Google makes me feel sick

My adsense account was suspended (or disabled whatever) by google some time ago, i didnt know of that before although I was not able to see the ads on this site, at the time, i thought it was blocked by company's network, but it wasnt and I checked my mailbox to find the email notifying me of the suspension.

I was not happy with that, definitely, although I indeed have done some tricks like false clicks, etc, and at the time of account suspension, ad income counted up to 50 bucks; google didnt give clear explanations why they disabled it, instead, just mentioned that my account has incurred adverse effects on their ad providers, which made me feel very very sick.

Because google just kicks you away after you have contributed some benefits by either self-clicking the ads or other ways, and they get the benefits and never share with you guys, later they just send an email which doesnt explain anything regarding the account suspension. I quite doubt how many people actually get the shares of benefits from google? On the contrary, how many of us put google ads on our site?

Anyway, i will never try to re-activate my adsense account, it makes me feel sick, and what google claims of "do no evil" makes me even feel sick..

SQL reviewed

It is long time since last update, as every day I was engaged in busy work, and for last whole week I was assigned to clean up data for several database dump files, each with around several thousands of records, and during the work, I got chances to review SQL. Following are some notes:

1. To select across tables->Join
e.g., select a.* from tbl1 a join tbl2 b on a.field1=b.field2 where field3...

2. To view records by groups-> group by
e.g., select count(*), field1, field2 from tbl1 group by field1, field2

3. To_Char() function
e.g., select to_char(field1, 'YYYYMMDD') from tbl1

4. Besides that, i learnt a bit of PL/SQL also, which helps to write complex queries to do complex data manipulations.. however, still on the go.

Modify group policy to gain/restrict access rights for windows account

As I started to work, I loaned a laptop from company. It works fine and it is more advanced than my own, however, it is really annoying to find that certain functionality are restricted to access, although I gained the administrator role, those functions were disabled before they loaned it to me, one of which is that I cant access screen saver tab in desktop properties, while by default it is set to start every 5 mins and be password protected on resume, which is quite inconvenience for me as I dont want to input the long password every time I come back to my laptop.

Later I found that I can enabled the tab in group policy, so I tried. Type gpedit.msc from Run, and go to display directory as shown below:
(User Configuration-Administrative Templates-Control Panel-Display)


In the right panel, you can see a list of functionality you can configure, e.g, hide the screensaver tab, etc, by default, the state is "not configured", if you find that the state is same as default, this means that they control the setting from the registry, not thou group policy. In this case, we have to go to registry and delete/modify corresponding registries. Details are as followings:
Delete "ScreenSaverIsSecure" from:

HKEY-Current User\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop HKEY-Local Machine\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop

Clean Up Oracle

It is the first time I use Oracle for my work, and the version is 9i.
However, there was a problem for my first time installation, so I just uninstalled the program and tried to reinstall it, and the problem came.
Because I didnt drop existing databases first before uninstalling Oracle, when I reinstalled it and tried to create global database and SID, an error saying that "SID already exists..", as there are so many services running in windows after Oracle had been installed, even it was removed later, the services were somehow still running in the back-end, and there were some files in the directory that could not be removed!
To totally clean up previous install, there are certain things to do and the most important is to remove the registry entries for corresponding services, including:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/ORACLE
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM
----Controlset001/services/%oracle_services%
----Controlset002/services/%oracle_services%

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/
----Controlset001/ENUM/Root/Legacy%Oracle_services%
----Controlset002/ENUM/Root/Legacy%Oracle_services%

Note that to delete the entries in ENUM under SYSTEM directory, we need log into the system as administrator so that to get the permission.

Remove annoying ads@ sgchinese BBS

Huh, it's long time since last update, and in passed several weeks I was busy with job hunting and helper work at Singapore Book Fair; It is interesting that the day before yesterday, when I attended 2nd round interview at buzzcity, I was asked about personal blog, and later was aware that I need to update it.

Well, I was actually a bit of shameful to add label "Technology" to most of my posts, as they are just tricks at all, anyway, other than that, I have little to share and the good thing is that I can practice English writing at the same time.

Recently, I noticed sgchinese forum (狮城论坛) got so many so many ads which occupy nearly one quarter of page and most of which are flash banners, which makes me very uncomfortable. I have been using firefox and as we know, there are must try add-ons including ABP (Ad-Block Plus), which generally blocks most of ads on pages, but not all and you have to add filters yourself. The bad thing with ABP is that most often there is no tab on flashes so that you can click and block them, in this way, you need to add the fiter (address of the flash) manually.

