Which One Should I Buy?

I want to get myself a new lappy, but can't think or see the best option available. Dollar exchange rate is pretty bad too on my country, so I need to be careful. Here are the list of lappy I can find (good performance per price). Can you give me suggestion?

Lenovo IdeaPad G410 960~ http://www.bhinneka.com/products/sku00508422.aspx

Lenovo IdeaPad G430 953~ http://www.bhinneka.com/products/sku00508574.aspx

Or should I get this: X-Ware X-4400~ http://www.x-ware.asia/products.php?series=Legacy&type=X-4471?

I only have 700-850 dollars (max), so don't tell me I need to get those Vaio series.... I can't afford it. If you have any other brand in mind that you would like to recommend, let me know by dropping a comment here.

*sigh*

Heck, I Am Home! (mikrotiktrojanyaddayada)

I really want to say so. >.< This job pulls me to the fullest extent. Eh, I am not complaining, I am paid to do so, and the money is well worth it. I still don't get spare computer for IPCOP to replace this damned Mikrotik.

Ah yes, pirated Mikrotik has trojan installed inside its Web Proxy function. I've disabled Mikrotik's Web Proxy on this branch's firewall. That's why I tend to favor IPCOP more than Mikrotik.... My company doesn't want to pay for Mikrotik license yet they want powerful and strong security. That said, Mikrotik (pirated edition) was the quickest answer to solve this kind of question. However, that edition has fatal flaw that stops its fullest use for us. Web Proxy is a MUST for 64 kbps connection, seeing we have 11 or so computer clients in this LAN. Activating it will help to save precious bandwith for browsing. And it ain't a joke. even my 128 kbps is a crap, how can they think 64 is enough? Evenmore, Symantec AV needs fast connection for its update function, since the update package is huge download. 64 kbps connection is just... miserable.

As for the electricity... Electricity is also an issue here. The electricity isn't stable, and randomly disconnected. Many electric equipments were broken because of this. I've installed Automatic Voltage Regulator but yet to work since this is holiday, and no one's using it except me. I also ordered UPS to be brought, 10 or so, and told them to install them one on each computer.

I've prepared report for all I've encountered in this branch. Hopefully, my CEO will hear my voice, soon. This situation needs to be rectified asap.

Letter From Semarang: XP SP3 + Webserver.

Honestly, I didn't know that XP SP3 can't be installed from XP without any service pack. In this office branch, there were computers that didn't have any SP installed. As a results, most of them can't utilize USB drives properly. I downloaded SP3 from MS website (duh 300+ MB on 64 kbps connection), and got surprised when I knew SP3 refused to be installed on XP without any SP.

So... uh... I tried to download XP SP1, and installed it at once. Double clicked SP3 installer again after that and... it worked.. Damn it.

Webserver has been upgraded, too. Almost all report engines are now working, only few issues remaining. And since it's been upgraded, I installed also in it HmailServer to solve email traffic issues. With it, I can control anything about the email flows in this office branch with ease.

All in all, this business trip is succesfull one. This Semarang branch now has the most advanced technologies among all of my office's branches. I'll stay here for the next 4 days to ensure everything is done.

Oh wait... how about Mikrotik? Someone's gotta take care of it!

Scheduled Outage....

No. This isn't blogger-related issue that's displayed on announcement page. :P

On my office, there's a departement that work 24/7, and scheduled outage/ electricity problem issue is a matter between life and death for them. I am not exaggerating here... but the said departement is costumer-relation job like Cashier and Equipment In/ Out. They don't want any slight lapse on electricity. Back then we didn't have budget to fix this, and whenever the outage occured, they were screaming like mad. :) It's practically very common that they screamed to me 'MISS THE ELECTRICITY IS DOWN DO SOMETHING ASAP!', or something similar.

It's not like I didn't think about this at all. But the problem lie on the budget itself. At that time, management here (I wasn't included at decision making, since I was also but a newbie) didn't aware about the importance of this issue. I told my Branch Manger already, to make investment on UPS and Generator, in case electricity outage or failure occurs. As urgent as it was, the decision had been neglected until a problem arose.

