Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by spanker

Maintenance costs

spanker — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:20:14 +0800

Hi Fellas,

I'm shopping for a new used car. I've narrowed down my choices to the following.

1) Volvo S40/V40 (2001-2002)
2) Audi A4 1.8T (2001-2002)
3) Cefiro A32/A33 (2002-2003, All things reconsidered, might as well add this in)
4) Altis (2004-2005) - Because it's big enough and still quite powerful)

I don't know the maintenance cost of said cars, but after some added reading, I found out that there are independent specialist service for the first 2 choices. Does anyone here roughly have an idea of how much maintenance each of these cars cost per year?

I like the Cefiro, but also heard the maintenance cost is as high as the Volvo, so might as well go for the Volvo, right?

As for the Altis, it's my last choice because they're so damned expensive, but I heard that it's relatively cheap to maintain

Opinions are very much appreciated.

[WTS] HTC Touch Cruise 2009 (T4242)

spanker — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:16:41 +0800

Item(s):
1 x HTC Touch Cruise 2009 T4242 original *full set*.

http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_touch_cruise_09-2654.php

Package includes:
1 x Car charger kit
1 x Phone holder kit
1 x USB Headset
1 x Universal USB charger
1 x USB data cable
1 x Manual & Quick Guide
1 x Spare stylus
1 x Original pouch
1 x 4 GB microSD

Screen protector already on phone.

Price: RM1150 firm
RM1100 if you C.O.D within the Subang/Sunway area.

Warranty:
Personal warranty - 1 day for any device malfunction, so test it thoroughly
Distributor warranty - 9 months remaining

Dealing method:
C.O.D within Klang Valley

Location of seller:
Subang Jaya

Contact method/details:
PM me, serious buyers only. I will provide you with contact number. I will also answer any questions within this thread.

Age of item:
Less than 6 months old

---

Item(s) conditions:
95% New!!

Picture:
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[attachmentid=1212561]

Pics of actual item(s)

Reason for sale:
Want to change to an ASUS. I will throw in a FREE black refurbished 17" IBM flat screen CRT monitor into the deal if you C.O.D in Subang/Sunway area, and a FREE "condition unknown" Samsung DVD RW drive, less than 1 year old.

Thanks for looking~!

[addedon]September 23, 2009, 11:12 pm[/addedon]product details (and price) updated.

Some pics from Stockholm

spanker — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:57:49 +0800

Hi All,

Here's some scenery pics from when I was in Stockholm. Camera is just a Canon Powershot, with a maddening fringing problem. Comments and criticisms are welcome.

A guard at the old Royal Palace

A side street in Gamla Stan

Yes, that lens flare is faked

A very old cottage.

Seagull, i think.

Night scene.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Stamina/endurance and back questions.

spanker — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:34:42 +0800

Hi peeps,

I have this problem when it comes to endurance/stamina when it comes to exercise. I can't last long in most forms of exercise compared to many people. Like I can't keep a jogging for more than 2 minutes, I can't swim 50m without stopping for a breather, I can't do my ji-geiko sessions for more than 5-7 minutes. It blows, my muscles are fine, they're not sore or anything, but my heart just pumps like crazy and i'd be panting like a racehound. I sweat buckets too. It's been this way since I was young. I got lots of speed, but how do I improve my endurance?

Another thing is my back. It's bloody sore when I am doing my kendo. I read somewhere that muscles work in pairs or something, and if I work out my abs, I must work out my back too, or something like that. I also read somewhere about strengthening the "core muscles". Anyone have recommendations on how I do this?

Changing from CDE to GNOME

spanker — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:16:04 +0800

Hi fellas,

this ain't on Linux, but on Solaris. Hopefully someone can help me. My company runs Citrix Neighborhood and it defaults into the Solaris CDE by default. Is there a way to change my default desktop (for my account only) to run GNOME?

Banks planning to raise interests

spanker — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:52:58 +0800

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=...9520&sec=nation

QUOTE

PETALING JAYA: Despite the economic slowdown, several banks are believed to be raising interest rates on car loans.

And the move may be implemented today.

It is learnt that these hikes, probably on a tiered basis, are likely to affect non-national cars.

The current reasoning for the hike in loan rates for non-national cars is to make up for provisions set aside for losses and administrative costs.

This could indicate that non-performing loans in the auto segment could be creeping up.

