I found out what happened

I know what happened to be my PC. It was because of the Windows Automatic Update, every time I started up the Internet connection, it was trying to connect to Microsoft's updates to look for fixes and patches.

Once, it got connected and it came out with 21 patches to patch, so l let it continue to download the patches and install on my PC. After that, I did a reboot, wah la, it is now back to normal!

So, folks, next time you find that your PC is slowing down, do check your Automatic Updates.

What is IT Governance?

What is the definition of 'IT Governance'?

I think it is the proper management and usage of IT resources to achieve optimised benefits or good returns from IT investments.

Good IT Governance involves not just the IT managers or the people, e.g. System, Network Administrators, DBA, who manage the resources, but also non-IT management or corporate users who use the IT resources.

Every users of IT services and resources should be aware of the proper ways of using them and not mis-use, mis-manage, under utilise or over-expecting.

Management should ensure that there must be viable objectives to IT implmentations, and set goals to attain these objectives. Good monitors should be setup to ensure that these implmentations truly meet organisation business needs and directions.

Countryside photo

This picture is nice, have a look. It's a mountain view.

Do you remember what place is this? Frankly, I don't remember. Feel the urge to climb that mountain? Yes? I don't think it's very high, worth the try if you want to.

The weather then, was cool, with light, soothing air blowing pass you, just ponder whether is this a suitable place for a second home?

If you see any repeated pictures posted in here, let me know so that I can replace them with new ones. I have some more, so I won't run of pictures so soon.

PC problem

I just don't know what's wrong with my PC, starting up was ok, but when I tried to open up the browser, it took minutes! I checked the Task Manager, it showed that there was this svchost process running at close to 100% CPU busy. What happened? Maybe there are spywares in my PC, I'm going to do a spyware scan later. It has never been like this before, could be that it's time to re-install the OS.

Kind of difficult?

It is always a tough job teaching and passing on the knowledge to people who are new to the field. I have tried to stress the importance of having a sense of resposibility and urgency. They are important, yes. Why?

When a problem crop up, and you know it's your area, you should take ownership of the issue and do your best to resolve it and find out the root cause. Don't wait for people to solve it for you, and you just see. You won't learn much by just 'seeing', you got to hands on, do it. Prove to youself and the rest that you are capable to solve problems. Don't think that you know everything, as long as you never get your hands dirty, you will never become technically competent. To gain people's trust, you got to show them what you have and what you can do.

Yes, it works!

Alright! Cheers, man..... managed to get the license key thing work with the software. Still got to monitor the systems for the next few weeks. Just want to make sure that it really works fine, you will never know, problems may surface after some time!

The weather is still not that good today, too humid. I can see the haze is coming back, visibility is not so good. Let's hope that our neighbouring country's government will do something about that soon. This is definitely, totally not healthy.

I got to work tomorrow, some servers needs to do OS patching, should take some time to complete. I think I will get the other new team mate do it.

Pluto is no longer considered a Planet!

Cut out this article from an online News website:

Astronomers Say Pluto Is Not a Planet

The decision by the prestigious international group spells out the basic tests that celestial objects will have to meet before they can be considered for admission to the elite cosmic club.

Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.

After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is - and isn't - a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.

For now, membership will be restricted to the eight "classical" planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Much-maligned Pluto doesn't make the grade under the new rules for a planet: "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."

Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune's.

Show you this photo

Hey, just want to show you this picture. Pretty sight, huh?

It looks even more awesome at the spot where the photo was taken. Usually, for people living in the city or urban areas, you don't get to see this, you got to go outside the city.

Luckily, the weather is good, else would not have been able to take this picture. It was supposed to be winter, but it does not snow there. The humidity and the temperature were just nice, not too cold or too hot. In fact, because of the breeze that was blowing, you feel so relax and enjoyable. Free from nuisances, pressures, noises, pollutions and the most important of all, work.

You got to go there sometimes. Trust me, you will like it.

Work In Progress...

Remember the team member I was talking about in my previous blog entry? Well, he's still surviving, doing System stuff and some Database things. I do see some improvements in his work, and he's still working very harding to learn and pick-up new knowledge, then put them into real life work. In general, I believe he can do System support.

I have given him some requests to do, scripting stuffs, good for him. I do help him along, giving him some pointers and tips, but, hey, I do find things that he knows, well, no harm learning for each other, right?

The new planets?

I cut this out from a email sent to me via newsletter:

"What is a planet? For years, astronomers have been debating that question, with the status of tiny Pluto hanging in the balance. Finally, an answer is in the offing. Today, the International Astronomical Union's Planet Definition Committee announced their proposal for a new, official definition of "planet." If the proposal is approved by a vote of IAU astronomers on August 24th, the number of planets in the Solar System would swell from nine to twelve. And, yes, Pluto would be among them. Get the full story at http://spaceweather.com . "

Working on Sunday

Got up at about 9am, clean up and then took a cab to my work place. Due to the increase in the terrorism awareness, we have to take safety precaution to keep the Systems safe from cyber attacks. What we (with another system guy) did today was to patch up four of the servers which are running Windows Operating System.

Managed to complete the patching by 1pm. Went for a swim after that, it was pretty hot afternoon, but good for getting skin-tanned under the sun.

See movie

I finally had the time to watch a movie last night. It was called 'The break up', starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. It was pretty nice show about a couple living together in a condo, then one day, had a big fight over who should do the dishes and other things. And then, she can't stand it anymore and decided to split, but neither of them wanted to move out of the house. She tried to spike him by getting her Dates to fetch her from home. He retailated by calling his friend to bring in the 'gals', and party all night.

