Ever imagine what will happen to our lives if there is no internet. We’re too contented to what we’ve got right now and somehow, fail to appreciate it. When we’re too used to this kind of lives, here is a reminder.

Just imagine a life with no instant news updates, no emails, no chatting, no blogging, no online games, no YouTube, no MySpace, no Friendster, no Googling around. For Asians, there is no need to imagine as we are now experiencing.

Millions of people in Asia were given a clear reminder of what life was like before the World Wide Web (www) on Wednesday, December 27, 2006. Internet users were a frustrated lot on these few days. Some could not access website while others found it extremely slow. I was among the frustrated one.


When disaster strikes …
December 29, 2006 [Friday] - Two major earthquakes struck southern Taiwan on Tuesday, Dec 26,2006 triggering fears of destructive waves as Asia marked the second anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami. It was the same throughout most of Asia as telecommunications lines were disrupted after undersea cables were damaged by an earthquake in Taiwan. According to the news, International telephone calls to countries such as Japan, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Korea and the United States were also affected.




For the day-to-day Internet user, the interruption in services meant that work almost came to a standstill. 26 telecommunication companies were affected.

Millions of people across Asia suffered a second straight day without full Internet service yesterday as telecoms operators raced to counter predictions of weeks without Web access. Many companies operation came to a halt as the disaster hindered financial transactions, particularly in the currency market. International telephone traffic was restricted from some countries and Internet access slowed to a crawl. Business is poor at cybercafés as many online users, frustrated by non-existent or slow connections to the Internet, stopped patronizing them. Nothing much can be done but to wait.


Why this is happening?
The earthquake – of a magnitude 7.1 according to the US Geological Survey – struck off Taiwan’s southern coast at 1226 GMT on Tuesday, killing two people. The earthquake damaged the APCN2 (Asia Pacific Cable Network 2) submarine cable between Shantou, China and Tanshui, Taiwan, and between Lantau, HongKong and Chongming, China.

Analysts said the disruption highlighted the fact that most of the region’s cable networks are running in the same direction, along earthquake-prone geographic lines.

Graphic showing major undersea communication lines that connect the East Asian region. Millions of frustrated Internet users across Asia are slowly regaining access to overseas websites, three days after an earthquake off the coast of Taiwan snapped several vital undersea cables.(AFP)


Lessons to Be Learned
The internet bust in 2001 had hit expensive plans by various companies to lay undersea cables along new paths that were less likely to be affected by earthquakes.

After this incident, People will start to say we can’t let this happen again.

“The issue here is parallelism. You’re really got to have multiple paths. You can’t lay all cables in the same place.”


Headline News around Asia

In Malaysia,
Internet users in Malaysia and other parts of Asia might experience some delay when assessing content and websites hosted outside of Malaysia, especially in the U.S, Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea and Europe.

“There are no changes to the speed, still experiencing slower access to oversea sites.”

TMNet, broadband service provider has diverted traffic through other back-up links to reduce the traffic congestion. In a statement, Telecom Malaysia said it was working closely to undertake repair works so that telephone services to affected countries would be restored. However, it said it was unable to determine when the services could be restored. All Internet service providers in the region were affected as they were linked with the undersea data cables off the coast of Taiwan.

According to Maxis, Malaysia phone company, some customers had difficulty making international calls to the US, Canada, Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Customers roaming in these countries also had problems calling home.

In South Korea,
KT Corp, South Korea’s top fixed-line and broadband service provider, said six submarine cables were knocked out by Tuesday night’s earthquakes. 36 foreign bank branches in South Korea had been affected. Citibank Korea, which lost almost all of its international services on Wednesday such as Intranet and phone banking, restored most services later in the day.

In Japan,
Some disruption was also reported in the important Tokyo currency market but the EBS system that handles much dollar/yen trading appeared to be working. KDDI Corp., the state’s second largest telecoms company, said communications along submarine cables out of Japan went through Taiwan before reaching Southeast Asian countries, which was leading to disruption, but there were alternative lines.

In India,
Back offices and call centres experienced some difficulties, but industry officials said the full extent of the problem would not be known until later in the day when data and voice traffic peaked during European and US business hours.

In China,
Financial markets worked normally but China Telecommunications Group, the country’s biggest fixed-line telephone operator and parent of China Telecom Corp, said the Internet had been badly disrupted.

In Philippines,
Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co said its Internet service was intermittent and international phone calls had been affected. Rival Globe Telecom said “the entire country’s telecom services to the United States were disrupted”.