There was an announcement regarding scheduled outage, but it wasn't very common scheduled outage. The electricity supplies stored on PLN generator wasn't enough to support a wild increase of electricity needs, so they forcibly shut down every electricity greedy users (like my office :P) to maintain the reasonable ratio of supplies. It was 10 or so hours outage schedule, and all departement on this office was unable to do daily task. Gosh, pretty absurd, wasn't it? We suffered quite loss at that day, and this event was used by my to send proposal to get generator and UPS for all aspects on this office. It was.... quite a bold move, I admit. In case something went astray and the management didn't happy with it, I'd be in danger. ;) But I put my luck in it and no longer afterwards, the proposal got accepted and I formally appointed to supervise everything about that. Woooohoooo.

I gathered all information I could get and finally purchased new, shiny generator for us. Along with it, twenty four UPS for each workstations. :D Total cost was around 74 million rupiahs or so (approx 74.000 dollars). Quite big investment, but worth every penny. As for now, no one's complaining whenever the electricity outage/failure occurs, as long as the UPS and generator are working properly, we won't complain.

Moral of the story (duh....): UPS and Generator are godlike things that often save you from misery. :)

What Am I Doing Today? (Various Ramblings And Blogging Tips)

Not much since I have been a slacker since this morning. It's not because I am lazy, but because I need to think everything else regarding ISP matter again. I haven't decided anything since then....simply because I really have no idea or solution until now. Luckily (some relief, after all), I was able to install Update Accelerator for AVG (mod) correctly so... eh, I shouldn't complain about how bad this day is...since it wasnt THAT bad.... While I was seriously thinking that my mod wasn't working and wanted to give up after my first initial test, I still decided to give the damn thing a try . And I suddenly became enlightened and finished the mod codes modification in instant... Hahahah. Installed, tested it and made it available for my clients heree. Phew.

*ahem* Let's change topic.

For my blog, I switched my email subscription and RSS Feed from Feedblitz to Feedburner. The latter is much more easy to manage and... since it's a part of Google Inc, surely it is so compatible with blog platform I am using, Blogspot. Uh... I am just too fanatic with blogger, aren't I? >_> Whatever la, as long as blogger is able to fulfill virtually anything I want in a blog, heck, I don't care. I won't even give a damn attention to wordpress or typepad or anything else. Just my 2 cents, no hard feeling, kay?

I sincerely suggest you to use Feedburner to serve for your email and RSS subscriptions widget. Like BlogBackUpOnline, Feedburner is a great (and free!) tool for us bloggers. Maybe in the future, BlogBackUpOnline will need to be replaced as the contents of your blog grow, since they limit their free service by stopping the service after 5 MB quota has been reached. This is quoted from their FAQ page: 'FREEMIUM accounts are available for free. FREEMIUM accounts are limited to 5MB of storage. If your average post is 1000 characters, that should be enough to store up to 5000 posts.'

As promising as their statement is, limitation is still a limitation. But we should have enough space for a while to backup our blog contents. Another way to backup is by utilizing your own feed. Subscribe into your own feed and start copying your contents manually using it to your drive. Better be prepared than sorry. :P

In addition, since I am talking about blog now, to my surprise, someone dropped 2000 EC on my entrecard page! Another happy news for me today. Now I can buy those impossible price tags there! To help me more, drop on my card, pals, don't forget. Help this poor wife and mother! xD

*looks up*

Phew, that was quite a writing. Now let's call it a day. I still hope that I will have a good day tomorrow. It's been an intense pressures nowadays that I have. I wish, really. Pray for me, will you?

Today's Nightmare: Negotiation Against ISP.

Crap... Happiness is limited, misery is no end. Never would have thought negotiating with ISP would be this difficult. Keep reading to find out why.

The meeting started at 10 AM, still early enough so I can concentrate fully on my mission (wtf mission?) to get a better bandwith speed AND get a better deal. Uh..so.. I greet them as usual as I do to many people I meet on my work. While I shook their hands one by one, I sensed something.... sinister from them. Wooot, must be my imagination only for I put too much thought on this. >_>

Then.... we started to talk. At first, we didn't talk too much about technical issues, rather then... talking about our job-related issues nowadays. Kinda fun, I learned alot from them, tbqh. At least, I am still too young on this kind of business environment. My stupid CEO puts too much hope, something I don't like, on me. =O Don't talk about this post to her, don't mention that I call her stupid, kay? I'd be in trouble if you do.

