Monthly Archives: April 2009

Avira Premium Security Suite 9

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Psst! How would you like to get a free six-month subscription to Avira’s Premium Security Suite 9? It’s not a dream—just go to this Avira link and see for yourself. There are three simple steps to follow:

  1. Fill out the online form.
  2. Receive the email with licence key.
  3. Follow installation instructions in the email.

 I signed up for it myself, and now I have PSS 9 installed in my computer; it detected my Avira 9 free version and offered to remove it for me before continuing the PSS 9 setup. There’s a whole gamut of settings to play with (you don’t have to, just sticking with the defaults is fine). I especially like the virus definition updating, which seems to be much quicker than the one found in the free version—I suppose this is to be expected.

And what does Avira’s Premium Security Suite 9 contain? Plenty:

  • antivirus
  • antispyware
  • antiphishing
  • antirootkit
  • antidrive-by
  • antibot
  • email scanner
  • web guard
  • rescue system
  • backup system
  • antispam
  • firewall
  • game mode
  • quick removal of viruses
  • netbook support
  • parental control

More info is available here. The nice thing is that you can opt not to install certain components. Choose Custom Install if you intend to do this. I chose not to install web guard (generally not necessary unless you keep visiting dubious websites) and the firewall (since I already have Comodo Firewall installed, never have more than one firewall running) So go ahead and indulge.

Incidentally I’ve heard that Avira has set up shop here in Malaysia. We should be able to purchase their software locally by next month. Good news for users like myself. And please, guys—get rid of that ugly-looking progress bar!

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The Internet = Oxygen Part 2

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This has never happened to me before, since going online about 12 years ago. I’m referring to an Internet outage which occurred locally in Malaysia yesterday. It affected thousands of users in four states—Perlis, Kedah, Perak, and Penang. I’ve learnt through experience that if my Internet conks out unexpectedly, the fault is usually at the ISP’s end, unless I forgot to pay my broadband bill (I have that on auto payment anyway). It went south about 4:30 PM local time yesterday, and dang—it was hard for me! To be cut off from the rest of the world, yikes! No email, no Windows Live Messenger, no browsing, ugh.

So I did the most reasonable thing. Called up the ISP, of course I had to wait—I guess they were deluged with calls from thousands of irate and frustrated Net users. I suppose it’s no point for me to vent my anger on them—when I finally spoke to someone they told me to wait it out. I go to bed, awake today, and boot up the computer. Any Internet? Nope, no luck. Still out. Called them again, they gave me the stock reply that their technicians were hard at work on it. Patience, patience. Alright, let me see—I’ll go do a mundane chore like ironing clothes. I pop in a Mahler CD into my computer—ah bliss. Bernard Haitink conducting Mahler’s 6th with the Berlin Philharmonic (what a fantastic performance). Soon I’m engrossed (yeah, believe it or not) with my ironing, until Network Magic beeps and that’s the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard—the Internet’s back! Yay!

What with the damaged undersea cables earlier this month and now this, I figured TM Net (my blessed ISP) should give a rebate or refund of this month’s bill to me. Yeah, dream on. As if they would be so gracious.

Mahler: Symphony No. 6

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The Longest Day

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The run-up to Easter Sunday was very unsettling for me. Reason being that my church had just bought a new Yamaha Stagea Electone organ, and it was due to be delivered on Thursday afternoon prior to Easter. The next day was Good Friday, and with the church sanctuary (where the organ was situated) in use, there wasn’t a chance for me to give the new organ a go. Saturday morning arrived, so off I went to try it out. However, as luck would have it, I found out that the sanctuary was open for prayer for the entire morning until 2 in the afternoon! I had to play very softly so that didn’t help much at all. OK, I went to the sanctuary again that very same evening, on my way to work at the hotel. This time I managed to try out the organ, for about forty minutes, and then along comes the choir to practice. Anyway I had to leave for work.

Come Easter Sunday, and I awoke very early. I prayed that I would play well. Had some breakfast with a strong mug of coffee and off I went. Arrived in church, plugged in my thumb drive, powered up the new baby—all seemed well. Played some music for the Prelude; I was literally shaking in my boots, feeling very unsettled until George (a church member) came by and said, “Don’t worry. The holy spirit will play for you.” That seemed to calm my nerves somewhat. The rest of the service went by without a hitch. When it ended, I was so relieved. Had some positive and glowing comments—that gave me a boost. Well, also some suggestions from others; ok, I’ll work on those.

However, I was surprised that for the rest of Sunday, I was mentally zonked out. It had nothing to do with the 4 hours of teaching I did in the afternoon. Or the client who wanted me to go check her computer after that—I was just so dead tired. Reached home around 6:30 PM, took a short nap, had a strong cup of coffee, some dinner, watched some DVDs, and then hit the sack.

That’s it for now. Hope your Easter was good.

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Fed up with my ISP Part 2

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The Internet here in Penang, Malaysia has been slow as molasses since the beginning of April. The cause? A damaged undersea cable linking Penang and Singapore. TM Net informed users in their website that restoration work should be completed by April 9, 2009. Today I checked their website and was angry to find this notice:

10/04/2009
UPDATE – INTERNET SERVICES RESTORATION

Dear Valued Customers,

Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) is pleased to inform its customers that the restoration works on the Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN2) near Chongming, China connecting Malaysia to the United States has been completed.

Meanwhile, there is a delay in the restoration date for the Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 3 (SMW3) cable network between Tuas, Singapore and Penang linking Malaysia due to technical problems at the repairing stages. Due to the delay, full recovery of SMW3 cable network is now expected to be on 17 April 2009.

