following the O/R mapping scene for a while but mainly only as an observer. But for the past few weeks, I've been getting my hands dirty with WilsonORMapper (demo version) and NHibernate. Hands down, WilsonORMapper has a shorter learning curve and I also like the fact that the APIs resemble the APIs in ObjectSpaces plus support for most databases out there. The framework is well documented but it does cost $50 to subscribe to it. NHibernate on the other hand is a heavyweight and the mapping options that are available can be overwhelming.

Nevertheless, I sense there will be a strong following for NHibernate in the months to come due to the Java Hibernate origin. At version 0.7 beta, NHibernate supports many databases but lack a SQL dialect for MS Access. Anyway, I've made it work for simple query scenarios using generic SQL dialect but multiple joins posed problems. MS Access support for me is important since I do have projects running on low-cost shared hosting.

HOW TOs on exporting Crystal Report, performing group validation, and generating thumbnails dynamically in ASP.NET

2005-02-24T23:42:00.000+08:00

Recent additions in ASPNETWorld.com:

HOW TO: Export Crystal Report in ASP.NET
HOW TO: Perform Validation in Groups in ASP.NET 1.X
HOW TO: Generate Thumbnails on the Fly using ASP.NET

ASPNETWorld.com listed in www.asp.net

2005-02-22T18:32:00.000+08:00

After one year in the running, my baby, ASPNETWorld.com is now listed in www.asp.net on the front page under Community Sites section. This is so cool! Thanks Microsoft!

For those who have not heard of ASPNETWorld.com, here's an extract from the About Us page:

ASPNETWorld.com is a portal and store designed for the ASP.NET web developer community. In here, you'll learn about ASP.NET web application development through our growing collection of how-tos and tutorials. You'll also be able to monitor ASP.NET headlines around the Internet and shop for ASP.NET-related products. In addition, we also feature an ASP.NET directory where you can find thousands of ASP.NET indexed resources. Our philosophy is to keep our site presentation as lean as possible so that you'll get the most out of your browsing experience.

Read more here...

New iPod Shuffle

2005-01-13T01:35:00.000+08:00

Apple has released iPod Shuffle. It's smaller than a pack of gum and is available in 512MB and 1G. The footnote on Apple's website says:

Do not eat iPod shuffle.

Analyzing IIS logs offline

2005-01-10T15:25:00.000+08:00

I'm currently using Webalizer provided by my web hoster to analyze IIS logs of one of my sites but my logs accumulate fast, forcing me to move them from the remote server to my desktop. This means I can't do analysis on a wider time range on the server side. Thus, I need an offline solution, preferably easy to set up and intuitive to use.

Some googling around revealed that there's a nice lightweight Windows-based freeware analyzer, useful for analyzing web logs offline. It's called WebLog Expert Lite (WEL) and it comes with a Windows installer! :-) WEL supports IIS and Apache logs and can read GZ and ZIP compressed log. Multiple analysis profiles can be configured to analyze downloaded logs from different websites. The log reports are in HTML format incorporating nice graphical charts. Because the reports reside locally, paging through the reports is fast!

WilsonORMapper v3.1

2005-01-10T01:37:00.000+08:00

Paul Wilson has released version 3.1 of his much evangelized O/R mapper. Read his blog post here.

Bird's eye view of CMMI

2005-01-08T18:09:00.000+08:00

It's the monthly MIND gathering again and this time the topic of highlight was CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration). It's time well-spent as the speaker gave a gripping two-hour presentation.

Software development expertise: Demand

2005-01-07T22:54:00.000+08:00

I was thinking of a way to gauge the current demand for expertise in various software development skills and what simpler way than to do a keyword search in a leading online job recruitment website in Malaysia using the site's own search engine. Here's what I found:

c - 137 (note however, it covers c, c++ and c# due to search engine limitations)
java -131
oracle - 114
sql server - 81
asp - 76
html - 70
xml - 70
visual basic - 60
.net - 58
j2ee - 54
vb - 54
javascript - 44
asp.net - 43
jsp - 40
php - 34
perl - 33
mysql - 32
db2 - 28
crystal reports - 27
vb.net - 27
sdlc - 25
uml - 19
web services - 15
struts - 14
ejb - 12
weblogic - 12
com - 11 (covers com+ as well)
delphi - 11
servlet - 10
xsl - 9
xslt - 8
dcom - 7
rpg - 5
soap - 5
python - 4
extreme programming - 3
msmq - 3
rational rose - 3
rup - 3
ado - 2
mts - 2
ado.net - 1
corba - 1
msf - 1
soa - 0
windows forms - 0
winforms - 0
c# - (?) .......it can't handle "#" ....duh!
c++ - (?) ......it can't handle "++" either