*ahem*

And then, after a hour chitchating... (was that even a word?), we jumped into the real problem. Currently, my office want to reduce the fixed cost including, but not limited to, internet cost, materials expense, etc. That's why I invited them to talk over about this. I was quite a geek myself on IT environment, so I knew that the current connection of mine is actually not enough to provide good and smooth connection and reducing the bandwith means... suicide. No, I didn't tell them to reduce the price, rather then... I asked them to improve the service (the granted bandwith is less than that was written on the contract). I wasn't the last contract signer, it was another. And the contract itself is particularly a loss for us, if this continues. The bandwith granted is far below our expectation (based from the contract), and the signer actually didn't notice that. After the job passed down to me, I found out this. And my sucessor (the new IT staff, I moved up to GM position) is actually too inexperienced and doesn't know how to deal with ISP. Alright, let's stop the story here for a while... Let me post something I wanted to say long time ago...

I DON'T WANT TO INVOLVE MYSELF AGAIN ON THIS MATTER DAMNIT!

Blah... I feel better.

Let's continue....

Then, after I complained about the promised bandwith, they didn't acknowledge their fault even though I provided all evidences. I said, 'This problem needs to be rectified asap.', they replied 'It's already written on the agreement your company signed year ago.'. What? It's your damn fault, little maggot! Learn to hear! I wasn't talking about contract, I was talking about the granted bandwith that doesn't meet the minimum standard written on contract!

They're so damn stubborn and don't understand what I WANT (on behalf for my company, of course) and I would like TO have. I was using the simplest English ever... yet they couldn't understand? Oh wow...

BLAH BLAH BLAH continued! Next, I even slammed the table to make them know I wasn't jerking around. I even said that I would terminate the contract instantly if they can't fulfill their obligation. Of course, we pay to get service, and they must give us their best service. It's an unwritten rule on bussiness environment, yes?

I left the meeting room after that. >_> Ah well... Dunno about the rest of the meeting.. But, since my secretary was there too, probably she put the meeting on hold. Don't care... I need to cool down first.

Closing sentence before I posted this: Did you find typo? Did you find grammatical mistakes on this post? Just to let you know.... I am typing this while nursing my anger. -_-'

*vanishes*

Distress From Workplace.....

This happened on last Saturday.

Fist thing first, I was quite happy with the HmailServer setup I created, and usually when I feel certain about something, nothing bad will happen. And yes, nothing bad happened on my side that day...however, it was a bit...different. :( Be wary, this story is a mix between my work and my personal story, don't get confused.

Let's start from the beginning...

That morning, as usual, I checked all configurations and log entries on all of my servers on my workplace. No, there was no strange behavior or entries.... Besides, the day before Saturday is Friday that usually doesn't have too much activities inside outside my company. Heeee another relaxing day, I thought. My IPCOP box that usually gives me headache when it encounters weird problems, on that day was very quiet. 'Nice day' popped out on my head.

I ate a full meal at 9 AM, while nursing my little daughter simultaneously, because I had but little time to do that. She was pretty energetic and lively. :D Hm hm... While I was eating, one of my staffs contacted me that she already sent regular incoive report via telephone. Of course, she sent also that report to me via email (bcc, not cc... to avoid potential conflict) and to our lawyers that don't have email account on our domain. I opened Outlook and synchronize my inbox. Two emails were taken from server. I checked the senders and the subjects. The first was from my CEO, telling me that she basically still needs treatement from her latest illness, and the second, of course, from my employee.

'Done!'

And I continued my meal, and spoonfed my daughter again. I couldn't be happier, yes? After a busy week, I needed some respose as well to proceed to another busy week again. Few hours passed without any noticeable problems on my office.

Then, at 11 AM or so, the problem began. My employee who sent me report I told you before called me again via telephone. She said that our lawyers actually haven't received her emails, and complained to her. HA? 'It was impossible!' I said that to her. She asked my help to clarify and rectify the problem if needed.

I went to the email server and opened HmailServer interface. I clicked 'show log' button and opened the latest log in notepad. I sorted through all (stupid) entries, and found entry which recorded her email delivery activities. To my surprise, the log showed that her email was actually sent properly... How come that I could get her email whilst our lawyers couldn't? Blah...

I asked her to resend the email again and she did so. I checked the log again and it showed that her email should have been sent to our lawyers mailboxes properly. However, after a quick call to our lawyers, they confirmed that the emails hadn't reached their inbox.... I pinged their server to make sure their server DOES operate and run correctly. I even tried to remote their server to make sure everything's fine. Yes yes, their server ran correctly. Something must be wrong between my server and theirs, and that suspect is called 'internet'.

