PPCP Online Experience Update & Closure

For those who have read my previous post on the customer service experience from PPCP Online, here is an update and closure on the matter.

About a week after I raised my opinion on the experience, one of the owners, Nat, of the online store called me again. He repeatedly apologized on behalf of the store for the inconvenience caused to me, and positively arranged for the replacement unit of the Stetige tripod to be personally delivered to me.

He also explained that there was a lack of units during the Chinese festive season earlier and was not able to respond to my needs in time. I told him that the least they could have done was to tell me the truth in a timely manner, so that I wouldn't have flared up.

True to Nat's word, the replacement unit was delivered on time. To my surprise, a small gift was included in the unit. The unit itself turned out to be in good condition and performed better than the first one.

In conclusion, I still believe in good customer service, whether online or in the Real World. Whether the customer is right does not matter, but communication and positive-thinking are more important. I do appreciate PPCP Online's effort and will consider to continue shopping there.

Technorati Tags: product review, customer service, stetige, tripod, ppcp online

PPCP Online Pathetic Customer Service - DO NOT BUY

I ordered a Stetige tripod from www.perfectpixelcameraparts.com on 29 January 2008. It was delivered quickly, just one or two days later.

However, the unit that I started using broke down after a few days of use. When I pulled open the legs, one of the legs' locking bracket broke apart and became loose. As a result, this leg was unable to open to the fixed position anymore.

I started contact the store on 9 February 2008 to ask for a replacement unit. Jeremy Tan from the store confirmed that once the Chinese New Year period was over and new stock arrived, he would deliver the replacement.

On 19 February 2008, I wrote to orders@perfectpixelcameraparts.com and info@perfectpixelcameraparts.com to request for an update since I had not heard from them since early February. Jeremy said he would contact me again within a week.

Up till 7 March 2008, I have not heard from Jeremy anymore. It has been more than a month since I last used the tripod and I have not been able to get a replacement unit.

I seriously do not recommend PCCP Online as a retail merchant because:

1. contacting and communicating with them is difficult
2. do not honor dates
3. poor order fulfillment and defects replacement

Nat and Jeremy Tan from www.perfectpixelcameraparts.com are not retail people that you want to spend your money on. They are unreliable and slow. Do not buy anything from their store unless you want to suffer high risk of customer dissatisfaction when your order breaks.

Bear in mind, I still have faith in the quality of the product, but it is the utter failure of customer service that the store shows.

Save time and money and avoid buying anything from PPCP Online, www.perfectpixelcameraparts.com.

Technorati Tags: product review, customer service, stetige, tripod, ppcp online, bad review, poor customer service

Made Three-Figure Income with Google Adsense

After a long time of waiting for my Google Adsense publisher earnings to accumulate, I've finally received my first payment from Google via Western Union Quick Cash method. The feeling of getting paid a three-figure for publishing online ads is satisfying and honorable. It's not often that I get noticed by a billion-dollar company once in a while. :)

For most of us publishers residing in Asia where Western Union remittance is common, I'd recommend using Western Union Quick Cash to get paid easily. In your Google Adsense account, go to "My Account" -> "Account Settings" -> "Payment Details", select "Setup Western Union Quick Cash" and follow the wizard.

If you have set for payment to be released (under "My Account" -> "Payment History"), your earnings will be sent to you by the end of the month after your account balance reaches your payment threshold (usually US$50). I saw that mine was issued on 24 December 2007, but I didn't realize until I checked the page a week later. Somehow, Google Adsense did not notify me by e-mail, which I expected.

You will be able to see the payment details in this page, such as the payment date, money transfer control number (MTCN), and payment amount. Print out a statement of these details by clicking on the link at the bottom "Statement of Earnings". Go to your nearest Western Union branch with these details and a government/state issued identity document. Fill up the Western Union Money Transfer "To receive money" form, where you will need to use the printed statement for the sender (Google) details such as its address and MTCN.



Here is the form from CIMB Bank Malaysia which has Western Union services in most, if not all, branches. CIMB is, like most other banks in Malaysia, horrendously slow. I had to wait more than an hour with four customers ahead of me.

Western Union and the bank takes a cut of about 0.9%, according to the prevailing US currency exchange rate. They pay cash in local currency.

Some of you may ask, what are my tips for making money using Google Adsense. I'll share three tips here.

1. Build a good source of content that is fresh, relevant, and pleasantly-presented. Remember that ads are meant to help lead visitors to useful products and services which will make the experience of going to your site more valuable.
2. Optimize the context and placement of the ads (e.g. using "google_ad_section" tags), check out Google Adsense Help for more information on how. Large rectangles, vertical banners and link units are the best, YMMV.
3. Make use of channels to help monitor the performance of different types of ads (according to site, format, placement, etc.) so that you can take action as per tip #2.

