Surfnux’s Weblog

As always, every year around August, it is back again. The damn haze is back. For the past few days, almost every night the haze covers up the night sky. And now, it is covering the whole day and getting worst. From the news, it is told that there are forest burning in Pekanbaru and supposedly it should be also at every new palm oil plantation site.

The air just isn’t that fresh anymore and I am started to feel sick. Grrr… and some people just never grow up or be civilized. My car got scratched again at front, and this time around it is longer and thicker. Gotta curse that uncivilized people to have his hand rotten soon. People just never grow up in this town. Now I am slowly getting through the worst stuffs in this town. No wonder some people say Dumai is an abbreviation of Dunia Manusia Iblis. Because there are still so many Iblis (Evil) in this town.

written by surfnux

Been wondering where else I can go for free hotspots in this town (Pekanbaru). KimTeng no longer has free hotspot access, and now it is locked with the need to purchase a prepaid card. Its called i-VAS, which is provided by Telkom.

So, being sick of surfing at Ciputra Mall, with the only free hotspot left at Gloria Jeans Coffee, but not reliable, I then shifted to SKA Mall. With that, I was hoping that I could surf the net from J.CO Donuts & Coffee, but nooooo… after ordering a cup of Americano with a complimentary Glazzy Donuts, I then ask the cashier. It was so sad that there are no free hotspots available there.

The only one available in SKA Mall is at KimTeng Cafe and Excelso Cafe. So, I then try to browse through each Wifi signal available, and found that each of them is also using a prepaid method. Sadly, no i-Vas ticket is available, cos all were sold out. So, I tried to purchase i-Vas through my handphone provider. Got the username and password, connect, and logged in.

To purchase via your Kartu Halo or Flexi phone, send sms to 4827, with this message: ivas (10000 or 25000 or 50000). The amount will be deducted from your phone credit, or billed to you at the end of the month on your handphone bill. After successful, you will be sent SMS with the username and password in it.

The Login screen. Click for clearer view

Sadly, the connection really SUCKSSS!! It got disconnected from time to time, that can be every 1-2 minutes. There are still some problem, either with the hotspot system, the Wifi Connection, or the settings. Most probably is with the hotspot system, because my Wireless connection stays at full all the time. Or, it could be the wireless router/access point’s firmware problem that experience packets being dropped every 2 minutes. Yeah, it is consistently dropping packets every 2 minutes, for 5-10 seconds. Sigh…
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written by surfnux \\ tags: networking

Being bored and feeling super slow browsing the net through my “still at GPRS speed” of Telkomsel Flash, I decided to go to the Mall again, that is Ciputra Mall. It is always the nearest to my uncle’s home. So, for the past few times, I have been always using KimTeng Cafe’s hotspot.

Apart from its fast connection and affordable food and drinks, KimTeng is filled with smokers and exhaust fan is just not enough to handle all of them. So, its been really unhealthy sitting too long there. For the past few times, I could have utilized more than 2 GB bandwidth only while in KimTeng Cafe.

For some of you who are still wondering what is KimTeng Cafe, it is the newly opened branch of the local coffee shop in Pekanbaru, which has been in operation for very long. Previously it was just a normal coffee shop at the market. Now they are using Cafe’s concept and open it around malls in Pekanbaru.

Okay, back to Gloria Jeans. So, being considerate and not wanting to keep high profile at KimTeng Cafe, I decided to try out Gloria Jean’s free hotspot this time. With a cup of Camomile tea (SGD 2.5 / Rp. 15000), I am seated nicely in this sofa, browsing away to the internet world.

After browsing smoothly for a little while, things started to get weird. Imageshack.us is showing Tours and Travel website, and Google.com is showing that “this domain services has been discontinued”. And slowly after, no sites can be accessed. What the hell is happening here. So, I try try and try, and I gave up finally. Its time to move back to KimTeng. Back to KimTeng, I still can’t surf at all. Its either they have activated the prepaid account for the hotspot, or my Macbook has some error in the system. So, I tried my Telkomsel Flash again, it got connected, but still can’t surf at all.

It got me worry a lot and takes up very long hours figuring what can be wrong. After cleaning up caches, cookies, and everything, still the same. And then I look for terminal code to flush DNS. And I did that. After that, things are better, at least now I can surf again. Wondering what is wrong here. Could it be a spyware? Malware? Does Mac OS X.5 prone to it?

Its still a mistery and I shall find out more.

No more KimTeng, no more Gloria Jeans free hotspot. Next, if I really need one, I shall go to J.CO already. It sux when you have own internet but very slow, and you rely a lot at these free hotspots. I am going to subscribe to Telkom Speedy soon. Damn.

written by surfnux \\ tags: networking

Communication is really important. Every communication whether it is understandable or not, will depends on how we deliver it. Different person will have different way of understanding things. For example, if we were to teach a novice user on how to configure a router, we couldn’t insert all the complicated technical terms while communicating with them. They might not get what we are trying to tell at all.

The same when we are talking to a pro or an expert in something, if we are telling them in lay man terms, some will think that we are looking down on them.

Identifying the person we are communicating with through e-mail is not easy. Especially when we do not know whom that person is. This is then resulted in Miscommunication. Which I mostly faced at times.

Slowly, we will learn how to communicate with some people through trial and errors and experiences. Laying it out in the e-mail reply is sometimes can be a problem too.

What I faced is:
1. When writing the e-mail with too much details and elaboration, people don’t seem to read it and in the end misunderstood the message.
2. When writing the e-mail briefly and straight forward, people also don’t seem to understand it as it was too direct and their way of understanding might tell them another thing.

Well, shall try better next time and get through a method of delivering the right information in the right way to the right person.

Just some light rantings about work.

written by surfnux

written by surfnux