Lawrence and Christine Family Blog

According to latest studies, your reputation determines your email delivery more than your content. So if you meet the expectations of your readers / recipients and don’t send irrelevant information you improve the delivery rates of your e-mails. Apparently, “most delivery challenges are due to subscriber feedback; such feedback typically takes the form of complaints by recipients who mark the message as “spam” in their respective email clients and problematic traffic patterns such as bounces and spam trap hits.”

However, it’s not always enough. Let’s take a look at the best practices for optimal e-mail delivery rates.

1. Avoid follow-ups, ask for a brief feedback — one word “soon” is enough.
   Since you don’t know whether your e-mail is delivered or not, don’t assume that it is delivered. However, don’t send a follow-up in doubt; follow-ups which usually include the copy of an original e-mail aren’t effective and get on recipients’ nerves. Instead ask the recipient in the first message to send you a brief note that your e-mail was received. For instance, ask to write back “soon”, “got it” etc. once they’ve received the e-mail — indicate that no further comment or instant reply to your mail is necessary.
2. Don’t attach large files to your first e-mail (unless specified by the employer).
   Instead provide the detailed information on where the your CV and portfolio can be found on your personal web-site. Or simply copy and paste your resume in your e-mail. Compressed files (.zip, .tar etc.) and images are still strong signals for spam detection algorithms.
3. Use a consistent senders’ name and email.
   Make it easier for your recipient to recognize you. Don’t change from “Max Mutermann” to “Developer’s team”. Don’t change your e-mail suddenly. Once your recipient has mistakenly considered and reported your message as spam you are likely to never be able to contact them again.
4. Never put a link before important information.
   Once the recipient has clicked upon the link you’ve provided and landed on some page he/she has no information about, you’re lost. Many recipients might not get back to your message and report you as spam.
5. Snail mail is bulletproof.
   If possible, follow-up on your e-mail with a “snail mail” version sent to the real postal address. This is a great way to establish contact and stay in touch with a person! Reference the e-mailed version you sent (including the date, time, and subject if possible). [Source]
6. Avoid fictional or irrelevant sender’s name.
   Communicate with your recipient personally. Instead of nicknames or company titles use your first and last name. Notice that spam-filters award e-mails without sender’s name (or with an empty name) with spam score points. The sender’s name shouldn’t include numbers or symbols rather than your actual name. Instead of “no-reply@yourdomain” or “admin@yourdomain” provide your readers with concrete and short contact information, e.g. “Max Mustermann” . The “reply-to” field shouldn’t be empty.

Posted in: Technology on Tuesday, November 13, 2007 at 0 comments  

Lightning brings the Sunbird calendar to the popular email client, Mozilla Thunderbird. Since it's an extension, Lightning is tightly integrated with Thunderbird, allowing it to easily perform email-related calendaring tasks. Download and Install the module [here]

Posted in: Technology on Monday, November 12, 2007 at 0 comments  

Essence:

1. The second coming of Christ is often mistaken with what many believe to be the rapture mentioned in 1 Thess 4. The studies of end times pivots on a believers' stand in the realistic existence of a thousand-year reign by Christ, and the timing He should return with regard to begin that millennium
2. The "grow-cold" behaviour and outlook to Christ's sovereign purpose of the church, personal accountability to the gospel will plague a growing proportion of christians in this age of grace, concurring Isaiah's word that all hypocrisy and falsehood be exposed in raw judgement
3. The sole prevalence of the gospel and the indwelling awareness of the triune Godhead in these days (leading to the second coming of Christ) will bring true peace into our hearts amidst mounting uncertainty in our world

Personal Challenge:
1. How realistic is Christ's second coming understood by you today?
2. The gospel of Christ feeds our fundamental belief and committment to God's revealed purpose and our reason for existence. A faithful steward of God is strongly commissioned be an expert on each component of this truth
3. Shifting from a life of superficial pretense into a engaged life of spiritual service and fruitfulness marks a gigantic step towards crossing the divide of mere knowledge of the truth and living in it daily. Are you really a christian?

Interesting Fact:
Daniel's prophesy of the seventy-week translates to an actual transpiring of a total of 483 years today (from the year Daniel prophesied to the year Christ was crucified). The remaining "one week" that translates to the last 7 year is believed to only begin from the 7-year tribulation mentioned in the book of Revelation.

Posted in: Quiet Time on Friday, July 13, 2007 at 0 comments  

Isaiah 1
Essence:
1. The critical daily challenge for us as we awake to a new day - reacknowledging our standing in God's cosmic order and humbly yielding ourself to his leadership to live that day for Him.
2. Defying the above exercise is automatically understood as an afront to the Creator, putting God's people right on the road to a life of compromise, lack of purposedful living and a barren spiritual career
3. The classic traits of a spiritually sick christian/church:
4. Christianity is not about fulfilling a routine legalistic list of works for men to see but a lifestyle of pure dependence to please God and contend His holiness in our lives
5. The total depravity of men stains every single believer, putting him at constant risk of losing that intricate balance of righteous living and obsence pursuit of the world's lure

Personal Challenge:
1. Sweep every affairs and pressing tasks to the ground for a brief moment today, and attempt to enter God's holy ground by reading Isaiah 1.
2. Forget about trying to technically dissect the passage but focus on the above essence. List an item to act upon as the burden is placed. it must be one that can be acted upon in the next 12 hours of so.
3. Share with your SF that one thing you did that week.

