Brand new experience

Have been lazy, i don't know why, i thought i'd start writing my own blog. Finally updated my tech blog with some new reference books.

The brand new experience is - in the near future, i am going to have a new life, i am getting marry soon!!!

The feeling is somewhat strange, the day to be a single bachelor is soon gone, but another excitement of being a husband will soon come too.

What a feeling!

Linux, it'll still remain in my life, it has not changed, but now, a brand new experience, my wife will be with me very soon...

Best regards,
Grant

New life - Jakarta

After 1 year, i've started to post on my blogger already!!

Well, all because of my laziness.

My life in Jakarta has been amazing! Maybe because i've got someone that i fall in love with...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a re-edit of my blog...

I have to be back, practicing my learning skill though...

I am back!!

regards,
Grant

Reading chinese in Firefox

I told Anthony that having own blog and updating it with some technical tips is quite useful.

I am now using Debian 4 (lenny/sid), reformatted by laptop, clean up the stuff. Now the set up and configuration on my personal preferences on the new OS.

The usual web pages i'll surf besides the technical one, is about NBA with some chinese version of the commentary.

http://sports.sina.com.cn/nba is the usual site i surf, but with normal English version of Debian installation it does not display the Chinese characters correctly and it is loading very slow on the browser.

Solution? Simple -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
kirbyc@kirby-laptop:~$ apt-cache search ttf-arphic
ttf-arphic-bkai00mp - "AR PL KaitiM Big5" Chinese TrueType font by Arphic Technology
ttf-arphic-bsmi00lp - "AR PL Mingti2L Big5" Chinese TrueType font by Arphic Technology
ttf-arphic-gbsn00lp - "AR PL SungtiL GB" Chinese TrueType font by Arphic Technology
ttf-arphic-gkai00mp - "AR PL KaitiM GB" Chinese TrueType font by Arphic Technology
ttf-arphic-ukai - "AR PL ZenKai Uni" Chinese Unicode TrueType font Kaiti style
ttf-arphic-uming - "AR PL ShanHeiSun Uni" Chinese Unicode TrueType font Mingti style
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then, install all of those ttf (true-type font), restart the machine, done!

regards,
GS

Time to clean up

The clean up here means my heavy duty laptop.

It's about half year i've not done any maintenance on this laptop.

But i've made a stupid mistakes, it took me almost 1 whole year to have accumulated all the day-to-day commands on linux in some individual short tips, but i've lost it due to formatting the system.

I'm wondering why and how could i lost it, those are very valuable tips even to myself.

Too bad.

This is a good lesson of a regular backup needed on every PC/laptop, it's even more important for a server!

regards,
GS.

Using tcp_wrappers

To a lot of newbies, including myself, designing and setting up a proper firewall requires a lot of technical knowledge, experiences and perhaps expertise. I mean a real perimeter firewall, not those you play at home with your ADSL router type of firewall.

Before we talk about firewall, does linux system provides any form of protection over remote ssh attack? A simple one that needs only a few lines, to at least not allowing anybody trying to ssh in?

Alright, this is what we are going to talk about - 'tcp_wrappers'.

Under /etc, you'll find hosts.allow and hosts.deny. If you don't get any of the file, you could just create it with your favourite editor, i use vi.

Straight to the point, stop beating around the bush...

Under /etc/hosts.allow

# You want to allow remote users telnet into your host, but only LAN - trusted users
in.telnetd: 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 : Allow

Under /etc/hosts.deny

#You'd only need to deny everything :
in.telnetd: ALL : Deny

Under normal circumstances, the 2 files above means hosts.deny will deny anything trying to connect to this protected host, but whatever listed in hosts.allow will be allow.

Clear? Okay, lay man term, "Deny everything, only allow what listed in hosts.allow file". Get it?

Oh yeah, changing the above 2 files, you don't have to restart anything, it'll work after you save the files.

What if i want to log all those attempted in? Check this out -

in.telnetd: ALL : spawn (echo Security notice from host `/bin/hostname`; \
echo; /usr/sbin/safe_finger @%h ) | \
/bin/mail -s "%d-%h security" admin@email.com & \
: twist ( /bin/echo -e "\n\nWARNING connection not allowed. Your attempt has been logged.
/etc/hosts.deny

Simple, huh??

regards,
Skywalker

Which interface is ethX?

Come across this useful tips by RedHat Magazine's site..

