Month: February 2007

This is another video (taken live) showing how scammers trick a laptop buyer.

So if you are thinking of buying *ahem* cheap laptop from a stranger from some forums or auction sites, think twice. Do not assume, check with your eyes.

At least keep your eyes on the items and DOUBLE check before paying your money.

A nice and cleaver video teaching us on how to steal a laptop (or not getting your laptop steal).

So next time you are in an airport, or anyplace else, never let your laptop get out of you sight, even for 1 second! These are experts suckers, so beware..

One thing that I can think of is to make your laptop bags more personalized… a nice sticker, company logo, slogan will make your stuff look different from others. In the video they look for someone with a similar looking bags as their, so this will make the thief pass you and look for other victims.

YouTube – The Real Hustle – Laptop Theft:

I was browsing Wikipedia.org pages and found a word that I do not know
the pronunciation. A sound file is provided and it is in .OGG format. I
have heard of .OGG format before and tried to run it to my Windows Media
Player. It refuses to run saying no filter found to run the format.

A little search from Google and I found http://www.vorbis.com/, they
provided a link to OGG codex for Windows which we can download from
http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/

After download the codex (stable version 0.71.0946 as of time of
writing), I tried to play the same .ogg file and voila! THe file played
find now in Windows Media player.

WTH, another WordPress Update?! Well, WP2.1.1 is out. It is a
low-to-medium priority update, so I guess I will wait till a major
update before updating my sites.

FYI, here are the technical details:

“We’ve got a new bugfix and security release for both of our actively
maintained branches of WordPress. Version 2.1.1 includes about 30 bug
fixes, mostly minor things around encoding, XML-RPC, the object cache,
and HTML code.

Files changed in 2.1.1 from 2.1:

* wp-includes/post-template.php
* wp-includes/cache.php
* wp-includes/formatting.php
* wp-includes/category.php
* wp-includes/post.php
* wp-includes/version.php
* wp-includes/js/scriptaculous/wp-scriptaculous.js
* wp-includes/js/tinymce/tiny_mce_config.php
* wp-includes/js/tinymce/wp-mce-help.php
* wp-includes/js/tinymce/tiny_mce_gzip.php
* wp-includes/capabilities.php
* wp-includes/cron.php
* wp-includes/functions.php
* wp-includes/bookmark-template.php
* xmlrpc.php
* wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
* wp-admin/admin-functions.php
* wp-admin/custom-header.php
* wp-admin/options-general.php
* wp-admin/edit.php
* wp-admin/index-extra.php
* wp-admin/options-reading.php

For some reasons they also provides a WP 2.0.9 update, just in case you
are too afraid to step into the 2.1 zone 😉

My network of websites automatically generate income for me for the past
few days, without any new updates. I do not have broadband access at my
home town and dialup slow as snail as always.

If you wonder why a blog with no updates for few days still attracted
visitors, well, it wasn’t. My main source of income comes from
content-based sites which are highly keyword targeted and main source of
visitors are from Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and others.

There are different models when come to build your websites, each model
has its pluses and minuses. A blog requires continuous updates, or your
visitors will get bored. The plus is there are many blogging systems
that provide easy setup and writing blogs, such as WordPress and Drupal.

For content-based sites, no continuous updates needed, you can setup
your site in 1 week time and if it hit the right spot, it will continue
to help you generate income for the whole year. Of course, I am not
saying that no need to update your sites at all, but the rate of
updating for content-based sites is much lower than for blog sites.

Stay tune for the next part of the article, where I will explain in
details on how to setup your network of content-based sites.

Gong Xi Fa Chai!

A touching story (for my moods at that time, anyway)
From http://news.xinhuanet.com/forum/2005-08/05/content_3308942.htm
”
我有一位朋友，长得又帅家世又好，年轻时把到了一位富家千金，长得像明星般美
丽，又有气质。几年后，他们结婚了，也生了两个小孩，但在结婚十年后，这位家
世极好的帅哥，不顾双方家族的反对，硬是要和富家千金离婚；隔了半年，帅哥又
找了一位女孩结婚，但这个婚姻让大家跌破眼镜，因为，这位帅哥娶的竟然是一位
餐厅里的女服务生，她家世平凡，父亲是小小的公务员，她长得没有明星架势，更
没有明星般的漂亮，很平凡的外表，却深深抓住帅哥的心。 　

有一次，我也很好奇，偷偷问帅哥，为什么这么迷恋平凡的女服务生。他说了
一个买酱油的故事。

他说，他这十年来受够了那位明星气质女的折磨和凌辱，之前不离是为了孩
子着想，但忍了十年实在忍无可忍，因为，这位美女从来不把人当人看，吃得要讲
究，穿要穿名牌，生活上每件事都要符合她的完美要求，只要有一点点瑕疵或不完
美，她就破口大骂，连人家祖宗八代都要问候。
　
即使他是她老公也是如此，一点小事没做好，就好象世界末日来临一样，整个
家被她搞得惊天动地，每个人最后都成了她的下人。偶尔，他工作压力很大，想寻
求她的安慰，向她吐吐苦水，她却讥讽他没有出息，笑他为何不去找个没有压力又
赚很多钱的事业？

