This is something interesting ….. something popped out onto my browser this morning without me realizing. I thought it was a damn spam, but it turns out it was P1! It says that my limit has been breached and I should consider paying a small amount to increase the limit!

P1 Thanks you for your over-usage

I’d say that this is certainly a welcomed strategy. Instead of throttling us like mad, they should give us the option to give a bit more to have my limit extended. And the package looks interesting enough, 2 GB for only RM10 during this promotional period!

Purchase more gigabytes here!

This works out to be the exactly the same price that I am paying now per gigabyte, but it won’t be such a good deal when the promotion is over. It’s valid for 30 days, more than enough for me though.

Edit one day later : I burnt through all the extra 2 Gigabytes that I purchased in less than 24 hours! That’s how “efficient” I am …. ahem ….

Unifi has come to my area! YES! Despite calls to boycott its service, I have made my own research and have decided that Unifi is the right broadband service for me.

My journey in getting myself wired to the internet harks back to the days of Jaring and TM dialup. For those of you old enough to remember, you would definitely be familiar with the whirring dialing tone of the damn phone trying to make a connection with the server. Frustrating it may be, we endured it because it was the only way to get ourselves online back then.

I used Streamyx when I moved to my home in Seri Kembangan. I still remembered that the account actually belonged to my ex-colleague Jayce who wanted to move to a new place and couldn’t terminate the account because it was still quite new. So I took over her Streamyx account, which was what I wanted anyway. It was the 512 kbps package with unlimited download. Sure, it kept disconnecting, and the speed leaves a lot to desire. But I tried Maxis broadband before and it was much worse! Believe me, at that time, Streamyx still rules!

Fast forward to 2009, I have decided that enough is enough. I downgraded my Streamyx to the cheapest package and applied for P1. Once P1 is more stable, I even terminated Streamyx, thanks to that very strong message from P1 asking us to potong. I only kept the phone line, but as far as I am concerned, my broadband life with TM has effectively been potong-ed. Or has it?

Being one of the earliest adopter of P1 has its advantage, I have the internet all to myself. But P1 is beginning to give me a lot of headaches too of late. It will behave nicely for 5 minutes, and in the next hour it will slow to a crawl. Probably the influx of people subscribing to the service in my area. I can only have a decent surf in the unearthly hours of the morning. At other times I will never be able to surf at all, especially at night. This is very frustrating, as this is the time when I got back home and expect to enjoy myself playing some Facebook games or checking mails.

Amidst the call to boycott Unifi due to its capping limit, I find that the cap limit is actually fair. Coming from a P1 user, I get to download only 20 measly gigabytes of data per month! At first when I used it I was not used to it. It basically means no more mindless torrenting all day. But come to think of it, I can’t really consume everything that I download every month. There is no time to watch all of these movies anyway with the two kids to take care of. I learn to prioritize what I really need and practise a little self-discipline. I call that broadband-abstinence!  So what if I were to be capped at 60 GBytes for the VIP5 package? No big deal for me really.

I can say for sure that P1 is set to lose its customer. It would seem that my love for TM broadband has returned. I have applied for Unifi service a week ago during its promotion period. The move by the government to give us a RM500 rebate for broadband service has sweeten the deal even more. I will soon be surfing at 5 MB/s, which, according to forums, is realistically achievable. Although this is by no means cheap compared to our neighbouring countries, this is already the best that we have at the moment!

WHOOWEEE!!!! I can now claim to be ahead of most of my friends here when it comes to technology! I just got myself an Apple iPad 2 weeks ago!

It was really an easy decision, Apple came out with Malaysia’s own iPad range that surprised everyone by being a lot cheaper than iPads brought in from overseas! That really hurt a lot of early adopters who paid more than RM3000 for their machines!

I got the iPad 32 GB wifi version, without the 3G. The reason why I got the wifi version was because I do not foresee myself surfing the internet wherever I go. I already have a wifi at home, so I’ll just surf at home, or when there is wifi available. If ever in the future I have a need to access to the internet wherever I may be, I’ll just subscribe to one of those packages with mifi modems. And why 32 GB? Because it’s more than16 GB, and it’s affordable at less than RM2000. (RM1849 to be exact, not including the screen protector and the cover)

mePad, it's relative size compared to my Microsoft PC. You can see the camera connection kit at the background

So how does it feel like in operation? Those who are already familiar with the iPhones will find themselves perfectly at ease using this machine. The touch screen is sensitive to the slightest swipe and touch. I would have been afraid to dent it by pressing it too hard at the screen (like the LG K900 phone I used to review), but the iPad felt secure and tough. The screen feels solid and looks like it can take a beating before falling apart. In fact, my colleague dropped it on a rock once, facing down! It survived the fall without a scratch on its screen. But then again it was protected with a screen protector. It really shows how wonderfully solid this piece of tablet is.