Sources said talk was rife in the banking and auto industries late last week that under the tiered proposal, better rates could be quoted on shorter term loans for non-national cars.

The duration of the car loans could stretch to five, seven and nine years.

Currently, a flat rate of about 2.7% to 2.8% is charged on loans for non-national cars although the effective rate over the duration of the loan could be higher.

It is believed that for a five-year loan for a non-national car, the hike could be only a few basis points, expected to be in the region of 0.4% to 0.5%.

However, rates which are higher at around 3.75% for national cars could see a reduction as the tiered scheme is supposed to provide more attractive rates for shorter term loans.

Car loans were adjusted sometime in the middle of last year as a lot of the rates were below or slightly above the interest rate of around 3.6%.

However, many are asking why should car loans go up when the base lending rate to which housing loans are tied is on a downtrend.

Car loans, however, are fixed rate loans and not tied to the BLR.

Is this another case of banks passing their costs to customers? Why do they increase interest rates in the face of a gloomy economy? Aren't car buyers doing banks a favor by buying cars? And shouldn't the bank reward customers by lowering interest rates?

Why is it because they aren't making money they think it's smarter to increase rates on hire purchase loans? Just because the have high NPLs they think it's the best course of action? Isn't the high interests the cause of NPLs in the first place?

And why target non-national cars? Are the NPLs higher for non-national cars?

Exporting an env variable to another server

spanker — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:46:32 +0800

Hi fellas,

I am trying to write a script which I will put on server A to execute. This script will get some env variable values (e.g. TZ or HOME) and then needs to login into server B, and then execute some command (like maybe cd $HOME - i.e. the value of HOME of Server A) on that server.

I know how to get the variables and stuff, but what I don't know how to login to Server B and run those commands via a script sitting in server A. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'll be much obliged.

Hope I wasn't being confusing

HTC Touch Cruise review

spanker — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:54:36 +0800

So I bought this phone 2 days ago and it was working fine. But it quickly lost its "wow" factor after about 5 hours. I hadn't even installed any softwares on it other than what the dealer put into it, and in less than 24 hours I am already getting pissed at HTC. Oh yes, the phone is great and all, but HTC sucks at making phones.

1) Word completion was working fine in keyboard mode, but after switching to other HTC inputs and then back to keyboard, word completion is now DEAD. Not even after a soft restart fixed it.

2) No light to indicate Bluetooth/Wifi switched on

3) No blinking light to indicate phone is running

4) Start menu doesn't have the "Click" sound

5) I can't assign the god damned GPS and footprint button to do something else, what a piece of crap!

6) TouchFLO isn't smart enough to detect if I want to select multiple objects, or if I want to scroll!

7) No option to do a software soft reset

8) Need to open the back cover to do a reset

9) Menu text IS WAY TOO BIG, HTC you blind idiots!

10) The system doesn't come out from standby when I receive an SMS, meaning I have to press the fragile power button to read it.

11) I can't uninstall TouchFLO or any of the other stupid HTC softwares.

12) Manuals were unhelpful.

I already feel like flashing the damn ROM from this phone, get rid of all that stupid HTC crap. Don't get me wrong, the phone looks sleek, display is nice, response is faster than most other Dopod/HTC crap phones, the scroll button is kool, camera quality is good, but it's just so damn annoying. I'm probably going to just give it to my girlfriend, whoever she will be. My Atom Exec still rocks.
Overall rating for this phone: 5.5/10

Rating for my Atom Exec (running WM 6.1) 8/10

QUOTE(Baronic @ Apr 2 2009, 08:20 PM)

almost all your problems can be solved

That's not the point is it? Why should I have to tweak the registry or install freewares to fix something that shouldn't be broken in the first place? If I were to install an app it would be to enrich the experience of using the device, not to fix an annoyance.

QUOTE(Baronic @ Apr 2 2009, 08:20 PM)

from the menu click to text size to GPS to Touch Flo (to select multiple your finger must be on the file icons) to software soft reset (its a freeware app to do it). Word completion probably got switched off, u must have done it accidentally, turn it on again. the start menu size can be adjusted and every.

Word completion is NOT switched off, I've owned 5 pocket PCs before, and I've flashed 3 of their ROMs, so don't say that I "must have accidently closed it off" then closing the thread, as if it's MY fault. Sure I can do a factory reset to see if it works again, but then why should I need to do that? If you "learn more about your device" you would know the word completion problem is very common with HTC phones (probably because there's so many in the market). And apparently, the fixes are not always foolproof.

