National Celebration

Last Thursday was the country National Day (or Independence Day). I went there with a friend, primarily aim was to watch the fireworks during the parade processing, but, we had to be there early in the evening, because we knew may people will be there also.

It was a massive human traffic jam, there were police barricades everywhere! An estimate of 50 to 100k people were there, maybe? All roads, open areas and bridges were filled with people. We also couldn't get a good view, but had to settle with standing on one side of the bridge. We waited for about 2 hours plus, finally got to see the fireworks! It's worth it.

Japanese Anime

Recently, I have watched alot of K-movies, e.g. Windstruck, Blood Rain, Trace of Love, and J-Movies, e.g. Ghost train.

In the movie making, I can see that the Koreans and Japanese make a big effort in creating each scene setup, no matter whether it's a house, hut or the location. I think their production costs should be pretty high. Their artists are also very professional, especially the Koreans, heard mostly gratuates of Arts academies (Universities).

I have also watched a Japanese Anime named 'Beyond the Clouds, The Promised Place'. Check the website, http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=2324.

What's Anime?

It's a work of self-expressive art, where it transcends the realism of the world that we see it with our eyes, hear with our ears, feel by our touches, and transform it into an imaginary and dream-like sub-conscious appearance of true human behaviour moments, which are visible to the conscious ones. To me, that's Anime.

Detox

Is Detox good? I have seen such Detox products in almost all pharmacies in this city.

The common believe is that it is a method of cleansing your body, remove 'toxic' waste within, improve your skin tone and best of all, slim you down. Some claimed that it rejuvenates and makes you feeling good and less stress.

Gee, wondering whether this is true, or just some kind of advertising gimmick. But, I do know, heathcare products are selling like hot cakes these days, and mechants selling them are simply laughing all the way to the bank.

Hello again!

It has been more than a month since I last wrote. Been busy and lazy, as usual. I had worked for the passed 2 Sundays, one, helping another team solving a backup system issue, the other, doing system testing after an upgrade.

An ex-colleague of mine invited me to her new born child's 'first month' reception this coming Saturday, thinking of going, but can't, got to meet up someone around the same time.

Hey, take a look at the picture above, see the mountain in the background? Yes, that is a magnificent mountain which can only be seen during clear weather, no haze, no rain and no mist.

PC Show

I went to the PC show today, and bought a new ASUS VW192T model LCD monitor.

There were a couple of other brands available, Samsung, LG, Acer, DELL, Phillips, Hanns,...

The Samsung 931C, cool, but no more stock when I got there, LG's 19" L196WT, not bad too, wide screen, 2ms response time. Acer and Dell were the cheapest deals with the 20" LCDs, less than $300. Nowadays, people are not just looking at the price, but also the looks, response time, the LCD panel types, .e.g A, S or C, The 'S' type panels being the best, I heard.

Finally, I got the ASUS LCD, the promoter claimed it's a type "A' LCD panel, the price just alright. Not bad, I set it up, works fine, not for gaming though, but ok. It's wide screen, so have to try getting used to it.

Changed Blog's URL

Yes, I have changed my blog's URL address. The new one is much more easier to remember now.

I was at the library today for a couple of hours (rare!), grabbed some books to read, mostly IT related. I really like the cosy and quiet atmosphere there. Well, since I don't have a lot of things to do during the weekends and I have also completed my PC game of 'Hidden and Dangerous', I think I should go there more often.

Security Audit

Again, it's time for one of the systems that our team managed to be subjected to an external audit, this is done once per three years. Unlucky me, I have been chosen to front this audit exercise.

Althought, I have had experiences dealing with auditors, but I do still get scared sometimes, not because they are intimidating, but rather, what kind of information they will try to probe. They are smart people. On our part, each question should only respond with a simple answer, no more than that. To them, people are the weakest link, so they will always focus on people questions.

