So this morning I was seated in front of my computer as usual, doing stuff like checking my emails, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I’m Mr. Predictable. It has become second nature for me to check my blogs on a daily basis as well, looking at my stats, comments if any, and so on. And hmmm, it’s been some time since I explored some new Wordpress themes, so away I go. Ah, here’s one that looks interesting—I preview it but the preview doesn’t show (I should have smelled something fishy). But since the theme looks quite enticing I decide to let Wordpress download and install it into my blog. Then I activate it, and Boom! my blog’s disappeared! In its place was this ominous and cryptic error message:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘)’, expecting ‘(‘ in /home/username/public_html/blog/wp-content/themes/producer/functions.php on line 9

That could have been written in Klingon or Romulan, I couldn’t care less. But my blog just vanished and the page was all white—just like my face. I tried refreshing the page—no luck. I tried logging in to access my admin panel—no luck, just that same damn message appearing, as if to spite me for activating the theme. It was like an enemy torpedo had blown up my blog ship.

Fortunately, I calmed down soon enough. Took some deep breaths, walked around, pondered…out of desperation I check the Wordpress support forums. I look for functions.php (what the heck is this?) but there are hundreds and hundreds of threads. Better to post a new thread myself, and so I did. I started to get anxious again and paced around—can you imagine the distress arising within me? My patience was rewarded soon enough (around 15 minutes) when a Clayton James from New York replied and gave me the simple solution which I’m going to share here (thanks again, Clayton!)

So what do you do when a newly installed theme thrashes your Wordpress blog? Here’s the answer:

• Use an FTP program and navigate to your Wordpress theme directory. Locate the rogue theme folder and delete it. Don’t even think about it, just blow it to kingdom come!
• Open your browser, go to your blog site and refresh it. The default Wordpress theme should show up again. Choose another installed theme if you want to. That’s all there is to it.

I learn something new everyday!

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New Year’s Day saw me planted in front of my computer as usual—it’s a public holiday anyway, but I was also feeling a little nervous and excited at the same time. Why? Because about two months earlier I received a surprise email from Miss Lilian Quek (MVP Lead from Microsoft Singapore) informing me that I had been nominated for Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional (aka MVP) award. Shortly thereafter, I was informed by Lilian that based upon my contributions to the BigBlueBall forums, she had decided to push for my MVP nomination for Windows Live Messenger. My nomination would now be evaluated by Microsoft in Redmond, Washington and the results would be out on January 1, 2010.

I didn’t expect the email to come so soon—after all due to different time zones it was still New Year’s Eve in the States. But there it was, in my Hotmail inbox. The subject header gave away the good news: “Congratulations 2010 Microsoft MVP!” I was totally ecstatic (I almost fell out of my chair) I’ve been helping BBB members with Windows Live Messenger (if you’ve been living under a shell, WLM is one of the most popular Instant Messaging clients available today and it’s free of course) ever since I joined BigBlueBall way back in 2006. I’d like to thank Jeff Hester (the boss of BBB) for taking me on as a staff member and believing in me. See, kindness is like a butterfly, it may not return to you instantly, but after a while it will. I still participate in BBB, always lurking and looking out for anyone who needs help in the WLM department; of course my good friend and fellow MVP Doris mans the helm too (and she’s been such a great help) We assist because we love helping people with their WLM problems and queries. Besides, the staff are great, and there’s much more than just IM there, go ahead and check the site out. Registering is free!

So what exactly is an MVP? Glad you asked. According to the MVP website, Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals are…

…individuals who are recognized by peers as well as by Microsoft for past credible participation, highest quality answers and a demonstrated willingness to share their Microsoft technical expertise with others while providing guidance and assistance in peer-to-peer technical communities worldwide.

While these individuals represent a wide variety of backgrounds and professions, MVPs share the basic characteristics of possessing very strong technical skills in one or more Microsoft products or technology areas. Microsoft MVPs also possess the willingness to share that knowledge with others.

Selected contributors earn their MVP status by being nominated by their peers in the community, Microsoft Support Professionals, or Microsoft Product Group members who have seen consistent, professional and accurate technical answers or guidance in response to customer questions.

Here’s my profile on the MVP website. It’s nice to be acknowledged by the great M like this. Now I can add one more bunch of letters to the end of my name, LOL. Thanks, Microsoft!

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In all my years of servicing computers, it hasn’t happened before, but there’s always a first time. Let me explain.

One of my clients wanted to replace his aging and misbehaving D-Link router+modem so he called me up. Okies, no biggie there, I told him straightaway to substitute it with the Linksys WRT54G2 router (setting it up was a painful experience when I did it for myself, but after the ordeal and threatening the brainless gadget, it has behaved well ever since. Read more here) The client gave the go-ahead, so I went to my supplier and bought it.