Why should I have to turn off Touch Flo when it CAN be helpful. Are you suggesting that I turn it off and on repeatedly whenever I want to scroll/highlight multiple items?

QUOTE(Baronic @ Apr 2 2009, 08:20 PM)

THE ONLY THING i cant help u is the light for bluetooth (u sure dun have) and openning the cover to soft reset, though like i said there are freeware apps for that

MY SUGGESTION: learn more about your device and perhaps ask around how to solve the problem before grumbling and giving up and flaming your device

MY suggestion: I've done more than 2 weeks of review reading and researchign on the device, I know the phone doesn't have autofocus, doesn't have an LED flash, doesn't have a 2nd camera, what it can or cannot do. I'm saying these are the things they DON'T tell you in the reviews, and it involves real life usage. You'd think I'd know how to navigate around a Pocket PC from seeing that I have an Atom Exec running Wm 6.1 in my signature.

QUOTE(Baronic @ Apr 2 2009, 08:20 PM)

RANT THREAD CLOSED
[right][snapback]24828251[/snapback][/right]

If I was ranting, there would be no basis. These are all very valid points which a user should consider before buying a phone.

HTC Touch Cruise 2009 (T4242)

spanker — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:58:35 +0800

So I bought this phone yesterday and it was working fine. But it quickly lost its "wow" factor after about 5 hours. I hadn't even installed any softwares on it other than what the dealer put into it, and in less than 24 hours I am already getting pissed at HTC. Oh yes, the phone is great and all, but HTC sucks at making phones.

1) Word completion was working fine in keyboard mode, but after switching to other HTC inputs and then back to keyboard, word completion is now DEAD. Not even after a soft restart fixed it.

2) No light to indicate Bluetooth/Wifi switched on

3) No blinking light to indicate phone is running

4) Start menu doesn't have the "Click" sound

5) I can't assign the god damned GPS and footprint button to do something else, what a piece of crap!

6) TouchFLO isn't smart enough to detect if I want to select multiple objects, or if I want to scroll!

7) No option to do a software soft reset

8) Need to open the back cover to do a reset

9) Menu text IS WAY TOO BIG, HTC YOU BLIND IDIOTS!

10) Manuals were unhelpful.

I already feel like flashing the damn ROM from this phone, get rid of all that stupid HTC crap. Don't get me wrong, the phone looks sleek, display is nice, response is faster than most other Dopod/HTC crap phones, the scroll button is kool, camera quality is good, but it's just so damn annoying. I'm probably going to just give it to my girlfriend, whoever she will be. My Atom Exec still rocks.

Overall rating for this phone: 5.5/10

Rating for my Atom Exec (running WM 6.1) 8/10

Question about testing driving

spanker — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:46:02 +0800

Is it "normal" when you go to a dealership to look for a car and then you say "i want to test drive this puppy here" and then they tell you that you can't because it doesn't have insurance? How the heck am I suppose to tell if the balance is right or if the brake discs are warped or if there are funny sounds coming from it if the car doesn't move?

Quick question

spanker — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:49:04 +0800

What is the difference between a "server" and a "node"? It seems like people are using these terms interchangeably and i'm having a hard time telling if they mean something else.

Oh while we're at it, can someone also tell me if there's difference between floating IP and virtual IP?

Thanks

Am I too expensive?

spanker — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:38:34 +0800

This is why I hate to fill up the "expected salary" field of a job application form

So anyway, I attended a few interviews which requires someone to know Windows server OS, Oracle, Unix/Linux systems, TCP/IP, systems analysis, handle projects, work with vendors work nights and need to be round the clock standby. And they say my "expected salary" of RM5000 is too high (don't ask how much i'm making). And these companies are core IT companies no less, and I've got more than 5 years of experience.

Are they trying to lowball me into lowering the "expected salary"? Because last I checked someone with that kind of skills set gets paid even more. Or is the market being saturated with people who knows all these stuff?

And what really annoys me (this is for you HR people out there) is that why do companies make you hand in your photocopy I.C., photocopy payslip and passport photos when you are only applying for a job? Why can't they get such documents AFTER they hire? They don't see me asking them for their P & L statements god damnit. That's right, I don't like giving out private info unless I know I've secured the jobs, AND YOU HR PEOPLE SHOULD RESPECT THAT.

