Ex-collegues involved in plane crashed in Java

News from CNA confirmed no survivors in the recent plane crashed in Java. News can also found in BBC, and detiknews. I got confirmation from my friend that 5 of my ex -colleagues had passed away. :( May all of them RIP.

Finally ordered my Wii Fit

It is like the hottest commodities in gaming industry, Wii Fit is always out of stock whenever it is available. I'd spent almost 1 month monitoring the stock at various online stores and finally I beat the rest on the latest Toys R Us stock and got myself one. Hurray.

And I'm waiting for Wii Fit accessories after ordered it from Woolworth. Even the accessories are not available on the spot.

Firefox 3 is officially released

Firefox 3 is out at http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/

Halifax 10% Regular Saver

Amid the interest rate cut for saving account from 5.25% to 5%, Halifax announced a massive 10% regular saver rate valid for 1 year. This is the best deal I ever seen since 1998.

UK InterBank fund transfer done in 2 hours

Just discovered today, transfer £ from HSBC to any UK bank only take 2 hours instead of 3 working days. That's a good news. :)

Mario Kart from Ebay

After a short chat with Johny, I decided to buy Mario Kart with Wheel. Unfortunately it is out of stock in most game store, I bid it from ebay for £41.12, cheapest in after spending 20 minutes trying grab a final second deal.

This is the most expensive game I ever bought, so hopefully it worth my £££. :)

Update 10/6: Got my Mario Kart and extra Original Wheel from Game.co.uk. I'm ready to be vs :)

Wall Street Sweet 12999

Today Wall Street had fallen below 12300 mark, and 12999 too sweet for me :)

Invest with Tradefair Part 3

Well, 2 days left with tradefair demo account to win £100 for being the leader and I'm number only 37 of the leaderboard. I'm nowhere near the leader at massive 85900!

I just noticed being in the top 100 leaderboard will be rewarded with £100 upon opening of account. :)

Update: 6/6 - Tradefair demo ended on 4/6 and I'm happy being at 29 place of the leader board.

12 hours of funs

On Saturday, we went out from 12 and back at 12 midnight. We were hanging out with our Swindon mates. From dim sum lunch to chinese takeaway dinner then our usual past time games, Mahjong, UNO and Pictionary.

Takeaway from Da Shanghai

The usual gang

UNO game

UNO game result

Pictionary, it was male vs female after decided by card draw

Our Pictionary drawing

Finally a Wii

Yesterday I went to town center and bought a Wii. game.co.uk is having a bundle sale for £199.99 to get both Ultimate Board Game and Sega Superstar Tennis. This is my first ever game console as I'd ever bought and played.

For now, I'm waiting for a HD components cable, Wii Play and Nunchuck to complete the purchase.

Invest with Tradefair Part 2

I just spent sometimes to test tradefair again, and I invested in selling Wall Street with £100 stake. Unfortunately this is only a demo, else I'll be thrilled about it.

I have almost doubled the demo account

Invest with Tradefair

Tradefair is a new concept from Betfair. It is high risk betting based on World Finance Section, from indices, commodities, equities, FX, bond & rates. I got to know about it as I was given a £10k demo account to start with. The benefit of Tradefair are:

• Bull or Bear - One of the most obvious advantages of spread trading is the unique opportunity to go short of (or sell) a stock or share. You can therefore experience the benefit of either a rising or falling market! No commission or fees. Because Tradefair Spreads is not a stockbroker, we do not charge commission or fees. The only “fee” is the spread we charge on the prices that we quote.


• Gearing - Spread trading also allows you to trade in sizes smaller than those usually available in the underlying market. Similarly, you may also benefit from an opportunity to trade in larger positions than are normally permitted in the underlying market, without depositing large sums of money.
  
• Tax free profits - All spread trading profits are recognised as the winnings of a bet, and are therefore free of Capital Gains and Income Tax.
  

In brief, it multiplying the stake with the net change depends on the current trading. You can place order for buy or sell.

Upon order, the system will introduce a Stop Order based on the available fund, so that it limit the trade loss.

You can then specific a new Stop Loss and Good Until.

For example, I invested in FTSE at 6061 with size 25 (1 net change with earn/loss £25) for sell. On top of that, I also invested FTSE at 6065 with size 60 for Buy. I was losing yesterday for £4xx and decided to close the position for Size 25 Sell.

This morning I earned £1400 as the market gone up and I didn't close it yesterday.

Once the position is close, the earning is permanent.

more detail on tradefair system can be found here and here for list of product info. I don't think I'm ready for it yet, but I do like the concept.

My Home Networking Setup Part 2

After several weeks of hit and misses, finally I come to enable home PC remote desktop in office. :) There is no way I can remote access from my office using RDP, VPN, OPENVPN or OPENSSH as my company firewall is too strict. Initially I was trying Timbuktu but it doesn't support Vista at the moment, and web based LogMeIn has been blocked by the company proxy. Luckily I found a free collaboration software called TeamViewer while surfing in Skype forum.