When you're troubleshooting a machine (mostly servers - in my case) you may be wondering which NIC (more than 1 of course) is the eth0/1/2??

Use this command - "/sbin/ethtool -p eth0 5"

The eth0 card will blink 5 times, without interrupting the network traffic. I have not tried this cuz i'm composing this blog at my dual-boot windows machine.

Well, i find that mii-tool does help too - "/sbin/mii-tool"

eth0: negotiated 100baseTx-HD, link ok
eth1: no link

Simple, right?

regards,
Skywalker

Inori ~ Your Raise Me Up

I got crazy about this song - Inori - You Raise Me Up - By Lena Park

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNZnvi4CiXg

I fall in love again... In love with this song...

You can get the lyrics here - English version sung by Celtic Woman and Josh Groban, but this is the Japanese version.

Feel free to choose whichever version you like.. it's a lovely song.

Close your eyes and enjoy the rhythm of the song...

I hope you'll like it.

regards,
GS

HEROES - Season 1

Have you ever watch 23 episodes of tv series in just 2.5 days???

I did...

It was HEROES - Season 1

Maybe i'm just too lonely during the weekend especially near to upcoming festive holiday and i've got no working mood, thus, i bought the whole season 1 of HEROES dvd.

It's been long time i have never got attracted to TV series that suck me into it so much. I've got addicted, can't stop, can't leave my laptop and can't help to finish it, at least to the end of the season's last episode.

It's breath taking story, the story line was always a bunch of X-Men trying to save the world, but this it's different from the plain old X-Men from the movie series which you'll see so much of special effects and the entire story has to be told in about 2 hours.

HEROES talks about a Japanese guy - Hiro Nakamura, who accidentally saw the incident of Apple city about to be blown off by a bomb, the story then starts from there. How Hiro trying to convince another heroes to help him to save the city.

It's not about a single person being a hero, that's what i understand by the movie title "HEROES" means. Because there are bunch of guys with super power putting together stop the city from being blown into pieces. But these heroes are not ready to save the city at first, through some string pullings putting about 10 different human with super power together, they are trying to do what they felt their responsibility to save the city.

Throughout the whole save the world mission, all of them have problems on their own, a cute kid with power to talk to machines and instructs them to do what he wants - he withdraw money from ATM by just touching it, holly God, i wish i have that!! But little Micah has his problems too, cause his father is jailed and his mom had to strip in front of a web cam in order to survive.

A guy dreamed that he could fly, and after a few times of dreaming, he really jump out of the building... Well, this lucky bastard is saved by someone who can really fly... but why does he dreamed that he could fly but instead he's almost dead jumping off the building?

An artist, could paint the future, but he also painted himself being kill by a serial killer... too bad huh.. But if not because of him, this series would not start, because he's the one painted the city would be blown off.

A cute cheer leader who wants to be a normal person, but she tried to jump off from building, she's not flying obviously, but she just can't die... her wound would cure by itself, weird, she's sad because she can't kill herself... But she's the cause of why these group of heroes want to save the world!

With so many story lines putting together, you won't get bored by just 1 hero acting from start to end.

Can the future be change? Can the past be changed? If the history can be changed, what will happen to me? Can my previous mistakes be undone?

Very interesting point, if i could change my previous mistakes, will i be myself anymore?

regards,
GS

Resident Evil - Extinction

At the end of the movie, is human being in extinction, yet?

I am having a lots of pressure at work, not really happy. This is a true feelings, when everybody is envy over my overseas traveling, i come back with a sour face.

Thus, watching a movie without needing to think is a good cure of a pathetic loser.

Almost from start to end, it's all fighting scenes with guns and bombs, to kill in order to survive, does Alice (Milla Jovovich) feel pathetic also?

Did i say she's a killer, killing thousands of... are they still humans?? Well, anyway, i think those beings are just monsters, in computer terms we call those programs cannot be killed - zombie.

This episode Alice have the super power of what Sylar/Peter Petrelli (in Heroes) had, oh yeah.. because Ali Larter is also in this movie too :)

Well, what attracts my eye balls besides the 2 ladies above, is Ashanti... oh my god, she's one hell of a hot nurse.. :)

Anyway, all fighting scenes leads to the end of good vs bad, and of course you'd expect the good guy wins, but what's next?? Clone War perhaps ??

I'm walking back to my apartment thinking that there'll be forth episode coming out, when will Resident Evil ends? I thought i started from a small house, oh i mean, a lab, but the virus spreads to the world??