To spot the addresses, I recommend another must-try add-on for firefox-Firebug, with which you can easily find, manipulate page elements. With the help, the address for one flash banner is http://ad.sgchinese.com/*, so add this to filter and you can get a clean page.

An introduction to Web QQ

Tecent QQ (腾讯QQ) is an instant messaging tool developed in China, and it serves the largest amount of users in the world with more than 300，000，000 active accounts; recently, it announced its new IM services of web QQ, to follow the trend that most IMs provide web services, like web messenger, web yahoo messenger, etc.

However, compared with other IM services, web QQ is more sophisticatedly designed and provides as rich functionality as desktop client does! The moment I saw the interface, I was stunned, and I really admired how powerful web applications had evolved!

Here are some snapshots of web QQ, I really like the design, and it is very responsive and my experience with it is so nice that sometimes I will not use my client QQ.

Install IIS with FTP service

Last night, when I requested a friend to share the video recording of a NBA game Lakers VS Nuggets, I realized I just uninstalled IIS last time coz that I installed Apache server, and now I need to reinstall IIS in order to set up a FTP server, using my computer as host.

To install IIS, I went to Control Panel-Add or Remove Softwares-Add or Remove Windows Components, and there in the list of windows components I ticked the Internet Information Services checkbox, and clicked next to install it. However, after installation complete, I opened IIS manager but found there was no default FTP site! I thought it was an install incomplete error, so I reinstalled IIS again, still no FTP site.

Since it was not working, I thought there might be problems with windows installation backup files, and decided to uninstall IIS and install ServerU, yet when I was about to uninstall IIS, in the dialogue box, I noticed there was a details button, and when I clicked to get in, I realized what had gone wrong with my installation: FTP service was not selected to be installed!

So now I selected it and installed IIS again, finally can use FTP services. Well, it was really a bit tricky.

Lightbox and Expand/Collapse function in DHTML

Recently I helped school club to design a website to broadcast Singapore Music Express competition, there are two nice tricks in web design, one is the fascinating lightbox effect, the other is the expand/collapse feature.

As an effect commonly used in web 2.0 site design, lightbox offers nice zooming and transition effects of images overlaying on top of pages, while the rest of page dims. To get this function, there are a lot of scripts you can use online, simply download the JavaScript and css style sheet, and add reference in your html code will work. You do not need to read or understand the javascript which contains up to 2000 lines of code, if you do not want to modify it.

To get the expand/collapse feature, we need to write a javascript function in the page, which will change the style of the spcified elments, either to display the block or hide it. As blogger will filter javascript, I will not post it here.

Which looks better?

I have made 2 banner designs (using Adobe Photoshop), used in web page design for my club, I think both are ok, but first one is more impressive, how do you think?

Damned IE8 Flashplayer Problem

Have you guys encounter problems with IE8 that your flash player worked well yesterday however after a refresh of page today, it no longer works but gives you an annoying hint that you should upgrade your flash player to latest version or tell you to enable JavaScript for your browser?

The problem exists since IE 8 Beta, however, the solution is not as easy as just to upgrade flash player as when I tried to solve it that way, even I upgrade my flash player a thousand times, the problem still exists, that's the damned thing! As a result, I can not watch YouTube in IE, can not watch Justin.TV in IE, can not view my blog flash widgets..

To work around that, after many searches and tries, I found that upgrading flash player merely in browser would never help, but you should download the offline flash player install package and install it. As it is installing the player, I notice several files are written to system folder, which testify my guess as a install from browser will not write the files, and after install complete, I refreshed YouTube page, well, annoy finally is swiped away.

Download the offline flash player install package HERE.

Multiple IEs

Recently I helped design a very simple website, however, I encounter the annoying compatibility problem, as I designed the web pages using some DIV and CSS, and the pages are rendered as expected in firefox (Good Job!), minor differences in IE8 (Still Fine), however, there are problems viewing them in IE7 (Frustrating), and earlier versions of IE (WTF): the layout totally turned out terrible messy.

Yes, we can simulate IE7 in IE8 (Press F12 will enter debug mode), however, there seems no way to simulate IE6 online. Do we need to install IE6 to test? NO!

Microsoft has released a compatibility pack called VPC, but you may find the image size just a bit huge, isnt it?

Well, I dont want to download that, after some searches, I found this tool useful, namely MultipleIEs, which will install all versions of IEs on your PC, as it claims but I doublt they are not IEs that are installed but some compaitbility packs also, but never mind, it is definitely a very very useful tool, especially for web designers.

Download

Apache HTTP server conflicts with IIS

It is always troublesome to install server tools like IIS and Apache, when I was doing my Industrial Attachment I took two or three days to configure IIS to make it work, and this time it is Apache!