On the eve of setting it up for my client, I was just twiddling my fingers and feeling very pleased with myself. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks—the Linksys WRT54G2 is only a router, it doesn’t have a modem in it. Ugh, panic started to grip me and I quickly contacted the supplier and asked him whether he had any combo routers and modems in stock…sorry, nope (Murphy’s Law strikes again) The only recourse was to get another DSL modem and that of course would mean that the client would have to cough up some extra cash. I called the client up, explained the situation to him, and apologized. He said he’d consult with his daughters and get back to me.

I waited for a few minutes, my client called up, and said that no, his daughters said it was going to be too costly. I offered my apologies to him again and said it was entirely my fault (and it was). He was very polite, and said he hoped I could get a refund for the Linksys router.

Well over here in good old Malaysia, it’s next to impossible to get your money back after you’ve paid for a product (especially when it’s not defective in any way) Fortunately my supplier said I could exchange it for something else—phew! Let’s see, my 80GB hard drive was beginning to fill up, so yeah, I’ll spring for a Western Digital 500GB hard drive…my supplier said that’d be fine.

I think I handled this episode pretty well, but I’ve learned a few things from it:

1. If it’s your fault, apologize straightaway. Don’t make up any excuses because you’ll look even more like a fool. I apologized immediately to my client and I behaved like a professional. I made a snafu, so there. It happens.
2. Learn to laugh, or at least smile to yourself. No point overheating your own systems, if you know what I mean. I was grateful that my supplier at least offered to exchange the Linksys for a hard drive.
3. Learn from your mistakes. I didn’t think carefully enough this time. It won’t happen again…gotta think these things through very, very meticulously.

“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.” James Joyce

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It’s always the case isn’t it…after a hard and grueling day where anything that can go wrong actually does…I came back from work last Saturday night, anticipating doing some playing (uh, work) on my Dell laptop. Plugged it into the AC Mains, powered it on, and left to get myself changed. Hmmm, I didn’t hear the Windows 7 startup sound and went into the room to look. Oops, what’s this, nothing showing on the display. No problem, I thought, maybe just a hiccup. Powered it off, waited a bit and tried again. No luck, not even the Dell logo was displayed. Tried a few more times, nada. Yikes! Something was definitely wrong.

Fortunately my desktop was up and running. Went to the Dell Support website and searched for the toll-free numbers. Dialed it and ugh, I get this automated message—“Our support offices are closed at the moment, please call back from Mondays to Fridays, 9am to 9pm…” I would have hyper-ventilated if not for my trusty desktop (luckily I haven’t forsaken her) I’m glad my American friends told me to chill and breathe because hey, these things happen.

Come Monday I call Dell Support and spoke to one of their staff. I was asked to give a few details and after asking me to do a little troubleshooting the guy said it looked like my video or graphics had died. Wonder of wonders, he said a tech guy would call me the following day and arrange to fix my laptop on-site, WOW! I was dreading the idea of having to send it back for repairs. On Tuesday the Dell guy came. Mr. Lew was very friendly and professional. He put in a new motherboard for me and in less than an hour my Studio 15 was up and running—yay!

I’m giving two thumbs up for Dell—thanks again for the great support!

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I’ve hosted my blog with Wordpress since I started blogging more than one and a half years ago. Apart from a few minor niggles I’ve been very happy with Wordpress. They have made upgrades so much easier now ever since version 2.6; just go to your Admin panel, click on Upgrade Automatically, and voila, you’re done. Back up your databases before the upgrade but so far touch wood, I’ve never had any untoward incidents happen during my upgrades.

And so it was with this latest 2.9 upgrade, nicknamed “Carmen.” This page details all the improvements and fixes (and has the video above too) but two improvements alone made me want to upgrade as soon as I saw it:

• Global Undo and Trash feature What happens if you have itchy or nimble fingers and accidentally delete a post or comment you actually wanted? In previous versions of WP, you’d be stuck. Not in 2.9 which now boasts a recycle bin, where deleted posts and comments will be kept for 30 days, so if you change your mind you can bring them back.
• Batch plug-in update and compatibility checking In previous WP versions it was a chore for me to upgrade each plug-in individually (well yeah, it doesn’t take long, but still I had to do one plug-in upgrade after another) That’s done away with in 2.9—all your plug-ins which have new upgrades can be done altogether at once. Not only that, WP checks to make sure all of them are compatible with it, and issues a warning if some are not. One curious thing is that to get to this batch plug-in update feature, you’ll have to go to Tools > Upgrade in your WP admin panel. I’d have thought that putting the Upgrade tab in the Plug-Ins category would be more logical no? Just my personal opinion.

