My Life With IT

I want to buy a new laptop. I’m looking at Asus and Lenovo (I have Thinkpad X31, since July 2004). I like Asus W5Fm. I’m not sure of the price though but I’m hoping that it will be available at the IT Show. If I buy it, I will upgrade it’s RAM to the maximum it can support
As for Lenovo Thinkpad, I’m looking at X60s, this is the cheapest so far. I bought mine previously for SGD2950, a very good deal. I didn’t know the seller but he is always online in the forums. A very good recommendation based on my specifications that I gave him. Now, I have lost touch with the hardware aspects so I’m only sure that I like at least 60GB HDD (with 2 partitions, the usual setup doesn’t partition,  meaning I’d have to pay extra ), 1GB RAM, 12.1″ screen, DVD Multi-whatever-is-the-best-option, Wifi, built-in mic, built-in webcam, Bluetooth, 4 USB ports (crazy, but most of the things are now using USB) and clock speed for Pentium-whatever-version 1.4GHz & above.

I should be worrying about a replacement computer instead of laptop. So many expensive things to buy and I am going broke if this goes on.

I have heard of Vista. I’m not that kind of techie who will read up on every IT news. It seems that after installing Vista, you won’t be able to roll back to XP if you have registered it. WHAT? If I’m not happy with it, I can’t roll back? How can
India had a grand launch of it yesterday, with dancers and banners in front of Taj Mahal. Does evey country have their own way of launching a new OS?

I think I shall stick to Windows XP. I might migrate to Linux when the PC gets older because I’m sick of Windows throwing errors that don’t mean a thing to me and not telling me straight what’s causing the error.

One click led to another in My Blog Log and I found that there’s a project by Tino going on. It’s about linking to 2000 bloggers. Talk about linking to other bloggers. I had trouble loading the page due to 2000 photos being loaded. There are quite a number of photos having X all over. Somehow they can’t be loaded. Maybe the server just decided to give up due to the massive loading times. Whatever.

I found this via Cooler Insights and one thing led to another. Anyone remembers the One Red Paper Clip? He’s in that number. There are bloggers whom I have never read before and some whose blogs I try to read frequently but as you can see from my side links, it’s getting too many and I’ve not yet use any RSS readers to help me. I will have to get to it. Because I can’t possibly read all 2000 of them, I shall just include those I clicked on randomly. Boy, I can start adding new links again
Vanessa: Unplugged (She caught my attention because her photo had her hand covering her mouth, laughing)

Don to Earth (Oldest blogger, ever!)

A Stitch in Time (Bareback photo )

The Insights of crappy Jasmine Gal (Among the ocean of non-Asian faces, she looked Asian to me, sense of deja vu, I think I have read hers before)

The Thinking Blog (Big orange flower in her hair)

Rod Thomas Blog (He’s not so old but with experience in entrepreneurship)

Decay on Net (Definitely an Asian blogger)

Looks like the above links to mostly females. Oops!

“Who’s the Skype expert?” Someone asked. I don’t think there can really be experts in every software that we use in the company. I hear “Who’s the Word expert?”, “Who’s the Excel expert?”, “Who’s the PowerPoint expert?, “Who’s the Lotus Notes expert?”, “Who’s the <insert software/hardware name> expert?” most of the time. Sometimes, I cringe at the question.

There are times problems stump the experts too. That’s why Experts Exchange came about. Experts exchange information and resolutions. As users, we’d always assume that since this company has produced this software, the consultants working inside, no matter how new, they would should be experts in the area. We’d go asking “Who’s the expert?”

On why this came about was a user asking a Skype question. There was a message saying that the message was not delivered and she wanted to know why. The logical answer was that the recipient was not logged on and thus, the message would not get through. I do know that MSN Windows Live does support sending messages to offline contacts. Now, can the Skype expert enlighten me on whether messages can still be sent to offline contacts?

The next question was that why the recipient was not logged on when the user was logged on. The logical answer is that the user had saved the login settings and upon startup, Skype would log in automatically. The recipient may have set it to manual. The user suggested that everyone should do the same, login automatically at every startup. Now, isn’t that a waste of precious resources and if I’m not in the mood to use Skype, why the heck should I do it automatically?

Oh by the way, I put in busy mode and I don’t add strangers. It’s unnerving to receive requests from total strangers on my Skype. 2 are rude, they just said “Hello, please add me to your contact list.” I don’t know you, so I won’t add you. And the shortest of them all that I used to see before I migrated from mIRC is “Hi, care to chat” No punctuation at the end, mind you. So is that a question or demand?

This is a headache. Since the upgrade, I’ve been receiving weird errors reported by users. First it was “Unable to execute specified command.” A new database was created and the bookmark pointed to it, it’s working fine. Now it’s “Context toolbar not found. Bookmark needs design update.” Apparently, this latest error is caused by a renamed user that is not regconised. The resolution can be found here.

A rename of the bookmark.nsf usually does the trick. I’m just not sure if a clean install of the Lotus Notes client would have solved the problem. However, there might be power users around who make use of the workspace and they might be raising a big ruckus once they see empty workspace.
It’s hard to please everyone.

I’m looking at Agent Monitor (DAF) by Joerg Reck. I like the fact that I don’t have to go to the databases to amend the codes so that the agent monitor can work. Sweet. I just click on Add Database and the system does all the necessary additions.