I've yet to see my earnings payment from Nuffnang Malaysia, but meanwhile if you have a good experience with Google Adsense or more tips on using Google Adsense, share them here by adding a comment.

Technorati Tags: google, google adsense, make money, earnings payment, western union, quick cash, money transfer control number, cimb bank, ad earnings

Nuffnang's Nifty Video Ads

On my Malaysia Crime Watch site, I noticed that ads integrator Nuffnang has started displaying video ads in the 336x280 rectangle format. This is simliar to Google Adsense's video units which is currently only available to United States publishers.

The design of the video ad looks very neat and integrated, very much like Youtube's design with a play button in the middle. The initial loading of the video stream is quite instant, typically starts playback in under five seconds. The video just ends and returns the cursor to the beginning.

I experienced a section of the video in the middle where it just jammed and refused to continue. I could only forward to a later point and continue viewing. Another small issue is that there does not seem to be any volume or mute control. The biggest question is: Where can I click to go to the advertiser's website?

I think it's a very good step forward for Malaysian online advertising with Nuffnang leading the way for advertising networks here. With online video being so popular, site visitors will be more compelled to view such ads and know more about the product or service. Nice work, Nuffnang.

The subject of the video is actually quite funny and is part of a series from a local service provider. Go take a look and have a little laugh. :)

Technorati Tags: nuffnang, advertisement, video ad, video unit, make money

Google Adsense Rotating Leaderboard Ads

Google Adsense has started putting rotating text ads for the 728x90 leaderboard format. For visitors, they will see two small arrow buttons on the bottom left of the ad space, as shown below. This was captured from my Malaysia Crime Watch Forum site.


Clicking on the right arrow button causes the current ads to slide and fade off to the right, and a new set of ads appear in their place. Note the mouse icon on the next screenshot.


The feature allows visitors to browse five sets of ads, so on the fifth click, only the right arrow button can be clicked, as shown below.


The loading of the next set of ads is quite fast and unobtrusive. When a set has been loaded before, it is cached and loads faster subsequently. It is very convenient to use, but perhaps more can be done to attract visitors to the buttons. Maybe Google Adsense should allow us publishers to specify the onbutton and offbutton colors.

This new feature gives publishers' sites more ad value as visitors get to see more ads without the site being cluttered up by numerous ad spaces. Perhaps the click value is less for the sets of ads other than the initially displayed one. Another suggestion for the Google Adsense team is to give publishers the option to automatically rotate the ads so that visitors can be easily attracted to the ad space.

I have also initiated my first payout instructions for Google Adsense and Nuffnang Malaysia yesterday. I'll be sharing the exciting news on my revenue gained from these advertising platforms when I receive the money over the next few weeks.

Technorati Tags: google, google adsense, leaderboard ad, rotating ad, arrow button, nuffnang, make money

Network Market Your Blog, Get Exponential Exposure

Network marketing is a powerful and fast way to gain exposure to a product or service. Using a hierarchical network of referrals, people can quickly spread the news of the product or service.

Now imagine the same kind of system for blogs.

This is what BlogRush is designed for. When you create an account with BlogRush and set up a widget on your blogs, fellow blog owners who sign up with BlogRush under you contribute to your own reach in the blogosphere. Each widget impression in your blogs and those under you give you credit, which in turn gives you more traffic to your blogs by means of widget links in other related blogs. The effect of impressions ripples down ten generations below you, each lower one with less impression-to-credit ratio than the previous level.

Take a look at the widget in this blog along the sidebar. These links are contextually selected by the system to be relevant to this blog. Each impression here earns me a link in some other blog's BlogRush widget.

Thus, your blogs gains exposure exponentially as your downline (a popular term in network marketing) grows both horizontally and vertically. It also adds value to your blogs as it gives more options for your readers as to what other related content may be available elsewhere.

One suggestion for the BlogRush folks: allow us to customize the design and size of the widget. Thanks!

See your blogs' traffic grow by signing up with BlogRush today. If you choose "News & Media" or "Technology" as the type of blog you own, I may be pushing a new source of readers and traffic to your blog very soon!

Links

BlogRush
<URL:http://www.blogrush.com/r85147044>

Technorati Tags: blog, network marketing, blogrush, blog traffic, increase traffic, promote blog, blog syndication

News - From nntp to rss

Over ten years ago when Netscape was the de facto standard and finger was not a rude thing to do, I got started in the news and discussion addiction using nntp, or Network News Transfer Protocol.