Alaska is the only place for human, go there, you'll be safe... is it?

regards,
GS

What a pathetic...

Well, i just thought of the word "pathetic" could very well describe me.. and my feelings.

1 month of oversea business project, i'm staying in a foreign land, started to pick up a bit of the foreign language, i thought i'd like this, but i don't.

How pathetic i am?? I'm watching Resident Evil - Extinction on my own, with 3 couples in the cinema??!!!

Only 7 people watching this movie in a city's famous mall.

I feel so lonely, sad and then pathetic on my own.

My colleague got a local girl friend here, enjoying one of the biggest festival celebration here in this foreign land, but i'm alone in the apartment, day-dreaming.

I started to miss home, even though my bedroom look like shit, but, hey.. i'm home... i've got friends, i can visit friends... it's my home, i can do whatever i like.

I think i started to have the feelings of home sick now... Even if there's no one at home, but i'll feel more comfortable at home.

regards,
GS

Just want to announce - I'M BACK!!

After nearly half year not writing my blog, now, i'm back!!!

I feel like Michael Jordan announcing he's back to NBA...

ha.. i've forgotten my username to login to this account... what a shame!

regards,
Skywalker

Movie Session - Poseidon

A disasterous movie again!

What is Poseidon - " Poseidon is a god of many names. He is most famous as the god of the sea. The son of Cronus and Rhea, Poseidon is one of six siblings who eventually "divided the power of the world."

It's a movie about sea and ship, it reminds me of one of a famous movie directed by the same director - Wolfgang Peterson - The Perfect Storm.

This time the ship is as big as Titanic, but they're not hitting the ice-berg, but Poseidon.

Well, you know; no ones gonna be survive if they don't follow the lead Josh Lucas/Kurt Russel. So, the entire movie is about few adventurous heros breaking the rules of the ship where the captain had asked them to stay but they refuse, guess what... the ship sunk with the majority ;)

The special effect is the rogue tidal wave that comes like Tsunami... i think it could be hell more higher than it. It only happens because Poseidon is not in mood and want to play some fun game with this 18 floors gigantic ship and turn it up side down!

K... Josh Lucas(Dylan Johns), you remember "Stealth" the "talking-super-stealth-bomba"??? He's the cute handsome captain. This time, he's the leading the team again but with Kurt Russel(Robert Ramsey), the old fasion father with his daughter Emmy Rossum (Jennifer Ramsey - She's also acts in "Day After Tomorrow")

You don't follow the majority in disaster like this, find the hero who tries to escape, follow him or the team. It must only between 6 - 8 person and any more than that will die during the "fugitive" journey... like Valentine... ;)

This movie is intense and it gets you at the edge of your sit, as i used to say, a no brainer; you'll only need to wait for the next action or surprises comes out, that's it. You'll be sure the bad guy will not make it till the end but the good guys.

Kurt is playing a role of an old fashion father who cares too much of his daughter Emmy (Jennifer) who falls in love with Mike Vogel (Christian). But slight different from "Day After Tomorrow" this time Emmy saves her boy friend instead.

The movie gives me a feeling of Armagedden (if you compare the story line). Like what Kurt said in the movie " There's nothing fair about who lives and who dies. The movie involves a mother and son part, which shows no matter what happen, your mom won't leave you alone.. Happy Mother's Day :) - "Maggie to Conor : You have to be strong!"

What else can i say? Entertain yourself with this ship-sea-adventurous movie for the weekend, don't bring in any expectation like comparing it to Titanic, it's not that kind of love story...

regards,
Grant

Movie Session - Misi Mustahil : Tiga

Watching this movie for the first day it launches in this foreign country i visited.

In the native language it's name - Misi Mustahil - Tiga (a.k.a - Missions Impossible : 3)

This time Ethan is not alone and he gradually needs his team mates... like episod 1.

I always think that MI is different from James Bond set aside the same usual high-tech weapons, it's the team work, like the old time "The A-Team".

You've got Ving Rhames as his old partner then Zhen (Maggie Q) and Declan (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) forming the team, you'll find this isn't a one man show anymore. But with the intention of saving one's wife as the plot, you'll notice that this is telling most secret agent can't live their live with a life-time partner.

Is this the truth to those FBI/CIA agents known to the world?

