30 Dec 2007

The crash

I knew it was Inevitable - that it was going to happen one day but when it did, it caught me by surprise. Yes! My eBay computer (so called because it was bought on eBay) suddenly crashed in the morning yesterday. Now to think of it, it's quite surprising that it didn't crash earlier.

Spent a couple of hours making repeated attempts to restart it and later to recover the files inside. The OS simply wouldn't load up. Fortunately I had saved all the important stuff on my storage device and online on IDrive. I probably should have waited for my friend Kyrzul (who's an IT professional) to come back from London but I was impatient and I made a big mistake.

I have an original XP Professional installation disk and quickly loaded it up on my computer, formatting the whole hard disk in the process. It was only after I installed it that I remembered about the Windows activation issue and their stupid "One license, one computer". And there it was, a bubble telling me that I only have 30 days to activate my copy of the operating system. Gives myself a kick on the back side.

I assumed that with the release of Windows Vista, the price of XP would have fallen drastically but no. A "Windows Genuine Advantage Kit" (for Windows XP Professional) would cost me £95.47. Now I am in a dilemma whether to buy the kit or get a pirated copy. I have to admit that the later option is proving to be really tempting. I will also try talking to their customer service and see what they say.

Hoping for the best, I spent most of the day installing the drivers and all my favourite software including Firefox, AVG anti virus, Zone alarm, Irfanview and loads of others, mostly freeware.

Will keep you guys updated.

29 Dec 2007

Shopping for ipod accessories

It seems like everyone around me has an iPod from the low end iPod shuffle to the latest iPod Touch. The portable media players designed and marketed by Apple has become almost a fashion icon. Despite the presence of cheaper and some say, better portable media players, everybody I asked would rather buy the iPod - in fact any iPod. I guess the brand image and the "cool" factor is what makes the iPod a must have gadget.

They are not cheap either. The cheapest - iPod shuffle starts from £41.70 (ex VAT) and goes up to £228.94 (ex VAT) for the top of the range iPod Touch.

It amazing but whole businesses have been built up supplying all kinds of ipod accessories. These range from head phones to extremely costly iPod speakers.


PDO TopSkin for iPhone

There is also one obvious problem with the iPod, I won't call it a defect but as every iPod owner I have talked to confirms, the shiny covers are very susceptible to scratches. Thankfully there is an amazing range of covers for almost any generation of iPod that you may own. Check out the range of covers for the iPod, other MP3 players and phones (including the iPhone)on the PDO store site.

25 Dec 2007

Setting up the Netgear wireless router

A couple of guys have asked me how I went about setting up my old Netgear router to run with TalkTalk after they read my post 'Reconnected finally' on my ah ok lah blog. I thought that it might be a good idea for a post. I have to warn you though, it is a bit technical.

The router I have is a Netgear DG834G Wireless Route. It came for free with the AOL broadband package I had prior to signing up with TalkTalk.

Just follow the steps. Just make sure that all the cables have been connected properly - network cable from router to computer and telephone line to router.

1. Open up the location http://192.168.0.1 on your browser.

i. You will see the login pop up as given below:


ii. The default user name is admin and the default password is password

iii. Once you are logged in, you should choose: Encapsulation PPPoA (PPP over ATM)

iv. Fill in your TalkTalk Login and password (that they had posted to you).



v. Click "Apply"

2. Under ADSL settings, choose:

i. Multiplexing Method: VC-BASED
ii. VPI : 0
iii. VCI : 38



iv. Click "Apply"

3. Now to make your network secure (security-enabled wireless network) , open Wireless Settings.



i. Choose an SSID (that will be your wireless network name)
ii. Under 'Security Options', choose WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access Pre-Shared Key)

NOTE:
I choose WPA encryption. I am not sure but apparently, it is more secure than WEP (Wired Equvalent Privacy) encryption.

iii. Choose your unique network key (between 8-63 characters) under WPA-PSK Encryption.

You are done.

21 Dec 2007

Web hosting guide


"Which web hosting company do you recommend?" is one of the most common queries I receive. Well, my answer is that it depends on your requirement and more importantly, your budget. I have tried out several hosts and at present, have websites hosted with 5 different hosts. For example, this blog "SEO Expert" is hosted with Blogger totally FOC.

Anyway, I do keep an eye out for the best deals to recommend to my clients as well as friends who often ask me for my opinion. Just came across one of the best web hosting guides at http://www.webhostingchoice.com. What makes this site stand out from others is the fact that this site is totally ad free.