I must point out that this method of measuring demand are at best crude. For example, the results returned for Oracle and SQL Server cover not only those hiring software development expertise but also DBAs. Moreover, some employers may imply requiring a certain skillset but did not list the skills explicitly in their requirements. So, I leave it to your interpretation!

NDoc looking better

2004-12-19T01:52:00.000+08:00

Just came across this: Popular .NET code documentation generator, NDoc 1.3 has been released. It spots an overhauled HTML Help 2 documenter, new code commenting tags, additional attributes support, custom tags, enhanced UI, better performance, and improved output consistency with MSDN topics.

With the new preliminary tag, now we can have the following default message appearing in the docs:

[This is preliminary documentation and subject to change.]

...much like those appearing in the beta MSDN docs of VS 2005. Too bad though, support for .NET framework 2.0 is lacking.

Free .NET reporting tool

2004-12-15T17:45:00.000+08:00

I was browsing around for free .NET components and stumbled upon this reporting tool. The tool is called StimulReports.Net and comes with a free edition. The product includes a report designer with royalty-free managed runtime engine. It supports ADO.NET data sources and the it uses an XML-based report format. The free edition comprises 10 components and has limited reporting capabilities -- probably just good enough for simple Windows Forms reporting requirements. (Update: The free edition is no more available.)

A wet afternoon at Tower 2

2004-12-11T18:54:00.000+08:00

Spent the afternoon at the MIND meeting. The main talk of the day was about Paladin, a homegrown .NET object persistence framework, presented by Microsoft MVP and the author herself, Serena Yeoh.

Paladin offers O/R mapping, enterprise services transactional support, forward engineering, stored proc support, and the codegen wizard looks pretty sophisticated. Here's a goody: It's free!

Broaching on the subject of object persistence frameworks, it's too bad that Microsoft's ObjectSpaces is still not ready for prime time. It won't be ready till the release of WinFS. The bad news is that WinFS won't even make it into the initial release of Longhorn. :-( Not surprisingly, we're seeing a trend of such third-party/homegrown frameworks cropping up to fill the void. Some are free and some not.

Prior to watching Paladin in action today, WilsonORMapper by Paul Wilson is one such framework that I've keenly looked at so far -- primarily because the APIs resemble those of ObjectSpaces. It offers support for a wide range of databases and uses simple XML-file-based mapping configuration (instead of custom attributes).

When it is time to don the presenter's hat, ...

2004-12-10T13:28:00.000+08:00

One video clip interests me during my regular visit to Channel 9. Don Box, well known (or notorious) for his highly-rated presentations reveals his presentation secrets. It's quite obvious he's not a big fan of Powerpoint. ;-) Anyway, here are some of his pointers for an attention-grabbing techie presentation:

Focus on the goal of giving a talk e.g. changing the thought-process of the listener.
Do something that gets and holds the listeners' attention. Whether you give a talk from a bathtub or have a flamenco band to harmonize with you, find a style that works for you.
Less is more. Use the minimum amount of code to convey an idea e.g. Use Hello World type examples. More people will have a chance of relating to it. Likewise, speaking less gives more too as listening is a taxing task.
Don't confuse concepts and facts. Facts shouldn't show up in a talk. In a talk, facts blur the truth. Feed concepts to your audience.
Use legible font. On Windows, use at least 14-point font.
Default highlighting in Visual Studio is not suitable for presentation. Change highlighting color to something contrasting on projection.
Take advantage of modulation. Modulation controls attention. Modulate the speed of talk. To emphasize a point, speak slower. Also, modulate pitch and intensity. e.g. for contrast, switch to speaking quietly.
If things go wrong, like failed demos, use the situation as some pedagogical device and use it to your advantage.
Don't cramp till 4am in the morning preparing for a talk. Better be restful and alert for a talk.
Powerpoint is a means to an end, not an end to itself. Meaning: Powerpoint is an aid, not the talk.