Well, i don't really care about that as long as this movie is entertaining enough and not just a no-brainer. As usual, explosion, new weapons, team work and kick-the-bad-guy-ass revenge...

i've got 20 - 30 mins lending my arm to my girl friend who fall asleep while the team kidnapping Davian in the Vatican City. I like the way Ethan and Declan speaks Italian... hah...

Maggie Q is a famous model in Hong Kong, it's not unusual to have HK star acting in Hollywood movie but she's not really a HK star, yet... she's famous as her job profession as model though. The only scene that put her out is while she was driving a sport car part and what a pity to blow it up in the end!

The usual friend part of the movie is while Ving making the "mask" for Tom while telling him the bad idea to have a relationship as a secret agent till Tom told him he's married... the "Congratulation" part is good reply though.

All and all, it's worth watching as Tom is brave enough to mimic Jacky Chan as to jump from Bank of China...... as the fascinating part of action scene i've seen in Tom Cuise's movie.

regards,
Skywalker

Movie Session - Ice Age - The Melt Down

Cartoon time...

Not quite...

I found that this episod takes quite a number of ideas from other movies...

You remember the story of Noah The Arc??

Diego, Manny and Sid is in the sequel... of course ;)

The Ice Age is about to melt in 3 days time... The guys have to warn the rest to run away from their valley... or else they'll be flooded..

Throughout the whole movie, i like the 2 possums the best... It leads and made the female mammoth (by Queen Latifah) into thinking she's the possums sister... :)

You'll see how a mammoth acts and thinks that she's a possums but with a big fat ass... Like what Manny describe Ellie...

Obvious enough this is a movie for kids and i'd expect family with kids around in the cinema which i expected it though. But i did not realise i'm one of the victim... :(

The kids (or the family) next to my twin sit was really ruinned my mood of watching the movie... Come on.. daddy... could you educate your kids not to make noice in the cinema as this is a public place and if your kids are asking questions, you may rent the CD/DVD back and watch it with the family... I am so bothered with the questions...

Cuz i am paying to watch the movie with peace in mind and hope to enjoy the movie quietly with lots of laughter of course... but not nagging and q & a session...

But all and all.. it's a good movie... you'll have a lot of laughter and fun watching it... Me?? I'm enjoying the moment with Padme satisfying the warmth i gave to her and the laughter we both had... for the 2 possums... Opps.. did i miss Queen??...

regards,
Skywalker

Movie Session - Final Destination 3

Hey... it's a no brainer too... but the excitement is to follow the entire movie till the end... and found that no one can escape from death... opps... did i just spoilt the joy of the movie??? Not just yet...

Here's the plot -

Plot Outline: In this third installment of the Final Destination series, a student's premonition of a deadly rollercoaster ride saves her life and a lucky few, but not from death itself which seeks out those who escaped their fate.

In Buddhism explaination, no one could escape from the Four Sufferings : Birth, Aging, Sickness, and Death...

The last 2 episod of FD1 and FD2, you'll be glad that sometimes you're lucky enough not being involved but was then drag into it... Those who's involved trying so hard to get out of it... But the ending is good... At least you get to keep your last breath and be "alive"...

FD3 does not allow such "luxury" anymore... When you think you're safe...BANG!!!! You're just not there yet... There were surprises everywhere... This could be the last sequel by James Wong, who directed the first episod... and the third... i supposed the last one...

No brainer?? Enjoy the movie :)

regards,
Skywalker

Movie Session - Inside Man

It's been a while... after watching the 3rd episod of Star Wars - Revenge of The Sith...

Well, it's only misunderstanding that causes Anakin to go to the dark side, but once i finished off the Return of The Jedi, realised that finally Anakin has come back with the force...

There are a lot of misunderstanding situation happen due to the reason of lack of communication and lack of love... Agree??

K.... back to movie..

I watched 2 movies in a day... alone.. :) - Inside Man...

A movie that i find not a lot of people would be very interested if you don't mention the cast... Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster!!!!!

Denz and Jodie is my all time favourite movie star... I began to like Denz in Bone Collector and Jodie in Silence of The Lamb.

This is not a no brainer movie, the entire movie is a big plot, plot after plot and it's a near to perfect bank robbery story.

Don't be fooled by just the bank robbery movie, cuz it doesn't have to gun fight on the street nor in the bank itself. Spike is a good story teller, he also has arrange the movie in a way that you won't figure out the real intention of Dalton making the move of this bank robbery thing till the end of the story.

