Spammers now a days are getting smarter and smarter. Started from a plain text emails, which is basically very easy to be detected by spam blocker, then they moved to an image (gif or jpg) that contains text.
A few days ago, I received this spam email that contain only random ascii characters. The real msg is 'hidden'. These random characters, if you set the font to monospace type, will form the msg. Very nice. :)
Spam blocker can't recognize this email as a spam. It's not yet as smart to figure what's the msg behind this random ascii character. It's good for spammers to get the msg into someone mailbox without being detected.
However, the "downside" (for the spammers, not me), is that the reciepient of the email will not be able to recognize the msg right away. Most of the email client program will not display the msg in monospace font (such as Courier). Most of them will display it in either Arial or Times, which will just shows a series of non-sense characters.
Spammers, one thumb up for you for this trick, and "go to hell" for you for keep spamming.
Friday, April 15, 2005
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Cool ransom-note online generator
I found two online tool to make a ransom-type text from images. (from boingboing.net)
http://blog.outer-court.com/yahoo/letters.php5
Will search the equivalent of the word from yahoo.
http://metaatem.net/words
will search the equivalent of the word from flickr.
The result from flickr is nicer, as you can see the sample I've created.
http://blog.outer-court.com/yahoo/letters.php5
Will search the equivalent of the word from yahoo.
http://metaatem.net/words
will search the equivalent of the word from flickr.
The result from flickr is nicer, as you can see the sample I've created.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Evaluating 2 OSX blogging client
Usually I blog directy via blogger.com. It's quite suite what I needed. A few days ago, someone told me to try blogging using a client.
I checked out versiontracker.com for any freeware blogging client that support blogger.com (I'm poor, so I can only afford any freeware. :) Also I live in Indonesia which is very difficult to do online payment, thanks to those carders).
So I downloaded 2 freewares : iBlog (the freeware one, not the shareware one with the same name), and WeblogPoster.
iBlog was a bit confusing for me, and I was too lazy to play around with it. Then I tried WeblogPoster. This program come with a better documentation, especially on how to do setup for blogger.com.
So this is my posting using Weblogposter.
update :
When posting using Weblogposter, aparently the 'title' didn't get posted. I don't know whether this is a bug, or my fault.
I checked out versiontracker.com for any freeware blogging client that support blogger.com (I'm poor, so I can only afford any freeware. :) Also I live in Indonesia which is very difficult to do online payment, thanks to those carders).
So I downloaded 2 freewares : iBlog (the freeware one, not the shareware one with the same name), and WeblogPoster.
iBlog was a bit confusing for me, and I was too lazy to play around with it. Then I tried WeblogPoster. This program come with a better documentation, especially on how to do setup for blogger.com.
So this is my posting using Weblogposter.
update :
When posting using Weblogposter, aparently the 'title' didn't get posted. I don't know whether this is a bug, or my fault.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Why most Indonesians are dumb, and will stay dumb for a long long time... Thx to Bill Gates.
Microsoft just recently launched a product called Windows XP SE (SE = Special Edition ?. We just called it 'Sunat' Edition. Sunat = circumcised).
Basically it is a lower cost Windows XP (around $30 to $40 only sold to Computer maker/builder and not to public), but has a lot of feature being crippled compare to the original Windows XP.
What features are being circumcised? Actually they are not 'circumcised' but they are new features (for dumb people):
1. It's available only in local language. So in Thailand, it will be in Thai language, and in Indonesia, it will be in Indonesian language. (So far Windows XP SE only launched in these two countries).
Don't let those ppl in Thailand and Indonesia learn English, not even single word such as 'print', 'save', 'open', 'unexpectedly quit', etc. Lets keep them use their own language, so they won't have any competitive advantage (as for example, know a few English words) in this globalization era.
2. Win XP SE only can run a maximum 3 applications at a time. Hmmmm... does spyware, trojan, virus, antivirus, spamblocker, antispyware counted as "application"? If so, then user won't be able to run anything at all!
And, oh yeah, dumb people can't keep track more than 3 opened application at a time. So to prevent a confusion, Microsoft help user by setting this stupid limit.
3. Maximum screen resolution : 800x600. Aparently Microsoft think that Thais and Indonesian are so poor, that most of people here still use 14" monitor. Thais and Indonesian can't afford to buy a 15" CRT, let alone a 20" LCD monitor. Stupid and poor, how pathetic.