In Singapore,
Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), Southeast Asia’s top phone company, said traffic was being diverted and repair work was in progress. Submarine cables linking to Europe and the US are not affected.


When you’re reading this, I believe the Web access has been restored partially or completely. Well, this is a great reminder for us. Now, I’m appreciating every single second with the Internet.

Well, I think it's worth to check out on the latest microsoft office 2007. It is totally different from the previous.

The new office 2007 really washes my eyes. I mean I was stunned with the new interfaces, fonts as well as the features.


Introduction
The 2007 Microsoft Office System, also known as Microsoft Office 2007, is the most recent version of Microsoft's productivity suite. It was released to business customers on November 30, 2006[1], with availability for retail customers following in early 2007. Office 2007 contains a number of new features, the most notable of which is the entirely new graphical user interface called the Ribbon, replacing the menus and toolbars that have been the cornerstone of Office since its inception.

Office 2007 also includes new applications and server-side tools. Chief amongst these is Groove, a collaboration and communication suite for smaller businesses which was originally developed by Groove Networks before being acquired by Microsoft in 2005. Also included is Office Sharepoint Server 2007, a major revision to the server platform for Office applications, which supports "Excel Services", a client-server architecture for supporting Excel workbooks that are shared in real time between multiple machines, and are also viewable and editable through a web page.

While Office 2007 includes many new features, one has been removed entirely: Microsoft FrontPage is no longer being developed; its successor is the Microsoft Expression line of products.

60 day trial versions of Office 2007 can now be downloaded here.

(sources from Wikipedia)



I I I

An experimental spacecraft bankrolled by an American real estate magnate successfully inflated in orbit, testing a technology that could be used to fulfil his dream of building a commercial space station.

In a brief statement posted on his website, entrepreneur Robert Bigelow said the Genesis I satellite had "expanded" as planned several hours after liftoff today. No other details were provided.


The launch was a first for the startup company, Bigelow Aerospace, founded by Bigelow, who owns the Budget Suites of America hotel chain. Bigelow is among several entrepreneurs attempting to break into the fledgling manned commercial spaceflight business.

Mission controllers established communication with Genesis I about seven hours after launch. Early indications showed its GPS tracking system was working and that it had deployed its solar panels.

Bigelow hopes to use inflation technology to build an expandable orbital outpost made up of several Genesis-like modules strung together like sausage links that could serve as a space hotel, science lab or even a sports arena.

Bigelow has committed $665 million towards building a commercial space station by 2015. So far, $100 million has been spent on the project. Because Wednesday's unmanned mission was experimental, Bigelow said he was prepared for problems.

Only a few space tourists will be content with a short ride into orbit followed by a uncomfortable stay inside a cramped spaceplane or capsule. They will want at least a semblance of the kinds of comforts available on the cheapest package vacation. Therefore the “space hotel” is the minimum system needed to give the industry a chance to grow beyond just a limited number of hardy adventurers. A space hotel will be the one place where tourists will be able to relax and enjoy themselves without suffering from the embarrassments and claustrophobia that are inevitable when someone with minimal training flies into orbit in a capsule or small vehicle.

The watermelon-shaped Genesis I is a one-third scale prototype of the commercial space station to which the company eventually hopes to fly humans. Unlike the rigid aluminium international space station, Genesis I consists of a flexible outer shell and is layered with tough material such as Kevlar, which is found in bulletproof police vests, to withstand flying space debris.

The 1,260kg Genesis I measured 4.2 metres long and 1.2 metres wide at launch and inflated to twice that width in orbit. It carried insects that scientists hope to study to determine how well they survive the flight. Equipped with a dozen cameras to be aimed at the Earth, the spacecraft will circle the planet for at least five years while scientists study its durability.

In the 1990s, NASA studied inflatable technology for a possible trip to Mars, but later dropped the idea after deciding inflatable modules were too expensive. Bigelow Aerospace then licensed the technology from NASA.

Later this year the company hopes to launch Genesis II. Over the next several years, the company plans to test larger prototype spacecraft, including a full-scale mock-up slated to launch in 2012.

Here is one interesting stuff I've read!

Sun Worries? Let The Bikini do the talking!

A new bikini that warns its wear to get out of the sun when ultraviolet rays get too strong. The Canadian company Solestrom has come out with this new built-in UV meter bikini. The meter is built into its belt and an alarm that beeps to tell wearers when to head to the shade.