Apple’s app store has always been teeming with activities. There are a lot of free stuffs to be downloaded. But that’s not all, the magic comes when you jailbreak this baby! Jailbreaking is actually legal in US, so I do not see a reason why I shouldn’t do it. Besides it also unlocks features that ol’ Steve chooses to hide, like attaching a secondary flash drive or a USB keyboard via the camera connection kit, which I bought separately at RM99. Sure, it voids the warranty, but nothing stops you from connecting it back to iTunes and installing the non-jailbroken OS right? Jailbroken iPads also allows you to install certain apps which would otherwise be illegal; read: cracked softwares. And boy do they have a lot of them! I’m really surprised, there are more apps in these pirated Apple world than there is in Microsoft’s world! And the list keeps on growing, thanks to a thriving group of hackers. I salute you!

At this point of writing, the latest OS is 4.2.1, and it can already be jailbroken via redsn0w. Unfortunately it is a tethered jailbreak, meaning that for some reason that you restart the iPad, or you lose power, you MUST jailbreak it again via the USB cable attached to the computer. I can live with that. The process of jailbreaking itself can be tedious. Just remember to backup your iPad before attempting anything of this sort. I’m sure that you can find the detailed process from Google, but I just want to add these few pointers:

1. If for some reason you failed while JB-ing half-way, you can always restore it back to the unJailbroken state and start again. Therefore it helps if you have no apps and no music installed; backing up and restoring will otherwise take a long time. Trust me, I’ve done it a couple of times
2. For some reason, the first JB will always fail to properly install Cydia (you can tell by the blank white icon representing the Cydia app). This is, curiously enough, normal! You must do a second round of JB, this time using tethered boot only. Then your Cydia icon should appear correctly.
3. Open Cydia. See the bottom of Cydia, click on the globe icon “Sources”, click “Edit”, “Add” and enter “cydia.hackulo.us”. It will complain that it is a blocked third party site or some shit. Just ignore it, that’s the whole point of adding this in the first place!
4. Search for an app called “Installous” from Cydia. Install it! Start Installous and go crazy!

I’m not condoning software piracy via jailbreaking, the developers still need to earn money for developing their great app right? But there is nothing stopping us from err….. trying it out before we buy it right? ……… Right?

The girls playing with the iPad. Notice that it captures the moment when the the pinch and zoom thing works its magic

The iPad is a great tool for consuming media. But it is lousy in creating media, even medias as simple as a word document. That is its only weakness I’m afraid. But use it with apps like DocsToGo and you’ll do wonders with it! You’ve got to love its instant-on feature, so sometimes when I really want to check something online, I find myself going to the iPad. It’s just so much easier and faster to use it, instead of waiting for the Windows PC to boot up.

The kids love it too! Probably because of its mouseless feature, they can quite easily pick up the interface. Nowadays with almost everything featuring touch screens, I wouldn’t be surprised if our future generation does not even know how to use the mouse!

And oh one more thing, I contacted LHDN, and they did mention that as long as the iPad does not feature any phone features, it is considered a personal computer. Computer rebate for me next year! YAY!!

Also did you notice that DoubleClick requires a cooling period of 45 to 60 minutes before the changes are visible! Compare this with just 15 to 30 minutes with OpenX! *hopeless case* Also, DoubleClick server might not necessarily sit near to you physically; most may sit half-way around the world, while OpenX is essentially just next door.

I can go on and on. But why do we still migrate to DoubleClick then?  Good question, one which I may not have full answer. Perhaps its affiliation with Google makes it cooler? Also we did not want to use so many servers, so by using DoubleClick, we are actually saving on the number of servers (albeit we only saved one lousy server)

This is nightmare! After upgrading my v1.5.4 SimpleViewer to version 2, to my horror, none of my galleries worked! Upon further googling then only I found out that the new version has been written from the ground up, leaving earlier adopters like yours truly, dangling. The author of the software was also very unhelpful, they never give us any steps on how to migrate our galleries over. * snort ! * The least they could do was to highlight what’s in the new version that is not in the old! Fortunately the author of the software came up with a workaround, but I have yet to try it. Besides, I would prefer to conform to new standards rather than to get myself stuck in old codes, especially if the new ones are better.

I will document down what are changed, and perhaps more importantly, how you can convert your previous versions of 1.5.4 SimpleViewer plugin for WordPress to version 2.0.4

The left SV menu

As you can see, the left menu contains only “Edit Galleries”, no “Add Gallery”. Which means that you no longer add a SV gallery before you create your post. The gallery is actually added at the same time as the creation of your post. This is a very important departure from the previous versions that makes all the difference, as far as I know. My guess is as good as yours as far as why they want to do this. It does not add to the overall experience of using the plugin, as you will realize later, and I painfully discovered.