Read this: "There are those who will say that network security is an oxymoron - that if you put a computer on a network, it is no longer secure. To some degree, this is true. There is no such thing as a perfectly secure network." - Randal K. Michael's AIX 5L Administration book.

Hidden & Dangerous

It's 2.24am on a Sunday morning. I just had a game of Hidden & Dangerous, trying to figure out how to grab that decoding machine on the floor. Spent some time, but still couldn't find any help from the Internet. Bored, I drifted to another websites, reading some posts on the recent Fighter jet crash news which killed 4 soldiers in Taiwan. It's a pretty sad thing to happen, that made me pondered about the days when I was with the army. You look out for your buddy's back and he do the same for you, a simple logic to understand in order to survive. Yawn....time to sleep now....

Here we go again....

*Sign*....It's time, finally, our experienced DBA is leaving us, he tendered his resignation last Friday, 20/4.

I was told that he had found a new job in the finance sector, but still in IT field. The funny thing is that, his new job is on contract basis, for six months, I heard, but enough to make a decent pay equivalent to one year's salary here in this company. If I got an offer like this, maybe I will also consider, job market is good now.

Oh well, have to start doing knowledge transfer, again, kind of getting used to it now...

My new D-I-Y PC

Finally, I went down to the computer stores last Friday to get all the hardware needed to setup my new PC. A new ATX casing, MSI Mainboard, 1GB Kingston RAM and 250GB HDD are all that I needed. The Mainboard has built-in Sound and Video, so, I don't have to buy separate cards. Also, I saved a bit more by having to built it myself, usually, this costs about $40 if you get the guys at the stores to do it for you.

I have not done D-I-Y PC setup for years, but lucky, with all the diagrams and instructions given in the manuals, I managed to it set up and running in about a day, phew, but wait, except for one small issue, although the BIOS recognised the 250GB HDD, but the Windows XP Professional OS doesn't, this was due to the '137GB filesystem' limitation. The problem was fixed by installing XP SP1 or the most recent SP2 (in my case) from update.microsoft.com, of course, you must make sure you got the legitimate version of XP to download the patch.

The moment I turn on the PC, WOW, it was faster...than my old PC. So, what's going to happen to my old PC? Guess I will dismantle it, salvage what that can still be used, and maybe sell it in the Internet, ebay?

Thanks, uncle!

Today, when I was on the way home on a crowded train, a family boarded the compartment where I was lucky to have a seat. Seeing that a young kid from the family could not get a seat, I gave up mine, as usual (I am nice?). Most of the time, people will just take the offered seat without saying anything, but, this time, it was different, the small girl said to me, "thank you, uncle!". I was happy, over the sky, really.

Kids are kids, they are so innocent and sweet, but, when they grow up, will they still be that courteous too? I am not sure. We shall see then.....

A friend

I saw, yes, I saw this friend of me on a train home today's evening, guess what, we haven't seen each other for more than five years.

I think this is really pure luck, because I usually don't go back that early. Somemore in the same train cabin, board at the same door, but at different stations.

Obviously, she didn't see me, that I'm used to it, in the past, I'm always the first to approach her. She's married, I think, how I know? She is pregnant. She still the same with a tired and worried looking face.

So, did I approach her? Nope, don't think she still remembers my name. Maybe next time.....

Dreams can come true

The other day while I was day dreaming away on my couch, I dreamt about playing football on a large patch of green. The air was fresh, a light breeze was blowing, it was sunset time, warm, but not hot. Far in the distance south were mountains and hills. To the north, a river cut through the dense forest.

I was on a high ground, with my old time buddies of 15 years, we were playing football. How times flies, it has been that long since we were together again.

As I awoke from my day dream, I heard my pager beeped. Strange, I have never seen this number before, who could it be? A long lost friend, perhaps?

I called the number, well, you just couldn't believe it. It was one of my old time buddies! Who says dreams don't come true? It does for me, at the least expected...

Surprise!....No thanks.