This new bikini provide a solution to lower the risk of skin cancer, the most common form of the disease in humans, that is to avoid too much exposure to the sun and other sources of ultraviolet light.

It has high demand in South Africa and Australia which have the higher skin cancer rates. These bikini goes on sale last month.


Would you wear a bikini with a built-in UV meter?

This is an article from Yahoo!

Searches for Nintendo's Wii outnumbered those for Sony's PlayStation 3 as the holidays approach, according to figures released this week.

In fact, Hitwise reported more than three times as many searches for the most searched-for gaming console, the Wii, than for PlayStation 3 during the week ending Dec. 9. The console ranked first among electronics search terms for "Nintendo Wii" and third for searches with just the word "Wii," according to Hitwise.

Ever wonder how many websites now in the Internet? Well, first of all, ask yourself, how many websites do you visit on an average day? 5, 10, 25 or more…

It seems that there is endless stream of little square portals all vying for our attraction.

According to CNN, now a number of pit stops on the information super highway have apparently reached a worldwide high point. There are now 100,000,000 websites (100millions) with domain names and contact on them. 27,000,000+ (27millions) sites created just this year 2006. This is due to the blog generation when you don’t have to be a technologist or be able to create a website. In 1995, there are only 18,000.

The first webpage was a search engine, the library of congress, newspapers and ha.. porn perhaps. But then the internet gradually became a science of making money. Now, internet has been used daily for work, some recreation purposes and many can never live without an internet. The 100 million numbers may seem a little staggering, as the web continues to grow; we follow or is it the other way around?

Already heard about Nintendo WII or have no idea about it?

WII is released in United States and Canada on November 19, 2006 with the price of US$ 249.99. In other countries like Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Europe and United Kingdom, it was around Dec 2, 7 and 8.

While Sony PlayStation 3 was released at the same month on November 11 in Japan and November 17, 2006 in US. And the war begins!

Currently, more than 1 million WII sold worldwide. But is it worth to buy?



THE BOX
It looks like a bigger version of ipod, sleek, white and quite cool looking. Saves its games on SD card. Able to play movies although only from quicktime. There are 2 USB PORTS for future enhancement. There is wifi inside but no ethernet port. Supports standard (4:3) and widescreen (16:9), 480i and 480p. Comes with a WII remote controller and a nunchunk.


FEATURES
A distinguishing feature of the Wii console is its wireless controller, the Wii Remote, which can be used as a handheld pointing device and can detect motion and rotation in three dimensions. The console also notably features WiiConnect24, which enables it to receive messages and updates over the Internet while consuming very little electrical power.

For me, the Wii's biggest and most obvious appeal is the ability to use its motion-sensing controller to play Wii-specific games. Just look at the controller. You can hold it in your hand like a remote control. You point,swing, do lots of movement to interact with the games. There have internal sensors to sense it when you're moving stuff around.

Another great feature is the little speaker at the controller. When you're playing games,lots of different sounds and signals will pop up on ur hands which make your movement even real and interesting. It has a vibrator built in as well.

When you played it, there will be some force feedback.. nice isn't it? They communicate wireless or infrared.


THE CONS
Based on the review by CNET Asia, The Wii's controller is very advanced and innovative, its processing power is not. The system uses a more powerful version of the Nintendo GameCube's processor, and it doesn't have nearly as much polygon-pushing power as the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3. While Microsoft's and Sony's consoles support high-definition outputs of up to 1080p, the Wii can hit only the GameCube's ceiling of 480p.

Many have doubts, is the controller sensitive enough?

The graphic is terrible. But look at the features, the new way of controlling. You can even exercise while u're playing. When you're playing baseball games, you are as if really playing baseball. So, for those who are lazy to exercise, try WII. Haha.. just joking!


CONCLUSION
Is the Wii worth picking up? It all depends on what you're looking for. If you've been clamoring for an all-purpose next-generation multimedia box with blinding HD graphics, the Wii will be a disappointment. But Nintendo was never competing in that arena anyway: The Wii is focused squarely on delivering fun and innovative gameplay, leaving Sony and Microsoft to battle it out at the high end.

What do you think? Feel free to comment on this post.

You have data DVD that is pretty scratched? Trying to find some ways to get the data back? Well, now you can. Of course it's not 100% effective. But at least, you can try!

First of all, i am just exaggerating posting the picture beside. If your disc look like that, gosh! I have no idea what to do with it.





If the stratch goes along or circular with it, it's probably worse because that's how the disc read. But if the stratch across, basically perpendicular to the data stream, it is less of an issue because the disc only hit it once.