My quick analysis said that I need to test my server first. So I sent to yahoo and gmail domain. I did that and.... wtf? The emails I sent didn't get delivered to both yahoo and gmail. To be quite honest, I was very confident that my email servers didn't get misconfigured....because the day before, it delivered every emails to their destinations precisely. Suddenly I remembered that HmailServer was actually relay our emails again to our ISP's SMTP server. Having recalled that, I routed my email delivery path to our secondary SMTP server (another ISP's) and tried to resend email to both Yahoo and Gmail.

And voila! It's working! The test email I sent got delivered to both domain. Knowing that, I routed all emails sent from my servers to our secondary ISP's SMTP. I told my employee to resend her email again and made sure she confirmed to our lawyers that her mail actually got received by them. Few minutes passed, and she confirmed that the email she sent had arrived on our lawyers' mailboxes.

*phew*

With this case cleared, I've had abandoned my daughter for nearly 30 minutes.... lucky me she didn't cry. >_> Sorry, Novie...didn't mean to do that.....

Moral of the story: Always test all of your connections and don't put all of your hopes on one.

What Am I Doing Today?

Errrh... I have to make sure the negotiation with providers run smoothly. Hey.... what can I expect? :(

Dealing with outsiders is though, really. You can't predict their intention easily nor can you dictate them. It's very different when you deal with your internal environment where you can easily manipulate if you're strong, have influence and well positioned. It's up to you whether you want to play soft or hard, straight or from behind. Heh...

But I call it as a challenge. When you can't do anything else but to help your company (ultimately help your career), and negotiate over things with outsiders carefully, you actually have a chance to prove things for yourself. What can you do here? What result can you have after the negotiation? How's your ability for negotiation? Those can be answered from that as well.

I know it's easier said than done but yeah, you will learn it over time. Experience accumulates, not fades away.

As for my own current negotiation, I need to convince them to lower the price without sacrifice their offer. I'll try different approach this time.... >_< The former meeting didn't go too smoothly as they didn't want to lower the price THAT much. I guess I can do something about this if I manage to provide an evidence about long time advantage if they want to cooperate with us.

Worth to try.

What Am I Doing This Week?

Hmmm..

I need to take care of my own life, apparently. I spent too much of my time in front of computer. You know, checking students' homeworks, replying emails, composing drafts for projects. Ha...

All in all, this is quite a good week. I didn't make any stupid mistake heheheh. And Idul Fitri is approaching fast, I need to make sure that THR (Incentives for staffs for Holiday) is paid properly and on time. If not, things will be problematic, I guarantee that. As a return, I don't give them too long holiday. Half day off on a day before the 1st Oct is quite generous. If anyone asks about extended holiday, I would give him/her formal warning without hestitation for my decision is final.

And for my family... my daughter is doing fine too, also my husband. In fact, no use in worrying the latter. >_>

What Am I Doing Today?

....quite many. I've done setting up my secondary IPCOP. I'm gonna set up High Availability addon once everything is settled. I still need to adjust my HmailServer functions...that's it, on its POP3 and SMTP settings page. The relay function is working properly, but I need to test it out longer.

The Norton AV Corporate Edition database has been updated too. Now it's able to recognize several viruses that had been ignored until the database got updated. BAH, not good, Symantec.

...and I'm watching TV Channels using my lovely TVTuner too. ^^b

Choose Your ISP Carefully.

First thing first, you must know what main purpose in using your desired ISP is. Either you use it to play online games, browsing, or even to provide internet connection/send emails for your company you work in.

Please note down also on how many users that will use that connection. If you're going to use it alone (home network) then it shouldn't be much of problem. ISPs nowadays offer broad range of services, from the cheapest one to the most expensive ones for home users. I suggest you to pick based from your budget and availability rate, not from bandwith speed alone. Having a cheap, constant connection service are more important than a fast connection, but expensive and has too many downtimes.

Things are getting complicated if you want to pick ISP for company your work in. You need to choose a provider that offers you the best uptime, ICR, price and availability. You can tell them to make proposal first, and send it to you. After that, make sure you understand the content of their proposal, what they offer to you, what service and what warranty they provide. And most importantly, consider the prices they submit.

After that, you should DO some research. Visit forum or Google it up. Ask for seniors/friends/husband/wife/boss etc opinions. Having more opinions = better. But if you are the decision maker, don't let their opinions influence you, make your decision yourself. Please be aware that here, you can tell other ISPs to make proposals also, and compare each proposals to see which is better!

All in all, be wise and considerate. This is a big bet you play, and small mistake could make a huge difference between failure and success in the future.