Interesting Facts:
God chosed to move a total of four of his servants (out of forty) to cover the time Isaiah lived, giving us a hint of the destitute spiritual state of God's people at that short time frame.

Posted in: Quiet Time on Wednesday, July 04, 2007 at 0 comments  

Ever wonder as the week begins, there is always that air of uncertainty as to what value is our daily work worth in the eyes of our Creator? Well, that's usually what i get at the back of my mind as I walk out of my house door.

That's probably a good time for me to check my dear compass of faith, as to what God really wants me to do this week. Last week's SF was an excellent one, with us gracing the topics of dealing with uncertainties in life, church vision, and of course the need to foster a stronger emphasis on prayer.

Upon request, we will as an SF dwell in the next few weeks about end times, plus a good dose of video presentations from the Gospel of John etc. Its an often neglected topic and a useless one if we only seek to do so with a focus to only gain head knowledge and not applying each learned truth.

Posted in: Quiet Time on Monday, July 02, 2007 at 0 comments  

If you are avid trail explorer like me, you will appreciate this web site

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A note on how to teach these things: These subjects should not be taught by lectures or textbooks. They can only be taught by setting examples, by conversation, by showing, and by allowing the child (or teenager) to do these things on their own (with supervision at first). Once you’ve talked about the skill, showed your child how to do it, and let them do it under supervision a few times, give your child the trust to do it on his own, and to learn from his own mistakes. Check back every now and then to talk about what he’s learned.

Financial

• Saving. Spend less than you earn. It’s such a simple maxim, and yet very few young adults understand it or know how to follow it. Teach your child from a young age to put part of money he receives or earns in the bank. Teach him how to set a savings goal, and save for it, and then purchase whatever it is he was saving for.
• Budgeting. Many of us dread this task as adults, and suffer because of it, because we lack the understanding and skills necessary to make budgeting a breeze. Teach them simple budgeting skills, and what’s involved, and they won’t have problems as an adult. You could wait until teenage years to do something like this — but it’s a good thing because this shows them why basic math is necessary.
• Paying bills. Give them bills to pay and have them pay it on time, online or in the real world. Learn how to write a check, paper and online, and how to make sure that you’re never late with bills again — either pay them immediately or automatically.
• Investing. What is investing and why is it necessary? How do you do it and what are different ways of doing it? How do you research an investment? How does it compound over time? This is a good conversation to have with your teen.
• Frugality. This is something to teach them from an early age. How to shop around to get a good deal, to compare between products of different prices and quality, to make things last and not waste, to cook at home instead of eating out too much, to control impulse buying. When we go out and do a shopping spree, including before Christmas, we are teaching them just the opposite.
• Credit. This is a major problem for many adults. Teach them the responsible use for credit, and how to avoid it when it’s not necessary, and how to avoid getting into too much debt, and how to use a credit card responsibly.
• Retirement. Is it better to work hard and retire or to take mini-retirements throughout life? That’s a personal question, but your child should be aware of the options and the pros and cons of each, and how to do each. Why it’s important to start investing in retirement when you’re young, and how much of a difference that can make through compound interest. How to do it automatically.
• Charity. Why this is an important use of your money, and how to make it a regular habit. This should be not only a financial issue, but a social one. Show them how to volunteer their time and effort as well.

Thinking

• Critical thinking. One of the most important skills not taught in school. These days, we are taught to be robots, to listen to the teacher and not to question, to accept what we are told and not to think, to be good employees and to shut up. If you’re an employer, you might want your employees to be like this, and if you’re a politician, you might want your citizens to be like this. But is that how you want your child to be? An unquestioning, naive, ignorant citizen/employee/student? If so, carry on. If not, just start introducing the habit of questioning why? And the skill of find out the answer. And how to question authority — there is no one right answer. Conversation is a good way to accomplish this skill.
• Reading. Sure, we’re taught to read. But schools most often make this boring. Show your child the wonderful imaginative worlds there are out there. And show them how to find out about stuff in the world through the Internet, and how to evaluate what they read for credibility, logic, factualness.

Success

• Positive thinking. While critical thinking is an important skill, it’s also important to have a positive outlook on life. Sure, things may be screwed up, but they can be changed for the better. Find solutions instead of complaints. And most of all, learn to believe in yourself, and to block out negative self-thinking.
• Motivation. Learn that discipline isn’t the key to achieving a goal, but motivation. How to motivate yourself, different strategies, and how great it feels to achieve a goal. Start them with small, easily achievable goals, and let them develop this skill.
• Procrastination. It’s a problem we all deal with as adults (and even as kids). Now, I believe that there should be a time for goofing off, being lazy, and having fun. But when there’s something to do that we really need to do, how do we get ourselves to do it? Learn the reasons behind procrastination, and how to address them. How to beat procrastination.
• Passion. One of the most important ways to be successful is to find something you’re passionate about, and do that for a living. Your child won’t know the answer at a young age, but you should show her how to find her passion and how to pursue it, and why that’s important.

