UniFi - Malaysia's High Speed Broadband

Today I got my UniFI installed. Its the FIRST high speed broadband in Malaysia. Considering it quite new, the whole experience is just Marvelous !!

First the installation guy came ( FREE Installation now ), find the nearest fiber optic box ...

The whole things they did outside took about 2 hours ... basically they pulled a fiber optic cable into my place.

then they climb around the house, getting the lines connected.

by default, they just follow the phone line location, then they also follow the Astro line so that they don't need plan any new routes.

This is the box separating 'outside' and 'inside'. The black line above connects to outside, the white line connect into the house.

This is the hole they drilled into the house.

This is the 'white' fiber optic lines - for indoor use.

The whole packages comes with a modem ( The black one ) and a WiFi router ( the white one ). The modem itself also have 4 LAN ports so all together with the router, there are plenty of ports to use.

The cute guy did some test and paper work setting up the whole thing ...

another guy did a little bit praying in front of the computer, hoping I will not complain about the download speed.

This is the TV box. Surprisingly the whole TV viewing experience is great too ! Its really comparable to Astro (satellite cable TV) if not better.

Press 101 to see all the channels

and I have a new wireless phone too. FREE calls to all national land lines.

Tons of boxes left here for me to dive into the technical documents later should I feel like doing so ... but I don't have to cause everything works fine.

The whole process took about 3-4 hours. The tough part is pulling the line from outside into the house. Once that is done and the fiber optic line is 'cap' ... we could have done the rest of the installation in house ourselves.

Now, 5Mbps download speed is really nothing special but the UPLOAD is also 5Mbps !! For those who knows, this means we can host our own servers !!!

More details can be found at UniFi web site

At RM 149 a month with 2 years contract you get

• a clear TV channels with Video On Demand ( Free 100 points equivalent to about 5-10 movies or 3 sets of TV series ),
• a wireless phone with FREE national calls
• fiber optic line 5Mbps, both upload and download !

It may not be the CHEAPEST deal in town but its definitely is a Value for Money deal. The only thing one does NOT want to take this deal is the 2 years contract. Just in case another better technology comes in next year, you are still stuck with this Unifi. But I really don't see that coming.

If you are already paying for your phone line, streamyx and if you only watch basic channels in Astro, its time to SWITCH !!!

Get offline FULL installation copy of IE6 SP1

If you still have a lot of OLD PCs running Windows 98, NT4 etc. IE6 is most widely accepted browser up to Windows 2000. So it may be a good idea to standardize IE6 SP1 as your web browser.

In order to download a FULL copy of IE6 SP1 so that you can install at multiple PCs within your network, simply download ie6setup.exe and then run this command.

ie6setup.exe /c:"ie6wzd.exe /d:1 /s:""#E"

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Remote control your own PC for FREE

If you are one of those who love VNC, a software that allows you to remotely assess your PC easily, then you will love TeamViewer even more.

The biggest problem for VNC is security. Basically you install the full suite VNC on a PC ( with server and client ) then you can assess to this PC anytime anywhere with a PASSWORD. But if you have heard a little bit about black hat hacking society, hacking your PASSWORD is as easy as running a password cracking software. So if once someone is on to you, you can bet that he can easily google around and get into your PC with less than USD 10.

The 2nd problem with VNC is screen resolution. If the server resolution is HIGHER than the PC you are assessing from, then you are controlling a screen that is larger than your physical screen. So you have to scroll here and there to get things done.

Apparently, TeamViewer has done a great market research on all the other competitors. They have incorporate a tons of features that make sense. Hence it doesn't have any problems mentioned above.

There is a whitelist and blacklist function. You can simply ALLOW one of your other PC to remotely assess your server. That way, there is almost impossible for any other people to get on your server. TeamViewer will also automatically change the screen resolution to match your client PC. You will never need to worry different resolution because you can always control your server easily from a window that is smaller than you current screen.

Just go ahead and try TeamViewer if you need to remotely assess your PC.

As of now, all personal usage is FREE! But any commercial use is chargeable. I really look up to this software provider and I wouldn't be surprise if they start charging even for personal use. So download it fast before its too late ....

Facebook Dead

After much talks, the moment I use facebook for work .... its dead. :)

dated 22 April 2010 11:40pm ( GMT +8 )

Windows Search, Desktop Search, Desktop Search Windows

Windows Search, Desktop Search, Desktop Search Windows ... whatever you call it, most users are just not sure how to search in google when they have problems with Windows Desktop Search.

The idea is that as disk drives become cheaper, PC users tend to leave more stuff not organized in their computers. There is really no need to keep "everything" in order, just create a new folder and have a fresh start every time you feel lost. Especially whatever left behind is not something you use all the time but then again its important to find it when needed. So index search is created.