Think of nntp as the ancestor of rss, or Really Simple Syndication (really). A network of nntp servers would be available for you to access and browse the discussion channels available. The number of channels during those days were in tens of thousands, from Apple to camping, Star Trek to Microsoft. Each channel has a thread of replies to one another with each message looking very much like an e-mail. The messages are just text-based, with the occasional text-encoding of binaries such as warez and pictures.

Those were the humble and sometimes underground days when news and data were quietly exchanged between people all over the world. Browsers were not favoured yet, and ftp was like the Internet jet engine of file sharing. I remember this was the way we used to get antivirus and browser updates from McAfee and Netscape respectively.

The program which I used to talk nntp was from Forte, called Free Agent for Windows 95. It was a simple three-frame Windows interface that worked well to deliver news. However, just like the news of today, I easily got flooded with news. Now, Forte seems to only have Agent commercially and it supports e-mail as well.

In 2007, we have Google Reader, which combines fancy http push (AJAX) and good 'ol frames. It can automatically update the news as they are published from blogs, newspapers and corporations. You can tag and categorize news. Best of all, it uses the familiar vi command set (e.g. j for down, k for up). Just like other Google apps, it is very accessible since it is web-based.

Just like a decade ago, look at the volume of news I go through... it's crazy in this information age.

Links:

Wikipedia - Network News Transfer Protocol
<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nntp>

Forte
<URL:http://www.forteinc.com/main/homepage.php>

Google Reader
<URL:http://www.google.com/reader/>

Technorati Tags: review, software, nntp, news, forte, free agent, rss, google reader

Transformers Movie Review - Rated Five Cubes

One of my major childhood fantasies, among cars and firearms, were robots. After watching countless Japanese robot serials and plans to buy those plastic kits from Bandai, I formed an imaginary 10-metre tall robot in my mind. He would always be around me, keeping me safe from harm, bullies and sometimes school.

When the first movie trailer came out last year for Transformers, I was excited like an electro-mechanical arm on an over-charged actuator. I could not imagine how cool and realistic director Michael Bay would bring my childhood robot heroes to life and among realistic scenes. Would it be completely computer animated? Luckily, that was not so...

Sacrificing my wife's precious spa time (thank you baby!), I caught what is definitely one of my top five movies on 11 July 2007. It rocked and I was blown away!

The movie introduced a young man called Sam Witwicky who became involved in a war between alien robots from a distant planet Cybertron. He meets up with Bumblebee, disguised as a 1977 Chevrolet Camaro, who introduces him to the rest of his crew, the Autobots, including their leader Optimus Prime, a Peterbilt truck. Meanwhile, the evil Decepticons managed to track Sam, who is wanted by both sides as he holds the coordinates to the Allspark cube, an object of immense power that could change the fate of planet Earth. Sam later gets help from his crush, Mikaela Banes, US Army Special Ops soldiers, Department of Defense people, and several computer hackers to keep the Allspark from landing into the wrong robotic hands.

The computer graphics, meticulously rendered by Industrial Light and Magic, were very high quality and natural. One scene had Bumblebee at an industrial site moving and changing into the Camaro very realistically. I liked the natural movements of the Autobots when they were at Sam's house, very likely done using live motion capture.

Try to get cinema seats at the back though, because most of the animation were at close shots, making it difficult to watch if you sit too close. The energy cannons and slow motion / kung fu styled shots are very cool and realistic. Excellent to keep a special edition DVD in the near future. ;)

Bumblebee developed a likeable character similar to the original cartoon series where he was very close to humans, but they decided to make his voice disabled for most of the movie. Optimus Prime was grand and realistic in his usual way, making him a very accessible hero that adults and kids will idolize. I was disappointed that Megatron did not morph into the Walther P38 pistol but an alien jet, but I guess it would make the Decepticons' interaction in the movie restrictive. As a child, I loved to watch Decepticon Soundwave for his metallic monotonous voice, but he was not included in this movie.

Not to worry, as it has been confirmed that at least one sequel is planned in the future, which will definitely break movie records that this one has already set. Although it has become a very successful release for Dreamworks Pictures and Paramount Pictures, it is still a guy movie and for fans of the cartoon series. There are enough explosions, guns, vehicles, and military stuff than executive producer Steven Spielberg had ever been involved in. As such, I wouldn't recommend kids below the age of 3 to watch, as they may get overly excited and violent after watching.

Of course, after watching the robot movie, I couldn't miss checking out the merchandise like the toy collections from Hasbro and the video game. Check out the link below for lots of very impressive computer animation from "Transformers: The Game". My possible target is the detailed and beautifully sculpted Bumblebee Unleashed figure, unless Sideshow Toys decides to take on the Transformers series with metal sculptures of the robots (hint!!!).