Geez....I was shot by a surprise "arrow" last Friday, I was given a new task.

Apparently, some business "bighead" decided to cut cost, cut man-power, wanted to send me down for that task. Hey, this was last minute, just when I was about to knock off for the week!

This is tough, man, never expect them to do that, I'm too good to take advantage of or what? Later as I found out, they have been working on this piece of task for quite a while, someone was already fronting it, why the last minute change?

Till now, I haven't got much clue or info...*Oh...Oh.....*

Surprise!....No thanks.....really.

Old friends gather

Back from a friends gathering, some haven't met for more than 3 years. From the look of each other's face, we know we are getting old! Most of the guys are already married, they brought along their spouses and kids.

Hey, I know you guys are better off in that area, maybe, I need some little fixes in my life, but well, I guess I am still comforable now with my singlehood, I still have a job to do.

haha....take care.

Hungry king

When I am really hungry, I could eat a cow. Just joking anyway, I don't eat beef, what I am trying to say is that I could eat a lot more when I am, well, hungry. This is what I found out recently, if there is anything that stands in-between me and my food, I will go into a high RECON mode, eliminate and destroy! Ha...ha....not really true always.

I eat a lot at times, but my body is still ok, not thin nor fat, stike a balance in the middle. I think I am more health conscious these days, been trying to cut down on FATS in-take, especially saturated fats, there are quite a lot talks about this type of fats, last heard not good of the body, you shouldn't take more than 5g per day.

Windy season over?

Guess the north-east wind has passed, no more windy nights! The weather was so cooling for the past weeks that I don't even have to switch on the fan when sleeping at night, save a lot on the electricity. The heat is slowly creeping back, though the rain comes once in awhile, but hopefully, the haze doesn't appears again.

Rain, rain, please come! I miss you....

Manpower issue

The other day I was talking about a System Admin in my team leaving, the one who is supposed to replace him is from another department.

Just yesterday, the Resouce Manager spoke to him, and he highlighted his concern about the pay package. Apparently, the company may not be adjusting his salary if he comes over to our team. If this the pay that he is drawing after joining us, then it will be lower than what he's getting now. At the moment, he works on shift, so there's a shift allowance, with our team, nope.

Well, the Resouce Manager will talk to the HR, check whether there is anything can be done. Keep our fingers crossed.

Family gathering

Tonight, everybody will gather at my parent's place for dinner.

We are going to have a sumptuous meal of seafood steamboat, the prawns, crabs, abalones, noodles, etc... My mum's home cooking is the best, no comparison. I am looking forward to having the dinner tonight. Yummy......

Someone's leaving...

*Sigh*......a Windows System Administrator from my team has tendered his resignation, his last day will be on the 21 Feb.

He is an ok guy, who works hard, pro-active, willing to learn and have a good attitude, people with these traits are pretty hard to find these days.

What motivates?? Pay and opportunities to advance are the top most criterias of job hopping. There has been talks that company is not paying people well, maybe it's true. We tried to make him stay by counter offering, but failed, offered pay too low.

Nevertheless, I wish him all the best in his future endeavours. Take care and keep in touch!

St Valentine's Day

Today is Valentine's Day, actually to me, this is nothing special, just a normal day. You wash up in the morning, go to work, knock off after that, go home, have dinner, pick up a book and read and then go to bed.

I think this Day is being "blown up in proportion", a day where it creates opportunity for shops, restaurants and hotels to make money. A bouquet of half dozen roses could cost more than 100 bucks, worth it? Nope, I say.

I prefer a Day which is special and unique, like a birthday, not everyone around you celebrates the same birthday as you are, it's SPECIAL, I say.

To me, treasuring each day is the most importance, another day, another fresh start and your future is charted based on what you do today, don't waste it. Live on!

February 2007

It has been quite awhile since I last wrote, not that I have forgotten but simply was too lazy to write. So how's everyone? Enjoying your new year? Did you guys watch the fireworks on new year day? I was there, it was fun-fair and fantastic.