Searching for your right Web Host is quite easy. Just fill in your desired maximum monnthly Cost and maximum setup fee as well as your desired minimum diskspace (MB) and minimum bandwidth (GB). Then clicking the "Search for Hosts" button should give you a list of all the web hosts that fulfill your requirements.

They have a number of useful information on the site and one that I found particularly interesting was their page on web host scams. I have fallen for some of the tricks mentioned there in the past. If you are new to web hosting, I definitely recommend that you go through their "quick start" page.

19 Dec 2007

Who's a Dot Net Mogul

I am sure you have heard about the Dot Net Moguls and one day as I was reading a post on John Chow's post on the "requirements to be a dot com mogul", I suddenly realised I could never be one. The reason - my blog is a Dot Net not a Dot Com. As a joke, I wrote "Dot Net Mogul in the making" in my blog's description.

Imagine my delight when I found out that I am #2 on Google for the search terms "Dot Net Mogul", just behind Stephen Fung.

Yeah!

UPDATE: As of 20th Dec, 2007, I am #1 on Google.

18 Dec 2007

SEO Expert and Google

Someone emailed me saying that my blog name was misleading as there were not many posts on search engine optimization. Well! that's true but as pointed out on my blog description, SEO is just one of the topics that will be covered in this blog. Having said that, I have to admit that I haven't been blogging about SEO or search engine related topics for quite sometime.

In fact, a search on Google for the terms - SEO Expert, shows that my blog has dropped to the seventh results page. It's even worse on Google UK - my blog is now on the 15th results page. That's a far cry from the days when my blog was #5 for the search term and that was not long ago.
Now got to try and bring it back up again.

12 Dec 2007

The Sony Ericsson music monster



Sony Ericsson has come up with a great fun interactive site called My Music Monster where you can create your own unique Music Monster.

Choose the music you like the most (you have four to choose from) and then choose the characteristics of your monster. You can create as many as you like.

I went with the rocker who like riffs. Since this is the festive season, I decided to have my Music Monster put on some Santa gear. And this is how it looks:


Download them to your desktop or send them to your friends.

That's not all. They are having a competition where you can enter your monster for a chance to win “Monster of the Month”. The prizes: a Sony Ericsson W960i Walkman® phone and for the runner-ups, two W580i Walkman® phones each.

11 Dec 2007

Using the 3 Skypephone as a modem



The reason that I haven't not been able to update my blogs regularly or reply to your comments and queries is because I am still waiting for my broadband connection at home to be set up. It's been more than 3 weeks now but TalkTalk still hasn't sent me the modem and installation CD as yet. Read my post : "TalkTalk Broadband update".

We are really fortunate that we have two 3 Skypephones that we can use as a modem to connect to the Internet using 3's 3G connection network (that sounds kind of funny).

To do that, I had to use the installation CD that came with the phone. It installed 2 applications, namely the Skypephone's PCSync and the modem USB driver. Once installed, connecting to the web was a breeze. All I had to do was connect the phone to my laptop using the USB cable and hit the "connect" button.



In initially has some problems getting on the web even though I had the phone connected. The phone was simply not detected. Later on realised that I need to have the PCSync application on as well. There were no problems after that.

Initially, whenever we got connected, we would be taken to this page which informed us that the connection would cost us £1 per Mb. It was kind of annoying but we finally got the point and went for the Internet Add-ons option. £5 got us one whole month of Internet access (fair use policy, of course). We felt that it was more cost effective than the £2.50 for a week or 50p for a day options.

We are connected to the web at 115.2 Kbps. Though not broadband speed, in our predicament, it was way above acceptable.

BTW, get the chance to win not one but three Skypephones for free. Check out my post: "3 Skypephone competition".

7 Dec 2007

5 Dec 2007

End to spam comments

I recently wrote a post "Sick of comments with ads" after getting sick and tired of having to delete loads of spam comments everyday. However, quite recently I suddenly realised that I have not been receiving any spam comments on my blogs anymore.

The apparent reason - Blogger has modified the comments page so that now, there is no url field to fill in.



If you are registered with Blogger and signed in, the comment will include a link to your profile. Otherwise you can comment with a nick name or comment anonymously. I don't know why they left the third option as I know that most bloggers hate anonymous comments.

This is both good news and bad news.