4. Unconfigureable Firewall. Yes. Microsoft is smarter than you, you're dumb, so don't mess with the preconfigured firewall. You don't even have any idea what's a firewall is, so bug off and go play solitaire.
5. Single user. Since the users are so dumb, they will always forget their password, so why bother.
6. No Microsoft networking (except TCP/IP). Well... I don't know whether this is good for user or not... but limited networking capability? well, since the target are dumb users, they won't know that's the problem with this limited networking capability anyway.
***
Thailand and Indonesia are two countries that had the honor as the pilot project for this Windows XP SE (code name : "dumb and dumber").
It's sort of secret pilot project, you can't find this product listed in Microsoft web site. ( http://www.microsoft.com/indonesia/windows/default.asp ). Don't let this word out to dumb peoples. After dumb peoples have feeling too, and they might be upset because they have been given a special treatment by Microsoft.
Indonesian Minister of Communication and Information (menkominfo) attended the launching of WinXP SE, and immidiately commended Bill Gates as the person to first enter the heaven. Wow... some peoples are just dumb beyond belief.
http://jkt2.detikinet.com/index.php/detik.read/tahun/2005/bulan/02/tgl/22/time/16419/idnews/296647/idkanal/111
That's why I said that most Indonesian are dumb.... We even has a dumb Minister.
Way to go!
postscript :
One of my staff is localizing a POS program. We developed the POS program in house, and as a standard we choosed to use English. After a years, some users complained that they are having a hard time understanding the English menu. (So now we are in the process of localizing it.)
One thing that I can't understand is, how hard is it to learn one or two english words (such as 'input', 'inventory', 'cash drawer', etc)? It's not that they are retard or has IQ below a cockroach. They fluently can navigates thru cell phone's menu!!
Only one thing came to my mind, they are just lazy. Thus they will stay dumb... and will for a long time.
A silver lining of this is that their lazy attitude is the thing that will separate us (who are willing to learn), from them (who are not willing to learn).
My staff is learning a great deal of language vocabulary when translating from English to Indonesian. Those lazy users, learn nothing. Good for them.
Basically it is a lower cost Windows XP (around $30 to $40 only sold to Computer maker/builder and not to public), but has a lot of feature being crippled compare to the original Windows XP.
What features are being circumcised? Actually they are not 'circumcised' but they are new features (for dumb people):
1. It's available only in local language. So in Thailand, it will be in Thai language, and in Indonesia, it will be in Indonesian language. (So far Windows XP SE only launched in these two countries).
Don't let those ppl in Thailand and Indonesia learn English, not even single word such as 'print', 'save', 'open', 'unexpectedly quit', etc. Lets keep them use their own language, so they won't have any competitive advantage (as for example, know a few English words) in this globalization era.
2. Win XP SE only can run a maximum 3 applications at a time. Hmmmm... does spyware, trojan, virus, antivirus, spamblocker, antispyware counted as "application"? If so, then user won't be able to run anything at all!
And, oh yeah, dumb people can't keep track more than 3 opened application at a time. So to prevent a confusion, Microsoft help user by setting this stupid limit.
3. Maximum screen resolution : 800x600. Aparently Microsoft think that Thais and Indonesian are so poor, that most of people here still use 14" monitor. Thais and Indonesian can't afford to buy a 15" CRT, let alone a 20" LCD monitor. Stupid and poor, how pathetic.
4. Unconfigureable Firewall. Yes. Microsoft is smarter than you, you're dumb, so don't mess with the preconfigured firewall. You don't even have any idea what's a firewall is, so bug off and go play solitaire.
5. Single user. Since the users are so dumb, they will always forget their password, so why bother.
6. No Microsoft networking (except TCP/IP). Well... I don't know whether this is good for user or not... but limited networking capability? well, since the target are dumb users, they won't know that's the problem with this limited networking capability anyway.
***
Thailand and Indonesia are two countries that had the honor as the pilot project for this Windows XP SE (code name : "dumb and dumber").
It's sort of secret pilot project, you can't find this product listed in Microsoft web site. ( http://www.microsoft.com/indonesia/windows/default.asp ). Don't let this word out to dumb peoples. After dumb peoples have feeling too, and they might be upset because they have been given a special treatment by Microsoft.