I was actually pretty relaxed at the start of the new year, not many projects work to do, so things were still manageable then, got some free time to do something else, e.g. jogging, swimming, sightseeing. But, come the next two months, work will start coming in.

Want to share with you guys, if you understand the Hokkien dialect, check this out....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjUX5hB74zs

Happy New Year 2007!

Hey, how's everyone? Enjoying the holidays? Have you any plans for the coming new year?

The Internet link in this region was crippled by the earthquake last week, it was very slow, and most of the time couldn't even access sites hosted in Nothern America. Kudos to the guys who fixed the broken under sea cable lines. There's this guy in Taiwan saying that this will never happen in another 100 years. I think this incident clearly shows that it's just too much to rely on these links alone, especially most links goes to Taiwan and Japan, the high risk earthquake regions, then to the America, having an alternative cable path is just too expensive, they say.

Oh well, let's hope this will not happen again....in another 100 years, perhaps.

Christmas eve...

Today is X'mas eve, but I'm still in office, working. Why am I working? It's not because I don't like holiday, but I got to finish up with some outstanding work, so that I can go on leave till 28Dec.

Although, I don't really celebrate X'mas as a religious day, is a holiday to me actually, but, I do buy a gift for my little niece, as she is such as loveable girl. I always make a point to get her a present or gift on her birthday and X'mas.

I have also send e-greeting cards to my colleagues, wishing them a happy and joyful X'mas and new year.

Leaves approved! But...

Although, my boss had already approved of my two days leaves for Thursday and Friday, but, I still got some unfinished work to settle tomorrow. I got a meeting minutes to do, some documents to review, I reckon this should take me at least half a day, so, meaning I can still go on leaves in the afternoon. Also, I intend to take two or three days next week, after Christmas day, that would be good. Yeh.....

Take a break

I have applied for two days leaves for this coming Thursday and Friday, my boss has not approve it yet, anyway, as usual, I will still go ahead and clear my leaves. So finally, I'm going to have a long weekend till Christmas. I may even clear the rest of my outstanding leaves days next week, till the end of the year! How nice, huh ?!?!

Before going on leaves, I still have work to clear, got a meeting tomorrow, and I will be taking the minutes, supposed to be today, oh gosh! Then, there's some document reviews to do, not sure whether can finish them, but will do my best.

Any advice?

Some people has said that I'm too much into work. It seems like my life revolves around work, and nothing else, if you look at most my entries here, they always talk about work. Reading the posts, you will roughly know what I do for a living, right? I don't make alot of money, even though sometimes I have to work on weekends or overtime.

I think I need advice, perhaps plenty, if you do have any, do put in the Comments.

What's on Sunday

I'm thinking whether I should go back to work on Sunday. Just three week's ago, also a Sunday, I had tried to test swing over of SAN disk connectivity from one Windows server to another, but, this was not succcessful. So, i intend to do it again, this time, I had made some changes to the SAN's configuration.

Let's see whether I will be able to wake up early tomorrow.

I would like also, to share with you a very interesting blog at http://aaroninafrica.blogspot.com/. Aaron, a peace corp volunteer who is in Africa. Lots of video to watch.

Today

Today is Friday!

Today is the day, the day! The day you will return back home!

I am working today, so, not sure whether can make it to the airport to meet you, the time is pretty tight. I have got a couple of problems to solve today, application stuff, let's hope that they can be resolved today, or at least find something of what may have caused the issue.

Anyway, I will always do my best I can....

Questions from the team

I have finally completed the mount points setup for the second HP-UX server which is connected to a SAN system for another customer. The external SAN storage requirement was for at least 1TB to be configured solely for this server. This was done yesterday.

On the same day, I got questions from the team, asking me whether we should have a KnowledgeBase or 1st level troubleshooting guide for helpdesk. In order to address this, I spent about 3hrs last night creating the guide, will send to the team for comments or inputs.