Can Thunderbird fly?

2004-12-09T14:43:00.000+08:00

Having been an Outlook Express (OE) user for years, I'm tempted to look into alternatives. Although I have big brother Outlook installed on my PC, I've not made the switch because I rather have something simple, lightweight, and snappy to use. (I only use Outlook for synchronizing certain info stored on my PDA.)

Hence, I decided to take a look at Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 e-mail client today. Installation was a breeze. I did an import of my OE inbox (though only partially) and it worked as it should. One of the things I long for in OE is the 3-column layout as found in Outlook 2003. Thunderbird offers such a layout but it's not exactly the same. Outlook 2003 offers a better view of the message list pane in 3-column mode.

Images in some HTML messages are not loaded. This is a good privacy measure and there's an option to turn on the images. Thunderbird is a tad bit slower at loading individual messages compared to OE. This is probably due to Thunderbird having to do more work in the background to provide a more secure environment. Thunderbird features an adaptive junk mail filter which I haven't had the chance to thoroughly test out yet. Application loading is also slower than OE. There's also color-coding of message headers for different message categories (like in Outlook). Oh yes, Thunderbird offers Print Preview which OE doesn't. There's also an integrated RSS reader and newsgroup reader -- pretty cool.

Well, my impressions are good for a version 1 product. Though it didn't really fly, it definitely felt more secure. Best of all, it's free! On whether I'm making a switch from OE, I think I'll have to play with Thunderbird a little more. We'll see. ;-)

Back to blogging!

2004-12-03T18:18:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since I last blogged (November 2003 to be exact). I intend to retrace some of the past interesting events and blog them here by backdating the posts. Why return to blogging? I don't know. Maybe blogging is becoming a cultural thing.

"Blog was the most common word visitors to Merriam Webster's online site sought a definition for throughout 2004."

Even Microsoft has entered the blogging arena through MSN Spaces (http://spaces.msn.com). Here's my blog space at MSN Spaces: http://spaces.msn.com/members/jasonong/. I think I still like it here at Blogger -- the large fonts seem easier on the eyes. Maybe age is catching up :-P

2004-11-27T23:14:00.000+08:00

Wings Musicafe

Nite out at KL's newest music cafe

2004-11-27T23:00:00.000+08:00

I was at the opening party of my friend's new cafe, namely Wings Musicafe at Times Walk KL (behind Berjaya Times Square). The outlet occupies two floors and features live unplugged performance -- playing mainly Chinese repertoire.

Anti-RSI keyboard rocks!

2004-11-26T17:00:00.000+08:00

A keyboard is a keyboard is a keyboard. Well, not so. I got myself a sleek black A4 Tech keyboard (Model KBS-720). It's reasonably priced too. The maker of the keyboard claims that the "A-shape" key layout prevents Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) from the wrists and arms. Center "A-type" keys matches the way the fingers naturally move and provides maximum comfort while typing.

The bugs are "gone"

2004-11-16T01:19:00.000+08:00

Was monitoring blog headlines and found this: ASP.NET daddy, Scott Guthrie has announced in a blog post that ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Web Developer has hit ZBB (Zero Bug Bounce i.e. in Microsoft land, no bugs older than 48 hours in a given milestone). Next would be the big security push and then, the final Beta 2 push. Okay, let's see how long that takes. ;-)

On a related note, there are product design changes between Beta 1 and Beta 2. Guess I will not be toying with ASP.NET 2.0 seriously till Beta 2 is out.

ADSL modem blues

2004-11-08T13:30:00.000+08:00

After a frustrating week without Streamyx broadband access, two Telekom technicians came by to troubleshoot the problem. After 20 minutes fiddling with my ailing modem, they replaced it with a brand new one. Voila! Back to civilization!

The following is what I've learnt over the years when dealing with Streamyx access issues:

Before calling the TMNet support line (1-300-88-9515), make sure you have done the following:

Bypass the router when testing the connection
Reset (off-pause-and-on) the modem a few times
Replace the network cable connecting the computer and the ADSL modem
Delete the old dialer and reinstall the dialer

If all the above fail, call support. Let support know of the general nature of the issue, error message/code, OS type, modem model, indicator status on modem and get a report number from the service rep. Remember, no report number, no action. After 3 working days and no resolution, call them up again to press them to escalate the issue. If you are subscribed to the "with modem" package, make sure the technicians are aware of that when they first contact you. This is so that they'll get a replacement modem ready when they come visit you.