This movie deserves five Allspark cubes for a good balance of action, humour and drama, almost perfect and very realistic computer animation, impressive sound effects, and an enjoyable soundtrack. Even my boy adores the robots - he's got Jazz and Barricade!

Links:

Internet Movie Database - Transformers
<URL:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418279/>

Wikipedia - The Transformers
<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transformers>

Gametrailers.com - Transformers: The Game
<URL:http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=4769>

Technorati Tags: review, movie, movie review, transformers, autobots, decepticons, optimus prime, megatron, cybertron, allspark, bumblebee, robots, alien, hasbro

Get paid cash to review posts on this site

I'm with an ad network called PayPerPost.com (PPP). Its sponsors pay me when I review a product or service that I'm interested in or have had experience with. I think it's a great way to share something that I like and get some reimbursement for it.

Now PPP has an even better way to attract like-minded people like you to its network. If you have something to say about my posts, sign up with PPP and review my posts in your website. When you do this, you get paid US$7.50 via Paypal.com! This feature is known as "Review My Post" and you can get started by choosing posts that interest you and click on the "GET PAID TO REVIEW MY POST" button at the end of the posts.

Of course, I don't mind if your review is negative, as I welcome all feedback except spam, which is what I usually get in my guestbook on my main site. The main purpose of this feature is to generate more traffic for both parties, and of course, the network. There may be minimum review requirements, like minimum number of words, web links to add, and minimum Google PageRank. Don't worry, once you get the hang of reviewing and getting paid, it becomes too easy to link your topics and what the network has to offer.

PPP's affiliate program features both this "Review My Post" and "Referral Program". I think these are two great ways for PPP members to generate publishing income further than the sponsored posts. I suggest that PPP creates more colours and styles for those buttons for us to choose from, to better blend with our sites' styles.



Technorati Tags: payperpost, sponsor network, review post, review, paid, money

Roomba Dance Repair and Bumper Upgrade

Two significant news of my trusty vacuum assistant, Roomba. Nevertheless, he still serves me well and faithfully. The battery runtime seems to have shortened, but that is a post for another day.

Bumper Upgrade

I have two pieces of furniture which have just the height for Roomba to wedge itself under them. The clearance is not low enough for Roomba to knock into and avoid going in, but it is high enough to make me squirm as my Roomba grinds a bit to get out.

Broken plastic bracket for rubber wheels

This is the possible cause of a broken plastic bracket that holds the axle of one rubber wheel in place. There are also black scratch marks on the white shell of the machine, caused by the regular confrontation with my furniture.

Bumper upgrade with rubber pads

The simple but aesthetically-deprived upgrade is to add square rubber pads around the bumper.

I used masking tape to hold the rubber pads in place, which I reckon will hold for a few months before they tear off. I guess rubber or sponge tape lining the same place will also work, but they should be at least 5mm thick. I wouldn't recommend placing more pads at the vertical face of the bumper which increases the clearance between the machine and the edge of walls and furniture.

The pads are positioned on the bumper such that they face 45 degrees upwards. After the first few runs, I can see pressure marks where the bottom edge of my furniture hit Roomba. Feels so good...

The result is no more hard bumping into these furniture and heart-wrenching grinding to navigate at the edges.



Roomba Dance Repair

The Roomba Dance (RD), or Circle Dance, is a common problem for Roombas more than a year old or used in very dirty environments. The basic cause is dirt that affects sensors at the bumper or the rubber wheels which results in a "dance" sequence. The machine would jerk as it moves forward and rotates 180 degrees continuously.

Insides of the Roomba, bumper and shell removed

Referring to the well-presented guide to fix this problem, I managed to open up and examine the insides of my Roomba. Of course, doing this is not easy and may void the product warranty. If you want to try this, I recommend that you clean the sensors under the bumper that detects cliffs and see if this solves your RD.

In addition to the instructions at the above site, I recommend to print the image of the type of screws at every location so that it is easier for you to put them back in. Prepare the following items as well:

1. Vacuum cleaner with a half-inch wide mouth to reach narrow gaps of the Roomba
2. Damp cloth to wipe off fine dust from the surface
3. Small pliers or flat tip screwdriver to disconnect two ribbon cable connectors between the chassis, bumper and shell

The places which I find the most amount of dirt and dust are inside the two brushes, in the corner where the power socket is located and the opposite corner. This is also a good opportunity to apply lubricating oil to the internal gears of the two rubber wheels, wheel motors, and brush motor.