Google is well known for its searching capability so it is them who first came out with Google Desktop Search. Basically index search will first scan through your files and create a database about them. When you search something, it will read from the database first rather than searching from all the files and therefore the search result appears faster.

As usual, Windows followed suit, created similar function, build them into their OS distribution and claimed they have been having it since stone ages. Its just that they make it to public since XP. But their functions don't become stable until Vista and is really usable only after Windows 7.

One of the biggest problems of index search is to achieve its balance. If you think carefully, all it does is to search first or search in ahead of time, even before you need to search anything. Hence, its really a matter of wasting the resources first and then later give you the appearance that it is faster. If you are a guy who really doesn't search much, index search will basically waste more of your system resources.

In order to keep the index search database up to date, it will have to search anything that has recently been changed. So another process must be watching for file changes all the time. Again, wasting a lot of resources just to prepare to give you an illusion of speed.

For others who need index search, one of the biggest problems could be its speed. It may significantly slow down the system. When this happens, it is most probably you have enabled index search on the whole drive or even All the drives.

By doing so, you basically have created a duplicate of your original file system index. So searching from the new index is no different than the old index and yet the system will search both indexes. Hence slowing down the whole thing.

You should NEVER NEVER NEVER index search a whole drive. You should only index search your own stuff. Whatever directories and files you created yourself, those would be worth while to be indexed. The system already know where their system files are, there is NO NEED for you to help them index anything.

The #1 reason whey desktop search is slow is because users have enabled index search on the whole drive or all the drives.

keyboard shortcuts in Google Chrome

I have found the following shortcuts that can be used in Google Chrome in a Windows PC. I hope you will find it useful too. For chrome in Linux and Macs, check out this source link.

Ctrl+N	Opens a new window.
Ctrl+T	Opens a new tab.
Ctrl+Shift+N	Opens a new window in incognito mode.
Press Ctrl+O, then select file.	Opens a file from your computer in Google Chrome.
Press Ctrl and click a link. Or click a link with your middle mouse button (or mousewheel).	Opens the link in a new tab in the background .
Press Ctrl+Shift and click a link. Or pressShift and click a link with your middle mouse button (or mousewheel).	Opens the link in a new tab and switches to the newly opened tab.
Press Shift and click a link.	Opens the link in a new window.
Ctrl+Shift+T	Reopens the last tab you've closed. Google Chrome remembers the last 10 tabs you've closed.
Drag a link to a tab.	Opens the link in the tab.
Drag a link to a blank area on the tab strip.	Opens the link in a new tab.
Drag a tab out of the tab strip.	Opens the tab in a new window.
Drag a tab out of the tab strip and into an existing window.	Opens the tab in the existing window.
Press Esc while dragging a tab.	Returns the tab to its orginal position.
Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+8	Switches to the tab at the specified position number on the tab strip.
Ctrl+9	Switches to the last tab.
Ctrl+Tab or Ctrl+PgDown	Switches to the next tab.
Ctrl+Shift+Tab or Ctrl+PgUp	Switches to the previous tab.
Alt+F4	Closes the current window.
Ctrl+W or Ctrl+F4	Closes the current tab or pop-up.
Click a tab with your middle mouse button (or mousewheel).	Closes the tab you clicked.
Right-click, or click and hold either the Back or Forward arrow in the browser toolbar.	Displays your browsing history in the tab.
Press Backspace, or Alt and the left arrow together.	Goes to the previous page in your browsing history for the tab.
Press Shift+Backspace, or Alt and the right arrow together.	Goes to the next page in your browsing history for the tab.
Press Ctrl and click either the Back arrow, Forward arrow, or Go button in the toolbar. Or click either button with your middle mouse button (or mousewheel).	Opens the button destination in a new tab in the background.
Double-click the blank area on the tab strip.	Maximizes the window.
Alt+Home	Opens your homepage in your current window.

Google Chrome feature shortcuts

Ctrl+B	Toggles the bookmarks bar on and off.
Ctrl+Shift+B	Opens the Bookmark manager.
Ctrl+H	Opens the History page.
Ctrl+J	Opens the Downloads page.
Shift+Esc	Opens the Task Manager.
Shift+Alt+T	Sets the focus on the browser toolbar. Use right and left arrows on the keyboard to navigate to different buttons on the toolbar.
Ctrl+Shift+J	Opens Developer Tools.
Ctrl+Shift+Delete	Opens the Clear Browsing Data dialog.
F1	Opens the Help Center in a new tab (our favorite).

