Air not fresh

Don't know why, seems like the haze problem has taken a hit on my health. I have been feeling weak, tired out and eyes feeling uncomfortable easily, this is not something that I would expect because I used to work in air-con environment and don't usually go outdoors, unless during lunch time.

The PSI still lingers around 100 plus daily, the burning smell is not that strong. The weather people says this problem will last till November, hopefully the rain will come then. Hopefully, they are right in their prediction.

Information Security

Question: What is Information Security?

Answer: Information Security is the Confidentiality, Intergrity and Availability of information.

This, must remember, as our security audit is coming, we were told to remember by heart after attending a briefing yesterday. We were also told to clear our desks, never to leave any network diagrams, sensitive or confidential information, printouts lying around.

I better go clear my desk soon...

Earthquake

Have your heard? There was a strong earthquake at Hawaii early Sunday. Some roads were blocked by landslides and buildings were damaged, but no casualty reported.

According to the National Earthquake Information Center, the quake measured 6.5 hit Big Island, but no possibility of tsunami. Hopefully, the quake does not create serious problem.

Remember that time when I suggested going to Hawaii next year? Well, I am still interested. No change of plan for now.

I just feel like writing more

Well, it's me again, don't know why I just feeling like writing more and more. This happens to be my 80th post.

My dear Friend, you asked me yesterday what I want so that you will buy for me when you are back home, I think I also don't know, maybe anything would be good. Food? Chocolates, sweets, red wine, lime juice? Yummy, anything else edible? Maybe also, pins? I like collecting pins.

Well, I just hope that you will be back soon, do you best in whatever you do, cheers and enjoy yourself there!

I love milk

I bought two packs of one litre milk yesterday, my favourite, with added Vitamin K and D. Althought it doesn't taste like the real cow milk thing, but I like the taste, not too sweet, and it's chilled.

Tell you something, I have not been drinking milk for the last one month or so, I craved for it, that's why I bought two packs, it's usually cheaper than buying one. I reckon that I should be able to finish them in one week's time.

Calcium intake is good for the bones, I heard in order to absorb these material into your body, you got to have Vitamin K and D too, they 'attract' the precious metal, just like magnets.

Back to Office on Sunday

I am back in office today, woke up earlier than usual on a Sunday's morning, reached office at about 9:30am. My two other colleagues were already there.

The plan was to do a OS upgrade for one of our Unix servers, we thought it should not be so complicated, but then, it took us more than eight hours, till now haven't finish. Earlier on, during the installation of the new OS, we found that one of the system mount points was not setup with enough disk size, again had to re-install everything.

The bulk of the time was used to do restoration of data files from the backup cartridage tapes, because the backup server and the server those OS was to be upgraded were in two different VLAN separated by firewalls and hardware loadbalancers, it exceeded our expected time. We are behind the scheduled time now...

Doing own business

My cousin told me on Thursday that she will be going into sales business, opening a boutique to sell clothes, to be exact. She said that she had already got the money to cover 80% of the costs, including rents, purchase of goods and utilities bills, etc.

I went with her to a wholesale shopping centre to buy some goods, i.e. clothes, mostly from China and Hong Kong. Price range of these clothes are from 10 to 35 dollars. According to the wholesale people, they can sell them from around 30 to 80 bucks, that's a profit of more than 100%! You could get a party gown for about 30 plus, which can be sold at 80 plus. There are a lot of different styles and patterns to choose from, although the quality isn't there. She spent about 300 plus to buy about 20 sets of clothes, well, let's see how many can be sold when her shop opens for business in a few weeks time.

What's wrong with the job scheduler?

What's wrong with the job scheduler?

There was a problem with the job scheduler yesterday, for unknown reason, a job was terminated. After carrying out the investigation, we could not find what was wrong with it, it doesn't seems to be caused by human error, just somehow it erred.

It was a critical job that was terminiated, an incident, the log file didn't give much information. I got this feeling that the job scheduler had gone haywired and failed to recover by itself. As a result of this issue, a couple of depending jobs were not triggered. I have one of our administrators to investigate further, but I don't think we will be able to gather any more valuable information for investigation.

An incident

An incident happened today, a foreign currency job was wrongly submitted to run, resulted in wrong report being generated and possibility incorrect updates on the database.

From the Operator's side of the story, he claimed that he did check and verify correctness before the submitting the report to run. From the Apps' side, they claimed an account ID was wrongly updated. Deadlocked!

What I was get the database table name from Apps, which is supposedly to be "updated", and ask the DBA to check the audit trail. The DBA couldn't find it, so we had to proceed to restore the previous day's database data and check whether changes were done, and by who. Need to recall the tapes from offsite, so have to wait....

Completed scripts for two new interfaces

I have finally completed the scripting for the two new SFTP interfaces and also updated the technical documentation.