For this, all I need to do is install it and get the ID and Password on the host PC I want to access and once I entered the details, then TeamViewer will establish a secure connection to the host. Simple and easy. It eliminates the effort to setup RDP, VPN, OPENVPN, OPENSSH or DDNS.

ID & Password is auto generate. But I found the ID is static even after reboot

VPN to access share folder

File Sharing

The only problem with this is getting the password if you intend to leave your home for long. But my workaround is to setup a screen grab at an interval using SnagIt then save it as picture and put it in a ftp server. All I need to do is access my ftp server and check the picture for password.

SnagIt with capture timer setting

I just found out a static password is possible from the options dialog. Now it is getting simplier.

I can confirm the ID remain static, but to make sure the Connection ID doesn't change will not at home, the best way is to grab the ID in TeamViewer log file at C:\Documents and Settings\[YOURNAME]\Application Data\TeamViewer\TeamViewer3_Logfile.log

05/08 08:55:25.515 5660 D CCT.Connect.master.dyngate.com:80
05/08 08:55:25.562 5660 D S3 master.dyngate.com - CT0 NC.CHttp.Conned
05/08 08:55:25.562 5660 D S3 master.dyngate.com - CCT.Connected
05/08 08:55:25.562 5660 D ! S3 master.dyngate.com - CT6 CT.Send.CMD_MASTERCOMMAND From=[YOURID]To=0 L=261
05/08 08:55:25.625 5660 D ! S3 master.dyngate.com - CT6 CT.Receive.CMD_MASTERRESPONSE From=0 To=[YOURID] L=4
05/08 08:55:25.625 5660 D S3 master.dyngate.com - CT6 CT.Term

And the best place to put the log file is in the ftp server where it is easily accessible.

My Home Networking Setup

I'm not going in details but for the last couple of weeks, I have been busy trying to setup a Remote Desktop Connection between my company and my home. That lead me to setup DDNS, OpenVPN and OpenSSH. Although I'd successfully setup the above, the downside is my company firewall has prevent me from establishing a connection back home. My administrator told me the only way I can get around is to VPN from home to company and use the established tunnel to route home.


At the sametime, I setup FTP server for me to retrieve my photos and etc. Gosh, I was surprised to see someone tried to hack in using admin user. I also setup glype web proxy to browse site that might be blocked by my company proxy, mostly all social networking site, online storage, bittorent and web proxy. Yesterday I'd setup web UI for uttorent and emule to monitor my download progress since I could not remote desktop back to my home.





Next, I'll try to setup my own blog or photoblog and hopefully I can get it done within days.

Manchester United Champion League 07/08 Winner

It was an exciting match that both teams are equal in level and opportunity. In the end, lady luck was at MU side. Well deserved win!

Amsterdam Trip

It was 9 years ago when I went for a short Europe trip with my uni. asian society. Being able to revisit Amsterdam really bring back fond memories at each corners I'd been. Staying in Apollo Museum Hotel is really convenient, it is located near Leiseplein, just a few steps away from Rijksmuseum. It is easily accessible to bus, tram, canal cruise, shopping, food...

Raag

Amsterdam building has big glass window

Boat along canal

Statues at Rembrandts Square

Bikes parked everywhere

Unique building

Flower & Tulips seeds at Flower Market

This trip we are really lucky as we met Dutch Queen when we did our evening cruise. Not only that, it was their liberation day and we get to travel in Connexxion Interliner bus for free, to Airport and Zaanse Schans.

Gundam 00 Four Years On

I just finished watching my favourite anime series, Gundam. The latest one is Gundam 00 season 1. The epilogue was revealing a new Gundam and it started with 4 years later, but for me, it is 3 months later for season 2 to release on October '08.

In my opinion, Gundam is an anime with feeling embedded in the story, just like an ordinary drama which make it so good to watch.

End of episode 25 & epilogue

Internet Radio with Orban Flash Player

I wanna recommend a nice flash based music channel. If your company blocked all internet radio from shoutcast, you can try orban player and the music is not bad. It is a flash based internet radio so it won't be blocked unless your company's firewall does not allow web browsing.

Dr. M's Blog

Malaysia former Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir has his own blog, posting his first post today.

Enable Remote Desktop for Vista Home Premium

I'm still new to Vista and I'm expecting it behaves as XP, but i'm wrong in many ways. One of it is Remote Connection. Apparently you can't remote desktop to Vista Home Premium as there is no terminal service. Luckily I found a nice site with simple steps to follow.

1. Download termsrv.zip for SP1.
2. Extract Termsrv.zip to a temp directory
3. Start “Command Prompt” in Administrator mode (Run As Administrator)
4. Run the corresponding batch file for your Vista edition
5. Allow TCP Port 3389 on Windows Firewall or any other firewall product.
6. Done

Perhaps, I can remote desktop to my HTPC and download BT :) , I'd setup DDNS and able to rdp from my office too to bypass firewall.