There was also the question of data migration/batch support, one colleague claimed that he played multiple roles doing both in some weeks, which I presumed that he meant this is unfair. Ok, I will think about this, in fact, I'm more willing to scrap this batch support thing, let's see whether they are in favour.

Two more days..

Hey, how time flies, two more days and you will be back! Have you started packing?

I maybe busy for the next 2 weeks or so, have got another task to do in the afternoon, and this is due on Friday. Next week, I may need to provide support for another customer's disaster recovery exercise, mainly to assist if there's any server related issue. The other team who handles the Data recovery portion encountered some issues this week, so might need to help take a look at the server's configuration.

I still have about a week's annual leaves left, hopeful around the mid of next week, I will be able to clear them.

Hey, it's me!

Ya, it's me (not the man in the photo), way past midnight, and haven't sleep yet. I guess I got too much nap this afternoon, so I'm still pretty awake now.

Been troubled by an application issue for the past one week, did a search of the web just now, looking for solution or fix, but no luck, couldn't find much useful stuff, other than those I already know. It's just one of those times where you will spending time after office hours to solve work related problem, so used to it already. No worries, the storm comes and goes, will definitely get over it....

Coup in Fiji

Just heard from news today that there was a coup in Fiji, and the military has taken over the functions the government. Wondering what's going on there.

I remember that time you told me that you wanted to visit Fiji, hopefully, that it is not part of your travel plan.

How's everything? Have you been enjoying yourself?

I'm actually counting down on the day of your return. I have been keeping myself busy here, very tired sometimes, but I know I'm doing something very worthwhile.

Busy work week ahead

Mostly likely, next week is going to be a busy work week for me. I have planned work for some OS installation work at two different Disaster Recovery sites, software installation for two servers at my office's data centre, hmmm, maybe I will get our Windows Administrator to do that.

There's also my progress report to write, prepare learning plan for our team members and also preparation for take-over the duties of our DBA who is confirmed will be secondment to an overseas assignment next month. Let see how I can manage....

I read an article today, this guy said something interesting, it goes:

"If you are technically competent, but lacks communication skills, you will be struggling."

I think it's true, expecially in the IT line, most of the people I know are very technically capable, but when it comes to communication, it's just not there.

Here's another, a modified version by me:

"To survive in the IT industry, no matter what position you are in, you should continuously seek to enhance your technical, professional, communication and mangement skills, else you are just wasting your work life."

Go for training

I have also emailed my boss on a specialised skills (e.g. AutoSys, WebLogic App, PeoplelSoft Admin) learning approach for our team members, he supportive of it. My plan is to ensure that we can attend external training so as to supplement the knowledge learned from hand-ons, as well as build up team compentency, confidence and expertise, not only in running of current projects, but also external ones. In future, we do not have to rely on others, esp. vendors and other technical teams.

You know, this idea arose because I have been pretty frustrated at having to beg other external parties for help, alot of time wasted doing that, that's because we do not have that technical speciality skills. If we have them, people will look at us differently.

Overseas posting

It has been confirmed, one of our DBAs will be deployed for an overseas assignment. He will either be in Australia or Malaysia, working on a Sybase Database project for a Telco company. This assignment will last three months, starting early January next year.

I think this is a good exposure and experience gaining opportunity for him, so I'm not opposing to his overseas' posting, but hopefully he will be back with the team here after the end of the posting period.

Meanwhile, have to start preparing the hand-over and take-over process, critical for our only DBA who will be taking over his tasks.

HP-UX OS installation

I completed a HP-UX server installation yesterday for one of the customers. Really, this is probably the first time I did a OS installation of a HP-UX server, previously, I have only seen my Unix administrator do it.

For a start, I made a silly mistake, instead of loading the OS installation disk, I put in the documentation CD in the CD-ROM drive, of course, it couldn't start up the installation process, wasted at least an hour then found out the I got the wrong disc!

