Logmein.com – the best way to access your office PC or Home PC from anyway in the world

If you are looking for ways to access your office PC or home PC remotely to perform some basic functionwith having to pay any fee, you should look at www.logmein.com where the free version allow you to login your computer remotely and perform function just like you are sitting in front of that PC.

Log Me In

Sign up and installation is easy and I have tried to connect to the host PC and found that the connection is as such that it is almost as good as you are sitting in front of the host PC. It is simply an excellent service.

The Pro version which is a paid version allow you to synchonize file, transfer and backup file securely, allow others to access your PC temporary and more. The service cost USD 69.95 per year.

Mc Laren signed up Alonso

Mc Laren stunned many in Formula 1 by signing up Alonso recently for the 2007 season. The new signing mean that either Kimi Raikonen or Juan Pablo Montoya will have to leave Mc Laren by the end of 2006. No one know whether Kimi will stay with Mc Laren at this stage and it is definitely a wise move by Ron Dennis to sign up a top driver so soon. Should Kimi stay, then Mc Laren will have two of the best drivers in Formula 1. Comparing Alonso and Montoya, Alonso is a much better driver that made very few mistake. Montoyo committed quite a number of mistakes in 2005 and that cost Mc Laren dearly in the Constructor Title. Now that Mc Laren have some of the best drivers, it will now depend on whether Mc Laren’s car is good enough for the 2006 challenge, after the departure of their chief engineer, Adrian Newey.

AOL to stick with Google

Google may pay $1 billion for a 5 percent stake in America Online as part of an exclusive deal with Time Warner that would strengthen ties with the search giant instead of dumping Google for Microsoft.

As part of the current negotiations with Google, AOL would be able to sell additional ads for its search engine also powered by Google on top of those provided by Google, according to a report Friday in The Wall Street Journal Online. Google also could promote AOL Web sites among sponsored links in search results, according to an unidentified source in the report. The report said the deal would not be finalized until after Time Warner’s board meets on Wednesday.

Read full story at news.com

This is definitely a big deal of the year for Google as AOL is a awesome portal that Google do not want to be left out.

Portable speakers for iPod and other MP3 Players

I was at the computer store to try out the portable speakers for iPod and tried two models, one from 2GO and the other Logitech , both of around RM 220 range. I found that mm22 from Logitech offer better sound quality and bought the mm22 for RM 220.00.

mm22 from Logitech come with three holders that can be used to hold my iPod 20Gb and iPod Nono 4GB. Pictures as follow:-


mm22 with iPod Nono
Logitech mm22 with iPod Nono 4GB

mm22 with iPod 20Gb
Logitech mm22 with iPod 20GB

mm22 with iPod 20Gb
iPod or MP3 Players’ holders

All components can be arranged and placed in a nice trendy contaner for travelling.

Screen shot of Yahoo Mail Beta

Yahoo mail beta

A link to Yahoo Mail Beta is there when I login into Yahoo mail today. The new yahoo mail interface look very much like those of our desktop email clients such as Microsoft Outlook and it allow user to drag mail to folder, deleting mail by hitting the delete button or select a range of mail to delete. A quick check found that Rules and Wizard is still not available in Yahoo mail. The Yahoo Mail Filter still basically allow users to move mail that meet certain rules to designated folder. On the contrary, Google Gmail has a very powerful filter allow user set a wide range of rules and action.

Will post more information after testing the beta for several days.

Malaysia K9 Day 2006, a day dedicated to all dogs in Malaysia

The Malaysia K9 Day 2005 will held on January 8th, 2006 at Central Park, Bandar Utama, Kuala Lumpur. It is an annual event dedicated to all dogs, be it a mixed breed dog or pure breed dog. All are welcome to join us at Central Park on this meaningful day.

Date : January 08, 2006
Venue : Central Park, Bandar Utama, Kuala Lumpur
Time : 8:30am to 3:00pm
Admission : Free
Open to : All dogs lovers. Owner of Mixed Breeds and Pure Breeds dog and their dogs.