I’m still trying to figure out the Administration section though. I’m not sure why the information is mostly of the Agent Monitor. It took me some time to figure how to get to it, I had to click on Actions, Tool -> Administration. As I don’t have a development server to test the function, which is a real pity, I encountered this prompt in German. How very friendly. Thank goodness I understood the Formula used.

The next thing I’m trying to figure out is why there’s a web version of it. I can’t load it using local no matter what I tried. In the past, I thought it was something to do with FrontPage. Here, I have no use for FrontPage, so I can’t figure out why my Domino is unable to load the system for me to see the interface. Again, there are some information in German. So, why wasn’t it highlighted in the description?

I wanted to change the design so that it will notify more than 1 email but can’t seem to make it work. I think the rationale behind allowing to monitor some agents and not all to be sent via email makes sense. There are critical agents that do need to be monitored but not all of them needs to be emailed.

This monitor purges the log every 7 days by its scheduled agent. Once I manage to figure out how to make it from settings instead of by the agent itself, I shall have to see how I can make this work in the server.

I like its way of adding agents without having to amend the codes in the existing databases. Imagine having to modify 65 existing databases. I can faint.

I can buy any university’s degree that is available. I can even get a diploma at the same time. All these without any studying, just using money to buy it, that’s all. I’ll probably get away with it for a maximum of 5 years before I get found out. This market seems lucrative, I get my preferred degree, some come with honours and authentic-looking transcripts.

Maybe in the past, it was easier to pass yourself off as a graduate from MIT, Monash or some prestigious sounding university. The papers weren’t verified or looked at much. Now, with technology, the market has gone online. A simple search produces 4.1 million results about buying degrees. University of Houston is aware of this since its published article online in 2003.

It’s easy to buy a degree and earn the big bucks fast because of your qualifications. However, those who buy such certifications will work in the area that is similar to the qualification but they will not work in that area directly.

However, this brings to question whereby what if there is an authentic online university that offers courses online? How do we know that the university is authentic? Do we avoid them totally? It’s like trying to block spam, you close down one that is selling fake degrees, another pops up. The only way is to stop buying. Once the market is no longer there, such mills will close shop.

What makes some people resort to buying fake degrees and diplomas? Most certainly is the major difference in price between studying for it and just buying the degree and not get caught for the fake one. Sometimes, it’s because of the reason that they have tried to pass the requirements to get to the preferred course but have been rejected. You want to study accounting but you don’t have the requirements, so what do you do? Find alternatives. Compare the alternatives. Actually, printing out the authentic looking degree seems to be the cheapest option so far. Transcripts with results also come with additional cost.

With more companies hiring degree holders, those who have been unsuccessful in earning the degree the studied way, maybe those mills will still be around for a long time.

I was rather tempted to post something about having the best job but I realise that in my hunt for it, I have never landed in one, so this post shall be someting about tech. What I have though is my hunt for the best job, I have encountered people who have sometimes made my day while there are others who did not. With that, I shall post this to participate in Engtech’s Contest the winner gets 15 Wordpress credits. Woohoo!

I never started out in programming. I started out doing IT support, the irony was that I only knew how to turn on the computer and make use of whatever software that it comes with. I learnt how to use the scanner, save as RTF file, design web pages, make use of JavaScript (actually, copy after asking for help in forums and dump the chunk of code and pray it works was more like it), assemble computer, differentiate the types of RAMs available (praying that the computer won’t blow up, unfortunately, it did, I mean the capacitor), sending out emails as confirmation, and many other things not related to IT too.

The most request is for more email space. I’m sure any administrator will tell you that 100MB of mailbox size is actually enough, provided that you delete those friendly emails from friends to your office mailbox account. It would be better if Yahoo!, Hotmail or GMail is used. At least 1GB of space, who can complain? I’m sure my mailbox will increase in mail accumulated size when it’s more than a year. I don’t understand why the mails don’t get deleted. It’s the law of email, once you delete that email, you will need to find it again 3 weeks or less after the deletion. I could have tore my hair out of my head if not for the fact that I have thin covering of hair. I don’t want to scare anyone with my bald head either. I still want hair.

Upgrades are the next commonly encountered. Every software has an upgrade and Domino and Microsoft are the most commonly upgraded versions. In my case anyway since I deal with both software. I have used Lotus Notes R4.6, R5, R6, R6.5 and R7. I’ve also used DOS (you know, that black screen with white text), Windows 95, 98, 2000 and XP. I’ve used Office 95, 97, 2000, 2002 and 2003 (otherwise known as XP). It doesn’t make me the expert because I have never used them for more than 2 years. I have never fully explored the software to discover any quirks until I receive them in emails that I can do something in Excel and a flight simulation will appear or was it in Word? That said, I have never known that there were bugs in the old versions because I have never needed to use the so-called functions that had bugs.

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be the expert on something. In this case, I have progressed from just IT support to Domino Developer. I shall have to progress to be able to analyse besides being able to develop. It is such a value-add because I would be able to develop better systems with time. With so many programmes being released, there is no need for me to start from scratch. I just have to make use of the current model and modify according to the needs. It’s so much faster that the method has always been in used, it’s called Prototyping.

Even though IT has integrated into our lives, it’s the human touch that still needs to be there. You can’t negotiate a deal with the customer if you don’t know what the customer need in the system. You can’t clinch the deal if you don’t know the customer’s boss (ah, the powers of networking). Even blogging needs some human touch, you have to have your unique voice in it. Humour, it seems, is still needed, even here.