Applying for MyKad

2004-11-03T13:00:00.000+08:00

After much procastination, I finally applied for MyKad (the new Malaysian national registration identification card) at the JPN office at Maju Junction Mall. I thought the whole affair was going to be painful but surprisingly it was over in 2 hours -- mostly waiting time. Applying was simple in that only the current IC is required. There was no forms to fill though there was the change-address form which wasn't applicable to me anyway.

The food-court at Maju Junction Mall is equipped with screens displaying queue numbers and therefore there was no need to wait in front of the JPN counters. So, that was nice. The officer told me that the card will be ready for collection in one month's time. The application status can be checked at JPN's web site.

VB.NET World Tour 2004

2004-10-08T22:34:00.000+08:00

Watched Jay Roxe and Matt Gertz in action at the VB.NET World Tour 2004 in KL.

When CEOs let their hair down

2004-09-17T22:10:00.000+08:00

It's the last day of Tech.Ed 2004 Malaysia. Sessions only lasted half a day. The other half was gala time. Microsoft Malaysia MD showed off his skills at the saxaphone. There was also an entertaining gig by a group of CEOs of IT companies. Even guest of honor, MDC CEO Datuk Dr Arif Nun couldn't resist showcasing his lighter side by singing the hit reggae number, Don't Worry, Be Happy -- a nice end to a gruelling 4 days of information overload. ;-)

Review: Murach's ASP.NET Programming with VB.NET

2004-08-04T19:07:00.000+08:00

Here's a snippet of my review of the above book at ASPNETWorld.com.

"Weighing in at slightly over 700 pages, Murach's ASP.NET Web Programming with VB.NET by Doug Lowe and Anne Prince claims to get readers off to a fast
start to ASP.NET. Now let's see how the book attempts to accomplish that.
The book is divided into four sections spanning 20 chapters. The first section of the book covers the basics of web programming, datasets, cookies, and testing and debugging ASP.NET applications...."

Read the complete review here...

One year wiser

2004-07-22T14:56:00.000+08:00

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me... :-)

Bill Gates in town

2004-06-29T20:00:00.000+08:00

What? Bill Gates in town? Yes, the rumors turned out to be true. He's here in Malaysia in conjunction with Microsoft Innovation Day. I've registered for the event some time back, thinking that it's just going to be another TechNet/MSDN briefing. There wasn't a slightest hint that the big guy was coming. I would have regretted had I not registered.

After a one-hour-plus drive to Putrajaya Convention Centre, I finally made it to the entrance. Nope, it's not like you go straight into the hall. There were security procedures that all attendees had to go through, much like at the airport.

Okay, the moment has arrived. Bill Gates delivered a speech on Microsoft's vision for Seamless Computing. Ahh...missed his trademark sweater. He was in formal attire. Heh.

This rare event made me reminisce on the time when I saw Jim Barksdale in person back in 1996. Barksdale is a celebrated alumnus of my university and was then the CEO of Netscape Communications. He gave a talk to the students of the Computer and Information Science department of his alma mater. I was one of the grad students. :-) Little did I know back then that Bill (the man that I saw today) will be sidelining Barksdale's company, forcing it to be victimized in a merger 3 years later. How ironic!

Fitness comes first

2004-06-17T17:30:00.000+08:00

Joined the local gym...now to bulk up. :-)

Thanks Peter Blum

2004-05-12T01:52:00.000+08:00

Got an e-mail from Peter Blum, a prolific .NET controls author thanking me for highlighting his Date controls. And if you're reading this Peter, thanks for the nice words. :-)

Mobile DevCon 2004

2004-04-22T21:50:00.000+08:00

Attended Microsoft Mobile DevCon 2004 at Sunway Convention Centre. The conference made its debut in Malaysia today, attracting many developers hungry to take advantage of the growing mobile computing sector.

Datagrid Girl's blog entry

2004-03-16T01:21:00.000+08:00

Marcie Robillard a.k.a. Datagrid Girl has a blog entry about ASPNETWorld.com. She has also highlighted her favorite section of the site. Thanks Marcie!