So go ahead and upgrade to this latest version of Wordpress. They’re making it better every time!

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Yes, why not? After all when we wake up every morning we have a choice: we can either say it’s going to be a good day or it’s going to be a bad day. Guess which one I always focus on…anyways, some small but happy nuggets were tossed my way recently, probably by my guardian angel.

First off I had a talk last week with the administrator of the music school I teach in. Turns out that there was this parent who was adamant that his son learn under me. The administrator said that the parents didn’t want any other teacher, ever since they saw me judging at the recent Piano Idol. And um…I was very flattered, and touched. No I wasn’t turning peacockish, but sometimes when you give your all to your music students and don’t find any gratitude returning, it can be pretty disconcerting. This was a nice change. Anyway, the parents pleaded with me for the whole of last month to please, please find a slot to fit their son in, and I eventually relented…I just couldn’t turn them down. So now I’m teaching their 9 year-old son, who is already preparing for his ABRSM Grade 6 practical exam next year. One happy pair of parents, and one happy teacher.

Another thing that made me smile recently was reconnecting with my MO (male offspring). Last week we went for a very nice lunch at one of the shopping malls here, and then we both hit the bookstore. It was nice, bearing in mind that teenagers normally don’t want to talk with their folks. I guess it’s sort of tuning in to each other’s wavebands or frequencies—just finding that sweet spot. So that was nice for me. And I hope it was nice for him too.

On top of that, I had another surprise coming from him. A few days ago he unplugged his Linksys wireless USB adapter and told me to keep it, since his final exams for the year were just around the corner and he wanted to focus on studying instead of browsing the web. I felt like the dad in Zits (the comic strip), my mouth was wide open and I was totally speechless–all I can say is, this MO does possess some responsibility after all (smiles).

Right now I’m typing this in Starbucks—muahaha!! My Dell Studio 15 is great, but be warned—the thing is heavy (around 5.5 lbs or 2.5 kg). Using a backpack (recommended!) instead of a shoulder bag makes it better, but still it did cause my shoulders to ache, or is that a sign of old age, LOL. Then again, it’s super to get out of the confines of home and blog elsewhere…just have to filter the other customers out. And mein gott, the coffee isn’t what I’d call cheap; no I won’t be doing this too often. However, I gotta admit, it is enjoyable.

The only drawback is that I believe my desktop is shedding tears. A friend said that I’d definitely be abandoning my desktop for this girl…and it looks like she’s right. But don’t worry, my dear desktop—I won’t leave you, hee hee!

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After debating about it for over a year I decided to take the plunge and get myself a laptop. I’ve told myself over all these years that nah, I don’t need one…but it seems the time has come when it becomes necessary for me to have one. I opted for the Dell Studio 15 because it had just the right mix of what I’ve been looking for in a laptop—a powerful Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 3GB of RAM (free upgrade), backlit keyboard, a 320GB hard disk with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit preinstalled. That, coupled with the gorgeous Ruby Red cover, 3-year warranty against accidental damage, and a free Belkin Messenger backpack, sold me completely on it. Furthermore the audio quality is excellent, a far cry from previous Studio laptops. The icing on the cake was when it connected without fuss to my Linksys wireless network at home—wunderbar!

Some minor niggles? Well get this—no indicator lights for hard disk operation, Caps Lock, etc. In fact the only light is the Power On thingy on the right-hand side of the cover, but the power cord does have a cool blue light to show that it’s receiving juice from the mains. I solved the Caps Lock problem by turning on Toggle Keys in Windows, also a little picture icon appears on screen whenever Caps Lock is pressed. I still would have liked a Hard Disk indicator light though. And there are only three USB ports. My, aren’t we miserly, Dell. I’ve already used one USB port for my Logitech cordless mouse with its Nano receiver. Looks like I might have to get a USB hub later on. The glossy surface of the touch pad and the surrounding area is also prone to fingerprints and marks, so be prepared to do some occasional wiping.

Now I’m exploring the new Windows 7. Some changes compared to Vista of course. I didn’t like the new wider taskbar but that can be changed to a more Vista-ish one, thank goodness. The notification icons on the right are also just a ghostly white color—oh well, can’t have everything. And I was surprised that Microsoft didn’t bug (excuse me, prompt) me to install their latest Live programs—I installed Live Mail, Writer, and Messenger since I use these three programs. I hated the way Windows Live Messenger would not remain in the right taskbar notification area; it would stubbornly anchor itself on the left side near the Start button. I solved this by closing and exiting WLM, then right-clicking its icon on the Start menu and selecting Properties. Choose Compatibility Mode for Vista, click OK, and restart WLM. You’ll find that WLM now resides in the right taskbar notification area.

That’s it for now, typing this on the Dell. It feels great!

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