Social

• Anti-competition. As kids, we’re taught how to be competitive. In the adult world, that’s how we behave. And that results in back-stabbing, undercutting, feelings of resentment, and other life-affirming things like that. Instead, teach your child how there is room for many people to be successful, and how you’re more likely to be successful if you help others to be successful, and how they’ll help you in return. Learn that making friends and allies is better than making enemies, and how to do that. Learn cooperation and teamwork before competition.
• Compassion. Not taught in the schools at all. In fact, instead of teaching children how to empathize with others and try to ease their suffering, our schools often teach children to increase the suffering of others. Learn to put yourself in the shoes of others, to try to understand them, and to help them end their suffering.
• Love. Compassion’s twin brother, love differs only in that instead of wanting to ease the suffering of others, you want their happiness. Both are crucial.
• Listening. Are our children taught how to listen in school? Or how to talk at someone. Perhaps that’s why many adults don’t have this critical skill. Learn how to truly listen to someone, to understand what they’re saying, to empathize.
• Conversation. Goes hand-in-hand with listening, but the art of conversation is something that isn’t taught in school. In fact, kids are taught that conversation is bad in most cases. But in most cases, a conversation is what is needed, not a lecture. This is an extremely important social skill that should start in the home. Learn to converse with your child instead of talk at him.

Practical

• Auto. Why cars are needed (no, not to look cool), how to buy a practical car, how to take care of it. How the engine works, what might break down, and how it’s fixed. Should be taught to both boys and girls (that should be obvious, but I had to say it).
• Household. How to fix things around the house and keep things maintained. Plumbing, electricity, heating and cooling, painting, roofing, lawn, all that good stuff. The tools and skills necessary to do just the basic maintenance and repairs. And how to know when to call a professional.
• Cleaning. Too many adults grow up without knowing how to do laundry, to clean a house properly, to keep the house clean and uncluttered, to have a weekly and monthly cleaning routine. Teach your child all these things instead of just telling her what to do.
• Organization. How to keep paperwork organized, how to keep things in their place, to to keep a to-do list, how to set routines, how to focus on the important tasks.
  

Happiness

• Be present. For some reason, this extremely important skill is never taught to us when we’re kids. In truth, the younger we are, the more natural this skill is. As we get older, we start thinking about the future and the past, and the present seems to slip away from us. Some skills for living in the present would go a long way.
• Enjoy life. Kids don’t have much of a problem with this, but some awareness of its importance and how to do it, even as an adult, would be helpful. Set a good example of this, and your kids will follow.
• Find purpose. Whether this is a higher religious purpose, or the purpose of making your family happy, or the purpose of finding your calling, having a purpose in life is extremely important. Teach your children the importance of this and show how to do it yourself.
• Develop intimate relationships. The best way to teach this is to develop an intimate relationship with your child, and model it with your spouse or other significant other (within appropriateness). Teach them the skills for developing these types of relationships, talk about the importance of it, and how to get through the bumpy parts as well. There are bad times in every relationship, but with the right skills of communication, empathy and compromise, they can get through them.

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One of the lesser-publicized features of our favorite Windows-on-Mac virtualization software, Parallels 3.0, is its Boot Camp support. Boot Camp is Apple's free software that can boot Windows on your Mac natively. Parallels lets you run Windows within OS X virtually. Now that the two packages can share a single Windows installation, you can choose EITHER to boot fully into Windows OR to just hop into Windows while you're still logged into OS X.

Why would I want to do this? you ask. Well, the problem with dual-booting Windows is the inconvenience of having to restart your Mac entirely. The problem with virtualizing Windows is that it can be unreasonably slow for a prolonged session. Now that Boot Camp and Parallels work together, you can choose between virtualizing or booting into your Windows installation depending on what you have to do. Here's how to get it set up.

Install Boot Camp

First thing you should know: setting up Boot Camp is not a trivial task, since it requires repartitioning your Mac's hard drive and installing another operating system and drivers. Block out a couple of hours for this project.

What you'll need

• An Intel-based Mac running OS X 10.4 with all software updates installed and at least 10GB of free space and a writable CD/DVD drive
• A blank CD or DVD for burning the Mac driver disk
• A genuine Windows XP (no Vista support yet!) installation disk which includes Service Pack 2. You cannot install XP using a disk that does not include SP2 and expect to download it after the fact. Here's how to slipstream SP2 onto an older WinXP installation CD.

