MacBook 13"

I've just bought a new MacBook on the last weekend. Now I have configured to use it under Microsoft Environment at my office. Here's the things that I did.

1. Use Directory Service utility to connect to the Active Directory
2. Configure the Entourage to connect to Exchange Server
3. Access to DFSRoot shared drive and created an Alias on the Desktop for fast accessing
4. Connect shared print server. I have no problem connecting to shared HP printers, but cannot find the driver for Fuji Xerox printer.

The Mac can be used under Microsoft environment eventhough its not that smooth, but it's acceptable.

I'm glad I can survive.

Loy Kra Thong

November 12 is Loy Krathong day in Thailand this year. Loy Kra Thong is a festival in Thailand where once a year that you apologize and pay respect to the mother river for having us use water to wash, clean, and drink all year round. We make flower bouquet from banana stem and decorate it with flowers and banana leaves.

My son and I went to a canel behind our house to float the Kra Thong. My son was pround as his Kra Thong was the most beautiful Kra Thong on the whole canal.

.......

Of course, his Kra Thong was the only one in the canal.

Around half the world in October

Amazing things happened to life. I had just finished traveling half the world in two weeks. First, I went to a Knowledge Management for Public Sector conference in London, England. Stay there for 4 nights and came back to Bangkok. Later in the following week, I had to go to Perth, Australia for a similar conference. Then had to rushed back to travel to Samui Island with family.

London is just the same as the London that I went 10 years ago. This time I had a chance to go to a play, "Momma Mia". It was fun. I was ripped of by buying the CD album of the play at 14 Quid, just to find out that the same CD is on sale at HMV shop (just across the theater) at 2 for 10.

England trip was quite fun. I remembered the first time I was in England (1978) ABBA was on the hit chart. Now I cane back 30 years later, ABBA was still evolving around me.

Perth was so boring. at 5:00 PM everything was closed. My conference ends at about 4:30 PM every afternoon. So I only had 30 minutes shopping. Nothing much to see either. I stayed at Holiday Inn hotel right in town. The hotel gave me a feeling of staying at hospital. All the toilet bowl and shower with stainless handrail which is very common in a hospital was used here.

On the second day of the stay, I went to Freemantle, a port just down south from Perth with old settlement and historic building of the early sttler of Perth. The seafood was great. I would be a lot better if I should have brought along the Thai spicy seafood source to go along with.

<See Picture about PERTH for explanations>

Samui Island, in Surathani, Souther Thailand, was fun. We stayed at a 5 star hotel. It's a very lovely 3-bedroom apartment with a view to private beach, located just miles from district area. I just had my world away from hectic life. I a great month for me actually.

New fun for kids

I found this on a weekend at a shopping mall near my place. It's a cool idea. Kids with bubbles are born for one another. This time kids are in bubbles. It's rather a clever idea. They made a big ball with big zip so a child could go in. Then the air is pumped into the ball. Then the ball is rolled into a small pool.

With this simple idea, kid could have lots of fun. They make lots of money too.

Our Iceberg Is Melting?

I had just finished reading this book. It's truly funny and very educative. Now you learn about the change management process.

The story is just a fable about a flock of penguin who live their lives happily on an iceberg for quite a long time. They had no fear or no awareness and always think their home is the safest place in the world. Until one day, a little penguin, named Fred, had notice something that lead to the future catastrophe if something is not done to prevent or avoid it. So he informed the Leadership Council.

They all agreed somethings need to be done, but what....

Well, it just a fun reading and I think it's a must for any organization to read and prepare as their place will never be safe forever.

I would give John Kotter a 5 stars for this book.

Two books during weekend

You wouldn't beleive what I just did. I finished two books during the weekend. They are both about Knowledge Management.

The first one is "The Lost Knowledge" by David W. DeLong. It's about the loosing of staffs through retirements as well as other means. It's unbelievable to know the truth that NASA had already forgotten how they put the man on the moon in the first place. The knowledge was lost due to the suspension of Apollo projects and the Baby Boomer are retiring from NASA. The book is worth reading. It gives you many techniques in retaining knowledge before it's too late, including the way to retrieve the lost knowledge.

The other is "The Corporate Blogging Book" by Debbie Weil. It's really every aspect of putting Blog into your organization. It give tips on how to write a good blog and the rule of thumb of what the blog will brings when deploying it. A web2.0 deployment enabler must read.

Mickey Mouse Fish

So there were two fished survived. I guess the root cause was from the insufficient oxygen level in the fish tank. We then decided to buy more. This time we bought the Mickey Mouse Fish instead.

We were trying to buy the Burn-Tail Rose fish just like before, but the seller said all the fish was not well. I saw only a few left in the tank comparing to last week that we bought them. Another assumption is that the fish may not be well at the time we bought them last week. So they died.

About the Mickey Mouse fish, we were wondering where the name were from. But if you look closely at the bottom of the tail, you would know why it was named Mickey Mouse. Look at the black spot and see for yourself. You'll understand what I mean.

Fish keeps dying

Bad news. The new fishes that we had from the weekend start dying again. Last night 6 of them died.