Indonesian Minister of Communication and Information (menkominfo) attended the launching of WinXP SE, and immidiately commended Bill Gates as the person to first enter the heaven. Wow... some peoples are just dumb beyond belief.
http://jkt2.detikinet.com/index.php/detik.read/tahun/2005/bulan/02/tgl/22/time/16419/idnews/296647/idkanal/111
That's why I said that most Indonesian are dumb.... We even has a dumb Minister.
Way to go!
postscript :
One of my staff is localizing a POS program. We developed the POS program in house, and as a standard we choosed to use English. After a years, some users complained that they are having a hard time understanding the English menu. (So now we are in the process of localizing it.)
One thing that I can't understand is, how hard is it to learn one or two english words (such as 'input', 'inventory', 'cash drawer', etc)? It's not that they are retard or has IQ below a cockroach. They fluently can navigates thru cell phone's menu!!
Only one thing came to my mind, they are just lazy. Thus they will stay dumb... and will for a long time.
A silver lining of this is that their lazy attitude is the thing that will separate us (who are willing to learn), from them (who are not willing to learn).
My staff is learning a great deal of language vocabulary when translating from English to Indonesian. Those lazy users, learn nothing. Good for them.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
my Linux Software RAID was failing
Yesterday, I took a peek at the status of my Linux file server, and one of the disk in the RAID-5 volume was failed.
Being blank and pretty newbie in Linux, I absolutely had no idea on how to recover from such event. The volume still intact, but might not be if another disk fails.
I search google and found this link. The Software-RAID HOWTO: Reconstruction
All I need to do is just do the command :
It successfully reconstructed the volume yesterday.
This morning, it failed again. I'm trying to reissue the same command again. If it fails again, maybe it's about time to change the harddisk.
(Well, anyway it's an old pentium III, with some used and old SCSI hard disk. 5 SCSI at only 17Gig each.)
Being blank and pretty newbie in Linux, I absolutely had no idea on how to recover from such event. The volume still intact, but might not be if another disk fails.
I search google and found this link. The Software-RAID HOWTO: Reconstruction
All I need to do is just do the command :
raidhotadd /dev/mdX /dev/sdX
It successfully reconstructed the volume yesterday.
This morning, it failed again. I'm trying to reissue the same command again. If it fails again, maybe it's about time to change the harddisk.
(Well, anyway it's an old pentium III, with some used and old SCSI hard disk. 5 SCSI at only 17Gig each.)
Monday, January 31, 2005
cinnabon... finally here...
Cinnabon finally opened an outlet here in Jakarta. It used to be my fav when I lived in Eugene, OR, 12 years ago. Oh.... that Moccalatta, and the cinnamon with extra frosting..... :d
2 weeks ago, they opened an outlet in Taman Anggrek Mall, 3rd Floor, next to the movie theatres, replacing Famous Amos (Bye bye.... I'll miss their chocalate cookies... :( )
Price is okay. 10k or so for a minibon, and around 14k for a regular roll. However, they are not freshly baked, as in 'fresh from the oven'.
Nevertheless, the roll is better than Saint's Cinnamon (also located in MTA). My wife prefers Saint's Cinnamon, because they got Cheese Roll.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
The Quickest way to make a web page.
The Export department asked me to update the web with a new product line up. The site itself is quite old. I've been planning to upgrade this site, but always bumped away with daily routine such as broken computers, virus cleaning, internet connection lag, surfing, reading email... etc...
I got 15 pages brochures of the product from Export Department. What is the quickest and dirtiest way to put up this pages to website? At first, I asked for the designer of the pages for the Freehand files. Guess what. He didn't have the file. He trashed the file and didn't even archive it after the files was sent to the printer. Well...
He got only the original Photosop file of the image of the products. And each of the image is 25MB to 30MB in size.
So, I don't have much time, as Export Dept kept pushing this. So I'll just put up a quick and dirty pages first, before manually optimized those 25-30MB product images.
I scanned the pages. (One thing I regret is I scanned them using descreened option, which result the text to be blurry).
Scanned result was feed into Adobe Image Ready, increase the Contrast +40 around the black text area (to make the text crispier), slice the picture around each product+description, and save it as html+images.
then I open those images using Dreamweaver, apply a simple template consisting of navigation to the main page, previous page, and next page. Manually link each of the 'previous page' and 'next page'.
Connect to the server via FTP, and then upload.
Here there are.... a quick and dirty (or blurry to be precise) web pages. Times taken : 2-3 hours (mainly slow FTP transfer, because I live in a crappy country that has crappy connection).
Next week... I'll clean up and possibly redesign these pages..... if I have time....