Set up Boot Camp

Before you get started, free up as much space on your Mac's hard drive as possible. Here's a handy tool for visualizing and cleaning up all your disk space hogs. Then:

1. Back up all your important data. Do not skip this step. If you're extra super-paranoid and you've got a free external disk, consider cloning your Mac's hard drive entirely. Here are some free Mac backup tools and methods.
2. Download and install the Boot Camp Assistant. Out of the gate, the assistant will prompt you to print out the 28 page user guide. Yes, I groaned and balked at the waste of paper and ink that this would be too. But it turns out the manual was a big, comforting help later on, so do it.

Posted in: Technology on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 at 0 comments  

Corporate can now enjoy a strong alternative in their browsing of the WWW.

It's On Windows

•Resizable Text Fields
Probably the best new feature of the beta (aside from increased speed). If you frequent message boards or use online blogging software you will appreciate being able to resize any of your text input blocks.

•Movable Tabs
Just like Firefox, Safari lets you rearrange your tabs into any order you want. And it even 1-ups its competitor by letting you drag them off and to create their own new window.

•Real Time Text Searching
And taking another cue from its foxy friend, you can search for text in real time throughout the web page your viewing. Although Safari does it in a much prettier way.

•Modify How Long Safari Keeps Your History
We can't tell you how many times we wanted to go check back on a page we visited, only to find that our history didn't keep track that long. Safari lets you decide how long it should remember where you've gone. Just for a day or even a year.

Posted in: Technology on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 at 0 comments  

Steve Jobs surprised the computer world yet again with the announcement that Safari (Apple's trademark web browser) is available for Windows users. Worth a trial though in beta.

Download [here]

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Computer experts on Monday unveiled a digital reproduction of ancient Rome as it appeared at the peak of its power in A.D. 320 — what they called the largest and most complete simulation of a historic city ever created.

Check it out [here]

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- a believed conspiracy that emerging translations are eating up the foundations of Christian faith (psalm 11:3)
- king James translation: translated from a group of godly scholars from Greek and Hebrew tongue in 1611. The 1769 "perfected" version forms the basis of most of our KJV bibles
- why jkv in our church?
1. Its a precise, accurate time-tested reference (psalm 119:105)
2. Favored by readers from a mono-language society where English was the first language
- some "reformed" groups exerts jkv-only mentality, classifying others as non-conformists
- use the principles of learning.to guide our selection of bible versions. Start simple.
- add the details later. This should be the approach. Para-phrasing is wise.
- progress later to a more complete picture
- check out psalm 119:97-105 as the principles to guide you

Posted in: Quiet Time on Friday, June 08, 2007 at 0 comments  

Apparently, as Nokia launched the eagerly awaited yet ill-fated N95 smartphone in Asia, several Chinese phone manufacturers were quietly shipping a souped-up version of an identical one named the N99 in many countries including Thailand.

Not only did they create an exact replica of Nokia's flagship phone, they even added a dual sim card module and features that make the $300 imitation a bargain to own!

Interested to see what the big comotion is all about, I was brought to several locations in Bangkok to hunt down this mysterious device. But so far, it remain as elusive as it is named, with me unable to locate a glimpse. Let's see what happened next tomorrow.

Posted in: Technology on Thursday, June 07, 2007 at 0 comments  

Well, as it turn out, my one week stay in Thailand is both physically rewarding to my taste bud and work.

The project went smoothly despite two power outages at the client site for several hours. Cars are like ants in formation along highway as congestion is built into the culture of every drivers. For the past few days, its restaurant after restaurant for meals and I am now on my way to one for dinner. The jam is so bad I could take the time to write this article!

Anyway, let's remember Daisy as she flew out on Tuesday back to the states. Jerrie's family has invited us over on Saturday evening for dinner and I sure look forward to some intreating dishes from south Africa.

One of my good friend has returned for two weeks as they seek to apply for long-term visa in the states. And he is now into full-time pastoral study there. We exchanged many views and biblical states of the two countries and it was indeed a blessed time! I have invited them over this Sunday for the 11am service and hope to see you guys at the second service.

We are almost there now...so update you guys more later. Stomach growling.

God bless.

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OK. By popular demand, we are taking that drive up today across the link for a shop and dine off day and two cars will be going. If you ask me, it's a break from all the concrete buildings and burning refineries.

Meet in church at 10am or 12 noon depending whether you'll be attending the special meeting in church.

Passport please...

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Joy, joy, joy, mixed with a good dose of satisfaction as Jerry and Judy celebrate their daughter's first birthday. As you know, as part of their extended family, hey...we are also invited to share this joyous occasion.

This time round, its at Rasa and I am sure by now, you all have received the special invite card to attend.

See you there!

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"With so many consumers still asking for Windows XP to be loaded on Dell's consumer level PCs, the PC maker has finally decided to offer that as an option. 'Like most computer makers, Dell switched nearly entirely to Vista-based systems following Microsoft's mainstream launch of the operating system in January. However, the company said its customers have been asking for XP as part of its IdeaStorm project, which asks customers to help the company come up with product ideas. Starting immediately, Dell said, it is adding XP Home and Professional as options on four Inspiron laptop models and two Dimension desktops.' The Dell models with the Windows XP option are: Dell Inspiron 1405, 1705, 1505, and 1501; and Dell Dimension E520 and E521."