I decided to clean the fish tank and replace the water without using any medicated solutions. I moved the tank to outside the room just to avoid the temperature drop during the turn-on of air-cond.

Still bad news. Another 5 died. Now all my suspicious go to the oxygen. The seller told me that the water filtering machine was enough to put oxygen into the tank. One of the fish jumped out of the tank to die. I beleived this was from the lack of air.

So I asked my son to go and buy an Oxygen pump this morning. We will see how it goes. Hope I picked the right thing to solve the problem.

Fish in the AV Room

Last weekend, we bought the whole set of fish tank and accessories. We had a school of fish. The Neon fish was a little fish from Amazon river in South America. The seller sold us many of the chemicals to use with the fish.

During the first few days, the fish survived well. We raised them in the living room where we turn on the air-cond. a few hours a day in the evening. However, our fish start to die. So we went to consult the seller again. They just sold us a few more anti-bacterial and the anti-chlorinated solution. the next day after the dropping of those chemical, all of our neon fish died. The whole school.

The seller was surprised as they were in business for over 20 years and never found such thing like that. They agreed to replace the whole school. We decided to switch the fish to the burn-tail Rose fish (I might be wrong on the name as I translated it from Thai name.)

This time I also install the thermometer to see how the temperature swing during the day and during the cooling time with air-cond. The fish is living hapily. The seller still insist to use those chemicals. I did it carefully. No overdose. Use precise droplet and measurement.

Singapore Flyer

I just had a chance to visit Singapore for the Comunique Asia forum. Nothing much to say about the exhibition. On the freeday before flying back, I just had a chance to visit the new Singapore Flyer. It's located in the Marina bay area. Just see the picture for yourself for the explanation.

4 Phrang Again

Now it really happened. Last night my son just went to seeprang.com to see the trailer of the movie. It's his curiosity that did it all.

He saw the trailer of the four short movies. He put up the hand to cover his eyes and at the end he admitted that he was scared. He asked to sleep with me for a night. I knew that he was so scared. Yeb. He couldn't sleep. That made me awake as well.

He promised that he will never ever want to see that movie again.

Jenifer Kim's Concert and 4 Phrang

Last weekend, I got a free ticket for Jenifer Kim Concert. It's been a while that I haven't seen JFK sing. She is an excellent singer. She is a talented. Anyhow, in Thailand, if you are not attractive, it's so hard to become popular even you have a hard-matching quality of your voice.

The concert started at 7:00 PM and end at 11:30. She was an excellent performer. I've never gone to any concert that play this long hour. Anyway, time just passed. We all enjoy it so much. She sang about 40 - 50 songs in medley.

The part that make the concert so enjoyable were the guests. They all are actors, Musicians, and a comedian. The conversation on stage was not scripted. It came out that instance. My friend confirmed that after a few rounds of concert going.

"4 Phrang" is the name of a movie. It's a combination of 4 short films into one. 4 Different stories from 4 different directors. 4 Phrang in Thai means 4-way intersection. The stories are about ghosts of different incidents. I didn't see it really. And why I'm putting it here? It's because my son, Pun Pun. He is at the age where curiosity about ghost play the part. He love to listen to ghost stories and tell friends about it. Is he scare? Surely he is, up his vein.

He has been told by his friends about the stories of the 4 Phrang movie. So he wished to see it. He would be scared of course. But I have never seen his strong ambition like this. He asked me to take him to the movie. He knew that his mom will not allow him to do so. So he asked me instead as he know that I always be his rely on part. He did not like to take swimming lesson, but this time he told me to take him to the theater after his swimming lesson. He even asked if I could take a day off on Monday to take him to the movie.

Of course I didn't take him to the movie. I told him to pick a scary ghost movie we have at home and watch one first. And if he could do it without his eyes close and can stay alone in his bed room, I'll take him to that movie. He pleaded to start watching a ghost cartoon first. If he could watch Billy & Mandy alone from cartoon network channel, he is proved to be brave enough to go the the real ghost movie.

Ban Sansuk

During the last weekend long holiday, my family and I went to Huahin, a beautiful seaside place where we always go. We usually go there 3-4 times a year with length of stay for 4-5 day each time. It's always a family place and we are so familiar with the surrounding and neighborhood. We always stayed at different hotels by the sea or friend's condominium.

My wife and I saw an advertisement about a new condominium project and decided to give it a visit. We talked to the sales girl and become very much interested in buying a unit. We all brought back the information and slept on it discussed with all family. We finally decided to buy a 2-bedroom unit.

The name of the project is "Ban Sansuk", which means the house with thousands of happiness. It has eight buildings. The unit that we decided to buy is on the fifth floor of the eighth building. It has 80 Sq. m. with two bed room and two bath room, plus a kitchen and dining room.

The project will finished in two years. From then on our family will finally own a place for our regular holiday without check-out time.

Forgot to tell you. The cost of that apartment is 7 million bath (225,000 USD). It's so damn expensive , isn't it. Of course we had shopped around looking for the same class living units around Huahin area. This is the most reasonable price condominium with trustworthy management. The property manages by San Siri, a welknown property management group with hundreds of projects around Bangkok and a few in Huahin itself.