Time comes, when he realised what was wrong, he had been taking things for granted, and did not show appreciation of the things she had done for him. He wanted to make amend, but, it was too late, she "don't feel the same anymore". So, in the end, they sold the house and splited. He continued to work on his city tour business and she went travelling, until a time when they met again, "Hi", "hello", "how's things?". In the ending, they didn't get back together.

The moral of the story? Do appreciate what your partner do for you. It's not about what you like to do alone, or what others do for you, but "do what both of you want to and love to do".

Knowledge Transfer

I got this opportunity to pass on what I know on System Admin support to one of our new guys. He is not from the IT or Computing background. He is interested to do database because he has a certification in that, but also don't mind doing system stuff.

For the past few weeks, I have been observing his work, I noticed he is more of a system guy, ie. can excel better in this area. I have started to hand-over some of the systems for him to administer, at the same time, do knowledge transfer.

Being without a good foundation of IT or computing is a disadvantage, but I can see that he is picking up. Well, Roman is not built in a day, likewise, I don't expect him to master everything in just a few weeks.

There goes the new handphone

I got a call from the handphone company where, few days back, I bought the new handphone through their website. They told me that my current line's plan is not eligible for the purchase of the 3G handset that comes with a 3G SIM card. I must do a upgrade of the plan to a more expensive one. Ok, then, I told them to cancel my purchase, I just don't want to pay for that, since I don't think I will be subscribing to the 3G Services for the time being. Save the money for the future.

The picture, that's the 12 Apostles site, Great Ocean Road, Victoria State.

This is Monday

Most hectic day of the week. System checks and stuff like that makes me tired at the end of the day.

In the late afternoon , had a meeting with the management, one of our team mates had prepared a change, OS upgrade on a critical production server. Really, now then I know it can be difficult to urge with the people on the top, pretty demanding, tried hard to convince them to grant approval to go ahead with the change. At the end of the hour long meeting, approval was finally given, but on condition that we brush up on the continguency plan.

Grandpa's birthday dinner

Just back from Grandpa's birthday dinner. About 30 plus people, mostly kids, had Chinese-Thai Cuisines, Ala-Cart buffet dinner, steamed fish, Tom-yam soup, fried prawns, mushrooms with tofu, not bad.

Usually, I'm very particular about service, so, I think it was ok, we don't have to wait too long, the service staffs were good too.

Rest and relax

Later, I will be going for a run, it makes me feel good after that, especially doing it around noon time, with the sum beaming brightly. If time permits, I will also go for a swim, stretch my arm muscles a bit.

Don't feel like doing anything else today. Guess I will just stay home, surf net and do some reading. Saturday is the best time to spend lazy around doing what makes you feel comfortable and relaxing.

The Haze is back!

It has always happened at around this time every years, haze or smoke blown from our neighbouring countries. Farmers clearing their lands of unwanted vegetation by burning. This time round may not be as bad as in 10 years ago, that time was worst, there was strong burning smell in the air, visibility was pretty bad too. It rained last night, so the weather is slightly cooler, with the Sun covered in the clouds.

Getting a new handphone

Just bought a new Nokia handphone from a online shop by extending my line contract for another two years. I have been eyeing the phone for the last three weeks, now that it's being sold cheaper after midnight, I think it should be worth getting it. The phone comes with a free bluetooth headset and will be delivered next week.

Today is a holiday here, good, good, get to rest once in awhile.

The Sydney bridge seen at a distance away...

Not so good Technical Support

Software issues, license key issues, this company that I have been working with, their tech support was really not so good. I guess they have been 'eating' too many other small companies, grow too big an organisation, services getting from bad worst, and charges more expensive.

The Job scheduling problem really puzzled me, the whole system has been running fine for so many years, should be pretty stable now, yet have never seen such many issues surface in just one week . What I can do now is wait for their TS to response, and they are really slow....*sigh*.

Tilt the picture 90 degree clockwise to see the right orientation.

It's Friday!

How time flies, it's Friday again. What did I do today?

I got a call from the DBA's Head asking me whether our DBAs are coping well and also whether we could spare one of our DBAs for an overseas posting for a couple of months. After consulting with our senior DBA, he said ok. Well, no harm helping him out, because you will never know when is the next time you need someone's help.

Nay, no go movie for today. Reached home early, was watching TV till I dozed off. Hey, I thought I didn't do much work today, how come so tired? Beats me!

Showtime!

I just got a free movie voucher, and I reckoned watching a show after work at night, the Superman Returns. Searching for the show time at the Cinema website, couldn't find it. It's no longer showing! There's also another good one, the Lake House, I like the casts, Sandra Bullocks and Keanu Reeves. I remember sometime back, there was this Korean movie, the storyline was similar. Nay, I didn't get to watch any movie tonight.

That, in view, is the Darlington Harbour, Sydney. Photo taken from the Sydney Tower.

BB06: The Winner

http://bigbrother.3mobile.com.au/diary
/day_100.asp#3521

Nope, not the Three Sisters (photo above).

I guessed it wrong! Jamie is the winner. What a lucky man. Camilla, you did well too! Thanks heaps for all the fun !

Watching time passes..

While at work today, I found that I have nothing much to do. Basically, just watching time passes...

Actually, I was waiting for this tech support guy to settle a software license issue, and he said (in his email) that he will try to resolve by today! That kept me waiting and waiting....did he forget??

Any way, the photo, that's the Natural Bridge, right in a forest. Standing next to it is like you are in paradise.