Working from home is a great idea!

I VPN to my work PC and voila, I was back at work virtually…  You know what I mean, not physically there and still able to work.

Working from home saves me about 2 hours without having to drive to and from work.  I also get to wear my home clothes and feel so comfortable and easy, right at home.  Of course, you have to gain the trust of your boss la…  Who knows what you can get up to when you are home alone? 

So, next time if you can, try asking your boss if you can work from home.  Happy employee = happy work = productive = everyone happy in the end.  No reasonable boss will turn you down.

Cheers.

So why do I want to write about CAPTCHA?

This is a blog and everyday I get automated postings aka Spams to my posts.  They are useless posts with links to adult, medicine or other sites that needed exposure.  Yesterday I received quite many and enough is enough I guess.   Even these posts have been marked as spams, I still have to to empty the spam bin manually.  This is quite annoying sometimes!
So here I am, I have installed a program that will ask a simple question before the user can post his/her comment.  Hopefully, this doesn’t deter my readers from commenting.
Let’s see if this CAPTCHA program will work as intended.

Come on real human readers, I need some real comments, please… 

I work in the IT industry supporting databases at a large organisation.
Recently there were some difficult issues with one of our critical databases and we needed assistance from the vendor, a very large global database company.
I went through the proper procedure, i.e. filled in an electronic form with all the required information and logged a support call with them.

Day 1-2.  Extracted reports and uploaded them as requested by engineer #1.  Engineer #1 explained that issue was caused by a dodgy program.  I requested for more info.
Day 3-6.  No update.
Day 7.  Engineer 2 came on board and advised engineer 1 is on leave.   WTH!  No handover or nothing from engineer #1.
Day 8-9.  Uploaded more reports as requested by engineer #2.
Day 10.  After some investigation, I was advised issue was caused by heavy activities on a few disks.  As usual, I need to know more and asked for more info.
Day 11-14.  No updates for a few days, I had to call in and escalated the request as my manager is breaking my chops.  A service manager called me and asked me the same questions again.  She then told me someone will look into this issue.
Day 15.  New engineer #3 is now assigned to my case.  No mention of the investigation done by engineer #2.  Engineer #2 has disappeared.
Day 16-21.  More reports uploaded.  Communication with engineer #3 was not good as well.  I kept repeating myself and kept asking the same questions.  He tried calling me a few times but the call quality was bad and I can hardly understand him as his accent is really strong.

It is now almost 4 weeks since I first logged this issue with them.  No progress and no resolution.  What a pain!

I think its time to repatriate this support call back to Australia.

The federal government has extended the completion date to 2020 for the National Broadband Network (NBN).  Apparently there was some agreement between some MPS that the bush and the city folks have to pay the same price for the new NBN.

When I go to the bush for camping, I don’t expect a toilet that has flushing and clean water facilities.  I don’t expect to have mobile phone coverage everywhere I go, there are lots of things I can give up because I want to have cleaner air, quieter environment and basically just to enjoy the wilderness…  The same can be said to the people that chose to live in the sticks.  They have cheaper houses and bigger piece of land.  Some don’t even see bitumen road for many kilometres…  On the other hand, city folks complain and whinge when they see one tiny pothole on the bitumen road.  City folks are only a few minutes drive to local shopping centres while the folks in the bush might have to drive for hours just to get to a convenient shop.

There are ups and downs living in the city or in the bush.  However we can never expect to have the same quality of service for everyone…  Come on, let’s stop debating and start building…  By the time they finish rolling out the NBN, the technology would be out-of-date and will need to be upgraded again… lol

My humble opinion:  Australia is going to be a backward country…

Well-known North America smart phone makers also have these in the fine print of their manuals :-

“maintain a distance” of 25mm between the device and your body while the device is transmitting”

“Use of body-worn accessories, other than approved holsters with an integrated belt clip, might cause your device to exceed radio frequency (RF) exposure standards. The long-term effects of exceeding RF exposure standards might present a risk of serious harm.”

“. . . exposure guidelines for body-worn operation if positioned less than 15mm from the body”

So, is it safe to use your mobile phones?  No one actually knows or have concrete evidence about the wide variety of radiation emissions.  Obviously, too much of it is no good.  How much is too much is another question?
Ask one of my friend’s wife and she will say no radiation at all.  She doesn’t even allow my friend to bring the mobile phone home.  They also don’t have a microwave oven.
On the other hand, my missus sleeps with her iPhone next to her head.  She says she might not hear the alarm going off wor.  “Rolling eyes”

Like anything in life, don’t overdo things.  A bit of everything is just fine.  I think… 

I have just created another website that is hosted in the US by a big and well known hosting company 2 weeks ago.  Since then, I have noticed at least on three occasions, the other website has been unreachable.

I called the support team and they advised there is nothing much they can do.  Network issue wor.  Aiya!!!

The hosting plan states and guarantees an up time of 99.9%.  Hahaha….  I find it very amusing.  That means in a month, there should only be less than a hour of downtime.  So far, just today I have already seen and logged a downtime of three hours.

Not sure what I should do here?

Cheap and nasty in the US?  A bit more expensive and reliable in Australia?

I shall give the American company one more chance.  Frustrations and downtimes are the symptoms of cheaper hosting plans.  My patience is running thin here…  If the hosting server becomes unreliable again in the near future, the hosting shall come back to DownUnder!

Hmmm…  Its not really that difficult to answer.

The only one and important question is “What does she need it for?”

She needs to do what she does normally at home but may need to bring a small and light computing appliance to go out if she has to…

- internet browsing, eg Facebook and her internet shopping

- digitally edit/enhance pictures

- a few Windows software and one proprietary accounting software

- copy photos from SD card

- listen to MP3 and watch US/Hong Kong series that could be on a USB stick.

- use a USB modem that she already has

She really likes the popular and heavily advertised ipad.  However a netbook is more suitable for the tasks listed above.  Furthermore the cheapest ipad with 3G capability is $799 while netbook prices are around $350 -$450, its a 50% savings.

No doubt she will be more fashionable and cool with the ipad, however a netbook is definitely the right choice here.

Now she is scratching her head, which netbook is she going to get?

I then replied to the email and the service desk automatically logged a ticket for me.  Within 2 hours, my website is back and the best thing is “No data loss!”  All of this happened on a Saturday and also in the AFL grand final replay afternoon.
My Australian hosting company and its staff definitely get my respect and admiration.  It was a fantastic weekend support with super quick turnaround.  I still cannot believe it.  I wish I can say the same thing about my other hosting accounts in the USA.

Good on you mate!

It was time for dinner.   Someone suggested pizza and no one objected.  ”Bad mistake I found out later”…
Using my missus’ iPhone 3G, I searched for local pizza shops using Google map.  I got a few telephone numbers, called them but there were no answers. Then someone mentioned Dominos.  Missus downloaded an iPhone app for Dominos, picked the pizzas we wanted and 30 minutes later, the pizzas were at the doors.

Finally, I found a useful app and efficient app.  We didn’t have to leave the house. The pizzas were not that good though.  I felt sick after having a few pieces.

Here you go.  For lazy people that do not want to drive or walk to the local shops for fast food.  The iPhone is indeed useful…

More than a month has passed and Technorati has finally got the time to verify my blog.
It should be good news but bad news it is – they cannot find my token on my rss feed.
Why?
My rss feed only has the 10 most recent posts and the post that has the token was written yonks ago and thus not on the feed.

So I am again. Please verify my token asap or this post will disappear from the rss feed again.

I should also investigate how to add more than 10 posts to my rss feed, just in case it takes more than a month again for them to verify my site. hehehe

Cheers.