Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Play hard now, sick later!

Oh yeah, sick again, when was it I last sick? Ya, approximate 1 month ago! Wow, what a weakling I am!

I guess last few days of late night fun and joy has finally see its affect, total immune system collapsed! The body was too weak to "refuse" any bacterias or viruses?

Hhmm... think again, it was all started after I ate that pile of big plate mee goreng, which was suppose to be indomee goreng, which that mamak guy outside of my house misheard and placed order. Then 2 half boiled eggs, and an ice lemon tea. Then my stomach was starting to feel upset. After 2 hours of resting, 1+ hour of workout, and further few hours of DotA-ing, my head was started to crack. Ya, and my stomach upset was never gone away. Part of the reason, been having this running nose, swelling inside, and stuck all the way till hard to breathe through nose.

The next day went to office was almost a zombie, my head was warm, headache, nose totally unbreathable, lost of appetite, tired, eyes pain, you name it! Somehow I was still able to hold it till off work and straight went to clinic. Oh man, I really hate seeing the doctor in the evening, it's sure damn crowded. Especially when you are half dead!

The doctor look at my nose and shocked with the swelling, and she also shocked me with that facial expression. If it doesn't subside the next few days, she would like to refer me to a specialist! Wow, izzit that serious? Anyway, I got my medicine and my pass to a whole day rest - a MC!!

So, here I am, resting at home, my stomach is still like many air inside, and can't really swallow many food, flu and fever and others were not that severe now. I guess bread for whole day... Think again, was I food poisoned? Dang, I remembered I was once had a similar case after I ate at the same old mamak stall last time! Go figure!

Sunday, December 24, 2006

A waste of time.

After hours of editing a post in Blogger, finally satisfied with the Preview layout, and published it, only to find out it was totally different from what I saw in the Preview page. Craps! Editing the post with image already a headache, need to adjust here and there, preview again and again to confirm the layout is correct, and now ended like this, shit, this is definitely not user friendly at all!!

Sigh, I have to edit the post again, what the hell, do it after I get back from shopping and later Christmas party! DUUUHH!

Monday, December 18, 2006

What troubles you today?

Let me ask you a question, what troubles you the most? Izzit your low salary that makes you always worry every bits of spending? Or izzit your another half, girlfriend/boyfriend, wife/husband that keeps on nagging you everyday? Or that pile of works which almost choke you to death? Whatever the reason, it's your life, be glad that you have something to trouble with.

Eerrr, enough talk, and what troubles me the most recently? Guess what, FOOD! Yupe, our essential surviving fuel! Even now I'm working I'm thinking about this. OK, OK, I know it's pathetic to be troubled by something this minor, but because mum is not around, no one cooks for me, "What for dinner?" has become my number one question of the day! Why it troubles me so much? Frankly speaking, I'm quite a choosy guy, I mean in terms of eating, in my pathetic mind, eating is not only to fill your tummy and chase away the hunger, but it's a way of enjoying too. Of course I can still stuck anything in my mouth just to fulfill my hunger, but when you have the choice, aahh, yes, the keyword, CHOICE. Choices are the most troubling thing in our life, you love it, you hate it, you wanna make the right choice, you scare you make the wrong one, blah blah blah, it's all in one decision.

Previously, I only need to think where to have our lunch, now even dinner I have to crack my head! It's already 3 days in a row I settled my dinner by packing from the restaurant near my house, ya, I don't like to eat alone, somehow you will feel pity and lonely, so I rather order take away and eat along with my TV show, hahaha! Hhhmmm... today I think I will just settle with KFC!

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Home Alone

Theoretically I am home alone for the next 2 weeks. Mum, dad, sis and my niece is taking the 130am flight to Shanghai. Mum and dad is on a vacation tour to visit Shanghai and other surrounding cities, for 1 week. And later meet up with my sis and bro in law in Shanghai city, for another week, then only come back. Although my bro is still here, but you can't really see him before 12am, coz he always back home late.

I am not joining due to the fact that I just came back from my Hong Kong trip, which is kinda impossible for me to take another 10 days leave, and most of all, kinda short of cash now after the holiday frenzy in Hong Kong.

Now practically I have to do everything by myself, hope I won't starve till death in this 2 weeks, hahaha!

Monday, December 11, 2006

Dog shit luck!

Today is Selangor holiday, went to pasar with mum and my niece, had my favorite meehoon soup there, and went back around 11am something.

My internet was still in that half working condition, unable to access some web sites, and can't login to MSN. Damn, by that time, I was certain it's my router modem fault, which caused by the new firmware I updated. With nothing better to do, again, I started to working on all the settings in the web interface of my router, hoping to solve the problem.

After an hour of trials and errors, it seemed nothing much I can do with this firmware, I have to accept the fact that it's not working, at least for me. With no other choice, I turned to the Solwise's router firmware. After flashed, the familiar web interface displayed once again when login to the router. I tried to load the websites that I was not able to get in when using the RouterTech's firmware. Great, everything seemed back to normal, I can access them as well as login to MSN messenger. Suddenly, this stubborn and greedy thought came to my mine: "Probably now if I flashed back to the RouterTech's firmware, it will work too?" Thinking of if it couldn't work also, I can still use back this working Solwise's firmware, I flashed my router, again.