Posted in: Technology on Friday, April 20, 2007 at 0 comments  

This week's download highlight - Recovers files from disks with physical damage. Allows you to copy files from disks with problems such as bad sectors, scratches or that just give errors when reading data. The program will attempt to recover every readable piece of a file and put the pieces together. Using this method most types of files can be made useable even if some parts were not recoverable in the end.

Download [here]

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A microminiaturized display, typically with a screen size less than 1.5" diagonal. They are used in head mounted displays (HMDs), in data projectors, rear screen projectors and in the traditional viewfinders of digital cameras. Reflective displays bounce light off the displayed image into the viewer's lens or the projection lens. Transmissive displays are similar to backlit, portable computer screens using LCD and EL technologies.

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1. Dont assume anything. Make some time to learn about securing your system.
2. Acquire and use a reliable antivirus program. Select an antivirus that has a consistent track record. Checkmark, AV-Test.org and TuV are among the most respected independent testers of antivirus software.
3. Acquire and use a reliable firewall solution. Again, independent reviewers are your best bet for reasonable choices. Some operating systems come with a firewall which only filters incoming traffic. Use a firewall that can control both incoming and outgoing Internet traffic.
4. Do not open e-mails coming from unknown or distrusted sources. Many viruses spread via e-mail messages so please ask for a confirmation from the sender if you are in any doubt.
5. Do not open the attachments of messages with a suspicious or unexpected subject. If you want to open them, first save them to your hard disk and scan them with an updated antivirus program.
6. Delete any chain e-mails or unwanted messages. Do not forward them or reply to their senders. This kind of messages is considered spam, because it is undesired and unsolicited and it overloads the Internet traffic.
7. Avoid installing services and applications which are not needed in day-by-day operations in a desktop role, such as file transfer and file sharing servers, remote desktop servers and the like. Such programs are potential hazards, and should not be installed if not absolutely necessary.
8. Update your system and applications as often as possible. Some operating systems and applications can be set to update automatically. Make full use of this facility. Failure to patch your system often enough may leave it vulnerable to threats for which fixes already exist.
9. Do not copy any file if you don't know or don't trust its source. Check the source (provenance) of files you download and make sure that an antivirus program has already verified the files at their source.
10. Make backups of important personal files (correspondence, documents, pictures and such) on a regular basis. Store these copies on removable media such as CD or DVD. Keep your archive in a different location than the one your computer is in.

Posted in: Technology on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 0 comments  

As to date, the following business/academic entities uses Clamwin/ClamAV in their production environment:

State of Vermont
Vermont State government (U.S.) uses ClamAV on its frontend email hubs, which handle several hundred domains and scan approximately 250000 messages each day.

Michigan State University
Our central email system serves over 120000 users with a cluster of 30 boxes. ClamAV scans over two million email messages a day, which translates to about 46 GB of traffic. That’s a lot of zeroes. Our users thank you!

Barracuda Networks
Barracuda Networks’ Levow sees considerable merit in the use of opensource antivirus and antispam tools, and [[specifically [barracudanews]] points to ClamAV as the largest and also most widely used opensource antivirus technology: ‘’With a well-built team of contributors helping improve the accuracy and virus definitions as they enter the digital age, ClamAV is a highly respected and very accurate antivirus engine’’ said Levov.

Webmail.us
Webmail.us specializes in providing small businesses with company-wide email hosting services. All solutions are protected by ClamAV, which runs on 16 Athlon 3200 servers with Red Hat Linux ES 3.0, protecting 15.000 businesses, and ~10 million messages per day (as of January 2006). New virus definitions are pushed to all servers in real-time as updates are released by ClamAV.

Read more [here]

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A worm targeting Skype's VoIP application is harvesting e-mail addresses and directing users to a range of sites hosting other malicious software. Once a machine is infected, the worm sends a malicious link via instant messages to other users in person's Skype contact list, according to F-Secure's blog.

The link leads to an executable file that downloads a Trojan horse capable of downloading other malicious software, F-Secure said. It then shows a photo of a "lightly dressed" woman. F-Secure calls the worm "IM-Worm:W32/Pykse.A," and Sophos named it "Mal/Pykse-A."

Posted in: Technology on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 at 0 comments  

Windows XP will stop being available on new PCs from the end of January 2008.

Microsoft is keeping to a plan to stop selling the operating system even though surveys show a lukewarm response to Windows Vista among consumers.

A poll by US market research firm Harris Interactive found that only 10% of those questioned were planning to upgrade to Vista in the near future.

Read more [here]

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A big thank you from Nigel and Jenny to those who could attend Ryan's one month celebration! Never knew there are more than three YMCA in town! (Apology to Brian for misinformation)

Well, from many's opinion and mine, Ryan looks more like Jenny at the moment...but things can change again as usual. He's also sleepy, with a thick layer of blanket around him that Saturday and Brian, Daisy, Robert and Reba and I met Nigel's uncle - Robert over the luncheon.