After days of work, going into the theater watching this movie is not fun at all, cuz my brain has to follow the plot of this exciting thriller and found the answer throughout the end of the session...

Phew... it's not relaxing when my mind has to "work out" too... But... the satisfaction of watching this movie compared to others... is different...

Trust me, if you want to let your mind relax, this may not be the movie you need.. go for Final Destination 3 !!!

regards,
Skywalker

Change title?

I'm wondering, should i still be using Debian, Slackware, Linux and My Life anymore??

The question pops in because the new company i'm joining now is totally MS based, which i think it is not a problem for me, it's just that i still would pretty much like to pursue my linux hobby which out of touch right now since i have to up several Win2k3, Exc2k3 servers...

I think i'll have have to consider amending my Blog title instead.. but this will come later.

I've promised Padme to update this blog at least once a day... Phew... due to my busy schedule, hopefully i won't break my promises.. :)

I'll continue later to update the howtos and step-by-step on installing Dell SC420 on Win2k3 server to join domain with the existing DC in our network, then necessary service pack patches,
finally i'm adding in the exchange 2003 server in.

Okie dokie... i shall continue later..

regards,
Skywalker

Should i change my title??

Gosh...

I'm wondering if i should consider changing my blog title... Reason being because i'm now working in a company that is MS partner... so... :)

Okay.. my first assignment since day 1 i joint the company... Did i mention when i start to join this new firm? 20th Feb 2006...

I was given 2 servers to play with. First one being Win2k server as AD, second server being Exchange 2003 on top of Win2k3 too.

We were stuck trying to join the Win2k3/Exc2k3 onto Win2k AD domain without success. Finally we give up trying due to some sort of DNS problem not properly setup at Win2k server.

Okie dokie...

This time i'm going to provide the link for my "tutorial" which it has tremendous help for my Win2k3 and Exc2k3 setup/installation.

http://www.petri.co.il/
http://www.microsoft.com/

To be frank Ms site has quite some detail step-by-step and some links to others related documents but it's not "user-friendly" enough due to Petri's site is providing some key notes and he gives snap-shots on the GUI screen that makes reading the tutorial an enjoying moment.

I'd strongly recomment anyone wants to learn AD/Exchange should not have missed Petri's site.

Geeh... i'm working on the network segment and firewall now, hope i have time to update a little for some useful sites that helps.

regards,
Skywalker

Movie Session - Firewall

Long time never watched movie, Padme sighed...

I was not attracted by the movie titled "Firewall" since we're in IT line cuz i knew it'll never be true to show what exactly a firewall means (opps.. i mean in computer term).

Well, after watching the movie, i can only say Harrison Ford is old enough, and he can't be Han Solo nor Indiana Jones anymore.

After fighting the bad guy, of cuz he won in the fight :) He was fighting not for justice or being a hero, he's just a father of 2 kids and trying to protect his architect wife and family.

Quotes from Jack Steinfield (Harrison Ford) - "You'll get the money, when I get my family."

He's no longer a super hero that save the universe nor man kind, just being a responsibile father and husband.

Firewall?? Did i mention anything about that he acts like a security expert?? Nah... Those of you who's expecting a computer crime movie with lots of high tech stuff in there, you better watch The Net, but not "Firewall"....

How's the movie?? Hmm.. Padme asked if i'd be like Jack in the movie when she needs me, i'll do what Anakin would do, of course...

regards,
Skywalker

Software Raid 5

I'm very lazy on reading the Software RAID-Howto.

That's the reason i kept hitting on the wall while trying to configure the software raid5 under various distro.

I haven't been using RH since it's 7.2 cuz i'm tired of the dependencies problem, thus i switch to Slackware and Debian.

But this time i'm owing to a friend, promised him i'll set up software raid 5 for him but has been dragging the work which i've promised.

He gave me 3 identical - IDE harddrive to 'play' with and a decent cpu unit which he left in my room as his samba server.

i didn't know raid 5 can't boot by default (/boot has to be in ext2/3) instead of raid based.

Once this is settled (/boot on ext3) then the rest on software raid, i could set up fine even with LVM installed in RHES 4.

I'll go in detail in the future blog but at least this has clear up my doubts earlier that keeps giving my trouble.

I shall use Deb/Slack on software raid later, it'll be full cli based... gotto learn the hardway.. :)

regards,
Grant