tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111804452011-07-17T17:07:50.578+08:00Thoughts on family, work, tech stuff and more of a systems administratorBadzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.comBlogger371100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1134055157497331462005-12-08T23:12:00.000+08:002005-12-08T23:19:17.510+08:00

I have created another blog for all my personal posts and will keep this blog to host tech-themed postings. Been way too busy the last months and was unable to make any noteworthy post here. Fret not, I'll be posting some stuff soon. Maybe next week... hope...My other blog : (http://dbpapercut.blogspot.com).

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1125241402188950132005-08-28T23:03:00.000+08:002005-08-28T23:21:55.710+08:00

I've been away from the blogosphere for God-knows how long. The past few weeks were really stressful for me. I attended a workshop for a week, went for a personal development course, trained our new SAs, battled the Zotob strains, got a whacking from some bigshot (yeah yeah due to the Zotob thingy), whacked back *grins* (not that I like whacking and stuff, I ain't much of a leather-and-lace fan

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1121297715095775822005-07-14T07:35:00.000+08:002005-07-14T23:59:48.010+08:00

Coming from work one drizzly night, I felt the urge to buy some fruits for the wife and the kids from one of the fruit stalls along Sims Avenue. A full ten-minute walk from our house, these fruit stalls sell a wide range of fruits ranging from Thai mangos, papayas, coconuts, lanzones, mangosteens, jackfruits, rambutans,honeydews, rock melons, and - easily, the most-sought - durians. In fact,

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1120754768538121032005-07-08T00:46:00.000+08:002005-07-08T20:53:39.506+08:00

Buto'y first day in school, the whole story, in pictures...Still sleepy... zzzz... Me, "C'mon get your ass up at maligo na tayo!" Butoy, "Daddy, tapos ng Courage the (Cowardly) Dog!" Tsk, not a good start it seems.Look Ma, I'm ready for school! After much prodding, we were able to bathe the imp, feed him (roti prata with maple syrup, one of his paboritos), and put on the stuff his mommy prepared

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1120748423034612582005-07-07T21:59:00.000+08:002005-07-07T23:04:37.486+08:00

Just caught sight of the news report about the London bombings from the 9:30 PM CNA newscast. Forty five people were reportedly killed and scores injured by a series explosions (four according to the latest report) which occurred during the early morning rush hour. Three of the four blasts took place in the city's subways. A double-decker bus was the target of one other blast. Twisted metals,

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1120716099477326762005-07-07T12:53:00.000+08:002005-07-07T14:12:04.960+08:00

In one hotly contested race, London one-upped Paris to gain the prestigious distinction of hosting the 2012 Olympics. The victory, however, was never by a long chalk. Winning by a mere 4 votes (54-50) last night, London becomes the first three-time Olympics host city having hosted the games in 1908 and 1948. Tony Blair was in town for a few days before flying off for the G-8 summint in Scotland.

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1120578147759729722005-07-05T22:21:00.000+08:002005-07-06T16:48:46.623+08:00

The Suntec City Convention Centre was jampacked with around 8,000 IT professionals, teachers, students, and representatives from the government sector during the Bill Gates Live Forum held last week (July 1). It was basically a geek jamboree bannered by the Bill himself and home-grown radical geek Sim Wong Hoo, he of the Soundblaster fame. Microsoft's Chief Software Architect talked about speech

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1120146347282492182005-06-30T23:45:00.000+08:002005-07-01T11:55:43.496+08:00

Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me (Proverbs 30:8). A couple of Saturdays ago, Rizza and I brought the kids and Ria out for a short stroll at our usual weekend haunt at Suntec City. The kids had their routinary koi-feeding activity at the koi garden. They also went a-wishing at the Fortune Fountain with Ria in tow. Afterwards, we went for a whiff of fresh

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1120044491474018492005-06-29T19:00:00.000+08:002005-06-30T07:40:09.480+08:00

I was going through a regular check of my PCs log files (iis, av, firewall, rootkitrevealer, etc.) when I noted 142 high-rated blocked intrusions from my firewall log. Aparrently, there has been an abnormally high port 139 activity lately in the internet. I reckon one little bird telling me from IRC a few days after this month's patch tuesday to expect something "interesting" in the next few days