Eventually, managed to get the right installation going, plus OS patching, the whole process took about four hours to complete.

My Cousin's Big Day

Today is wedding day of one of my younger cousins, and I will be attending his wedding dinner later tonight, with my family.

How times flies, come to think of it when we were still young, playing as kids, now he's getting married and soon will have his own children.

I think I am probably one of last few remaining male of that generation who is still single and nobody wants, pity me! Haha...

Anyway, hopefully you are enjoying your trip with your mum.

Well, almost time getting ready to go to my cousin dinner.....see ya...

ITIL Course

I have just attended the ITIL foundation course from Monday to Wednesday. This is a very interesting short course, and at the end of the course, there was a multiple choice exam questions where you have to obtain at least 26 out of 40 questions right, hopefully I pass.

The ITIL is made up of best practices, and ITSM or IT Service Management is part of it. Basically, it touches on Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, Release Management, Configuration Management processess, plus the Service Desk support function, all these part of the Service Support. Service Delivery includes Availablity Management, Capacity Management, Service Level Management, Business Continuity Management and IT Finanace Management. It also covers Security Management which is not part of Service Delivery, but related.

My company is currently practicing this process model, so would be good to have a basic knowledge of what is this all about.

Weekend peace time

I thought I will be spending the weekend in peace today, especially, it rained in the afternoon, cooler for taking naps, but not so.

Our new Windows admin guy "hit the panic button" and called me saying one of the server could not be logout, showed light blue screen on the console for half an hour. I thought he had seen this before, and I did told him what to do, simple, check the HDD light, if no activity, do a hard power off and on it back, resolved.

The second incident, one of the app guys email us saying he could not logon to the application using some of the user IDs due to logon time retriction. This has nothing to do with the servers, I wanted to tell him that application security admin is not under our purview and please check with his application team's colleague. But being helpful, told him what it can be done to enable logon. He didn't email back, hopefully it's already solved.

Our DBA guy will be away for the next one week, I will also on course for he first three days of the week, hopeful, the rest of the team mates can work things together.

Unsecured Wireless Network

Just last week, a guy was charged in court for tapping on someone's wireless network, indirectly access the Internet via the victim's broadband connection. This is probable the first time I'm have heard, and I have never thought this could happen, the court thing, I mean.

Over here, most people live in flats of close proximity, if you just do a wireless network scan, you will sure to find some (networks) which are not secured. I believe there are people out there trying to tap on to other people's wireless network without the other party's knowledge. Mostly, I don't think they did it with ill intention, e.g. hacking, cracking, sniffing, but, rather, to get free access to fast internet connections at someone's expense.

I heard in some countries, such as Canada, if you are caught not securing your wireless network, you will be charged, reverse of what's happening here. Anyway, sometimes it's difficult to draw the lines, it's the almighty Law that determines the guilty party and eventually mete out the desired punishment under the justice system.

System roll out

The Windows systems which I have been working on for the last two weeks have finally rolled out, LIVE! today.

I heard there were some issues, complaints from users this morning, but that's the application concern, shouldn't be serious, though. Usually, it he timeout, connection slowest, error message when navigating, etc.

I'm also in the midst of completing the technical documentation today, do a final edit and then send it to the Project team. I reckon that in future they may want our team to administrator or maintenance the servers for them, if that is so, likely I will get our Windows guy to provide the primary support and then I back him up.

Have a look at this photo

Nothing particular, just want you to take a look at this picture of the roller coaster track.

Looks scary isn't it? That's the new Superman Escape ride.

High speed, velocity, very very exciting, but too bad, I didn't try it, weak heart, don't dare.

Another Windows' issue

I installed a couple of Windows Server 2003 OS patches on two new servers, production and UAT environments, that was Monday. Then I tried to run the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyser v2.0 or MBSA v2, it failed. The error message was "The catalog file was corrupted" or "could not find the host to scan", something like that.