The side of the bumper where the side sensors are needs cleaning

All three motors have holes cut on their sides. It's obvious dirt will accumulate inside the motor via these holes, but I'm not sure if it is acceptable to cover them with some tape. Perhaps they may overheat if we do that. Comment here if you have good info on this.

Top view of rubber wheel

Motor for main brushes

Electronics and battery area is particularly dirty

Links:

mysteryroad.blogs.com - FixCircleDanceImproved
<URL:http://mysteryroad.blogs.com/photos/fixthecircledance/xintroroomba_3549.html>

Technorati Tags: roomba, roomba dance, circle dance, bumper upgrade, clean maintenance

BorderWare MXtreme: E-mail Firewall Antispam Product

Sponsored Post

Is this a familiar sight in your mailbox these days?

A relatively new breed of e-mail spam is becoming prevalent where the e-mail contains an image with the advertisement text and graphics inside. Traditional text-based anti-spam software is useless against such spam because the e-mail will not contain any searchable text at all. It is estimated that image spam now accounts for 35% of all spam.

BorderWare, a messaging security solutions provider, has a product called BorderWare MXtreme, which is an advanced anti image spam system. Check out the product information here.

In addition to the usual optical character recognition technology that can be used on the image spam, MXtreme has a patent-pending technology called Intercept Image Analysis. This performs image classification and more than thirty image attribute processing, such as word salads, random speckling, image manupilation, animated GIF, various colouration and fonts.

As a result, BorderWare's anti-spam solution can detect 98% of all spam on the e-mail servers. If you are in the IS department and looking for a better anti-spam product, check out BorderWare MXtreme today.


Technorati Tags: spam, antispam, image spam, image analysis, sponsored post

New Tech News Blog: The Tech Planet

Being a techie/geeky guy who still enjoys toys for big boys and the latest technological advancements, I'm always on the lookout for technology news on the web. Recently, I've come across a blog-style site that covers technology, trends, software and web services. Check out The Tech Planet.

The posts are concise and just the right size for quick digestion, so it's worth adding to your RSS reader. Posts also contain photos of the subject, making it easier to browse topics of interest.

It's fairly new (from December 2006), but I think it suits techie people like myself and complements the topics on my own blog. For example, the post on "Honda readys fuel-cell car for 2018" talks about when Honda plans to offer a hydrogen fuel-cell powered car in ten years' time. Author Michael Paul says that the timeline and sale price are off the mark and I agree with him. With rising fuel costs and world climate, we need alternative fuel vehicles within the next few years.

Go visit The Tech Planet today to get a quick dose of technology news that makes you stand out from the general population. :)

Technorati Tags: tech planet, news, technology, technology news, trends, techie, sponsored post

Google Reader Trends

Google Reader (GR), a web-based RSS reader, which I use to read my subscription feeds from various sources, has added the ability to view your reading trends. As you browse through your feeds and view pages, Google Reader tracks your usage and counts the readership rates.

Explore Google Reader by signing up for a Google account, if you haven't already done so. Then, go to GR and click on the "Trends" link in the middle of the page. The GR team hasn't yet added a link on the left sidebar to the "Trends" page, so click on the "Home" link if you can't find it.

The page is organized into five sections: a summary, graphs, reading trends, subscription trends, and a tags cloud.

Google Reader Trends page

At the top left side, you will find a summary of what you have been reading in your subscriptions. A rough indication of how scholarly you are. :)

Summary of my usage. Yes, quite a bit of reading.

The next three screenshots show my usage patterns over 30 days, a week, and hours of a day. Like most white-collar lemmings, I'm not particularly active online during the weekends, especially over the recent year-end holidays (5 days!).

On a typical 24-hour period, I tend to read mostly during mid-afternoon and quite a bit around midnight.

Last 30 days graph

Day of the week graph

Time of day graph

I don't actually read all posts, especially Bloggingstocks.com and Digg. More than half of them I skim over the title and just that bit of information is digested.

The reading and subscription trends show how complete I go through each subscription. Most of them are 100%, because my style of reading is to decide on-the-stop whether the post is worth reading or I should mark it as read immediately. Therefore, what I have left unmarked are all unread.

Go try out GR Trends and see how well fed you are on the web. Or is it watch what and how you eat?

Links:

Google Reader
<URL:http://www.google.com/reader>

Technorati Tags: google, google reader, trends, rss reader, statistics

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.1 Web Browser Released

Mozilla Firefox (FF) 2.0.0.1 has been released on December 19 2006. The second release from 2.0 has 8 general bug fixes and many new features.