偶尔，他想找她去散心或温存一下，她光是出门就要搞三到四小时，要选衣
服和鞋子，而且还要前一天向她预约，否则她会挑不出鞋子和可以搭配的衣服。累
了半天，终于可以出门了，他想和她亲密一下，她却嫌人多、他的手脏或是怕
ＳＡＲＳ可能还会爆发，搞到最后一点情调都没有，好象变成一个奴仆在听女主人
的训话和教诲。
　
ＸＸＸ！这些鸟事他都忍了。最后，真正让他爆发不满的，是一瓶酱油。
　
有一天，贵妇忽然心血来潮，想要做湖南菜，傍晚时打电话到办公室给他，叫
他下班时顺便到某某超市去买ＡＡ牌的酱油，他不敢不从。然而，他开了一天的
会，人也确实很累了，塞了快一小时的车，勉强在超市找到车位，就为了一瓶酱油
去和人家大排长龙结帐。接着，全身疲累地回到家，把酱油交给老婆，正想趴在沙
发上休息一下，老婆却在厨房尖叫，然后拿了一把菜刀冲了出来，另一只手拿着那
瓶酱油大骂：「你这个猪头！马上给我回去换掉．．．我说要ＡＡ牌的，你却买成
ＢＢ牌的，为什么我说的话你都没　在听．．．你根本不尊重我！」
　
就这样，为了一瓶酱油，她骂了半个小时，甚至牵托到双方家世的问题，还说
到他心里有自卑感，才会用这种小动作来作弄她．．．。

这时，又累又烦的他，气若游丝地想说：「老婆不过是一瓶酱油，晚餐将就用
了．．干嘛大费周章？」但老婆却拿起菜刀，逼他去换回ＡＡ牌。 　

看着老婆那张脸，像有不共戴天之仇般地狰狞着，忽然间他看开了，他站起来
挥手打掉她手上的菜刀，然后，生平第一次甩了她耳光（以前因为她是富家千金，
连骂都舍不得骂，更何况是打），然后淡淡地说：「要买你自己去买！明天我们就
离婚吧！」 　

当然了！一向是高高在上的贵妇，怎么可能被人「开除」，她到双方父母家里
大哭大闹，又说要带孩子自杀，但帅哥理也不理。后来，贵妇眼看再闹下去，自己
的面子也丢大了，就趁机敲了帅哥一大笔赡养费就离婚了。帅哥离婚后，为了付赡
养费，没有了豪宅，没有了存款，也没有了名车。

但他觉得自己重生了，感受到前所未有的自由和畅快，坐了十年的牢，终于
他逃出了那个女魔头的手掌心。他开始坐公车去上班，吃路边摊，租个公寓自己
住。有一天和同事去一家小餐厅吃饭，不小心打翻汤，桌面和衣服都湿了，一位女
服务生也不怕脏主动来帮他清理，还一直安慰他没有关系，他告诉我，他当时有一
股冲动，想倒在那位女服务生怀里痛哭一场。这位女服务生，就是他现在的老婆。 　

同样的，某天下班前，他接到老婆电话，同样是要他回家前顺便去买酱油。帅
哥同样累到不行，本来想说随便到外面吃就算了，但老婆在电话中拼命撒娇，说什
么特地炖肉要为他补身子，他听了再累也去买。这时，他想到了前妻的ＡＡ牌酱
油，到了便利商店，他故意又买ＢＢ牌酱油。回到家，老婆满脸笑容迎接他，然后
拿了酱油作菜。帅哥好奇地走到厨房，问她应该是ＡＡ牌的比较香吧！老婆撒娇地
说，什么牌都没关系，老公买回来的〔老公牌〕最香。　

就这样，帅哥一辈子疼死了会撒娇的老婆，他告诉我，在他眼中，他这位会撒
娇的老婆是最美的，没有任何女人可以取代她。 “

Maintenance Window: Friday, February 9, 2007
Time: 9:00pm – 5:00am MST

MST is GMT -7 Mountain Standard Time, from where I am (GMT+8), Start
time is 12pm Saturday, expected time finish is Saturday 5.00am MST ->
8pm Saturday my local time.

Arr… First major downtime since I subscript to Exabytes web hosting
EBiz plan. Hope that after the data center migration, thing will back to
normal, maybe faster, less ping time?

I am thinking of starting a new website on a list of top items. e.g. top
10 most expensive house, top 50 most popular bloggers…

Unfortunately the .com domain name has been taken last Dec 2006 (ough!)
and i am stuck on whether to take the .info, .net or .org tld.

Any ideas? Most probably will go for .org or .net, since I seldom see
any .info websites around. Hmm.. decision, decision…