O2 Atom Exec IR Keyboard

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 07:30:00 +0800

Seagate 7200.11 hard drive firmware woes

spanker — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:38:19 +0800

Man I was duped into buying this HDD because it was cheap, now I know why. It is reported that the 7.11 Barracudas with the AD15 firmware has problems and retailers are getting up to a 30% return rate for these bricks.

Physically, your HDD is fine, so the freezing trick will NOT help. Symptons after an uncertain number of booting up your HDD will not be detected by BIOS (and possibly all your other SATA/PATA devices, even non-Seagate ones), or your BIOS reports it having 0GB capacity. Your data is still intact, however, something in the firmware is telling the BIOS that it is busy.

You can read some bits of it here:
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/search?submi...AS&page_size=10
Or search on on google for the ST3500320AS+BIOS

Simply due to the fact that Seagate doesn't want to acknowledge that this is a problem (because they don't want to fix it, not for free anyway) is enough for me to boycott Seagate products for EVER.

Update:

Since there are many questions asking "which model is affected" etc, I'm copy pastaring the potentially affected models here:

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/self...sp?DocId=207951

Drive Family:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11

Models Affected:
ST3500320AS
ST3640330AS
ST3750330AS
ST31000340AS

Firmware Affected
SD15, SD16, SD17, SD18, SD19, AD14

Recommended Firmware Update:
SD1A

So far, the firmware update doesn't work for OEM drives (P/N) ending with 303. And some claim the firmware update DOESN'T fix the bricking issue, just the cache issue. It's up to you to decide whether or not to update. You are responsible for your data.

More updates (Jan 23):
Here's a firmware to patch the SD15 to SD1A

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/self...sp?DocId=207951

Download the appropriate ISO file for your drive model, burn it onto a CD (or a USB key if you know how), reboot and if your drive is still detectable, flash it accordingly.

It is not known if the firmware will stop the bricking issue (BSY/LBA0) or cause other issues, but I have successfully flashed the firmware to SD1A on my remaining ST3500320AS, and it has been running for 10 minutes now.

Firmware does NOT fix BSY state drives, I don't know about the LBA0 drives.

Vista annoyances

spanker — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:36:20 +0800

Running Vista 64-bit SP2 beta. I like how it's super fast compared to XP and all (thanks to superfetch) and the eye candy and how *some* things have improved, and sidebar is sweet though totally irrelevent. I don't even mind UAC prompting me for permissions. But man there are times where I feel like slapping Vista silly.

One thing about it that annoys me to no end is that stupid file explorer. Why does it remember folder settings, even though I set it NOT to remember folder settings? This is the same problem in XP which I thought they would've solved but I guess not. And the stupid thing is that freaking thing is so inconsistent in how it displays folders. If I was in detail view, and I create a new folder and browse into that folder, it displays contents as large icons. And when I set all folders to follow this setting, it doesn't change a damn thing! And don't even get me started on that stupid "Pictures and Videos" type folders.

And when I copy/paste a file, I expect it to be listed at the bottom of the list, not automatically sorted into the bunch of stuff automatically! If I wanted that I'd go with Linux, at least that's configurable.

And if I accidently click on the DVD-ROM icon, it says "Please insert a disc" which is fine, but it also ejects the tray! How stupid is that? What if I was doing RDP at a remote location? Who the heck is going to go close the tray?

And what the heck happened to previews? Why do one user have previews on like .jpg and .mpg files, but another user doesn't? It's so annoying trying to choose my DreamScene content that I can't see the video.

I like Vista and all, but I use explorer like 40% of the time I'm on the PC, why can't they get it done nicely? Anyone knows how to fix the above issues? Or point me to a better file manager program?

Thanks a billion

KDE 4.x is pretty good

spanker — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:36:00 +0800

I've tried out Kubuntu 8.10 running KDE 4.1 (Gnome's not my thing) and installed it on my USB drive for persistent changes. Takes some getting use to but after 1 night exploring I decided that I like it better than KDE 3. One thing which annoyed the hell out of me with Kubuntu is that it uses the casper loop file to save the changes and I can't write jack on the USB drive because Kubuntu will keep mounting the USB device as CDROM and will only allow rx permissions. So I have to 'su' and move the files manually if i want the files to be visible on a Windows OS. Like WTF?? Isn't the whole point of me putting Kubuntu with persistent change on a USB be the whole reason why I want the whole thing on USB? Ok rant over. I realize that I can change the way Kubuntu Live behavior from some docs on Linux Live website, but that would actually require me to install it as a proper OS first, which there's no way I'm going to do since I like my XP and Vista and my linux skills are only so-so.