To add a new post with SV gallery, you first create a new WordPress post using the normal way. Then you attach images to the post, just like you would upload those images directly onto that post.

Add an Image here

Select your image files and go. You do not need to “Insert into Post” the images. They will somehow be “attached” to your post now. Weird concept, I know. They do not offer an option to “unattach” the images, but that’s another rambling.

Next comes the interesting part, insert the SimpleViewer gallery itself. Click on the SV “eye” button.

Add SimpleViewer Gallery

The option screen below will be shown:

SV gallery option screen

This option screen should be quite familiar. Most of the options from previous SimpleViewer are there, but note the Image Source. By default Flickr is selected. This means that you can actually stream your images from your Flickr account! YAY! This is the only good news about SV v2, although I would actually want a Picasa gallery instead.

For our purpose of migration, we shall now choose WordPress Library. Here’s the funny thing, it does not allow you to choose WHICH directory to pull from. It will only pull images that are attached to this post, as highlighted in the earlier steps. Click “Add Gallery” and you’re good to go.

So how do we salvage our galleries? First as you will probably guessed by now, you will need to move your images to the wp-content/uploads folder in your server. But you can’t just plonk the entire folder there. You should instead move them to their respective month-year locations. I know what you’re thinking, I can always disable the “Organize my uploads into month- and year-based folders” in Settings – Media. But I tried, my Media Library still does not see my folder! Grrr!!!

With that done, you will still need to generate the various thumbnails in order to be attached properly to your post. That’s where Add from Server comes in handy. Install that plugin and get some work done.

Time to get dirty. Edit your old post. Click “Add An Image”. Assuming you have already installed “Add from Server”, you should see this:

Add from Server

Navigate to the location where you saved your images earlier in the server.

Navigate to your folder

Select all the images there. Leave the “Do not add selected files to current post Gallery” checkbox unchecked. Click Import.

Select all and Import

Click “Media Library” and your images should now be added to the post. This is shown next to the Gallery tab. The number next to the Gallery shows how many images are now attached to your post. Click on the Gallery tab.

Click Media Library and Gallery (xx) should appear

The stupid thing here is that the files are arranged with the newest image first. I don’t know about you, but I want the viewers to view my first images, first. So you might want to arrange the images here. Click on “Descending”, then “Save all changes”. Close the option screen and return to your post. Do not click “Insert Gallery”.

*Optional * You may also include the captions here, which will appear in the final SV gallery. But I have too many captions in too many galleries, so I will do that manually in later steps.

Click on the SV eye icon. Here you will choose the options for your gallery like background colour, location of the thumbnails, theme, etc. To mimic closely the look of the previous gallery, choose:

1. Image source = WordPress Library
2. Gallery style = Modern
3. Background Colour = 000000 (black, optional)
4. Frame Width = (Anything more than zero, optional)

Click Add Gallery. You will notice the new line of SV codes in your post now. You may now remove the old SV codes. Save your post. That’s it for the steps in WordPress.

But there is more. I don’t know where the bug is, but most of the times the images will not load properly in the final SV gallery. This will require one final workaround. Note the gallery_id in the SV code. Go to your wp-content/uploads folder using your FTP client. Find the XML file that corresponds to the gallery_id earlier. Edit it and you will find that sometimes the location will be jumbled up. The behaviour is random, so I can’t really pinpoint what error you will see. But using a simple text editor, you will be able to fix it in no time.

Remember I mentioned that I can also capture the caption from my previous galleries? Well, the good news is that the “caption” node is mostly similar between the old and new XML. So using a combination of a spreadsheet editor and text editor, you will be able to import the old captions over, without ever losing anything!

That’s a very long and tiring workaround, I know. But it beats having to upload ALL my images and typing all the captions again! If you have a better idea, I’m all ears!

Now if you’d excuse me, I have a hundred more galleries to migrate …..

6:30 am : She woke up, the kids and I are still asleep. Washed the cloths, 4 pails of them! I am not working today, so sleeps until quite late. Normally I do the washing.

7:00 am : I’m still not yet awake, so she kicked me up. I promised to go see how her typical day would look like.

7:34 am : Barely makes it out from Bandar Putra Permai. There is a terrible jam near the construction site where they are still building Giant. But then again, it is always jammed at the damn Serdang Interchange, with or without the Giant.

7:50 am : Still in MRR2, despite going rather hastily against the rest of the traffic. Suddenly realize she forgot to bring Kit Yan’s Twinkle Star uniform.