Malaysia K9 Day Malaysia K9 Day Malaysia K9 Day Malaysia K9 Day Malaysia K9 Day

Malaysia K9 Day Malaysia K9 Day Malaysia K9 Day Malaysia K9 Day Malaysia K9 Day

More information can be read at www.puppy.com.my/k9day2006/
Register for Malaysia Dog Beauty Pageant 2006 at www.puppy.com.my/k9day2006/k9bpform.html ( Free to participate for all )

Highlights

  • The 3rd Purina / Puppycom Beauty Pageant
  • Police K9 Unit Demonstration with brand new demonstration.
  • The Protection Dog Demonstration.
  • Purina Puppycom Obedience and Agility Demonstration
  • 7 Doggie Games
    • Dog Fastest Recall
    • Obe-Agi Dash Run
    • Fastest Eating Duo
    • Amazing Agility Race
    • Dog Longest Stay
    • Waggy Tail Contest
    • Dog Musical Chair
  • Dog Charities
  • Micro-chipping of Dogs
  • Dog Parade
  • Meet the Dog Breeds
  • Lucky Draws
  • Doggie Products’ Booth
  • Vet Corner that offer free medical checkup for your furkids
  • Meet the Breed Section

See all of you there !!

Shilin or Stone Forest of Kun Ming, Yunnan, China

A visit to Stone Forest is a must if you travel to Kun Ming, Yunnan. The Stone Forest is located in Lunan Yi Nationality Autonomous County, which is about 100 kilometers from Kunming and requires only a three-hour drive by bus. It covers an area of 400 square kilometers and includes both large and small stone forests, as well as many other scenic spots.

We were there early in the morning at 8:00am and the local guide is a girl from Yi minority race. The guide is required by China government to wear their colourful costumes. The sky was cloudy and the weather was cold and we enjoy walking for nearly 2 hours seeing many piece of magnificiant stone which was once part of the sea some 270 million years ago.

Geologists say the Stone Forest is a typical example of karsts topography. Approximately 270 million years ago – during the carboniferous period of the Paleozoic era – the region was a vast expanse of sea. Over time, the movements of the lithosphere gradually caused a retreat of the waters and the rise of the limestone landscape. Due to constant erosion by the elements, the area finally developed into the present-day Stone Forest.

An old local saying says that “If you have visited Kunming without seeing the Stone Forest, you have wasted your time.” Truly, the Stone Forest is one of the most important attractions of Yunnan


Stone Forest, Kun Ming, China

Stone Forest, Kun Ming, China

Stone Forest, Kun Ming, China

Stone Forest, Kun Ming, China

Stone Forest, Kun Ming, China

Stone Forest, Kun Ming, China

Koi Forum is 7 years old

Malaysia Koi Forum

The Koi Forum which was setup in December 1998 is now seven years old. The forum has growth steadily throughout the last seven years and so is my knowledge in koi keeping. Me together with many members of the forum have learnt so much from the discussion and many have gone back to help new koi keepers.

My pond was built more than 10 years ago by a pond contractor at a time I had little knowledge in pond management. Still remember that the first batch of few koi purchased at RM 2000 a piece perished after barely a few weeks which I later came to conclusion that those koi died due to lack of oxygen. Today, many can avoid the mistake and get to learn a lot even before the pond was constructed. To bad that Internet was still pretty new 10 years back and we had limited access to information then.

www.koi.com.my

Puer Tea – a product of Yunnan, China

Visit to Kun Ming, Yunnan surely include a visit to the local tea house. Visited one of them and was greeted by a nice lady from Yi minority race who explained to us various tea produced in the area of Yunnan. We were also given the chance to taste all of them throughout a period of about 1 hour.


Puer Tea

Puer Tea

The highlight was of course on Puer Tea, a very popular products of Yunnan.

Pu-erh Special Tea, known as Pu-erh Tea by people outside China, has the features below:

Pu-erh tea is moderate in taste, not as strong as black tea. It can cut grease, help digestion, warm stomach, help produce saliva and slake thirst, dispel the effects of alcohol and refresh one’s mind. Pu-erh tea has functions of lowering the triglyceride, cholesterol, hyperuricemia in the body

Pu-erh tea is processed through special fermentation by using the semi-made green tea of Yunnan large leaf tea. It is black or brown in colour. The aged Pu-erh tea is mellow and gives a sweet taste in mouth after drinking. It is an ideal health drink for both young and old people.