So I was wondering if anyone knows any distro out there that does persistent changes like how Slax does it (very nicely too i might add), but has KDE 4.1 or above? THanks dudes.

Quick Questions on system specs

spanker — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:27:24 +0800

I've been out of the hardware market for more than 3 years (which is like 10 years in any other field) so I don't know jack about what all these review sites are talking about these days, and my AMD 64/GeForce 6200 just doesn't cut it for playing games anymore, Heck I can't even play a cute game like spore without it getting jerky. So here goes.

I'll probably have to settle for an Intel CPU (don't know which yet) since AMD doesn't seem to be on its game lately. So I see the FSB specs on AMD and Intel which goes from 800 to 3600. But when I look at the RAM available out there, I see like DDR2 800/ DDR3 1333. So if I were to buy lets say a C2Q Q6600, does this mean I'll need a 1066 RAM? And 1333 if I intend to OC that thing? I mean those things costs a bomb!

Next is RAID, since speed is also limited by the HDD (reading/writing data, page file, cache, etc) I'm going to do a RAID 1 to improve read speeds and page hits. Is there anyone out there running RAID 1, if there is, do you notice any speed improvements? I work on a production environment and these RAID setups can write like 2 GBs of data per second. But that could work differently on a home desktop.

Spanker is available

spanker — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:16:23 +0800

I'm sure you've read my charming replies on Cupid's Corner to lovesick (and sometimes just sick) people. I've got no plans tonight and tomorrow night (maybe). So if there are any girls/ladies/women interested in going out with me (everything's on me of course). Drop me a PM. I don't care if you're attached, or single, or married, or middle aged, or career woman, or whatever, as long as you're not CDer or a tranny.

Just to hang out, have a good time, meet someone new/different.

p.s. in case it wasn't already clear, ladies only.

Is Streamyx blocking your traffic?

spanker — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:06:29 +0800

So I was really fed up of the lies thrown at me by Streamyx call center (VADS), but the last straw came when TM tech support themselves lied to me about blocking my traffic, so I have no choice but to get proof. This is how I did it:

1) Download Ethereal Network Analyzer

2) Install Ethereal along with the WinPcap driver that comes with it.
2a) Alternatively you can download the latest version of WinPcap instead of using the one packaged in Ethereal

3) Run Ethereal

4) Click to configure snooping

5) Configure the interface, which port you want to monitor, protocols, yada yada

6) After you've started capturing, remember to stop.

7) This is roughly what things will look like after you are done. If you are sniffing your BT traffic Look for the RST packet (as described in this thread.

What it actually means is that the client (you being the host) has acknowledged your request to reset the connection. However, if you check your entire TCP stream you will find that you have NOT sent out a RST packet. Meaning Streamyx screwed you.

Alternatively, if you are having problem with non-BT connection (perhaps you are downloading ahems from IRC), like how I am facing very slow traffic with my paid NNTP news service, you see this:

This proves that somehow part of your TCP sequence (usually the binary part) has been dropped by someone, so your entire sequence cannot be used by the application and has to be requested again. In short, you're still screwed by streamyx.

When I used a friend's streamyx account to log in(this dude has much lower traffic than I do), all these errors miraculously dissappeared and I am getting full speed.

I have decided to documented my findings because 2 days back after I made a complaint to Streamyx to escalate my case to level 2, someone from TM Technical Support said "international traffic is not our problem", and decided to close my case. He even challenged me to go to the SS13 TM office to prove my case, which I will do tomorrow, along with my documentations. I made another follow-up call to Streamyx today to inform them my findings, and viola, miraculously all those errors dissappeared.

Anyway, I'm going to visit TM tomorrow, and if it happens again, I'm going to complain to MCMC.

Hope it helps you people.

Spare part inquiry

spanker — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:02:15 +0800

Hello all,

I'm looking for some place where I can buy original engine mounts for my 1992 Mazda 626 (2L V6 engine). My mechanic is charging me a bomb for these things so I'm hoping someone knows some place where I can get them.

Thanks