8:07 am : Arrived in Tadika Mutiara. Assembly already started, and Kit Yan had to endure the embarrassment of coming in late. Braved the dreaded traffic again to go to Pandan Indah, barely 5 km away, but feels like 50 km.

8:22 am : Arrived in Pandan Indah, had a quick breakfast, prepared everything for a tuition class at 9 am.

9:00 am till 10:50 am : TUITION!!

10:50 am : Drove back to pick up Kit Yan who is due to end at 11 am. Checked with the teacher which homework she has to do to pick up on her missing days on Tuesday and Wednesday. Drove all the way to Ampang to buy lunch packs. Cheapest lunch pack around.

11:54 am : Force Kit Yan to take a bath. Something is very wrong with the electrical system at the centre, called the electricians but they just refuse to come! Now the main receptionist area is without proper air-cond. Make the kids gobble up their food.

12:30 pm : Dropped Kit Yan at her nursery in Tadika Twinkle Star, proceed to drop off another kid. Had to use short cuts in the afternoon rush hour. She told me I was lucky, the weather is not so hot. I can’t imagine a much warmer afternoon than this! GULP!

12:35 pm : The kid did not finish his homework! He better finish it in the car before he reaches school. She had to teach AND drive at the same time! Talk about multi-tasking!

12:52 pm : Dropped him off at the school compound. I find the traffic rather messy, but she assured me, I ain’t seen nothing yet! And she was right, as I would soon find out. Had to park haphazardly by the roadside to wait for the other kid.

1:05 pm : Got the kid, now to the next school to pick up another one by the 九王爺 area. THAT IS A NIGHTMARE! The roads are small, the school buses squeeze through the tiny lanes! Picked up 3 more kids.

1:24 pm : Arrived at the centre, straight away got another class at 1:30 pm. Another teacher was on Annual Leave, so the centre had more students than teachers! Parents and students thronged the centre constantly for inquiries!

3:10 pm : Luckily the electrician finally shows up! Briefed him on what are the problems and he got on his way.

3:50 pm : Time to pick up Kit Yan. She seem so happy to see me! Good that the nursery confirmed my identity before I pick her up.

4:15 pm : I forced Kit Yan to open her books. I flipped through her books and see which homework needs to be done. While I was teaching her, some other students approached me! They thought I am a teacher too and started bombarding questions at me! At first I just helped whenever I can, but later I suddenly became a teacher too! * Sigh * The centre was too deprived of teacher at that time, despite another 2 more teachers already turned up.

4:30 to 6:30 pm : The peak of activity! Boys shouting, running around. One refused to eat his lunch, yes at 5 pm! Lucky the air-cond came online, but there are still things the electrician needs to do. Parents called to pick up their kids too, so more people coming in and out!

7:00 pm : Things died down. The last teacher and student left. Kit Yan was already very tired. Waited till the electrician finishes.

8:00 pm : Turned off everything and locked the door. Went to meet an old friend Jacqualine in Mines. Kit Yan was so excited to see her.

9:50 pm : Left Mines, dropped Jacqualine at her home, and went home. As we approached Bandar Putra Permai, Kit Yan was already unconscious.

~WOOT!! Not enough with just a pair of tickets, I’ve decided to enter Mei Fen’s name in it too, and guess what? She also won the tickets! We are so going to catch the movie!

Four Buzz Lightyear tickets

We’re allowed to choose either Sunway or KLCC. Of course we choose Sunway since it’s nearer to us.

NO RECORDING! Oh sorry, I didn't know that!

Point at the readers, will ya?

Daddy : Okay girls, point at the readers, will ya?

Kit Yan : Okay daddy, is the reader up?

Hui Yan : Point. Okay got it. But my ear is itchy…..

We were there on Saturday night too to catch the fireworks, but unfortunately by the time we reached there, the fireworks was already starting! So did not take any pictures that night.

We went there again very very early in the morning, the entire family. Needless to say, the kids were excited!

Even though we were already considered early, there were already balloons flying up in the sky by the time we got there. There were some famous ones that I did not manage to take, such as the Darth Vader, the Levi’s and the Orange.

Here are some pictures taken from the fair that I liked:

Can you go up any further?

This was taken on our way back. I stopped at the bridge (dare not stop long, got policemen!) and quickly grabbed a few shots.

View from the bridge

More pictures at my album.

I’m sorry blog, I’ve been really busy lately. I only have time to update something now because I have more or less settled some big stuffs. I have now finished my 9-month assignment in KL, and starting tomorrow I will go to work in Cyberjaya again. Life will need some adjustments.

I have also embarked on two major photography projects. One was a trip to Bangkok during the Chinese New Year. Another is the wedding of my ex-colleague. I have yet the time to completely process the batches of pictures. The only thing I have now is the slideshow. So there you go, to prove that I am not telling a lie, here is the video ….