Among the fixes, the five critical ones are:

• MFSA 2006-73 Mozilla SVG Processing Remote Code Execution
• MFSA 2006-71 LiveConnect crash finalizing JS objects
• MFSA 2006-70 Privilege escallation using watch point
• MFSA 2006-69 CSS cursor image buffer overflow (Windows only)
• MFSA 2006-68 Crashes with evidence of memory corruption (rv:1.8.0.9/1.8.1.1)

Click on each of them to view details.

New stuff I haven't seen before are:

Live Titles - Allows you to create bookmarks with microsummaries on the bookmark labels that can be regularly updated, as opposed to a static label. Web site owners can quickly put bits of updates on their site <title> tag without having to implement a RSS feed.

JavaScript 1.7 - New scripting language version includes support for generators, iterators, array comprehensions, let expressions, and destructuring assignment. More ways to complicate browsers and confuse visitors :P

Client-side session and persistent storage - Online transactions that make use of client-side storage for document and mailbox management can now store large structured data. Useful for websites like Google Docs and Spreadsheets http://docs.google.com and online banking sites.

New Windows installer - Uses the Nullsoft Scriptable Install System, which is neat and stable. You may have probably seen it used in Winamp.

Personally, FF 1.5.0.8 has been very stable for me. Although I have more than 10 tabs and 10 extensions installed, it has crashed no more than a few times since I started using it.

Click on the download link below to get this release.

Update (21 Dec 2006): If you are still on 1.5.0.x like me, you should get the update to FF 1.5.0.9 which contains the almost the same set of bug fixes as FF 2.0.0.1. The download should be about 510KB.

Related posts:

Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.8 Web Browser Released
<URL:http://glob.lokety.com/2006/11/mozilla-firefox-1508-web-browser.html>

Mozilla Firefox 2 Web Browser Released
<URL:http://glob.lokety.com/2006/10/mozilla-firefox-2-web-browser-released.html>

Firefox Into The Sky!
<URL:http://glob.lokety.com/2006/05/firefox-into-sky.html>

Links:

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.1 Release Notes
<URL:http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/2.0/releasenotes/>

Download Firefox
<URL:http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=187103&t=213>

Technorati Tags: mozilla,, firefox,, mozilla firefox,, web browser,, 2.0.0.1

Secure and Convenient Keyless Door Locks

Most of us who have locked doors to open at home or at the office know the hassles of using keys to lock and unlock them. In no particular order:

• Losing the key meant having to replace the lock and all copies of the key
• Scratches and dents on the door around the lock
• Fumbling, searching, sorting, selecting the right key while running the risk of getting mugged in front of the door
• Ensuring that you are holding the key before you close a door which automatically locks
• Keeping keys in a pouch, wallet, purse, or pocket, causing wear

Instead of messing with keys, try using something that only you own and can never lose: fingerprints! BrickHouse Electronics has a quality range of keyless door locks which use the uniqueness and convenience of your fingerprint to gain access.

Fingerprints are tested to be very unique as there is only a chance of false acceptance of a fingerprint in tens of millions of fingerprints. It is obviously more convenient to use as you have it with you all the time. Other family members or staff can also train their own fingerprints into the locks, so there is no need to share fingerprints (which is not possible anyway).

For the above peeves of using keys, I would buy and use one of these locks in the future. Residential crime is prevalent in Malaysia and having one of these devices can save the time spent opening doors and getting in safely. I don't have to duplicate keys for others anymore, so there is no risk of the key smith copying your key unscrupulously.

One disadvantage of fingerprint door locks would be in the event of power loss. BrickHouse locks use batteries, which the lock will remind you to change when they are low on power. You have to be vigilant in changing batteries about every year. Fortunately, even if the batteries are flat and the fingerprint sensor does not work, you can still use a mechanical key to unlock - very clever!

The last thing to consider is the price. These locks cost about five times more than key locks, but I think they are worth the convenience, enhanced security and cool factor. Imagine, no keys clinging, no need for bright lights at the doorway, and silent and smooth access into your home or office!

Links:

BrickHouse Electronics Biometric Door Locks
<URL:http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/keylessdoorlock-electronicbiometric-fingerprintlock.html>

Technorati Tags: lock, door lock, fingerprint, keyless, biometric, keyless lock, biometric lock, keyless door lock

Free Outgoing Traffic Tracking Web Tool

For websites and bloggers who are concerned with their web traffic, it has been the norm to analyze the incoming traffic trends using onsite analytical tools or third-party tools. You can see where most of your traffic is coming from, but do you know where your visitors go to next? Do you know what links they click most, possibly indicating a trend or interest in a particular topic?

I've been evaluating this free outgoing traffic tracking service, known as Bingr.com.

Bingr's website is efficiently designed and works well. Being written in ASP, I didn't expect it to perform quite fast. The interface is simple and gets things done easily.