I couldn't solve the problem yesterday, so waited until today, got my new Windows admin guy to have a look. He managed to find out that it was due to the "Computer Browser" service that was turned off, which is required by the MBSA scan. That's good, that shows he's learning, I like that attitude. He is currently still worknig as a contracted staff, with this working attitude, soon, I may ask boss to convert him to permanent.

Number 100th

By the time you are seeing this, you would have completed your exams. This is my number 100th post, finally!

How times flies, I remember more than three months back, when I wanted to start this blog, I didn't know what to do, what to write or what kind of blog page design I want. With blogger.com, all these are simple to do, they provided the template for me to use, althought, maybe there's a lack of originity on this part, but ok.

If this is the first post that you are reading, there are 99 more to go. Hee...hee....8-p

System Security exam

Hey, you guess what? I passed the system security exam two days ago! Finally, after studying for the last eight weeks, I earned it. It was tougher that my previous system network exam actually, but my score was ok.

Sad also, I found out that I have lost my system network certificate yesterday. Don't know where I left it, maybe lost when I went for a job interview last year. I will continue to look for it, funny, usually I am quite careful. If cannot find, nevermind, anyway, my certification status is still recognised by the vendor.

This is Windows...

Yesterday, I had to go back home late, after midnight actually, because I was trying to resolved a Windows 2003 Server problem due to OS hardening. I spend almost six hours of my time in this, way passed midnight. I had to revert back all the changes I made earlier until I found out the main cause.

There is this parameter "Bypass traverse checking", which allows user to access (traverse) directories without if they are not allow into the parent folder. The initial permissions were granted for Everyone, Administrators, Users, Power Users and Backup Operators. I removed Everyone, Users and Power Users, and after server reboot, I could not even access the Networking panel, run the Backup or check the Dependencies in the Services. Managed to solved the issue by putting "Authenticated User" into the rights, and reboot server, it works!

Cha Kuey Tiao

I had Cha Kuey Tiao for dinner today. It has been quite some time since I last ate it, I don't usually got the chance to eat it, not that it is not available, but because I can't eat it too frequent due to my acne problem.

I just can't believe it, at my age, I am still bothered by pimples! Don't know whether is it due to the oily and fried food I eat everyday or just because I am too stressed out and can't sleep well at night.

The taste of Cha Kuey Tiao makes me water, it is actually chinese noddles fried with sweet dark soy sauce, chilli, chinese sausage, bean sprouts, fish cake and sea hums or cockles. It's a very filling meal, but not good to take it every day.

Pay a visit

I visited my cousin's shop yesterday, it is a small place, but there are heaps of clothes for sale. Although the place is abit messy, but most of the stuffs already hung on the racks were already in order. She was not there at that time as she had a full time job, so, her aunt was helping her to do the sales.

In that a couple of hours that I was there, I saw people, mostly women, visiting the shop, and buying stuffs. Really, these people can really spend their money, easily hit over hundred dollars per purchase.

Later, I told my cousin that she should start thinking of quiting her job and do full-time maning of her shop, because I think her aunt will not be able to handle it alone, as she also has other things to do.

Busy schedule

I have been busy.

Yesterday, my cousin called, wanted me to help out at her new boutique shop, I reckoned the business should be not bad, can earn a couple of hundreds, I guess. That aside, she also has a full time job, so it's pretty tough for her shuttling between her real job and her business, my aunt was helping her, but it's not the best arrangement.

I'll be taking half day off tomorrow, maybe I will go and visit her shop.

I was also been busy with, not really work, but studies, preparing for the exams and also read up on the other hacking course materials, it's tough. Now I know most of the hacking or cracking are aimed at Windows OS, tools like enum, pwdump, dumpsec, smbdie, etc. are pretty useful in exploiting or harming the OS.

I have been busy, really.