Looking at the bright side, this move has definitely reduced the number of spam comments. On the other hand, I guess that this might put off a lot of bloggers who are now part of the "I Do Follow"movement.

If you are not registered with Blogger, just leave a comment with your nick and your blog/ site url in the text. However, I still hate spam comments.

Fake HM Revenue & Customs site

So far I have been contacted by phishers using sites that look like eBay, PayPal, Amazon.com and Maybank.

The latest one is from a site that masquerades as the HM Revenue & Customs site. here's the email I received:

from HM
to ahoklah@gmail.com,
date Dec 1, 2007 2:15 PM
subject HM Revenue & Customs - Notification


Please Note: After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of:

£2195

Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 15-30 days in order to process it.
A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

To access the form for your tax refund,click here

..........................

On clicking the link, I was led to this site which was automatically identified by my Firefox browser as a suspected scam site.



The url of the site led me to Framingplace.net. Tried to find out more about the site and I got the following information:

Current Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
IP Address: 66.51.113.156 (ARIN & RIPE IP search)
IP Location: CA(CANADA)-ALBERTA-EDMONTON
Record Type: Domain Name
Server Type: Apache 1
Lock Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Web Site Status: Active
DMOZ no listings
Y! Directory: see listings
Web Site Title: The Framing Place & Gallery
Meta Description: The Framing Place and Gallery is your resource for art and frames.
Meta Keywords: frames, framing place, group of seven, group of 7, bought, buy, purchase, art, paintings, prints, reproductions, framing, oils, prints, canada, canadian, algonquin park, algonquin art, algonquin artists, huntsville, ontario, muskoka, muskoka art, muskoka
Secure: No
E-commerce: Yes
Traffic Ranking: Not available
Data as of: 25-Apr-2006


Digging further ....

Registry Whois

OrgName: Tera-byte Dot Com Inc.
OrgID: TRBY
Address: Terminal Level
Address: 10004-104 Ave
City: Edmonton
StateProv: AB
PostalCode: T5J-0K1
Country: CA

ReferralServer: rwhois://rwhois.tera-byte.com:4321/

NetRange: 66.51.96.0 - 66.51.127.255
CIDR: 66.51.96.0/19
NetName: TERA-BYTE-2
NetHandle: NET-66-51-96-0-1
Parent: NET-66-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: NS1.TERA-BYTE.COM
NameServer: NS2.TERA-BYTE.COM
NameServer: NS3.TERA-BYTE.COM
Comment: Reassignment information for this block is available at:
Comment: rwhois.tera-byte.com 4321
RegDate: 2000-12-26
Updated: 2002-12-12

RTechHandle: NO58-ORG-ARIN
RTechName: Network Operations Centre
RTechPhone: +1-780-413-1868
RTechEmail: 66.51.113.156&email=0' border='0' align='middle'>

OrgAbuseHandle: NO58-ORG-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: Network Operations Centre
OrgAbusePhone: +1-780-413-1868
OrgAbuseEmail: noc@tera-byte.com

OrgNOCHandle: NO58-ORG-ARIN
OrgNOCName: Network Operations Centre
OrgNOCPhone: +1-780-413-1868
OrgNOCEmail: noc@tera-byte.com

OrgTechHandle: NO58-ORG-ARIN
OrgTechName: Network Operations Centre
OrgTechPhone: +1-780-413-1868
OrgTechEmail: noc@tera-byte.com


Better be careful.

4 Dec 2007

Unique gift for Christmas

Christmas is just 21 days away and if you are like the majority of the population, you are probably still wondering what to get for your loved ones this time. I talked to a few people and it was not surprising that the top on the list for ladies were perfumes and gadgets for guys.

Why not get them something unique, something that will be treasured?

I am referring to putting photos on canvas. 'Paint Your Life' is a company that specialises in painting portraits from your photographs. The photographs can be of your favourite pet, wedding portraits, baby pictures or even a landscape. Unlike other companies, these pictures are hand painted by real artists and not computer generated.

It's amazingly simple. You just upload a digital copy of the photo that you want painted. You then choose the style and media type (oil, charcoal, watercolour, etc) and the size. You then make a 20% advance payment and that's it.

You can even preview the painting before receiving it, so that if you are not satisfied, they will make the necessary changes to the painting. Do check the site for the prices and turn around time as they vary on the type of medium and size of the picture.


That's Kelly, one of their satisfied customers.

Will definitely make a treasured gift.