I got 15 pages brochures of the product from Export Department. What is the quickest and dirtiest way to put up this pages to website? At first, I asked for the designer of the pages for the Freehand files. Guess what. He didn't have the file. He trashed the file and didn't even archive it after the files was sent to the printer. Well...
He got only the original Photosop file of the image of the products. And each of the image is 25MB to 30MB in size.
So, I don't have much time, as Export Dept kept pushing this. So I'll just put up a quick and dirty pages first, before manually optimized those 25-30MB product images.
I scanned the pages. (One thing I regret is I scanned them using descreened option, which result the text to be blurry).
Scanned result was feed into Adobe Image Ready, increase the Contrast +40 around the black text area (to make the text crispier), slice the picture around each product+description, and save it as html+images.
then I open those images using Dreamweaver, apply a simple template consisting of navigation to the main page, previous page, and next page. Manually link each of the 'previous page' and 'next page'.
Connect to the server via FTP, and then upload.
Here there are.... a quick and dirty (or blurry to be precise) web pages. Times taken : 2-3 hours (mainly slow FTP transfer, because I live in a crappy country that has crappy connection).
Next week... I'll clean up and possibly redesign these pages..... if I have time....
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Entourage X 2GB database file limit
Yesterday, one of the staff hitted this limit. He was using Entourage X without any update at all (as I believe, if it aint broke, don't fix it).
Yesterday it broke. Everytime he launched Entourage, it gave "-40" error. Tried the typical and advance rebuild also didn't work.
So I downloaded the latest upgrade (10.1.6) from this site @ microsoft.
I applied the upgrade, and Entourage went back to normal. However it still have a limit of 4GB.
The user have to have to manage their email.
A side effect after applying this update is that everytime I relaunched Entourage or Word or Excel, it will ask for the CD Key.
Using "Remove Office" from Office X Cd, I removed ms office from his mac, and then reinstall the Office again. Enter the CD-Key, and it's all set. Never again asked for CD-Key.
Yesterday it broke. Everytime he launched Entourage, it gave "-40" error. Tried the typical and advance rebuild also didn't work.
So I downloaded the latest upgrade (10.1.6) from this site @ microsoft.
I applied the upgrade, and Entourage went back to normal. However it still have a limit of 4GB.
The user have to have to manage their email.
A side effect after applying this update is that everytime I relaunched Entourage or Word or Excel, it will ask for the CD Key.
Using "Remove Office" from Office X Cd, I removed ms office from his mac, and then reinstall the Office again. Enter the CD-Key, and it's all set. Never again asked for CD-Key.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
This is why I love my bos...
This is my I love my Bos...
Yesterday, my Bos brought me a new iMac G5. (Currently I am using my beloved Cube, and still using it.... )
A couple of weeks ago, I was given a task to digitized a bunch of 8mm and hi8mm video cassete. My Cube was having a hard time when I tried to encode the captured video into DVD via iDVD.
It's a fine machine. Fast and quiet. Although the screen is a smaller than everybody thought it suppose to be from behind. It's a 17" wide screen. I wish it was a hi-res display. It's not quite far different in term of size from my 15" Studio Display.
Automatic user data migration (when you first turned on this new computer), didn't went smoothly.... it always stuck at "43 minutes left". Maybe my Cube's 20G hard disk is too crowded. I tried Repair Permission and Repair Disk several times using Disk Utility, and check and repair volume using TechTool Pro, but still it stuck at "43 minutes left".... (sometimes it's "45 minutes left"). Well, that wasted 1/2 of my days, so I decided to skip the process.
A few of my office mate drop by to see this iMac. They are PeeCee user, so they are quite amazed with it.... I was trying to find a way to show off this machine... and nothing came up... Apple should include a short movie of what this machine is capable of doing. A short 2-3 minutes movie will do.
I ran WorldBook instead... which wasn't very 'ohhh... ahhhh'. Neither is Nanosaurs.
Again, Apple should give some sampler or movies, at least for me to showoff this widescreen iMac.
So today, I bring a copy of Mission : Impossible - 2 DVD. Screen quality is okay, due to the scalling for full screen effect. If I watch it in normal mode, it will be too small, and the widescreen imac will be just a waste. Another 'minus' is the speaker. It's not powerful enough. My Cube's speaker is more powerful.... I might attached them to this iMac.
So the video project can wait... I'll 'test drive' this machine first. :)
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