Google is my currency convertor, and a calculator

shakir    Information Insemination    

Just a quick one to share:

Another day in the office and I needed to calculate the tariff (tax of my imported goods) I need to pay for my wireless parts order. I opened up Google and typed this:

(30% of 2100)usd to myr

and Google instantly give me the result:

(30% of 2100) * U.S. dollar = 2 168.14479 Malaysian ringgits

Cool. Thank you Google

Back to school

shakir    Information Insemination    

I was in a placement test when during the oral session the interviewer asked me, "Why did you sign up for this?", and I answered, "It's just a thought". Yup, it was just another boring day in the office that I suddenly thought, hey, I wanna sign up for an English course. And so I asked around and ended up calling British Council Malaysia for the next available placement test, a proficiency test to determine which offered course and level can I enrol for.

Ok, that's obviously not me on the library card, but my particulars are printed on the other side of it.

The course I registered for was Business English Intermediete Orange, where Orange is one of the 4 available tracks in the course. In this track, I'm expected to be going through the following lessons:

Topics: Trade, Ethics, Innovation

Skills: Negotiating, Problem-solving, Presentation techniques

Language: Conditions, Narrative tenses, Passives

Writing: E-mails, Letters

Since I'm gonna be doing it part-time, it's gonna be a 10 weeks of twice a week classes, one and a half hour each for me. The class will start the first week of January 2009, and from that day in that 10 weeks period, I won't be available on Tuesday and Thursday. The class starts at 8:00 PM and British Council Malaysia is somewhere near KLCC though, and so I'm still good for early dinner invitations

50km WiFi #2 : The shipping

shakir    Information Insemination, Nerd Public Journal?    

In one of my orders of the wireless parts, the system was not able to automaticaly determine shipping cost of some of the parts due to its size / weight, and so it need to be calculated manually. Upon checking my order, I was surprised to see the following;

The weight of the equipments are 401.75 lbs, or 182 kilograms! That's very heavy I must say. I know it's gonna cost me a bomb, and so I went to check the shipping cost at UPS's website;

That's 2401.64 USD, or double the cost of the equipments itself… Sum them up, and convert it to our local currency, that's over RM12,000!

On a lighter note, I don't think that's the actual weight, as I assume they just randomly set the weight of each items they're to manually calculate the shipping for. So, for now I'll just wait till they update the order, or be surprised when they charge my card later

Today is Ettercap author’s birthay?

shakir    Information Insemination    

Was runing Ettercap earlier today, and got the following message;

Happy birthday!

My new phone (kinda) – Nokia 3120c

shakir    Information Insemination    

A friend of mine was probably pitying me and my old, el-cheapo Nokia 1650 handset, and decided to (forcefully) lend me his spare handset, a Nokia 3120c. That would probably make him less bad befriending me, especially when I take out my phone in the public while he's around

So, what can this phone do? Lets see…

Wah, it has built in camera! Great. Lemme snap a photo of my office-desk (if not work-desk)… Done, but wait; I have no cable to transfer the file to my laptop. Hmm, there must be a way… Ah, it also has bluetooth. Cool, I can just pair it with my laptop and have the file transfered. Here goes, behold!

The cameras were already on the table before I decided to take the photo, though it cleary shows what I do in the office is mostly checking emails and 'communicating' through Pidgin. Oh, my dearie Nokia 1650 is in the photo as well nice

Facebook feed not showing latest friend’s updates

shakir    Information Insemination    

Facebook changed its layout recently and I have few friends complaining that they are not seing their friend's latest updates on their facebook's main page. This is because Facebook has introduced News Feed which will display whatever Facebook think is the most relevant for you instead of showing the latest updates.

Changing it to display the latest updates is just a matter of clicking one link, which I show in my other blog, TechRecipes.

Richard Stallman and The Church of Emacs at FOSS.my 2009

shakir    Information Insemination    

I attended FOSS.my 2009 today, and managed to record this video during Richard Stallman's opening keynote;

I'm sorry about the quality of the video, because it was shot handheld using my Nikon D90 using fixed length lens (50mm) which cannot zoom in closer. I have few more videos and photos of him and the event in general, and I'm hoping to slowly upload them here.

Upgrading Windows Vista to Windows 7

shakir    Information Insemination, Nerd Public Journal?    

Microsoft has released it's Windows 7, and I am eligible for free upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium from my current Windows Vista Home Premium. What I needed to do was to go to Microsoft's website to check for appropriate link,, and as mine is a Dell laptop, I followed the link to Dell's Window 7 Upgrade site. After submitting the online form, I got the following email in my mailbox;

I honestly don't feel excited about this upgrade at all (even the writing style of this post feels bored to me) , and is actually counting days for Ubuntu's Karmic Koala to be released…

Through My Window

shakir    Information Insemination, Nerd Public Journal?    

It's a song being made available at http://everyoneconnects.net/ . I like.

What makes the song different? Read about it here: http://twitter.com/every1connects

Through My Window

Don’t want much, I just want everything
Thought that I could, do almost anything
One step in front of the other
Thought that I could do it alone

In the blink of an eye, it's just another day
Telling me why, I'll find another way
Got this feeling, got me reeling
I can almost start believing

Now there's me and you
And we are not alone
You and me
We are together now
Through my window, I can see there's
More than you and more than me
Me and you
And we are not alone
Different view
We are together now
Through my window, I can see
Our wildest dreams could be so real

I see a spark, it starts a fire
Is this the one worth waiting for?
Thought that I could do it without you
Can’t exist like this anymore

Now there's me and you
And we are not alone
You and me
We are together now
Through my window, I can see there's
More than you and more than me

Now there’s me and you, you and me
We are not alone and we are together
Through my window I can see
Our wildest dreams could be so real

Do not use default password, please

shakir    Information Insemination, Nerd Public Journal?    

While waiting for someone at a local fast food restaurant here I decided to use the free WiFi. My habit when I'm at a public WiFi is to see how many people are sharing the line, and then to tunnel my connection if necessary.

The person I've been waiting still not turning up, and I got interested in the one with the IP not in the DHCP range.

It's actually a webcam and is not running on the default HTTP port. I Googled for the default password of this webcam, and managed to log in.

Thank God that I don't have Java plugin, or else I would be able to see what the girl beside me is doing with her laptop.