Robert is from Malaysia and lives alone, and again, we gradually steer our conversation over many topics. Now One thing most interesting is Ryan's status of citizenship. Nigel is also a Malaysian citizen, who works and live as a PR in Australia for almost all his life, marries a local and now stays with us here! So, theoretically, Ryan should be a Malaysian! But Nigel says otherwise!

Interesting...

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The recent change in weather usually means a sea of air-borne viruses released around us, and many including myself has been a victim of this infection. It's a type of virus that is much more persistent than before, attacking the tired and stress individuals. Apology for not updating the blog as often as I should in this case.

It usually begins with your throat and work itself to the whole body if you are weak but thanks be to God that my immune system is holding it just there, with much coughs and running noses. Yes, I managed to bring my grandmum to the church last Sunday for the Chinese worship and an opporunity was given to share the gospel over lunch outside church...

You see...my granddad past away some five years back, and briefly since then, grandmum begins to relate to me her accounts of where she thinks granddad went (you know, being over sorrowful and all). Nevertheless, the gospel's relayed once again...and I pray (will you pray too?) that she runs to the Saviour. Interestingly, I found out that my granddad's entire family is the first christian family back in mainland china, in a province I forgot its name. I was also told they were faithful believers and that my granddad used to attend sunday schools faithfully when he was a kid...will share with you all when we meet.

OK. I believe Sus and John is back in town....and from brian's communication with him, may not be too pleased with the unexpected cold weather in China. We'll hear from John...and now that he has a new camera, I am sure, we can now see where they actually been to. Also, for Sus, who is back from South Africa...welcome back.

Lastly, I cannot over-emphasize the importance of witness for this SF, as its the sole purpose of why we are a family - to be a strong, loving witness to those around us, in casting that life line of hope to those putting up a strong front but lost in life.

Tell us your account of Easter and who we can pray for to bring them in...

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This device has the typical clamshell shape of a laptop, but is just 5.9 inches wide, 4.5 inches tall, and 1.6 inches thick and weighs only 1.8 pounds (with extended battery).

It is bigger and heaver than some of its competition, like the Sony Vaio UX180P or OQO's model 02, but has a larger screen and keyboard.

In addition to its 5.6-inch, 1024-by-600-pixel (SVGA) primary display, it has a 1.9-inch, 220-by-176-pixel external screen that can show information from Microsoft Outlook, including the user's email, calendar, and contacts.

Posted in: Technology on Thursday, April 05, 2007 at 0 comments  

Your home or office WiFi network may be even less secure than you think. Researchers have now shown that they can break 104-bit WEP, a common 802.11b/g/n security mechanism, in as little as one or two minutes. A team at the Technische Universität Darmstadt said that they can grab the key with a 95 percent probability of success in as little as two minutes using a 1.7GHz Pentium-M machine to do the calculations.

Read more [here]

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Performance is probably the most coveted intangible when it comes to PCs, and tweaking, to the performance hungry, is considered more of a necessity than an option. Gearheads go to great lengths to get quicker system response times, faster-running games, and shorter PC bootup and shutdown times.

One way is to overclock the heck out of the poor components (and then, for bragging rights, to log on to a message board and claim a stable CPU frequency of about 300MHz faster than what's actually possible). Another way is to tweak out the operating system itself.

Unlike previous Microsoft operating systems, Windows Vista is pretty streamlined right out of the box. It makes terrific use of a system's resources, but it's built as much for pretty looks and increased stability and security as it is for horsepower. It's time now for a course of action that will take the ball and chain off this baby and let it fly.

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The news around the net surrounds the topic of Yahoo announcing their unlimited email storage plans which coincide with the soon to be released Apple iPhone. Unlimited Yahoo email translates into unlimited email for your shiny iPhone whenever those are released.

Hold your horses though as this will be in effect only in May 2007.

Get your Yahoo mail account [here]

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Need we say more?

Go there [now]

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You just got a new PC with Windows Vista pre-installed, and you want to dual-boot Windows XP for old programs - or just nostalgia's sake. You already know how to dual-boot Windows Vista on your XP machine, but you can also set up Windows XP to boot from a separate partition on your Vista PC.

First you'll need to repartition your hard drive inside Vista, install Windows XP on that new partition, and then use previously-mentioned VistaBootPro to set up your bootloader. A poster at the ProNetworks forum has the detailed rundown, along with helpful screenshots.

Read more [here]

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Collanos Workplace is a free online collaboration software for teams with members working from different locations. It offers a suite of streamlined online tools, including virtual workspaces, file sharing, online group discussions, messaging, and a handful of virtual objects such as notes, shared URLs, and tasks.