Up Up Up Up. No Time For A Downtime.

My IPCOP crashed unexpectedly today, around 1 PM or so. To be quite honest, I didn't know why it crashed suddenly, there was nothing wrong on it configuration for I have been ignoring it for the past two weeks. The usual reboot procedure usually works, but not now. Blah...

The boot up menu stopped at 'real clock time driver' message. So, I decided to disable everything, yep, almost everything on the BIOS menu. I even disabled the IRQ for PCI. I rebooted and... voila, it's working again.

...not good. Gotta find the cause ASAP.

What Am I Doing Today?

Clicking links...and nursing my daughter.

>_> I am pretty much lazy today, and don't want to think anything about my job. Hey, even me needs rest one time or another.

IntBIO Fingerprint Machine, One Damned Curse.

So, my HRD reported to me today that the fingerprint machine refused to deliver the time cards. She said the time cards starting from three days ago up until now couldn't be retrieved. Unless something's done, all staffs here on this enterprise won't get any salary of this month, because time cards are needed to calculate the salary and overtime payment.

I recalled that there was this kind of incident when I was still IT Support on this company. All I needed to do was to get myself a converter cable, to connect flashdisk and the fingerprint machine itself and the flashdisk itself. This is a known bug on this machine, where we can't download the timecards when the database is full.

I searched the cable on my desk, and found it promptly. The flash disk itself shouldn't be a problem, but it was...sadly. The required brand should match the IntBIO requirement, so we can't just plug flashdiskfromtheabyss brand onto it. That was the real trouble, we didn't find the necessary brand.... I searched from shop to shop, but didn't find it. The brand needed is no longer exist, and rarely found on market.

But there are still kind people in this world, my friend called me when I was on my way to get the flash disk, and I asked her whether she still has the flash disk or not. She said she have it!!! Off I went to her place, and grabbed her flash disk in instant. In more polite word, I bought it from her. -_-' It was necessary action, since this flash disk is quite important for the time being. I gave her more than enough money to get a new, shiny flash disk from shop. She purchased 4 GB Kingston flash disk at once. She's quite... lucky since her former flash disk (currently in my hands) was 512 MB one, not 4 GB. lol...

After that, I returned to my office, and connected everything in order. I downloaded the time cards on IntBIO machine, and flushed it. The machine now is working correctly again... What a mess. Usually this isn't going to happen, but the new HRD apparently didn't know about this fingerprint machine bug, and I didn't tell her, so it's my fault for not telling her.

All in all, it's working, and I told her everything she needs to know about this machine. I also gave her the required steps to flush the database, because it's very important to keep the machine running smoothly. I hope this bad history won't repeat itself in the future.

Uh.... The Cabling System Still Has A... Trouble?

Nope. I installed it perfectly. However, one of my office mate has her wireless device damaged and thus, I need to install new cabling system on her room as well. But it's not now, I am a dead tired after working 12-hours non stop. Give me a break.

Stay tuned for a news on this great project of mine.

Ok, The New Cabling System Is In Place.

I've fixed the cables yesterday. The network should now run more smoothly. Of course, it's not 100% perfect, but, let's give it a try. I can fix the remaining problem on the fly.

I'm using Belden cable to replace the old cables, as I found the old cables were quite cheap and too weak to be placed on such environment. I still need to think how to protect the cable against rats, though.

My IPCOP Box Now Is Stable.

Quite interesting. One important point is, don't mess around with a standard installation, don't install unnecessary add-ons.

However, many people say Mikrotik RouterOS is better than IPCOP. Imma check it out. By the way, even if it's really better, I think I will stick to IPCOP since it's free and I am already familiar with it.

Oh, I will post along few tips for IPCOP. Perhaps... today?

And Oh, You Only Need IPTABLES Command...

...to get the SNAT working.

/sbin/iptables -t nat -A CUSTOMPOSTROUTING -s 192.168.2.114 -o eth3 -j SNAT --to-source xx.x.xx.59

Where eth3 is your RED interface, 192.168.2.114 is the IP you want to changed its originating Public IP, and that xx.x.xx.59 is the Public IP you want to be used by the 192.168.2.114. Put that on console page (ssh would do).

That's all...

UPS Broken!!!

GG my dear CEO...

Hongkong, Here I Come!

I got a holiday present from my office, 2 tickets. I will go there on 10th next month, for 7 days, along with my husband and my daughter. :) Quite nice, isn't it?

I will post story later. I'm quite busy right now....