Fortunately this time, it is just a simple conflicting problem between IIS and Apache, as when I was installing Apache, I chose the same port 80 for the service, while it is the default port for IIS too. After installation complete, when I attempted to start Apache, it gave me an error indicating "The requested service has failed".

Realizing that it might be the conflict problem, I went to Control Panel-Administrative Tools-Services, and there I found the IIS service, stopped it first and then started Apache service, well, it works now.

Huhu, Got to have my FYP presentation the day after tomorrow, good luck to myself.

Singapore Mosquito favors blood type B

After I have played basketball, I would always be "attended" by many annoying mosquitoes while my friends would not. Mosquitoes in Singapore are typically much larger and fiercer, and the swollen will not disappear within several days!

It is said that mosquitoes favor blood type O, but it is obviously not the case in Singapore; when I am with my friends in the room or in the field, it is always me who am attacked most, while my friends would often not even realize there are mosquitoes around.

Well, to keep away the disgusts, let's see what are the favorite targets for mosquitoes:

• Large vital capacity people;
  
• Hidropedesis and those who sweat often;
  
• Fat guys;
  
• Pregnant women or in their menstrual period;
  
• People who have just underwent heavy sports;
  
• People wear dark color clothes;
  
• Those who do not wear socks;
  
• Women wear heavy cosmetics;

Swine Flu Alert!

Check out the Symptoms of Swine Flu:

• Fever
• Cough
• Sore throat
• body aches
• Headache chills
• Fatigue
• Diarrhea
• Vomiting

Be precautionary, the pandemic is now at Alert Yellow of the Disease Outbreak Response System.

Aurogon's latest news

Aurogon(烛龙) is a game company founded in 2008 and most of its staffs are from Softstar Shanghai (上海软星) which was affiliated with Tanwan's Softstar (大宇资讯), soon after the PAL4 (Chines Paladin Series 4 仙剑奇侠传四) hit market on Aug 1st, 2007, Shanghai team was dismissed as they complained they didnt get much support from its parent company.
Most of the team members joined Aurogon, and the new firm, funded by one Real Estate businessman from Beijing, determines to insist in PC game development. Its first try, The Bizhero(商战-飞黄腾达), a webpage game, was released for testing in Jan 15, 2009, and now the team are working on a RPG game, as they promised at very first.
The official forum just opened two weeks ago, serveral sketches of the new game were presented to players, as quoted here, very ancient Chinese style:


They didnt disclose any more information of the new game, which is expected by many many game players, especially those touched by PAL4.
PAL series are one of the most popular Chinese RPG games and PAL4 is the best-seller game in China with around 800, 000 copies sold so far (it is also my favorate game), although the game was cracked one month after it hits market, many players show their support by buying genuine copies. Meanwhile, it is estimated that millions of pirated copies are downloaded thru Internet.

PAL5 development is taken over by Softstar Beijing, supervised by Yao Zhuangxian, the creator of PAL series, it is said the storyline will finish by year 2010.

Run Multiple Instances of Messenger

To be able to run multiple instances of messenger (Messenger多账户登陆) is always an appealing function for messenger users, in the past users would use third-party plug-ins such as Messenger Plus! or MSN Shell to get additional features and functions, however, now the new messenger (version 9.0+) added native support for that, although it was not officially integrated, there is a trick to do that.
I remembered to realize that function when I first used Live Messenger 9.0 without doing anything, however, after a re-installation of my OS, and messenger of course, I could not use the feature anymore, I inspected the installation pack, and the sign-in assistant is there, why?
After several searches through Google, I found following hack on the registry will get the function back:
Open registry editor, and navigate to
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Live\Messenger", right-click on Messenger and create a new dWord, name it as "MultipleInstances", set its value to 1.

Close registry editor, and now you can run as many messenger as you like, as is shown in snapshot below:
Well, it's done, but one problem I am not sure is whether it has something to do with sign-in assistant, which is described as to be used for linking multiple accounts.

Summer Palace (颐和园)

Summer Palace is an imperial resort built in Qing dynasty in China, here it stands for a moive co-produced by Chinese and French, in year 2006; initially it was banned to screen in mainland China as the movie depicts the 64 Tiananmeng Square Event (六四事件), and also involves large amount naked and sex clips.

Depicting the love & life of college students in 80s, it gives us a rough picture how the society looks at that time and how the youths think and behave, quite different from what we see now in the campus.


The picture is dim and the companion music is melody-slow and oppressive, while plenty of asides added to more depress feelings.