The solution is toothpaste and a paper towel. Put a little toothpaste on it, and buff it out. Don't buff it at a circle in a circular motion, but it back and forth horizontally.

One thing you should remember, do not scratch the other side of the disc, because it is the reflective layer that the laser needs. So, don't ever use a ball point to label your cd or dvd. It can actually damage the layer.

Besides, if you are using older cd or dvd player that is having trouble, try using the newer one Because after a thousand uses, heads aren't as sensitive as the brand new one.


If really won't work, you can try skipDR, an advanced Disc Repair System.

Effortlessly fix scratched audio CDs, movie DVDs, game, photo and data discs with the motorized AutoMax disc repair systems. Well, of course, you need to pay for the system!

Gosh, my computer is infected with a 'so called' virus named Virusburst. Well, it's not a virus but it's a rogue anti-spyware program which is installed without your knowledge! It will start popping up all 'scary words' like 'your com is infected with trojan, system failure', then luring you to install their anti-spyware program (which is actually a fake software). If u install, there comes all the viruses and trojan.

The scariest nightmare is that, it can't be detected by any of the antivirus and spyware software like norton, avg, spybot etc.

HOW TO DEAL WITH IT?
Scary right? I just experienced this in a couple of hours just now. I was downloading a free trial software when my computer got infected. POPUP in every minute, makes you so worried and anxious. Through my experience I've gone through, let me share with you some tips.


Step 1:
But DO KEEP IN MIND, when you encounter a virus or something like this, do not do anything STUPID without thinking!BE CALM and START THINKING. Do not simply click on anything that tempted you to click. Sit back and observe properly what is the virus all about. How serious is it.

[I tried to stop it by CTRL+ALT+DEL, disabled all startup, it won't stop! Then, i tried to seek for uninstallation. GOSH, DUN EVER PRESS THE UNINSTALLATION .. OR it will actually install that little thingy! Luckily I was alert enough to know that it won't be so easy to get rid of this stuff]


Step 2:
SEEK THE EXPERIENCED ONE or LOOK FOR TIPS IN THE INTERNET. Thus, I went online for the tips. Keep in mind, you can never trust any tips until you really browse most of the available tips in the internet. Some tips are leading you to more disaster.


Step 3:
FOLLOW THE GUIDELINES SERIOUSLY! DUN ATTEMPT to try on the guidelines if you don't really understand. If u left any steps undone in the guidelines, this might cause your computer setting to be deleted or destructing your own computer system yourself, making it even worse! If you are not confident, send it to any professionals. If u are very confident about it, then you can start.


Step 4:

These are the guidelines to remove Virus-Burster. Follow the instruction:
Guideline source from techguy forum

1. Please download (save) SmitfraudFix (by S!Ri) to your desktop.
2. Extract the content (a folder named SmitfraudFix) to your Desktop. Select all of the contents and Extract them to a new folder called SmitfraudFix.
3. You should print out these instructions, or copy them to a NotePad file for reading while in Safe Mode, because you will not be able to connect to the Internet to read from this site.
4. Next, please reboot your computer in Safe Mode by doing the following :
5. Restart your computer
6. After hearing your computer beep once during startup, but before the Windows icon appears, tap the F8 key continually;
7. Instead of Windows loading as normal, a menu with options should appear;
8. Select the first option, to run Windows in Safe Mode, then press "Enter".
9. Choose your usual account.
10. Once in Safe Mode, open the SmitfraudFix folder again and double-click smitfraudfix.cmd
11. Select option #2 - Clean by typing 2 and press "Enter" to delete infected files.
12. You will be prompted: "Registry cleaning - Do you want to clean the registry?"; answer "Yes" by typing Y and press "Enter" in order to remove the Desktop background and clean registry keys associated with the infection.
13. The tool will now check if wininet.dll is infected. You may be prompted to replace the infected file (if found); answer "Yes" by typing Y and press "Enter".
14. The tool may need to restart your computer to finish the cleaning process; if it doesn't, please restart it into Normal Windows.
15. DONE

Warning: running option #2 on a non infected computer will remove your Desktop background.

Step 5
Wipe away all the sweats, sit down and have a cup of coffee.


Well, this guideline work. Orelse i'll not be here, typing in this blog about it. To know more, click on this link techguy forum

Phew, hope this post provides you with some knowledge about dealing with virus and this kind of annoying threat. Good luck, friend!

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