Here’s what you need to know about this program:

• Virtual workspaces: these are simply tabs that each user creates within the program that belong to the user. You can create a workspace for each project, for example, if that makes sense to you. These workspaces contain all other objects and employ a simple, explorer-like virtual folder structure.
• File sharing: once you grant someone permission to share any one of your workspaces, you can drag and drop any file to the folders within it and these will be available to the other person.
• Discussions: once you create a discussion within a workspace, all members who can access that workspace can participate (read or write). Discussions are essentially multi-way chats that are logged (with dates) and stored as an object. They can be deleted or kept for reference or as an ongoing conversation.
• Security: Collanos states that all data transfers are encrypted using “256-Bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)”. This program employs P2P technology and no data is ever stored on central servers. The makers state that they may introduce features in the future that may require some centralized data storage, but that they will ask for explicit permissions to do so, and they will guarantee its safety.
• Setup: this program works instantly through firewalls. Create an account and password, share your account name with your friends, and you’re up and running. Unlike other programs I have tested, I did not have to do any complicated router setup / port forwarding, or messing with IP addresses. Having said that I should also point out that the documentation states that “TCP ports 9700-9800 and 80 need to be opened to the outside to allow Collanos Workplace to operate behind firewalls

Posted in: Technology on Tuesday, April 03, 2007 at 0 comments  

OpenOffice.org 是一套跨平台的辦公室軟體套件，能在 Windows、Linux、MacOS X (X11)、和 Solaris 等作業系統上執行。它與各個主要的辦公室軟體套件相容。OpenOffice.org 是自由軟體，任何人都可以免費下載、使用、及散佈它。下列是 OpenOffice.org 的主要元件：

Writer (文書)	Impress (簡報)
Calc (試算表)	Draw (繪圖)
Math (公式)	Base (資料庫管理)

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OpenOffice.org is an open-source, multiplatform and multilingual office suite comparable with MS Office.

It is compatible with all other major office suites and is free to download, use, and distribute. It was previously known as StarOffice before it became an open-source project. OpenOffice comes with OpenWriter - a word processor, OpenCalc - a spreadsheet and OpenImpress - a presentational package.

• The first office suite to use the new OASIS OpenDocument format, the future-proof international standard for office software
• Easy to install, with a whole new look and feel, matched to the type of computer in use
• More intuitive, more easy to use than ever, with a host of new usability features
• Complete with Base: an easy-to-use database manager with a fully integrated database
• Compatible with other software packages - now understands even obscure and rarely used features in major competitors.

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Tip #1 - It is CRITICAL to spend time with your kids to

• talk (may by one way for a start),
  
• read them (even though they may not respond immediately)
• teach (exposing them out to walk/shop/travel countries/dress/brush teeth/etc.)
• train (e.g. how to brush their teeth right) with a reward/discipline system
• play (e.g. draw)
• pray (family worship or anytime when it is necessary)
  

Posted in: on Monday, April 02, 2007 at 0 comments  

MSNBC has up an article discussing the results of a Newsweek poll on faith and religion among members of the US populace. Given the straightforward question, 'Is evolution well-supported by evidence and widely accepted within the scientific community?', some 48% of Americans said 'No'. Furthermore, 34% of college graduates said they accept the Biblical story of creation as fact. An alarmingly high number of individuals responded that they believe the earth is only 10,000 years old, and that a deity created our species in its present form at the start of that period.

Posted in: on Sunday, April 01, 2007 at 0 comments  

The Mozilla Foundation is suing Microsoft over the use of tabbed browsing in Internet Explorer 7. The Mozilla Foundation owns the patent 5,160,296 through one of their developers (Solomon Katz, a former Opera dev) and has begun suing Microsoft in Mountainview, California. The Foundation wants that MS immediately ceases to distribute IE 7 and pays 1.4 Billion dollars in damages. Heise reports that Microsoft has issued no official response, but is contemplating to ship IE 7 NT (no tabs).

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• Antispyware - Ad-Aware SE Personal
• Web-Based E-Mail - Google GMail
• Instant Messaging - Microsoft Windows Live Messenger
• Media Playback - AOL Nullsoft Winamp
• Desktop Search - Google Desktop
• Video Sharing - YouTube
• Image Editing - Google Picasa

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The New York Times beats the whole "multi-tasking reduces productivity" horse to death, reporting on another set of studies that show human brains slow down when they have to juggle tasks:

"In a recent study, a group of Microsoft workers took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, like writing reports or computer code, after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages. They strayed off to reply to other messages or browse news, sports or entertainment Web sites...[continue]

Posted in: on Tuesday, March 27, 2007 at 0 comments  

A perennial favorite, Netvibes (click the thumbnail for a full-size image) scores with its effortless customization, mammoth collection of feeds and modules, and all-around good looks.

To speed and simplify page setup, Netvibes provides a sidebar (which you can hide, of course) listing a couple dozen popular modules and a collapsible directory of feeds. Drag, drop, rearrange and you're good to go. Naturally, you can also search the site's thousands of cataloged modules, feeds, podcasts, events and user-built tabs (any tab can be published to the Netvibes directory). A recent update added the option to share your own tabs via e-mail, instant message or code embedded in a personal page like MySpace.

Netvibes offers a choice of 10 themes, though they're really just different colors for the page and module headers. You can also adorn each tab with any of a hundred cute little icons, or import one of your own.

