Test your Web Browser against HTML 5

You can test how ready is your web browser for HTML5 by simply visiting html5test.com

seems like IE doesn't care about HTML 5 at all . . .

Building more than ONE PC

When building more than one windows computer, its important to prepare the installation media instead of having each computer to download its own which will consume too much bandwidth and too slow. Some of the OEM installation kit or writing network installation script may be too advance for home / SOHO user so the best is to download all the important software and burn them into a CD.

The following is where I download the latest 'Complete' package for my 'Offline' installation ... The sequence follows too ...

Chrome - to browse internet. My habit is not to launch IE until I have virus scanner in place. I have had bad experiences where the first thing the old IE did was to download a virus.

Acrobat Reader - I install this be default. Most of the business documents on web are pdf. Later stage I may want to prepare an installation media that disable auto update by default too.

Avast - Virus scanner of choice

Avast Latest Update - because its easy to update its virus definition, its just an exe file !

Spybot - spyware ad-ware prevention

Spybot latest update

I install Spybot the last so that it wouldn't keep on asking me if I want to install the virus scanner etc. Minimizing number of clicks is 'important' when you install more than 2 computers.

Once downloaded all above offline installation, it will be just nice to burn them into a CD ( less than 700MB on 22 July 2011 ). But there shouldn't be a worry cause there are DVD and better still, use USB drives. But my environment is filled with tons of OLD PC ... with 256MB RAM and 36X CD ROM is considered 'fast' ....

Other Options

AVG x86 or AVG 64bit - also Virus scanner of choice ... but its harder to update its virus definition so I don't use this normally. AVG Latest Update

Claimwin is the ultimate FREE virus scanner for all systems even server OS. So I always have Clamwin installed side by side with Avast or AVG as a backup. Although improved a lot now, but Clamwin is weak on prevention. Its ok on scanning and killing viruses but its main winning feature is its legally FREE for all to use.

I used to install Zone Alarm but now windows comes with firewall. Although windows firewall doesn't do much but its ok together with Spybot and virus scanner, I find Zone Alarm being redundant nowadays. However, for machines that can't install virus scanner like windows server operating system, I will install Zone Alarm there.

Firefox is also popular but its only good if you really like all those add-ons. I just browse so I don't like Firefox. After all, IE has tons of addons too anyway ...

Thunderbird is the email of choice but old windows comes with Outlook Express, the new windows uses Live Mail. But quite a handful are assessing their emails through web browser too. So I only install Thunderbird if the user needs it.

After the 'important' installations, I then follow with PDFCreator, OpenOffice, Teamviewer, IrfanView, MpcStar ... Oh yea, and lastly I may do the Windows Update the last cause it will take such a long time and reboot so many times ...

Deadly Sins of YES 4G - especially Buzz Phone

DON'T READ if you already BOUGHT from YES !!

Should you really say YES to YTL's 4G ? Well, may be you should consider these deadly sins that I have observed . . .

First of all, they said, "pay only what you use". But there is a minimum charge of RM 30 every month if you engage one of their packages. As far as I know, this 4G network is a closed network. Meaning the only way you can engage their services is by buying one of their devices. And once you DO NOT use their services anymore, your device is ABSOLUTELY USELESS !! Hence the only way to engage them is by buying one of their packages. So how is that "charge only what you use" with this RM30 monthly ?

Note: You still can BUY their device separately and then TOP UP with credits. In that case, I suppose you will NOT be charge the minimum RM 30 a month. But the question remains . . . You HAVE TO buy their devices ! How is this a fair trade ?

FYI : RM 30 = 1GB usage or 333 SMS or 5 hours 33 minutes.

The next big hu ha is you pay only 9 cents. BUT there is NO WAY you can find out how much you have used so far from your phone. How many calls have you made ? How many minutes have you called ? How many SMS have you sent ? How many MB have you used ?

The only way to find out your usage is by login to their web site. And once you login, all you can view is your usage up to yesterday.