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1119958337059987782005-06-28T18:35:00.000+08:002005-06-28T20:36:28.596+08:00

Yes, it was Ate Glo after all.The President finally admitted that she was the person in the Gloriagate tapes whose conversation with (allegedly, until he owns up himself) Comelec Commissioner Garcillano were illegally recorded. Why it took her almost an eternity to confess is the 64-dollar question. Did she really try to influence the polls back then? Did she, uhm, try to push her weight around

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1119796364099392262005-06-26T21:56:00.000+08:002005-06-26T22:35:21.016+08:00

The pamilya di-magiba went to the NTUC Downtown East's Wild, Wild Wet water theme park last Saturday. It was a struggle forcing the mantikilya family out of their slumber (normal weekend waking hours range between 10 - 11 AM). With bathing suits and swimming trunks in tow (and the usual swimming gears --- goggles for Am, Butoy's rubber duckie, tabo for me), we went a-dipping to our hearts'

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1119533477725644632005-06-23T21:31:00.000+08:002005-06-23T22:06:16.300+08:00

Woot!I just received my ticket for the Bill Gates LIVE! Fom Technology to Career show at the Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre on July 1. Will Bill's legendary Blue-Screen-of-Death curse turn up again as it did a number of times before? I bet MS-bashers would love to see Bill get BSODed again by his own *tounge-in-cheek* _crappy_ software. Harhar.Anyways, I hope to

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1119443321127281052005-06-22T19:51:00.000+08:002005-06-23T16:07:16.996+08:00

You left us almost 23 years ago. I have never seen Mom so devastated when news of your death reached us. She gathered us, Nitz, Sherren and I, and told us, in between sobs, you were gone. At my age then, it was hard to accept the truth. I cried not because you were gone, as I had no inkling of what death is all about that time, but because I symphatized with Mom. We were just too young then to

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1119402169197678132005-06-22T08:43:00.000+08:002005-06-22T20:34:58.726+08:00

I've been grounded for the past two days. This damn flu has got to go. My tasks are piling up! There is that decision document for my project which I am supposed to finish by month's end; there's the invitation I need to send for the security training I am conducting on the 4th of July; my EPC assignments; etc. Talk about biting off more than I can chew. If I had my druthers, I'd go to work. Darn

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1119265584654317782005-06-20T17:29:00.000+08:002005-06-20T19:06:24.660+08:00

"Humanity for others", that is what the ancient African word "Ubuntu" means. With the unfussy catchphrase "Linux for human beings," Canonical has hit the nail right in the head when it comes to bringing out a totally new and exciting user experience. And to say that the user interface is the best of the (Linux) lot, is totally a mortifying understatement (m_p_o).I just received my Ubuntu CDs from

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1119110290241910092005-06-18T23:18:00.001+08:002005-06-18T23:59:49.426+08:00

This is our court. Where Butoy and I play New York playground-inspired hoops. It's where I've taught him how to execute that ankle-breaking, killer crossover. This is where he hones his trash talk, complete with "Stupid, Kobe!" and worse. The same place where, a few nights back, Lamar got dunked on by the man-kid Amare (El-Ay's my usual team while the kid goes for Phoenix because of the team's

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1118985201622142252005-06-17T12:43:00.000+08:002005-06-17T13:13:21.626+08:00

The Digital Forensics Research Workshop 2005 challenge is on!Quoting an email from the Honeypots SecurityFocus mailing list:Memory analysis is one of the primary themes of the 2005 Digital Forensics Research Workshop (DFRWS). In an effort to motivate discourse, research and tool development in this area, the Organizing Committee has created the intrusion/intellectual property theft scenario

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1118849115193535122005-06-15T22:26:00.000+08:002005-06-15T23:28:26.246+08:00

Coming home from work a little while ago, I noticed Am-Am working on her drawings on the dinner table. I can see a marked improvement on her drawings. What used to be stick-people scribbles have taken more humanly shapes and forms. Her colours have gone more vivid, a mix of dynamic hues and bold strokes. I'll be posting some of her works occasionally.She has also immensely progressed on her