For each link in your site that you want to track, you give it a name and its link. Bingr will return you a shortened link to replace the link. With this link, Bingr can track the number of clicks and the country of origin.

For example, I created a link for:

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/7/7/nation/14765105&sec=nation&focus=1

and Bingr gives me this link to use:

http://bingr.com/he6ke7


To your visitors, they won't see a difference. You can then view a graph of the clicks across time and see the trend of the link. This is very useful for bloggers and website owners who want to understand where their visitors visit next and build on those trends. If they are particularly interested in a news article on crime and public safety, you can then focus your blog on those topics or feature related products and services, such as personal security devices.

You can create as many Bingr links as you like, but each one can be tracked for 30 days.

Give it a try and let me know whether it is useful for you.


Links:

Bingr.com
<URL:http://www.bingr.com/>

Technorati Tags: bingr, web traffic, web trends, trend tracking, short links, free service

Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.8 Web Browser Released

For those Mozilla Firefox 1.5.x users who are cool with their version and can wait for 2.x to be downloaded automatically, your browser will probably be downloading 1.5.0.8 right now.

This version resolves three bugs and improves the update feature for it to download lean and custom FF 2.0 installation instead of full installer.

FF 1.5 will be supported and updated until April 27 2007. Although most extensions work in FF 2.0, your only reason to stick with FF 1.5 is the themes, unless you can find FF 2.0 versions.

I'm giving one last chance to FF 1.5 not to crash occasionally when I open a link in a new tab...

Meanwhile, let me recommend a really fun extension, called StumbleUpon. It is a social bookmarking service which lets your surf to pages recommended by others. You can share interesting pages that you have visited and give reviews. Pretty useful extension when you have been surfing for eight hours already and can't seen to find any more and will crash and die of fatigue. Check it out using the link below.

Oh, FF 1.5.0.9 and 2.0.0.1 are planned to be released on Dec 14 2006. So, you got some time to really think carefully if you want to move on to FF 2.0. ;)

Related posts:

Mozilla Firefox 2 Web Browser Released
<URL:http://glob.lokety.com/2006/10/mozilla-firefox-2-web-browser-released.html>

Firefox Into The Sky!
<URL:http://glob.lokety.com/2006/05/firefox-into-sky.html>

Links:

Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.8 Release Notes
<URL:http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/releases/1.5.0.8.html>

Download Firefox
<URL:http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=187103&t=213>

StumbleUpon
<URL:http://www.stumbleupon.com>

Technorati Tags: mozilla, firefox, mozilla firefox, web browser, 1.5.0.8, ff, ff 1.5.0.8

Roomba Rave

Following on to my previous post about one of the most practical technological marvel on the market in recent years, here is an update on my Roomba, from iRobot.

After several months of using Roomba, I find my floors spotlessly clean, both common areas and areas under furniture. For my usage pattern and nature of dirt, I have to empty and clean the dirt bin once a week. More often than the average vacuum cleaner, but worth the benefit of total floor coverage.

Be aware that although this robot is smaller than your average vacuum cleaner, it still has quite a noise level. Baby will find it a bit hard to fall asleep with Roomba wandering around. :) The cause is the powerful motor that creates the vacuum effect in the dirt bin at the back of the unit. Another source of noise is the motor of the side rotating brush. I'm figuring out a way to soften the noise there, but I suspect it will have to be a major overhaul of the motor or having to do without it.

Once I had an awful experience that started by someone in my household who carelessly rinsed the dirt bin with water. Don't do that as the bin contains electronics and the motor for the vacuum function! As I was worried that the electronics would short circuit, I took apart the bin and tried to blow-dry the area using a hot blower. Not being careful enough, the plastic fan driven by the motor started to melt and distort. The fan couldn't turn any more as it was warped. After much twisting and re-melting, I became more experienced in hot modelling and got it back mostly in shape.

There are several places on the underside of Roomba which you can try to oil to reduce friction. This can help prolong the shell life of the machine, keep dirt out, and lower operational noise. The easiest place to apply oil without using tools is at the two axles of the long brushes. They are the round white plastic pieces with square holes in them, shown in the photo on right.

After months of two sessions per day, the first thing that gave way on my Roomba is a section of the hinge that holds one of the two rubber wheels.
A chunk of the hinge cracked, but the wheel is still kept in place by the other side of the hinge. This was probably caused by the metal rail of my sliding glass doors. My machine must have been banging its right wheel in and out of the rail and stressed the structure of it. If you have such a place in your house, take note of it and think of ways to avoid it.