It is the only asian movie selected to compete for Golden d'Or in Berlin (柏林国际电影节) in 2006. Here is the link to IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0794374/, as is described there, this movies is about obsessive love.

Personalize Blogspot Template

Tictac is really a nice template, except that the layout is a bit tight for me; to utilize more space, we need to expand the columns, which is fairly easy to do, below I will demonstrate how:

Step 1: expand the columns
Before that, you need to download the original template which is already provided, see snapshot below:


open download template, which is a XML file, with a text editor, here I use MS Expression Web, spot the following section as is highlighted in blue:


outer-wrapper wraps the whole section so first we assign a larger value (default width is 800 px?) to it, then we increase the main (left column containing posts) and sidebar columns respectively, note that we need reserve some margin in between otherwise the sidebar will not be positioned properly. Here I assign the width using percentage value and give 64% for the main column and 30% for the sidebar. Meanwhile, we need to set the float attribute for each, see highlighted section.

Above step finishes the layout expansion, next we will expand the backgrounds to make them fit the modified page.
There are 5 background images we need modify, as background-size attribute is only supported by CSS 3, we need to manually resize the images.
Download the images and edit it in any photo editing tool, here I use Adobe Photoshop to equally expand the images by setting image size to 984px, which corresponds to the size of the outer-wrapper.


Upload the amended images to any web repository where you can retrieve them with URLs, what I use is Google Picassa Web album, get each image address and place them in the template to replace the original, save the template and then upload it, OK, IT'S DONE!

Fairly simple, right? If you are not interested to try it yourself, you can download the modified template HERE.

Ashes of Time Deluxe (东邪西毒终极版)

前天腾出时间看了下东邪西毒终结版-Ashes of Time Deluxe，这次没有像上次一样看得昏昏欲睡，觉得确实不错，一直很讨厌故弄玄虚故作高深的作品，东邪西毒没有如此那般，让我佩服的地方是台词比较打动人心，能咀嚼出些味来。

“他虽是一个落魄的剑客，生活却很有规律，每天都会来这里，饮一杯酒，吃两碗饭”
听到这样的台词就很喜欢，这是一种人生的态度，落魄的生活不应该磨灭人的心志，不应放之任之，如果生活也颓废，也就意味着心已经沉沦了。。

影片主旨是爱情，却也包含了人生。有了感情经历后，看着共鸣也自然会多些。
喜欢洪七的一段，喜欢梁朝伟的一段，喜欢最后一段。。
复刻版场景处理得确实很美，一帧一帧的如油画，很有艺术感。
贴张片头截图，某人的眼神实在太迷人了。


片头曲换了，原来的天地孤影任我行（片中洪七北上的插曲）多有气势的。。

北大教授健康讲座笔记

刚听了一个很有益的讲座，不知是那个教授。

一，首先是健康长寿三大要素：

饮食+有氧运动+心理状态

二，国际公认的6种健康饮料

• 绿茶-茶多酚，抗癌，软化血管
  
• 红酒-逆转醇，抗自由基
  
• 豆浆-抗癌
  
• 酸奶-防病
  
• 骨头汤-延年益寿
  
• 蘑菇汤-增强抵抗力
  

三，健康饮食搭配之“亚洲金字塔”

即谷，豆，菜三类
具体谷类有玉米（含卵磷脂），荞麦，薯类，燕麦，小米，芝麻等；
蔬菜水果包括番茄（番茄素，需温后食用），大蒜（切片，生吃），胡萝卜（养眼）等；
花粉具有诸多功效，包括祛斑美容，除皱，防止前列腺增生，减脂等；
螺旋藻被誉为“21世纪最优质蛋白”，列入太空食品，作用有四：
1. 降血压、血脂，防止心脑血管病；
2. 防止糖尿病；
3. 防止肝炎->我国健康第五大杀手
4. 防癌

四， 有氧运动及作息事宜

国际推荐的有氧运动为慢跑或者散步，强度中等，一周三四次，每次半个小时至一个小时；
每天最佳起床时间为早上6点，开窗户时间为9点到11点；
午睡如需的话，应该在饭后半个小时之后；
笑是肠胃天然的健美操。每天应大笑三次，每次三分钟左右。。

五，其他一些注意事项

老年人忌早起锻炼；
菠菜含草酸，四十岁以后宜少食用；猪肝含大量胆固醇，松花蛋含铅，宜少食；
臭豆腐宜少食；
花生的红衣->提高血凝性，不宜食用；

Love & Friendship

Love is more about mutual trust, understanding and giving;

Friendship can stop at joking and gossiping;