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1118835248089019662005-06-15T19:01:00.000+08:002005-06-15T19:34:08.096+08:00

And so the the seemingly never-ending MS Patch Tuesday cycle has come full circle yet again. MS just released 10 (yes my dear OSS zealots *grins*, 10, one-oh) security hotfixes for this month. Not to mention 3 re-releases of previous patches (MS02-035, MS05-004, and MS05-019). A rundown of the patches can be found here. Patch Tuesdays are notoriously reviled by systems administrators for the

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1118669782626797562005-06-13T21:03:00.000+08:002005-06-13T21:39:30.163+08:00

This is a welcome news to all MS-centric IT professionals out there who are going for MCP certifications.Microsoft's MCP exam retake promo has been extended for another three months. The new deadline for MS' "Second-Shot" offer is August 31, 2005 and retakes must be completed by September 30, 2005. This allows an exam taker who fails an MCP exam between June 1 to August 30 to retake that exam at

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1118498402502398672005-06-11T22:00:00.000+08:002005-06-11T23:31:05.056+08:00

I was in Batam (Indonesia) yesterday for some ad hoc work. It seems the place hasn't changed much since the last time I was there.It was almost two years ago to this day when I was last assigned in Batam. I was working on a project back then which took roughly four months to complete. I was onsite Mondays to Fridays and was back in Singapore during weekends throughout this period. I made quite a

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1118228976141731662005-06-08T18:40:00.000+08:002005-06-09T12:32:53.783+08:00

C++, as far as my classical-C-oriented-self is concerned, is always full of surprises. I was working on this touch utility, one of my weekend pet projects, when I ran into some "unexpected" results. I had a self-referencing operator (although valid as far as C++ is concerned) which causes my app to give rather off the mark outputs. This is a valid code:i = i;but one has to carefully check this

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1118102348601707002005-06-07T17:30:00.000+08:002005-06-08T18:25:22.836+08:00

Am and Butoy have this growing collection of miniature toys (I don't friggin' know how to call them, really) which they have gradually collected whenever we go to our usual weekend haunt. I was often wondering how my one-dollar coins, which I normally just leave lying around my work bench, keep disappearing. Yun pala nilalagay nila sa alkansya nila, dyaske. Now, whenever I get hold of a

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1118102128337460492005-06-07T07:55:00.000+08:002005-06-07T11:39:31.826+08:00

I attended a seminar last Week at Suntec City which ended around 5 PM. I was to meet my wife around 7 PM for dinner and since I had a lot of time to spare and it was quite a fine day, I went strolling around the vicinity of Suntec City. With my ever reliable R707 onhand, I went a-clicking here and there and was too engrossed with what I was doing that I almost forgot about the dinner thingy.

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1118102038576945822005-06-06T07:53:00.000+08:002005-06-07T11:14:00.203+08:00

I have been working for the past 5 years here in Singapore and the experience has somehow humbled me in a lot of ways. I have learned to value kinship more than ever being far from my family (for the first 3 years I was here) and loved ones; to cherish friendship, old and new; and to put more trust in God and be thankful of His blessings. In retrospect, I count myself fortunate for having my

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1117987177813049862005-06-05T23:30:00.000+08:002005-06-05T23:59:37.816+08:00

Allow me to deviate a bit from the usual geek stuff I have been blabbering about in my previous posts. I will don my movie critic hat for this one and will talk about the movie Madagascar which the pamilya di-magiba went on to watch yesterday at the Golden Village Cinemas at Tampines Mall. The movie is about the fancy of Marty the Zebra (voiced by Chris Rock) to "return to the wild." Marty,

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1117808751291708352005-06-03T22:25:00.000+08:002005-06-03T23:01:36.546+08:00

The man is coming!Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation, Geek Extraordinaire, is coming to Singapore on the 1st of July. According to the MS Singapore website, he will be speaking about the future of computing including latest updates on upcoming product releases such as SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and Longhorn. I have registered for the event hoping

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1117639968844031332005-06-01T23:32:00.000+08:002005-06-02T00:07:03.276+08:00