However, to date, TM has already recovered 97% bandwidth capacity for its Internet traffic to Hong Kong and North America.

TM Internet and IP services as well as other critical business applications linked to the US and Hong Kong has resumed normal operations since 10 April 2009.

We would like to thank our customers for their patience during the affected period. Customers can call TM at 100 and select “Internet Services” or e-mail us at help@tm.com.my for any Internet related problems.

Thank You.

WTF, now they say that full recovery of the SMW3 cable is now pushed forward to April 17? And they have the audacity to say that they have recovered 97% bandwidth? What a load of BS, it feels more like 9.7%! It’s late now but I plan to call them up tomorrow and give them a piece of my mind. And I’d like a refund if you don’t mind, you stupid morons.

It seems that there are a lot of annoyed users here. Look at this local forum. And looking at this website brought a temporary smile to my face.

Streamyx Sucks

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My blog turns One

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It is a wet Thursday morning as I write this. After 193 posts, 424 comments and a readership hit of almost 10,000 my blog has arrived at its first milestone. I’m quite surprised myself (don’t snigger) since I’m not a diary sort of person. I remember when I was young my dad would give me a diary without fail at the end of each year. I’d be very enthusiastic writing down the January entries. Then entries for February would be less, March even more so, and by the time April arrived my diary was practically devoid of content. Nonetheless, I started this blog last April without any expectations; the main thing different is that this is read by readers all over the world, who are free to comment on my musings (which makes it more enjoyable and exciting for me)

Of course the neat thing about having my own blog is that I can write about anything that I want, though I steer clear of religion and politics. I believe my ebook (see the sidebar) has received much exposure here, and hopefully that will help its sales along. I’ve even extended an invitation to a close friend to guest-write here (she’s still thinking about it, you know who you are, K) And last but not least, a big thank you to the folks at WordPress.org for giving me this vehicle to ride (write?) on, and for free, to boot. Thanks to Windows Live Writer too, an excellent tool for writing my posts and drafts before publishing.

Finally, a big THANK YOU to all you guys and girls out there in cyberspace who have visited and read my blog. I hope you’ll keep coming, and please feel free to drop me a line—it can be quite lonely when I’m writing by myself. Have a good day.

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For Windows Live Messenger users

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If you happen to receive this IM or email from the Messenger Service staff, please ignore it.

Important service announcement: As part of a recent system enhancement, we need you to change your e-mail address to continue signing in to the Windows Live(TM) Messenger Service.

To ensure that your access is not blocked and to learn more, go to http://support.microsoft.com/gp/Messenger/en

This link takes you to a Microsoft Support page containing details for changing your email address. It was accidentally sent out to Messenger users recently. Again, just ignore it and continue using WLM as normal. Somebody at Messenger Service made a cock-up and rest assured, we don’t have to change our email addresses.

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A Comedy of Errors

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The past week or two presented some challenges in my life. Here are the highlights:

First off, I noticed that for no apparent reason, the text color turned black whenever I switched to a dark theme in WordPress. It’s the same like trying to find a dark object in a dark room. I tried uploading WP’s original php files to my site, I tried deleting and installing those affected themes, I tried disabling all my plug-ins, I even had the audacity to mess with the themes’ CSS files (well just a little, I know next to nothing about CSS)—nothing worked. Did a successful automatic upgrade to WP 2.7.1, still no luck. So I racked my brains trying to recall what was it that I did in the past? Ah yes, I did do a widget for my ebook and inserted it in my blog sidebar. Could that be the cause? Only one way to find out. I took that widget out and presto! I could see the text in my dark themes again! Damn satisfying, if you know what I mean. I would also like to thank my friend in the UK, Lisa Crunkhorn, for tidying up the HTML mess in the widget. I’ve now inserted it back into my sidebar with Lisa’s edits and it works correctly without messing up the text color.

Next, I’m having my usual quiet dinner in the hotel on a Friday night. Enjoying a morsel of garlic bread and the next minute, crack! This occurred inside my mouth, and I knew what it was—one of my back molars had cracked. Ugh, this would mean another trip to the dentist. After that root canal treatment in the not-so-distant past, the last thing I wanted was this. But I knew that I couldn’t afford to ignore this mishap—it would certainly make things worse for my tooth. So off I go to see my dentist, Dr. Lim. Now this man’s a genius. He took one look inside and told me that yes, one of my back lower molars had succumbed to my hard biting. He figured that he could do some bonding work on it, give it a new filling, and would I be more careful in the future? Sure thing, doc. After a 30-minute treatment (quite painless) my tooth was restored—yay! Unfortunately I was $16 USD poorer, but the important thing was that my tooth was saved.

What happens next? I’m getting into my car to send back my boss’ computer after servicing it. I start the car, and nadda. Dead battery, dude. Fortunately, this happened at my apartment, so all I had to do was call up my mechanic and a new battery was sent in a couple of minutes. If this had happened elsewhere, it would have been more inconvenient. And oh—I am now $42 USD poorer.

And finally, the straw to break the camel’s back (yeah, a lot of stuff got broken here)—sluggish Internet, due to damaged undersea cables—again!! UGH!

Well look on the bright side. Mr. Ameer from California bought my ebook Learn to Play the Piano in 12 Lessons—thank you for that bright spark in my week, sir. I hope you enjoy reading my ebook and learning to play the piano!

Till my next post, this is Philip, signing off.

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