Pu-erh tea can be kept for a very long time, the longer you keep it the better it tastes and the higher its quality becomes. But it can not be stored air-tight or put in the moisture or close to goods with peculiar smell. It will taste best if brewing with spring water and in a Zisha (purple clay) teapot.

Quoted from http://www.pu-erhtea.com/Pu-erhTea.htm

The processed Puer Tea are mostly compressed to various shape for storage. The longer it is been store for usage later, the better it is. We purchased a 15 years old Puer to try it out (as below).

Puer Tea

Folder Share – a great folder synchronization services

FolderShare is one synchronization service that I tried and used for more than 2 weeks. I have set FolderShare to synchronize 10 folders (20GB) of my office PC and home PC and it just work beautifully. With that I can do away with thumb drive that I normally carry with the files that use very regularly. FolderShare by Byte Taxi has been acquired by Microsoft and the Basic version is now being offered for free. The limitation of the basic version allow you to synchronize folder with up to 10,000 files. This is surely one service that will help many to increase their productivity.

Folder share can be downloaded at www.foldershare.com

I have also subscribed to www.beinsync.com paying USD 6.95 per month and will install on my PC soon. The reason to try out Beinsync is the ability of Beinsync to synchronize Outlook File and at the same time it can handle folder with more than 10,000 files.

I will post the result of test soon.

K9 Trekkers and Friends visited St. Jerome Orphanage to bring cheers to childrens there

K9 Trekkers and Friends visited St. Jerome Orphanage last weekend. Members brought along their lovely furkids and a lot of food to cheer the childrens. Most Trekkers were at the orphanage by 4:30pm and childrens there had a fine time mingle around with furkids for several hours. Donation collected amounted to about RM 1000 was also presented to the management of the orphange.


Visit to St. Jerome orphanage by K9 Trekkers and Friends

Visit to St. Jerome orphanage by K9 Trekkers and Friends

Visit to St. Jerome orphanage by K9 Trekkers and Friends

Visit to St. Jerome orphanage by K9 Trekkers and Friends

Visit to St. Jerome orphanage by K9 Trekkers and Friends

Ipod Rip – Restore iTune Database from Ipod

iPodRip saved my life! Or at least a few days of it. My desktop crashed and I had to rebuild it. I didn’t have a backup of my iTunes database so I had lost a good weeks worth of work rating and categorizing my music – not to mention the play counts I had established! Using iPodRip I was able to restore everything!

The above quote sound extreme familiar to me. The hard drive of my notebook crashed and without having the latest backup of the iTune database, the only hope is therefore my Ipod. Tried a few softwares that aim to restore the iTune database and found that Ipod Rip is simply the best one around.

The restore process was simple. Download and install Ipod Rip and from there I set the preference to have the ipod data restore to my iTune directory and just click Import ALL. The import process of copying file took about an hour. While the Ipod Rip was not able to update iTune successfully but this was solved by just adding the iTune folder to Ipod Library and that was it.

IPOD Rip Web Site

POP File for fighting Spam

I have tried many spam control software and recently found POP file, installed it and tried it out. Briefly, the POP File is:-

POPFile is an automatic mail classification tool. Once properly set up and trained, it will scan all email as it arrives and classify it based on your training. You can give it a simple job, like separating out junk e-mail, or a complicated one—like filing mail into a dozen folders. Think of it as a personal assistant for your inbox.

POP File

Installation and configuration is easy and the profile server basically like a proxy and process all incoming mail, classify it. Substantial reclassification is needed initially to train the POP File and after about a period of 2 weeks, you will notice that the accuracy is well above 98%.

I have tried POP File on two mail boxes, one with small email volume ( 100 mails a day) and one with substantial volume (about 1000 mails a day). Working on first box is easy but working with the later mail box require substantial work to perform reclassification within the first two weeks. POP File is now at version v0.22.3 and more are to come in the future. POP File is free to download and use and you many want to donate if you find the software is good.

POP File Download and Information