Guide to ASP.NET Web Hosting

2004-02-04T19:36:00.000+08:00

Here's my "for dummies" article on ASP.NET web hosting. Although this guide suggests content specific to ASP.NET hosting, many of the elements in this guide can be applied to non-ASP.NET hosting scenarios as well.

Guide to ASP.NET Web Hosting

Java Certification Day 2003

2003-11-20T18:50:00.000+08:00

Went to the venue early as I was expecting a big crowd but only to discover that it wasn't the case. Interestingly, I learnt from the event that the GM of Worldwide Certification at Sun Microsystems is a Malaysian! And also, two new Java certifications are in the works -- one on J2ME and the other, on web services.

Switching to the fast lane

2003-11-14T19:00:00.000+08:00

Got a visit by an agent of TMNet at my home doorstep. The agent signed me up for the upgrade of Streamyx broadband from 384kbps (@RM77/month) to 512kbps (@RM99/month). That saved me a trip to the Clickers at Kelana Jaya coz I was going to upgrade anyway. I was told that activation will be in two weeks' time. I will also enjoy the new speed at the current pricing for the 384kbps package for 3 months. This upgrade offer is supposedly valid till December 31, 2003.

A first look at ASP.NET 2.0 (codenamed "Whidbey")

2003-11-14T16:00:00.000+08:00

Finished reading two sample sample chapters of A First Look at ASP.NET v. 2.0. I like the "master pages" feature of ASP.NET Whidbey. This particular new feature not only aids the design and consistency of sites, but the in maintenance of the site as well.

Panther unleashed!

2003-11-13T22:00:00.000+08:00

Dropped in at the Orange Club in the heart of KL for the "unleashing" of Mac OS X Panther. Well, I must say that Apple has some pretty impressive stuff here. Panther's windowing system a.k.a. Exposé was especially awesome. Exposé lets you instantly see all your open windows at once, then switch to the right one. Oh...there was free flow beer and that cool mousepad!

Matrix Revolutions

2003-11-08T23:00:00.000+08:00

Went for a free showing of Matrix Revolutions at KLCC courtesy of MIND. Verdict: Action scenes are engrossing but my favourite is still Matrix Reloaded.

Microsoft Office System launch in KL

2003-11-06T18:00:00.000+08:00

Attended the Microsoft Office System launch and breakout sessions at PWTC. Here's an amusing trivia: I had a pleasant surprise as I went up to my car after the event and found a little card on my windshield wiper saying that my car had been given a free wash. Can you believe that?

Office 2003 Workshop

2003-10-09T18:00:00.000+08:00

Went for a free one-day workshop of Office 2003 on invitation by Iverson. The workshop focused on the new features in the latest version of the productivity suite.

2003-09-18T15:30:00.000+08:00

Samsung SyncMaster 763MB

Joining the DigitALL revolution

2003-09-18T15:00:00.000+08:00

Bought myself a cool new 17" Samsung SyncMaster 763MB flat-screen monitor replacing my 6-year-old CTX 17 incher. The colors are vibrant and texts appear sharp. I especially like the MagicBright feature in which 3 brightness modes are available at just a touch of a button.

Tech.Ed KL (Day 4)

2003-08-28T20:00:00.000+08:00

....

Tech.Ed KL (Day 3)

2003-08-27T20:00:00.000+08:00

Tech.Ed KL (Day 2)

2003-08-26T20:00:00.000+08:00

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Tech.Ed KL (Day 1)

2003-08-25T20:00:00.000+08:00

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MCP today!

2003-07-08T13:00:00.000+08:00

Yipee! A Microsoft Certified Professional today! Passed exam 70-315 - Developing and Implementing Web Applications using Visual C# .NET and Visual Studio .NET.

Where's my office?

2003-01-20T20:00:00.000+08:00

I've been using OpenOffice.org on my home PC for the past few months but I found it not fitting to my requirements. It's sluggish and it doesn't exactly export documents correctly to Microsoft Office (MSO) formats. MSO format compatibility is important to me because my workplace uses MS Office. Guess what? I got myself a copy of Microsoft Office XP Professional -- the real thing. That solves it! :-)

New at Blogger

2002-12-27T22:30:00.000+08:00

Finally jumped on the blogging bandwagon...