09/01/2009 - 10/01/2009

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Google Chrome Frame | Internet Explorer Plug-in

Tech Blog - If your sick and tired of being stuck on using Internet Explorer, you might want to check out Google Chrome Frame, Google Chrome Frame is an open source plug-in that brings Google Chrome's open web technologies and speedy JavaScript engine to Internet Explore.

* Start using open web technologies - like the HTML5 canvas tag - right away, even technologies that aren't yet supported in Internet Explorer 6, 7, or 8.
* Take advantage of JavaScript performance improvements to make your apps faster and more responsive.

Checkout Google Chrome Frame here

Note: This is an early-stage release.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Smart Bro | Smart Bro Broadband | Review

Tech Blog - This is an update review of Smart Bro Broadband Service I did last year which can be found here, After subscribing to their service for one and half year I have finally decided to discontinue their service, my primary reason is their pathetic customer service and long down time period, for the first year of my subscripton down time and customer service are in acceptable level meaning, down time and issue related to it are resolve within a day and calling Smart Bro customer service hot lines will get you in contact with an actual person not that that person can actualy help you since like what I have mentioned before on my previous review that their customer service representative(Level 1 and Level 2 support) are pretty useless and incompetent and doesn't know what terms like DHCP, IP means or even have and idea of how a router and their own equipments work, recently I have experienced down time and intermittent connection varying from 2 to 3 days and lately 4 to 5 days without any resolution calling their customer service hot lines is even more frustrating it is specifically designed to annoy and irritate customer, Smart Bro service have gone down hill since I have initially subscribe last year, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, if you are currently a subscsiber below are some tips on getting some customer service by calling the hot lines, if you are not a subscriber yet and thinking of getting Smart Bro Broadband I wouldn't recommend it save yourself the pain and frustration of dealing with them and their crap service, Smart Bro is dedicated to delivering underwhelming and overly frustrating slow and undependable internet and customer service to you.

Tips and Steps on getting to a Smart Bro customer service(Actual Person) if your having problem, this is all from my personal experience dealing with them as their subscriber.

Smart Bro Customer Hot Line - 6727277
When the machine answer press 1 for technical problem
Then press 1 again to continue, don't bother listening to the voice
Then it will ask you to enter your 10 digit number or service reference number, if you want to talk to an actual person just type in any(WRONG) 10 digit number then press #
Then press 1 again to confirm the incorrect service reference number
You will be redirected to an Level 1 support person, the support person will ask you to tediously one by one go down their list of troubeshooting procedure script, if your a technical person and you know it not your problem ask them to connect you to an Level 2 support, if your not you might want to actually go through it or ask some friends that knows how to actually troubleshoot do it for you than do what Smart Customr Service representative ask you to do, if the Smart Bro Customer Service Representative is telling you that the report has been created and sent make sre to insist for an ETA and insist that you be connected or transferred to someone who could give one, remeber they are not allowed hang up the call, so milk it till you get what you want.
Level 2 support will again try to guide you through their useless troubleshooting script which they themselves don't understand, again ask them to escalate you to their "special case group"
"Special Case Group" basically has more technical expertise and have access to the engineer in terms of updates, but they are pretty much in the blind too basically their useless but this is the only actual way of getting logical and more informative help from Smart Custmer Service.

If your a Non technical person and you can't troubleshoot or identify your own network problem, I suggest you get someone who knows, because you will spend hours and days jumping through hoops with no result and improvement to your problem.

NOTE: their internal SLA is 24hours for every report they make, however it does not mean anything since they create a new report every time you call even if its for the same problem.

I hope you find this Smart Bro Review useful!

Couple of alternative Internet Service Provider in the Philippines

SkyBroadband - here
My Destiny - here

Below are some howto on troubleshooting

Friday, September 18, 2009

Mafia Wars Autoplayer | Facebook Apps

Tech Blog - Mafia Wars is a very addictive multiplayer browser game created by Zynga, it is available on Facebook as a Facebook Apps, if you are like me and you have been bitten by the Mafiawars bug, and wish you have more patience in waiting for the energy to be filled up so that you can do more job or your just plain lazy and want to have all those things like fighting and harvesting cuban business automated I got just the thing for you, Mafia Wars Autoplayer, Mafia Wars Autoplayer is a script made to work with greasemonkey add-on on your Firefox browser, with the Mafia Wars Autoplayer you will be able to automate doing jobs, harvesting cuban business, deposit money when it reaches certain amount automayically, do fighting, robbing even collect bounty for you, it can also auto purchase inventories for you, probabaly on of the best thing with Mafia Wars Autoplayer is when it does a job, and you don't have the prerequisite item for that particular job it will automatically go and do the job to try and fill the preriquisite which is great, for those of you that is addicted to Mafia Wars check it out.

Needed for Mafia Wars Autoplayer to work

Firefox browser - link
Greasemonkey Plugin - link
Mafia Wars Autoplayer Script - link

Some Screenshot of Mafia Wars Autoplayer at work

Check out other pages:

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Console "debug" Prompt

Tech Blog - Recently I encountered and error on one of my servers it reported that the host is down when i logged into the ALOM console, I found it in debug prompt anyway If you find yourself having an ALOM on debug prompt believe me there is something very wrong on your server :) probably hardware related issue, a screen shot of my terminal screen below I also discovered that send breaks to the console does not work and the only thing that did work was to power cycle the server.