Address bar shortcuts

Use the following shortcuts in the address bar:

Type a search term, then press Enter.	Performs a search using your default search engine.
Type a search engine keyword, press Space, type a search term, and press Enter.	Performs a search using the search engine associated with the keyword.
Begin typing a search engine URL, press Tabwhen prompted, type a search term, and pressEnter.	Performs a search using the search engine associated with the URL.
Ctrl+Enter	Adds www. and .com to your input in the address bar and open the resulting URL.
Type a URL, then press Alt+Enter.	Opens the URL in a new tab.
F6 or Ctrl+L or Alt+D	Highlights the URL.
Ctrl+K or Ctrl+E	Places a '?' in the address bar. Type a search term after the question mark to perform a search using your default search engine.
Press Ctrl and the left arrow together.	Moves your cursor to the preceding key term in the address bar
Press Ctrl and the right arrow together.	Moves your cursor to the next key term in the address bar
Ctrl+Backspace	Deletes the key term that precedes your cursor in the address bar
Select an entry in the address bar drop-down menu with your keyboard arrows, then pressShift+Delete.	Deletes the entry from your browsing history, if possible.
Click an entry in the address bar drop-down menu with your middle mouse button (or mousewheel).	Opens the entry in a new tab in the background.
Press Page Up or Page Down when the address bar drop-down menu is visible.	Selects the first or last entry in the drop-down menu.

Webpage shortcuts

Ctrl+P	Prints your current page.
Ctrl+S	Saves your current page.
F5 or Ctrl+R	Reloads your current page.
Esc	Stops the loading of your current page.
Ctrl+F	Opens the find bar.
Ctrl+G or F3	Finds the next match for your input in the find bar.
Ctrl+Shift+G, Shift+F3, or Shift+Enter	Finds the previous match for your input in the find bar.
Click the middle mouse button (or mousewheel).	Activates auto-scrolling. As you move your mouse, the page automatically scrolls according to the direction of the mouse.
Ctrl+F5 or Shift+F5	Reloads your current page, ignoring cached content.
Press Alt and click a link.	Downloads the target of the link.
Ctrl+U	Opens the source of your current page.
Drag a link to bookmarks bar	Bookmarks the link.
Ctrl+D	Bookmarks your current webpage.
F11	Opens your page in full-screen mode. PressF11 again to exit full-screen.
Ctrl and +, or press Ctrl and scroll your mousewheel up.	Enlarges everything on the page.
Ctrl and -, or press Ctrl and scroll your mousewheel down.	Makes everything on the page smaller.
Ctrl+0	Returns everything on the page to normal size.
Space bar	Scrolls down the web page.
Home	Goes to the top of the page.
End	Goes to the bottom of the page.
Press Shift and scroll your mousewheel.	Scrolls horizontally on the page.

Text shortcuts

Ctrl+C	Copies highlighted content to the clipboard.
Ctrl+V or Shift+Insert	Pastes content from the clipboard.
Ctrl+Shift+V	Paste content from the clipboard without formatting.
Ctrl+X or Shift+Delete	Deletes the highlighted content and copies it to the clipboard.

account pay pal real cost

As of early 2010, there are already 150 millions PayPal users over 190 countries. No doubt it is the BIGGEST payment service provider in the world, it is definitely one of the methods you should use too but is it the BEST you can have or should it be your primary payment processor ? What is account Pay Pal real cost ?

There is NO startup cost to sign up with PayPal, that is why they have so many users. But despite many confusion, there are actually charges when you receive payments in your PayPal account. In Malaysia a flat fee MYR 2 plus a percentage is charged on every transaction. The percentage fee will depends on your total monthly received funds ranging from 2.4% to 3.4%.

Monthly Sales	Price Per Transaction
RM0.00 MYR - RM12,000.00 MYR	3.4% + RM2.00 MYR
RM12,000.01 MYR - RM40,000.00 MYR	2.9% + RM2.00 MYR
RM40,000.01 MYR - RM400,000.00 MYR	2.7% + RM2.00 MYR
> RM400,000.00 MYR	2.4% + RM2.00 MYR

For example, if you receive a total of MYR 1,000 in ONE transaction in a particular month, you will be charged MYR 2 + MYR 34 = MYR 36. An equivalent of 3.6%

So the less money you receive in a month, the higher fee you paid: For example, if you receive MYR 100 in a particular month, your fee is effectively 5.4%

Its even more ridiculous if you receive less than MYR 10 a month, in which case you will be charged 23.4% fee. If you receive MYR 1 that month, not only you do not really get any profit, you will be charged 203.4% or you will have to pay PayPal MYR 2.03 in order to receive MYR 1 so you end with - MYR 1.03 loss !

The more number of transactions you have in a month, the more you will pay too. For example in below chart, assuming your month end total received fund is MYR 100 but the number of transactions you have are different. You will see if you receive MYR 10 in 10 times in that month, your cost of using PayPal will be 23.4%

So PayPal is only GOOD for VERY EXPENSIVE stuff that you sell ONCE A BLUE MOON. Its VERY BAD if you have plans to increase sale volume using pricing strategy ...

The numbers shown here is Malaysia specific but the derived concept apply in most places ...

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