Though I do wish for more color-customization options, Netvibes gets just about everything right. It's the page I want to see first when I fire up my browser.

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While our team explores Windows Vista, one of the favorite Vista features that provides potential productivity gain is the thumbnails that popup when you mouse over the taskbar. And with a simple program, this feature can also be added in Windows XP.

The utility we’ll use is called Visual Tooltip, which is a hybrid dock / thumbnail applicaton. With a few tweaks to the settings, we can make it work just like Vista thumbnails.

Download it [here]

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An MD5 sum is a string of letters and numbers that acts like a fingerprint for a file. If two files have the same MD5 sum, the files are exactly alike - which is why MD5 "fingerprints" can verify whether or not your downloaded file got corrupted in transit.

Read detailed steps by step [here]

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Built into Windows is the ability to let you assign a keyboard command to any shortcut icon. Just right-click the shortcut you want to assign a Shortcut to, click Properties, and click in the ‘Shortcut key’ field. Then press the combo you want to assign to launch the shortcut; it has to have one standard (A-Z 1-0) plus two or three of , , or .

Also, did you know that the -R launched the Run dialogue box and -E opens Windows Explorer? Consider yourself more productive!

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Built into Windows is the ability to let you assign a keyboard command to any shortcut icon. Just right-click the shortcut you want to assign a Shortcut to, click Properties, and click in the ‘Shortcut key’ field. Then press the combo you want to assign to launch the shortcut; it has to have one standard (A-Z 1-0) plus two or three of , , or .

Also, did you know that the -R launched the Run dialogue box and -E opens Windows Explorer? Consider yourself more productive!

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While my crawling agent sniffs out the Internet daily, I was notified of this interesting web site that does a reasonably good job in helping you convert all those camera videos into a DVD format....

Check it out at http://www.zamzar.com/

Nice...

Posted in: Technology on Saturday, March 24, 2007 at 0 comments  

Let's take a look from the book entitled The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Polla (38 ingredients in all)

1. corn-fed chicken
2. modified cornstarch (to bind the pulverized chicken meat);
3. mono-, tri-, and diglycerides (emulsifiers, which keep the fats and water from separating);
4. dextrose;
5. lecithin (another emulsifier);
6. chicken broth (to restore some of the flavor that processing leeches out);
7. yellow corn flour and more modified cornstarch (for the batter);
8. cornstarch (a filler);
9. vegetable shortening;
10. partially hydrogenated corn oil;
11. citric acid as a preservative
12. sodium aluminum phosphate, mono-calcium phosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, and calcium lactate. These are antioxidants added to keep the various animal and vegetable fats involved in a nugget from turning rancid.
13. But perhaps the most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget is tertiary butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, an antioxidant derived from petroleum that is either sprayed directly on the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in to "help preserve freshness." According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, TBHQ is a form of butane (i.e. lighter fluid)

Think again on your next trip to the fast food chain...

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1. Adama and Eve were not surprised when the serpent talked to them, implying a possibility before fall of mankind, that a common tongue prevailed
   
2. Ever wonder why the devil selected the serpent as his medium to communicate and tempt mankind? It's perhaps of its sleekness, stealthy silence during movement and one that can easily create an element of surprise in an encounter
   
3. Truth mixed with error and brought across through subtle mental suggestions - A tactic used by the devil even today, worked wonderfully with Eve
4. Lack of proper, sound knowledge of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was one factor contributing to the fall in mankind
5. Temptation usually comes in an appeal to our flesh, pride and visual - A classic framework used on Jesus when He was tempted for 40 days in the wilderness
6. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil exist to remind mankind of a higher order to obey and trust
7. Disobedience that led to sin, resulted in much changes to the perfect world, including the introduction of killing, sacrificing, and a vast transformation to many species on earth
8. God never short-changed His creation but the devil cunningly and viciously follow this path alway
9. The first curse was pronounced on the serpent species by God, knowing very well, the mastermind should actually received this damnation
10. The coming of Christ was foretold as early as the first book of the Bible
11. The second curse pronounced is in agonizing pain in child-bearing and a shift in balance that man is being placed accountable for the family
12. The third curse was directed at the removal of "auto" agriculture for food but work is now mandatory
13. The fourth curse is that mankind's life expectancy is now limited, signifying death as imminent in all
14. The women was named Eve only after the fall
15. A cherubim and a flaming sword now prohibits man's enjoyment from the tree of life
16. Immortality is possible only with the periodic consumption of the tree of life. Mankind by design is not an immortal like Angels
    

Posted in: Quiet Time on Thursday, March 22, 2007 at 0 comments  

Running Windows Under Ubuntu 7.04

QEmu can run an OS inside another OS - for example, Windows under Linux. QEmu uses kqemu, an acceleration driver included in Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn to run Windows at usable speed.

Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn also includes a new version of rdesktop that can be used to start individual desktop apps from the VM on your normal desktop. See SeamlessVirtualization.

Note: Most computers purchased since 2006 support VT or Pacifica, technologies that speed up virtualization considerably. To see if your system includes these technologies, run the following:

[more]

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