Did I succeed? No, I still can't access some websites and can't login using that stupid MSN messenger. So, I guess that's bye bye to this great firmware. For the 3rd time today, I updated my router's firmware again. Hhmmm... why the login page still the orange, yellowish RouterTech's layout? Dang, why was it still remained the same firmware? I was sure the flashing process was successful! OK, OK, maybe some glitches, flash again should clear things up, so I flashed, and flashed, and flashed! 3 times in a row, but I still getting this bugger page! I was started to get frustrated, I turned to an application that is found on the RouterTech forum, developed by the router chip maker, Texas Instrument, the TI Remote Application, a Windows program that interacts directly to the router, which has options to update the router's firmware, settings, etc.

This app has quite confusing UI, I tried to setup the environment again, but nothing happened. Without any info and help, I was on trials and errors again. My frustration had reached a new high, with clouded mind, I just simply chose a firmware file that came along with this app, which I was not exactly sure whether it's working for my router or not. And suddenly the program collapsed, showing the Windows exception message. My heart dropped along with it, I went to check the router, all lights were on, OMFG! I screwed the damn router! I tried to switch off and on again, same. Fortunately I can still access the router with that TI Remote Application, but now I was getting this "Flash erase failed" message! Wow, did I somehow screwed the flash memory?? I tried and tried and tried, the switch network function was still there coz I can access my sis's PC, just that the router and modem function totally gone due to corrupted firmware.

"I screwed up, now no choice but to buy a new router and modem. The Linksys combo Chean just bought is my first choice. But dang, gonna spend few hundred bucks again!" This was what in my mind over and over again at that time. I was tired and frustrated, I just stopped everything and went to play a few hours game. Hahaha! After that, I decided to try one more time. First, I accidentally uploaded the settings I backup when I first tried to flash the firmware, then I was like what the heck, try the RouterTech firmware and see. To my surprise, I didn't get the
"Flash erase failed" message, it proceeded with the erase and flashing process. Successful! My eyes almost popped out when I saw this, and quickly went to check the modem, restart it, oh yeah, everything back to normal!

I was so glad!

Somemore with bonus, now I am using the RouterTech 3rd party firmware with enhanced features + I was able to access all websites and MSN again, everything is working fine now! HOORAY!!

P/S: Probably I will write a step by step firmware upgrade guide for the Aztech 600ER router modem later...

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Upgrading my Aztech 600ER router modem firmware

On Saturday, because all alone at home and nothing better to do, I went to google and searched for any firmware update for my router modem, the Aztech 600ER. This bugger has giving me nothing but disappointment, slow auto connection, sluggish web interface, sometimes can't even load the page out after switch it on for few days. All these even makes me wondering my BT so slow whether because its uneffective routing/load balancing or the damn TMnut!

This was not the first time I tried to search the firmware, but this time, I decided to be more patient, and browsed those results one by one. To my surprise, I found something in Lowyat.NET forum that has something about this modem firmware. It appears that there's a company known as Solwise, has a router modem, with the same model code, as my Aztech, the Solwise SAR-600ER. Both of them using the same chipset, technologies, specs, even the design is exactly the same! Damn you Aztech, can't even come out an unique model of your own?!

One of the forumer suggested to upgrade the Solwise's firmware, which is exactly same as the Aztech, except it's newer and should be better. OK, sounds good, when trying to download the firmware, there's a link to another website, it turns out to be a 3rd party made firmware! Wow, 3rd party firmware always provides more features and frequent bug fixes! Without hesitation, I ventured to RouterTech.com, a site that provides updates, infos and self made firmwares for the AR7WRD and AR7RD type router. It appears that many company is using 2 of these chips for their router modem, including my Aztech 600ER, which is an AR7RD type, and the firmware should be suitable for routers of these types.

So I read through some related articles and posts, until I think I have enough knowledge to flash the firmware and rescue infos in case anything went wrong. OK, the deciding moment, I started the flashing procedure... Well, so far so good. After rebooting the router, it showed the RouterTech screen at the login page! And this was the starting of my nightmare. I continued to struggle at guessing the username and password, both in the web interface, and telnet terminal, it was really a frustrating process! The environment settings that suppose to be there were not there, I need to telnet to the router back and forth, restarting again and again to make things work!

With hours of struggling, finally everything seemed to be what it supposed to be. Now time to MSN and report my successful adventure to my friends... WTF?! I can't login to MSN messenger, try MSN.com, it just forever waiting, and some of the websites too, including RouterTech.com, which means I can't get any further info for my problem. I can connect using GAIM, but not MSN Messenger. Probably TMnut issue? Coz I did experience similar case before. So I decided to wait for another day...

Whole day has passed, and I yet to able to load those websites, nor login to MSN using MSN Messenger, this doesn't look good...

Friday, December 08, 2006

Traffics

I'm really have enough of Klang valley traffics, I can't stand it anymore! It's a hell experience whenever I drive to work or drive back home, no matter it's 8am in the morning or 8pm at night, one word describes it best: JAM! No no, it's FUCKING JAM!

Traffic jam is not really a true factor of annoyance, the attitude of drivers shown in traffic jam that really pisses me off, because of their selfish attitude, the jam even get worsen.

God dammit, you really think taking the emergency lane can get you faster? Or cut any line that seems moving faster will make you ahead of everyone? And if you decided to take the fast lane, please, step on your paddle and drive FAST! It's not like you own the road for god sake! Brake when necessary, don't step on the damn thing as if the more you do the faster you can go!

Yeah, yeah, I'm a whinner, I'm a loser that complains, but I think I'm gonna loose my mind if I continue to suffer this without some place to release it!

There... feeling better now, I think I'm gonna die faster coz going through this process everyday.