Before doing a power cycling I checked the console logs, which didn't show anything that would tell the cause of the host crashing

debug: sc> showlogs
Log entries since SEP 23 07:58:33 ----------------------------------
SEP 23 07:37:33 servername: 0004004f: "Indicator MB.ACT is now OFF"
SEP 23 07:39:57 servername: 0004004f: "Indicator MB.ACT is now ON"
MAY 11 06:07:59 servername: 0004004f: "Indicator MB.ACT is now OFF"
MAY 11 06:10:37 servername: 00040002: "Host System has Reset"
MAY 11 06:10:38 servername: 0004000b: "Host System has read and cleared bootmode."

showenvironment command also didn't show anything is wrong

After reseting the host the error below pop up
0>ERROR: TEST = Block Memory
0>H/W under test = MB/P0/B0/D0 (Bank 1), Motherboard
0>Repair Instructions: Replace items in order listed by 'H/W under test' above.
0>MSG = Pin 69 failed on MB/P0/B0/D0 (Bank 1), Motherboard 0>END_ERROR

So obviously it is a hardwae problem, initially I thought it was the motherboard but a closer look it was one of the dimm, anyway I ended up calling the vendor and have the part replaced, use the showfru command to identify the parts needed, you must be on the sc> to do the showfru command.

Monday, September 14, 2009

ERROR: Inconsistent password files | Ubuntu Howto

Tech Blog - Here is a short how to on fixing "ERROR: Inconsistent password files" when adding or modifying user account on Ubuntu Linux or Unix operating systems, usually the cost of this error are there are some error entries or on the passwd line such as missing GID or other credentials.

Attempt to add user get the error below
$ useradd ironman
UX: useradd: ERROR: Inconsistent password files. See pwconv(1M).

So we try running pwconv as suggested, the pwconv command alert us that there is a problem on line 172 to line 175 of the passwd file
$ pwconv
pwconv: ERROR: bad entry or blank line at line 172 in /etc/passwd
pwconv: ERROR: bad entry or blank line at line 173 in /etc/passwd
pwconv: ERROR: bad entry or blank line at line 174 in /etc/passwd
pwconv: ERROR: bad entry or blank line at line 175 in /etc/passwd

We go cd to /etc then backup passwd befor we edit passwd
$ cd /etc $ cp passwd passwd.20090910

Now that we have a backup incase something goes wrong do vi passwd, and go to the lines above and see if there are incomplete entries on thos lines, sometimes its is just a blank line with space, you will need to delete the lines.

Tech Blog Quick List of howto's:

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Howto Create Restore Point on Windows Vista

Tech Blog - We all have experience installing certain drivers or application then after the installation our system starts to act up, I have experienced this problem with old daemon tools that i didn't know doesn't support Windows Vista which causes my Windows to constantly do a reboot after installation the old Daemon tools, so the next time your not sure what the effect of a certain application or driver will do to your system, I suggest creating a restore point as this is probably the easiest way to fix whatever is wrong with your system afterwards, this is a quick guide on how to create restore point on you Windows Vista OS.

Go to Control Panel > System > Click on Advance System Settings, A window will popup click on "System Protection" then click on "Create button".

It will ask for description of the restore point, put in anything you want that will help you remember identify the restore point, then it will start creating a restore point as seen on image below.

Once creation of restore point is complete, you can click on "System Restore" button and you should see the newly created restore point with the description you put in, as seen on the image below.

Hope this help.

Check out other pages:

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Using Find Command | Ubuntu Howto

Tech Blog - Here is a quick how to using the find command in Unix, Ubuntu and other Linux distribution operating system, the find command is a very useful command, find will search any set of directories you specify for files that match the supplied search criteria. You can search for files by name, owner, group, type, permissions, date, and other criteria. The search is recursive in that it will search all subdirectories.

Some useful find command used below

Search for file in a specific directory in this case /usr
$ find /usr -name "httpd.conf" -print

Search and execute chown apache:apache on the file httpd.conf when it find it
$ find /usr -name "httpd.conf" -exec chown apache:apache '{}' \;

Look for files more than 50mb under /var folder nad list the files
$ find /var -size +50000000c -exec ls -lt {} \;

Look for files under the directory but do not descend
$ /usr/bin/find / -xdev -size +50000000c -exec ls -lt {} \;

Find and delete core file on your system
$ find / -name core -exec /bin/rm -f '{}' \;

Hope this help.

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Combined Community Codec Pack | CCCP | Review

Tech Blog - If your looking for a good codec pack for your Windows system I would suggest you look into CCCP, it will probably play any media files you have and will probably the only medi player you will need, it is a very good alternative to Windows Media Player and even VideoLan(vlc.org), howver make sure that you do not install CCCP as well as VideoLan on the same system, base on experience this will mess up your codec packages on Windows and soemtimes will need a reinstall of Windows to fix the issue anywa more details and on what CCCP is from their website.

CCCP was created to replace the video playback packs provided by several anime fansub groups in favor of a single reliable pack capable of decoding practically any groups' files - without breaking compatibility for other formats. Since then it has grown into a pack that can decode more or less anything that you will run into during your travels on the internet.

Check out CCCP

Tech Blog Quick List of howto's: