Because this is a brand new server, and our first though this is only a hardware problem, on Friday we called the IBM support and hope that they can change the hard disk.

After we received the ticket ID, one of IBM support person called us and I explained the problem to him. After discussed, he want me to run the diagnostic tools the check the entire system. I though “What?”, but I followed him anyway, download the diagnostic tools, run it and send the result to his email address.

On Monday, we still do not received any news or any update, and on Tuesday I called the IBM support again and ask about my ticket status. Then I’ve got another call from another IBM support person, mentioned that the first IBM support person is not available so he will take over while he away.

Again, I explained the problem and re submitted the IBM diagnostic tools result to him, and he promised to update me about the status.

About one or two hours, I received his email, mentioned that the result that I just send to him is not complete because my server is not have a IPMI driver. So he gave me the link to download the IPMI driver and ask me to installed the driver. After that, I re run the diagnostic tools, and again re submit the result.

On Wenesday, there no update from them.

On Thursday, the IBM support person called me again and updated the status. And he said that the firmware in my server is not up to date, and require me to update the firmware. I though “What?”.

The problem is simple, the light activity in one the hard disk is not working (while in another four hard disks is working well), thats all. I really sure this only a small problem, maybe only something wrong with the bracket. Why update the firmwares?

On the phone, He mentioned that I need to update several firmwares, I said to him, just give me the list in the email, and I will look into it

When I received the email, I’m shocked.

He mentioned that I need to upgrade not only one, or two but four firmwares..

• Integrated Management Module
• IBM System x uEFI update for 3620 M3/3630 M3
• ServeRAID M1015 SAS/SATA Controller Firmware
• IBM FW HDD SAS-1.09 Windows 32-64

And not forget, he also add a little warning at the end of his email
“Please backup your data before updating the firmwares”

Great.

I consulted with IBM BP, and hope that somehow they can do something about it.

I used to recommend IBM xSeries to many people, and one of the reason because they have a very good support, but now, I have doubts, BIG doubts.

Update:

On monday,  wrote them email mention that I will not do the firmware upgrade and they responded that they will their support to us to upgrade the firmware.

On Tuesday, one support come and a good thing is that he also bring a new hard disk. He upgraded all the firmware and it took more than one hour, but the light still not blinking. Then he replaced the hard disk with the new one, but the light still not blinking. Then he tried to plug the old hard disk into another slot, and the light now blinking. By that, the support engineer said that the problem is in the backplane of the server. And he will come back again tomorrow with a new backplane.

On Wenesday, he came again with a new backplane. After he switch the backplane with a new one, now the light is blinking fine.

So, the problem was in the backplane, not in the firmware or the hard disk. The diagnostic tools from IBM unable to detect the malfunction in the backplane. And it took more that a week for IBM to identify and fix the problems, that a big disappointing for me.

But the good thing is, that now the server working fine without any problems.

My friend did, and I can only imagine how it feels.

He gave me his shattered usb flash disk.
Fortunately, the memory chip that contains the data was not broken, only the usb connector was separated from the main pcb.

After quick search in google, I found that is easy enough to fix the broken usb flash disk.

www.datarecovery-ct.com/data_recovery_ct_flashdrive/data_recovery_ct_flashdrive.html

Based on the website, I connect the usb connector to the main pcb, soldered it back and give it a try.

It works.

So, if your usb flash disk is somehow broken, don’t panicked. If the memory chip is still intact there is still hope.

Have the spirits of Christmas by installing Christmas applications for Android.

This is the list of Christmas Apps for Android.

Christmas Tree Live Wallpaper

Make your android more a live with this live wallpaper. There are plenty of live wallpaper for christmas, and this is just one of them.

Christmas Magic Live Wallpaper

Another live wallpaper for your android.

Panda Theme-Christmas Carol theme

Christmas theme for you android.

Bubble Blast Holiday

Like Bubble Blast, where you have to blast all the bubbles in the screen with limited touch? This is the holiday edition, if you like Bubble Blast that you going to love this.

Talking Santa

Talking Santa is funny, makes my kids giggle. You can poke on his head, shake the phone, give him cookies and roll a snow ball on him, and repeat everything you says. But don’t forget, to ask for Christmas present.

Angry Birds Seasons

If you love angry Birds, that you must love this sequel. Please beware, that this game is addicted.

All of these apps you can search it in the market, as far as I know all this apps are free.

There are many others themes, applications Christmas related, fell free to find it in the android market.

Merry Christmas.

Once the installation finished, open the application, type your WordPress blog URL, user name and password. That’s it. The application will try to connect and download any blog posts, comments and many others. After that you can edit your post locally without any connection.

After you finished editing your blog,  go ahead publish it.

Need to add pictures? It have button to add media from your pictures library or take a new one from the camera.

This post is edited with WordPress application for Android.

It’s not fancy, but more than enough to run gcompris or other small games, and my wife to surf the internet.

I don’t know what I did, but suddenly , the computer reach the warning temperature very fast. It only 15-30 minutes, the bios will give the warning, and in the next 10 minutes the computer will shutdown it self.

I set the warning temperature in 70 celsius, and shutdown temp in 80 celsius.

The motherboard is ECS A780GM-A with AMD X2 5000 processor.

My first guess is the processor fan.

So, I take it out, clean it up from the dust, clean up the old thermal paste and then apply a new one.

But still the temperature of the processor increasing quickly, even when still  in bios, I can see that the temperature increasing.

My second guess is my processor fan is damage, but it less than a year old?

But I replace it any way.

But the problem still exist.

Than, my fist guess is that the stock fan is not enough, so I buy a third party fan and installed it.

The problem still exist, but now the temperature increasing not very quickly. but still it become a problem.

I’m running out of options.

But when I browse the ECS website, I notice that they have a new bios.

So, nothing to lose (I already plan to buy a new one), I download the new bios and installed it over the old one.

The result, the temperature now is very stable.

Then I realize that I did the bios upgrade before, and that the cause of the temperature become unstable. Silly me .

And this only workable for worpress blog.

Do you have a blog?

Maybe you have a blog, or maybe you have two blogs or even more.

But now, do you blogs are mobile friendly? That your blogs are easy to access via mobile devices like smartphone or pda?

Probably, most of your blogs are not.

But now, more and more people, your readers, are on the move, they travels, and most of the time they will access your blogs via they smart devices, not via notebook or desktop anymore.

They will access your blogs via smartphone, pda, and now iPad and yet will to come is Google Tablet.

Even they can access your blog nicely via they smart browser like opera mobile, but it will be more attractive to them if you setup your blogs that still easy to read in a  small screen and less band with.

That why your blog, should be mobile friendly.

Now, to make your blogs mobile friendly are easier than ever, it’s only takes five minutes of your time.

And this only workable for worpress blog.

1. Please download the WordPress Mobile Pack, and save it in your local hard disk.
2. Go to your WordPress admin – > plugins -> add new
3. Upload the zip file and then activate.

That’s it, nothing more simple than that.

Optionally, they are few setting to be set nothing more than a few clicks.

See the different using my Windows Mobile 6.1 and Internet Explorer.

This is the homepage of my blog, the left one is the standard view and the right one is using WordPress Mobile Pack.

And this is one of my post.

If you going to see blogs with your smart devices, which one that you’ll prefer?

Happy Blogging.

I already installed and setup blackberry connect in two nokia phones, E61i and E90. The way how to install it is very similar. So, I think this how to also can be applied with other nokia phone that support blackberry connect.

Too bad that the new nokia will not support blackberry connect anymore because nokia want to implement their own push email service.

This how to should be sufficient to help you to setup blackberry connect into your nokia phone.

Make sure that your nokia phone support blackberry connect. You can check whether your nokia phone support blackberry in nokia website.

Download the blackberry connect application that match with your nokia phone and your firmwire version. You can check your firmwire with this combination *#0000#. Blackberry connect will not work if the firmwire is different.

Register blackberry plan with your phone provider.

Install the blackberry connect application in your nokia phone. You can install it with nokia pc suite, or just copy the sisx file into your memory card and run it fom there.

Register your phone with blackberry by selecting option and select register now.

Open the blackberry website (this should be dependent with your phone provider) and create a new account (I assume that this the first time you using blackberry service). You need the PIN and IMEI number to register. PIN and IMEI number can be found in status page in your blackberry connect application.

From there you can register you email addresses or even create a new one. The steps are easy enough to follow.

Now, all you have to do is wait while blackberry setup your nokia phone.

Enjoy the blackberry service

This is my type of blog

ESTP – The Doers

The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

Thanks to wissel.net about this site.

So, what kind of blogger you are?

One of my plugin doesn’t works with the new WordPress 2.6.3, that is Popular Post plugin. After searching the net, I still can’t find the new version of popular post. So, with regrets, I have to disable the popular post plugin.

While searching, I found another plugins than can really usefull for my blog, there are Simple Tags and Google XML sitemap.

Simple Tags

Somehow, my ultimate tag warrior got corrupted. It’s cannot show my tags anymore. I tried many things to fix it but failed, so I have to disable the plugin and remove it form my template.

Now I need another plugins to manage my tags. I can however to reinstall the ultimate tag warrior plugin, but I think it’s te time to playing arround with my wordpress.

After a few search, I found this plugin. I give it a test and found out that this plugin is so amazing. It have many other usefull features like rename tags and mass edit tags (the best features imho). It’s also have the related post feature, but I don’t use it yet.

The installation is easy, more easy than the ultimate tag warrior.

Google XML Sitemaps

This the plugin that I loved. It will re-generate a sitemap for google, ask.com and many other search engines. The best thing is, it will automatically re-generate a new sitemap every time we post a new post and submit it to search engines. So our sitemap will always be up to date.

The day where I have to create a new sitemap manually and submit it to google are gone.

Those are the two ne plugins that I installled in all my wordpress blog. If you new in wordpress, you need to install these plugins.

These are the plugins that need to be installed.

These two simply you MUST have.
1. Askimet
2. All in one SEO pack

These four are very important plugins
1. Simple Tags
2. FeedBurner FeedSmith
3. Related posts
4. Google XML Sitemaps

And the rest are not necessary but good to have.
1. Subscribe to comments
2. WP-Contact form

These are why wordpress is so loveable, with tons of plugins, it seem that it can do anything (but still can’t make me a cup of coffee )

To become a good mail administrator you have to have a lot of patients. Really, based on my 12 years of experiences.

Don’t believe me?

This is my conversations with my users over the phone.

User : The server is down (it’s not a question).
Me : Which server?
User : (silent) That server.
Me : (guessing that will be the mail server) No, the server is not down.
User : But I can’t connect to the server.
Me : Is your friend that sit next to you can’t connect to server too?
User : (I can hear that he asking the question to his friend) No, he can connect to the server.
Me : So the problem is in your computer, not the server. What is your computer name so I can remotely access from here?
User : (long silent) My computer name is samsung.
Me : (confuse) Your computer name is samsung? (ping samsung, got reply time out).
User : Yes, it written here samsung.
Me : Written where?
User : Here in my monitor.
Me : (big smile in the face) No, it’s not your computer name, is the brand of your monitor.
User : (silent) How do I know my computer name?
Me : No, it’s Ok. What is your email address? (I can found out his computer name from the server)
User : (silent) You don’t know my email address?
Me : (can’t help it, now I’m laughing) Sorry, who is this again?

It’s not happen everyday, but some times this kind of conversations do happen.