Corazon Amores, a highschool classmate of mine and a good friend of my wife, was in town last week. Currently based in Medan, Indonesia, Cora was here to attend a training so we took the opportunity to bring her out for dinner last Sunday. It has been ages since we have last spoken so we tried to catch up on each other life's goings-on. To quote my email to our class' yahoogroup, Not that I'm

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1117546964156565762005-05-31T20:58:00.000+08:002005-06-12T00:04:58.480+08:00

Earlier this afternoon, I was able to resolve a print server issue in one of our remote site office. Users were complaining that they were unable to connect to the print server and add the two print devices onto their installed printers list. Anyhow, all seems to be working fine now. Given a choice, I would have gone for an LPR printing solution. Let me expound on this further.One nifty service

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1117201391292375902005-05-27T21:43:00.000+08:002005-06-17T12:38:18.540+08:00

I am in the process of collating photos taken during my trips abroad (oversea assignments). I consider myself lucky for having been able to visit China (Wuxi, Shenzhen, Shuzhou, Shanghai, Beijing and Nanjing), Japan (Tokyo, Yokohama and Nagoya), Taiwan (Taipei and Hsinchu), Hongkong, South Korea (Seoul), India (Bangalore), Malaysia (Penang) and Indonesia (Batam). Looking back, I can say that

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1117118536795776122005-05-26T22:13:00.000+08:002005-05-26T23:10:53.546+08:00

I haven't updated this blog lately. Tsk, there were just too many things I had to do these past two months. There was our AP HQ opening wherein I had to configure our video server for the live broadcast (hey I even received a congratulatory email from our CEO). There was that security training I conducted (together with our ISO) to expound on the processes and implementations we have in place

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1111680635138347682005-03-24T23:34:00.000+08:002005-04-01T18:10:23.700+08:00

One of the challenges I had to deal with in my work was to keep the standard operating environment for our computers as consistent as possible. This means having a common baseline for new client builds as far as security restrictions, installed apps, and look-and-feel are concerned. However, users who are local admins of their computers (most of whom are not aware of security threats, or just

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1111676027302110742005-03-24T22:53:00.000+08:002005-03-24T23:34:09.430+08:00

The kid hates ice cream as the pictures clearly show. How the kid has grown, tsk. He was a rather shy (tahimik pero nasa loob ang kulo?) year-old tyke when he left the PH. Now, sobrang kulit and oh-so hyper. Cute naman daw sabi ng mommy. =)

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1110638964546611712005-03-12T22:49:00.000+08:002005-03-12T23:14:28.526+08:00

Whew, what a day! I played in our company's inter-department basketball tournament. We won three games, lost one. Tsk, not enough to book us a seat in the semis though. Oh well, bottomline is I had a great time (busted lip and all, heh). =)Brought Rizza, Ria and the kids out for dinner at Suntec. The kids and Ria had the standard fried chicken and rice, Rizza had yong tau fo while I wanted to

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1110535768122018552005-03-11T17:35:00.000+08:002005-03-12T23:11:02.596+08:00

As I was poring over some Pinoy blogs which delve on IT matters, I cannot help but notice that majority of them (based on the twenty or so that I have seen) are FOSS advocates. These blogs provide never a dearth of info and tips on, say, configuring Ubuntu, running LiveCDs, nmap switches, to name a few. Definitely information such as these are a godsend to noobies like me. Needless to say, I, an

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1110347733039820912005-03-09T13:38:00.000+08:002005-03-11T17:26:44.096+08:00

Uncle Sonny's death caught us all by surprise, to say the least. The last time I had the chance to talk to him was when he went for a vacation in the PH over six years ago. I would have wanted to attend his interment but I wasn't able to secure my visa on time. Besides, I'm in the rut with this month-end training I was tasked to conduct for our AP sysadmins and equipment engineers/owners (more on

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11180445.post-1109846012990929402005-03-03T11:47:00.000+08:002005-03-03T18:33:32.993+08:00

It's been almost three years now when I started working with this company. Sometimes I wonder how life would have been had I opted for that consultancy work instead. SI work hasn't always been a bed of roses but it helps pay the bills.Looking back, I still remember my exuberance when, barely a couple of weeks into the job, I was assigned to do a project that would take me to our Asia-Pac regional

Badzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01295536249675770735noreply@blogger.com0