In case you are still undecided on whether you should get one, check out roboticvacuums.net for more reviews and information about Roomba. There is a good review on Roomba which I have been describing, and one on a fairly new model, Scooba. This fancy blue vacuum may just be on my wishlist as it can wash and vacuum hard floors. A little bucket contains the dirty water collected from the floor after washing. It would be so satisfying to see that dirty water!

Related post:

Cleaning The World, One Robot At A Time
<URL:http://glob.lokety.com/2006/05/cleaning-world-one-robot-at-time.html>

Links:

Reviews on Roomba
<URL:http://www.roboticvacuums.net/>

Technorati Tags: roomba, irobot, irobot roomba, scooba, vacuum, vacuum cleaner, robot, robotic vacuum, review, tips

Mozilla Firefox 2 Web Browser Released

The world's best free web browser has been upgraded to version 2 and released on October 24 2006.

The list of new features in Firefox:

• Improved tabbed browsing
• Spell checking
• Search suggestions
• Updated web feeds
• Identity theft protection

I have used a beta of version 2 before. The major peeve for me is the changes Mozilla made for tabbed browsing. The width of each tab is fixed, which is a benefit as you will be able to read the title of the page all the time. However, this results in tabs that are not able to fit in the width of the browser window and you will not be able to guage the number of tabs that are currently open and not be able to see the next tab that you are about to switch to. Having a button that lists the open tabs doesn't appeal to me because I prefer to use the keyboard (ctrl-tab and ctrl-shift-tab) to navigate them. I suppose there is a key that I can set to change the behaviour of the tabs.

If you happen to accidentally close a tab, Firefox 2 can recall it from the History menu. My favourite add-on, called Session Manager, can save and restore the list of tabs when the browser is restarted, so you can resume your browsing when you turn your computer back on. This also has been integrated in version 2 and is known as Session Restore.

Identity theft, or phishing, protection is a very useful feature. Firefox 2 will warn you when you visit a web site suspected of forgery and is out to maliciously capture your secure information.

Some of Google Toolbar's features have also been integrated natively into Firefox 2. You will find spell checking in forms and search suggestions in the search toolbar in this browser. However, Google Toolbar is still good to have for features such as AutoFill, AutoLink, PageRank, Word Translator and Highlight Search Terms.

Go ahead, get yourself a better web browser. Click on the "Get Firefox with Google Toolbar" or the links below.

Update (30 Oct 2006 1047hrs):

To revert the tab behaviour to pre-version 2.0, type "about:config" in the address bar, press "Enter", look for or create (if it does not exist) the setting "browser.tabs.closeButtons" and set its value to 3, set or create the setting "browser.tabs.tabMinWidth" and set its value to 0, and install this style. For more information on new or upgrade installation issues with Firefox 2, go to this thread in the MozillaZine Forums.

Links:

Download Firefox
<URL:http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=187103&t=213>

Firefox 2 Press Release
<URL:http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/press/mozilla-2006-10-24.html>

Firefox Into The Sky!
<URL:http://glob.lokety.com/2006/05/firefox-into-sky.html>

Technorati Tags: mozilla, firefox, mozilla firefox, firefox 2, version 2, browser, web browser, new version

Wing To The Beat

Several years back in the middle of a frentic project implementation week I sought for some temporal escape from tension. Being multi-lingual, songs originally in English being translated and sung in Mandarin / Cantonese / Hokkien and vice versa always cracks me up. Top it off with contemporary and top-of-the-charts tracks and I can laugh my esophagus out.

Folks, let me introduce the internationally-acclaimed and warm-hearted Kiwi singer, Wing! Also known as Wing Han Tsang, this charming lady migrated to New Zealand from Hong Kong and found a modest amount of fame by belting hits from my favorite musical, The Phantom of the Opera, Elvis, and even AC/DC. I first spotted her several years back on her website when I could sample her songs, but now you have to pay a membership fee to do that.

Wing has a unique style to singing these English songs and that always puts a smile on my face. IMHO, the best from her are "Music of the Night" and "It's Now Or Never". Now that I've rekindled my fandom for Wing, I think I'm going to buy some of her tracks.

Folks in NZ have it good. AFAIC, the IT industry is in demand there, and the environment is beautiful and peaceful. Very conducive place to relax and bring up kids. Wing is an example of a foreign talent that is mutually beneficial with the country. I'm sure she is having a good time sipping hot Earl Grey and munching Weetbix with the kids all over the porch right now.

New Zealand will probably be my earthly Promised Land. Blue skies, clear beaches and WingTunes on my Musical Fidelity Tempest. Ahh, theys beckons me...

<URL:http://www.wingtunes.com/>
<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Han_Tsang>

Technorati Tags: wing, wing han tsang, wingtunes, music, songs, new zealand, phantom, musical fidelity