The good thing is, they said login to their web site to check usage does not incur cost. But there is really NO WAY you can tell whether charge does incur or not when you browse to 'their web sites. Simply because there is NO details of your browsing bandwidth.

The phone . . . is basically not a phone. It is just a device for you to log in and log out to their 4G network. Below screen shows where you do just that. At the moment you sign in, you basically leave your fate to them. There is NO WAY you can track or measure your usage. There is NO WAY you can find out if there is a background application using bandwidth without asking for your prior approval.

As a matter of fact, in order for 4G phone to work, your phone WILL check the connection and other info 'from time to time' and it will DEFINITELY use some bandwidth. They may say those do not incur charges, but then again there is NO WAY you can be sure either way.

OK, even if we assume YTL is your god and you trust them fully. But once you install some of your own application ie. facebook !? Then how do you tell if that application is continuously using bandwidth even when you are NOT using it !? You DON'T !!

The only way you can CONTROL your usage is by log out of the network. But once you log out, you will not be able to receive call or sms. So you HAVE TO keep yourself login.

You HAVE TO keep yourself login

Once login, you have NO CONTROL of the usage

When you buy the package, you get nothing else but a receipt. So basically you are just buying a 'thing' like any other trade transaction. They DID NOT promise their up time, NOT their coverage and NOTHING about provide you a fair services like a proper way for you to track your usage.

As long as the 'thing' / device you get is still working and their 4G network is still up, you basically have NO LEGAL RIGHTs whatsoever against them. It doesn't matter at all if you can't make call, your sms didn't get delivered and your usage has been abused etc. You just DON'T have any legal rights against all those situations.

You PAID and you GET the 'THING'.

There were NO other service warranty / guarantee at all.

Since when is the voice and internet NOT together ? It has always been internet on top of voice even during those dial up era. Now with their so called 4G, its voice on top of internet. Which really is no different than Skype, which has been existed for ages. Either way, voice and internet has ALWAYS been 'together' !

===

There is a "Auto Sign In" check box on the phone, even if you don't check that, the device will still sign me in without me asking it to do so.

===

Once you login to their web site, your usage up to yesterday will be reported. However, the account details seems NOT changing even after 3 days of usage. Says I have used 9MB so far for example but my total credits in my account remains the same RM XXX. So even if I know my usage, I have no ideas how they are going to charge me in future. We will see but I am quite sure "PREPAID" is suppose to mean deduct immediately after each call/sms/bandwidth usage.

===

The general perspective of YES Buzz 4G Phone

yes Buzz 4G Phone Samsung SWD-V100

This is the advs published on Yes web site. After delaying for more than 3 months, this phone is finally launched on 4 March 2011. The phone itself is RM 488. If you get the package RM 1,199 then you get the phone for FREE.

The phone comes in RED and GOLD color. Mine is the RED one. The GOLD one seems a bit yellowish and 'not apparent'.

This side is the Camera button and the interface port. The same port is used for USB data sync and charging. When connected to USB, it will automatically be charged too.

Volume up down buttons and micro SD card slot. It comes with NO extra memory.

. . . when you slide out the keyboard. The keys layout is not that good. You can really type like the way you type on a keyboard. I suspect the spacing between the keys are too wide.

The 'shift' keys are also not that convenient. They called it the Alt key. And the layout for all the Alt keys are not the same as the keyboard. They are actually one row down. If you don't know typing, then the QWERTY layout wouldn't help you neither.

You get a CD to install PC Studio. This piece of software take ages to install and I highly suspect this is a piece of badly written software. My whole system slows down big time after installing this.

The phone's main screen.

This phone main menu screen.

the interface cable, the same goes to USB cable and Power Charge cable.

The back side of the phone. 2MP camera is just alright.

These are the stuff you get in the whole package.

You can go to Lot 10 or KL Sentral to try out the device. Don't bother asking too much technical stuff. Most of the staffs working there have no clue what 4G or Wimax is really about. Nor will they tell you ALL the right stuff. They will give you tons of misleading information anyway.