Both interfaces go to the same remote server, put and get files, the difference is with the scripts used and the scheduled time to run. It is simpler if the run time is always, say, 1st day of the month, every day of the week, but may not be always so. Some of the jobs are set to run on working days, if a particular run is the last day of the month, how difficult can be it to set it on the Windows scheduler? Think again, Windows scheduler only offers very simple run calendar, you have to set all this 'last working day of the month' run date manually. The other way is to write a text file, pull all the run dates, e.g. 20061010 for year 2006, month 10 and day 10 in it, then write a script to check and compare this 'run date' with the system date, and only initiate a connection to the remote server to get or put files when there's a match. Also, setup your scheduler to run this script every day.

Clear sky

As at 3pm, the PSI figure has gone down t0 34, in the healthy range. The sky clears, although it did not rain. The burning smell that came with the haze problem has gone too. Take a look at the picture I post here, you will see the difference. Hopefully, for the rest of the day, it's like that. I think this is just so incredible, you can see what in one day the difference is by comparing this picture with the one I posted yesterday, don't you think so, too?

I also had the chance to going for a jog session and swim, I really feel good now.

Stays indoor

The Health Advisory says : Persons with existing heart or respiratory ailments should reduce physical exertion and outdoor activity.The general population should reduce vigorous outdoor activity.

As at 8pm, the PSI figure was at 143, still within the unhealthy range. I didn't go swimming or jogging today, will see whether the weather will improve tomorrow.

I will be calling my Friend tonight.

PSI exceeds 100!

Today's haze problem is the worst, the official PSI (Pollutants Standard Index) as of now is 130, which is in the unhealthy range. People with breathing or respiratory problems have been advised not to stay outdoors.

To give you an idea of how bad is the condition, take a look at the picture I posted. The visibility was definitely very low, and can hardly see far . I guess nothing much we can do now, but just stay at home and close all the windows and doors.

This is a picture taken in a cave

I think this is my 70th post.

Look at this picture, pretty amazing, isn't it?

I don't know how to descript a picture like that, well, as the saying goes: A picture tells a thousand words. See for yourself.

I don't know whether I should go for my weekend run tomorrow because of the haze problem, will see how it goes...

Upgraded 1x Windows 2003 server to R2

I have planned for this upgrade for the past one month, finally got the time to do it today. I expected that the whole exercise would last at least half a day, but I managed to complete it within an hour.

The upgrade itself was pretty simple, just run the setup and it automatically up from SP1 to R2 in just 5 mins! However, after the reboot, there was a slight problem, the web application could not be launch. It was later found that one of the web application services was not up, once it was started, it was working fine.

The good thing about the Windows OS is that everything is in GUI, but it's not so friendly when it comes to Disaster Recovery, especially when trying to restore data onto another machine.

Haze, haze, haze...

You know what's the most common topic here for the last few weeks? It's the haze problem. Today, in particular was worst, the official PSI figure was around 70+, but from the way I see it, it should be much higher than that. The burning smell is still there, lingering in the air. I was hoping that it will rain soon.

The weather people said this condition will last till mid of the month, but it seems like getting worst each day.

FTP or SFTP?

You know the difference between FTP and SFTP? The FTP is usually provided as part of any operating systems, as for SFTP, which is a more secured method of data transfer via un-secured network or channel, you have to pay for it to install in your systems. The good news is, you may also get it for free from Open source, but, the trouble with getting it from Open source is that you have to compile the source code on your own to suit your usage. I learnt the hard way, tried to compile it, but didn't work out, in the end, I downloaded the compiled version from another source.

Be aware, however, getting it from Open source means you don't get full technical support, and it might be buggy. Nevermind, if it works fine, why not?

I have got one of our Unix administrators to test and set in up on all the Unix servers.

Busy day

I have a busy working day today. One of our guy is off site, one on urgent half day leave, one went back to his hometown to settle something important and will not be back until next week, short of hands today. I have to double up as Windows, Unix, Network and App administrator, plus having to handle, evaluate and work on requests. Worst still, one of the Unix server's HDD went haywire and needed to be replaced.

I have just finished with a request to write some scripts to be run on a server and now, I will be going to fix a modem dial-up issue.....

My boss approved the course!

My boss approved the course that he told me that I should sign up. The course starts mid next month and is for three days.

You mum called me today, asking me to check on the availability of the air ticket to your place. I did a check on the airline's website, I found the cheapest departure from here needs to transit via another destination. Then she called me tonight saying that you had booked for her, one that is slightly cost more, but direct flight.

Haze

It was still a clear view when I woke up this morning, I could still see the mountain a few hundred kilometers away. Now, it's hazy, visibility was very bad, barely can see the blocks of appartments from my apartment room's windows.

I was still thinking about going for my weekend swim, but now, not a good idea. It's not hot now, as the sun is 'hidden', but you can still feel that the air is not that fresh to breathe. I wonder when is it going to end. Hopefully, the rain comes and clears away the haze, just like yesterday.