If you are serious, do all your research online before you go. While on side, just try out the device you want to buy. Then make a decision right there.

When you are buying, just pay and give your IC. Then you will need to pick a number. 30 mins to 2 hours later, your line will be active !

outdated side : yesbuzz4g

Want to know the deadly sins of YES ? Read HERE !!

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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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 ...

ref

Can a blog spread virus ?

I came from those days where a text file will NEVER spread virus.

Most probably, a text file viewer will also NOT trigger any virus.

If I do NOT click or respond anything while viewing a file, I am quite sure I will NOT be infected by virus.

A blog is just a special type of web pages. A web page is basically just a text file on a server. You are viewing the content of the 'file' now using something like a text viewer called internet browser.

Unfortunately those simple days are long gone. Because internet browsers are also your file browser. Most often than not, the browser is the No.1 key element in your computer. Usually the First and Most important thing how your computer and you communicate. Without a browser, you literary can't use your computer. So your browser allows you to do almost Everything that can be done on the computer.

When you are just browsing a blog, you may be just reading of viewing some stuff. But your browser has done tons of other stuff you may never realize or will ever find out. So yes, virus could be spread in a blog even if you are just viewing it.

I earn money by using P1 Wimax ?

Although the connectivity is NOT GOOD but after one month of P1 Wimax usage, I have EARNED $28.74 !!

Someone actually PAID me to use their internet services !!

NOT !! This is called "Bait and Hook" marketing strategy. The contract is 24 months. If a user complain in early stage, it has a big effect to the supplier market and user also has higher chance to win in law suit or consumer tribal. The longer time it drags the less weight the user complain will become. So service provider "Bait" you up by offering one month FREE when the service is BAD and then still ended up "Hooking" or collecting the rest of the 23 months fee from you. It is Unlikely the service will be significantly improved when this strategy is used by your service provider.

P1 Wimax PingTest result ... F as in Fail ...

PingTest vs SpeedTest

Thank god, finally someone cares more about quality and that is NOT just speed. As internet content becomes more lively ... not just flash and animation ... the key turning point is actually XHR, enable simple HTML web page to update partial of its content, giving a sense of Fast Response and It's Alive! effect.

Internet connectivity is no longer about just speed. Fast is nice but a fast connection that drops frequently is absolutely useless - like most of the 3G and WiMax connection now.

Simply because of a single introduction of XMLHttpRequest ,

traditional connection like GPRS or even dial up becomes useful again where once connected reliability is assured ( relatively ).

In order to test your interenet line quality, try pingtest.net. Below is a sample result of Streamyx 512kbps line

And this one is P1 Wimax 1Mbps line

1Mbps P1 Wimax vs 512kbps Streamyx

In short, P1 Wimax is absolutely hands down pathetic. Most bit torrent downloads can't be use or need tedious and technical settings. Even simple stuff like downloading emails from TMNet POP3 servers is a problem. Their online knowledge database is practically nil.

Connection performance drops to ZERO 5-6 times an hour despite showing strong signal and strong connections.

This may not be exactly a lab test ie. apple to apple comparison but nevertheless a real life test scenarios.

2 machines are connected to 2 different broadband networks.

One is a notebook Centrino Duo running XP, 1.5GB RAM connected to 1Mbps P1 Wimax

Another is a desktop Athlon 64x2 Windows 7, 2GB RAM connected to 512kbps Streamyx

Streamyx connection

test on Streamyx server

Streamyx connection

test on P1 server

P1 connection

test on Streamyx server

P1 connection

test on P1 server

The video is set to play back rate 4x, actual total length is 6 minutes.

video link in YouTube

Again this proves that the technology behind is practically irrelevant; Business management, the balance between system performance and marketing effort is so much more important to end users ...

Below shows another angle of the connection line quality ... basically A is best and range down to Z.

Streamyx

P1 Wimax

POTONG my ASS !!

I haven't cut my Digi GPRS yet ....