Trip beyond the sea level-Siam Ocean World

I took my son to Siam Ocean World at Siam Paragon Shopping Mall, Siam Square, right in the very heart of Bangkok. It's my second time already and it's my son's fourth. He loves aquarium so much. He had a dream of being an animal ecologist, especially marine. He asked what it take to be a marine biologist, I told him that he need a Ph.D. in that and would take 5 years to make a Ph.D. He said he would be too lazy and asked if he could do it in three. This is what a three grader thought.

The Aquarium is the biggest in South East Asia with a lot of fishes from many region of the world, including Amazon and the Antarctic. It also features many extra shows, such as, the glass-bottom boat, the fish feeding, the magic show underwater, and the 4-D movie.

Pictures above explain it all. See for yourself.

Lucky Kiss

My son is now craze on cards. We play Poker every evening. His mom told him that kissing daddy brings good luck. So every evening, he give me a long deep kiss on the cheek. True it works like charm. He always wins on me with his lucky hands.

iMac at home

Last week was the long weekend holiday in Thailand. It's Songkran day where it was supposed to be the hottest days in the year and people started to go out on the street and played water fight. All soaked and wet. Many people just took this chance to go out to the suburb. Traffic was so damn bad out of Bangkok.

I decided to stayed home enjoying the traffic free in Bangkok. You will experience this just twice a year on Songkran and the Newyear holiday.

I decided to buy a 24" iMac for me and the kids to play around with. It's the third Mac that I had in years. The first one was the Mac SE (The first 32 bit machine) that I bought back in my collage years. The second one was the very first iMac (the triangular-shaped screen monitor). Now I have the Leopard.

My 8 year old son was so excited. After unboxing and plugging on to the Internet, my son start playing around with it. From just a few minutes demo at the store, my son could edit a movie within the first hour of his experience with Mac. He found the small camera that are embedded on top of the screen and start video recording his picture doing some drastic acts. He recorded it for a 2 minutes video. I then had it synced to my Apple TV and the rest of the house start enjoying his first video.

The next day, I started doing the wiring for my in-house LAN cables. I really do not like the reliability of WiFi at all. My Apple TV has network connection problem using WiFi. Every time it goes idle (after not using it for a day or two), the connection just go off and can not resume unless reboot. I finally got back to the old conventional way of cabled network. Now I have a small LAN in my house with NAS box for file sharing. Probably I can start exploring the Time Machine features of the Mac pretty soon.

Abu Dhabi

Last week, I went to a conference in Abu dhabi, UAE. I spent 2 nights at The Beach Rotana Hotel. It is a five star hotel and probably the most precious one in Abu Dhabi. The whole things in Abu Dhabi was built. It was amazing to see how money can do the changes. Everything there is man-made, the beach, the sea, the tree, the poolside. They are all made up. the restroom is so grand.

The weather was not that hot. It's just about the same as in Bangkok in mid-summer. I believe it will go a lot hotter in May or June.

Next to the hotel is a large shopping mall. It's called Abu Dhabi Mall. It a very modernize with all the brand-name shops. We dine there everyday at the food court. There are many nice shops but prices are slightly higher than in Bangkok. It was good that the money still remained in my pocket.

One thing nice about Abu Dhabi is that the grocery mart is so big and you can find a lot of things from around the world. I bought back many Kilos of Pitasschio and cashew nut. They both tastes so delicious.

The only airline from Bangkok is Etihad. Abu Dhabi is the central hub for Etihad. The airport is small and not so busy as Dubai. The shops there is quite alright. It look a bit old, but I'm sure in the future, it will just as big and busy as Dubai.

iPhone Unlocking

Since Monday, I have been busy working with my iPhone. I decided to upgrade my firmware from 1.1.1 to the newer 1.1.3. With the existing of ZiPhone unlocking software, it really makes the unlocking work a piece of cake. I have been hesitating for the upgrade for quite a while as my 1.1.1 version was stable. Anyway, my boss and colleagues who had just went to America, also bought back many 1.1.3 OTB iPhone. As I always was a point to ask when they have IT problem, I decided to upgrade my phone so that I can talk the same language with them.

The process begins with upgrading the firmware to a new 1.1.3 version using the downloaded file. I had prepared my PC to have .net framework and the ZiPhone 2.5C. After upgrading, I then run ZiPhone with option to "Do it All". That's it. My iPhone is unlocked and are cable to run AIS GSM services.

Another day is spent resuming all software and settings to bring it back to the prior state before the upgrade. I found a lot of obstacles as the newer version is not fully backward compatible with the older ones.

Finally I managed to have all software and services back to normal. There are many steps and add-on runtime-based software to run. I have to thanks to all the iPhone user communities that really help supporting on these issues. The power of people are unbelievable. Who would think a small anonymous talents out there could change the close system like this.

Now I can enjoy a wider range of software that are available for the phone like never before.

Before Bagrak Soi 9 On Stage

Last Saturday, I went to see "Before Bangrak Soi 9 on Stage" (ก่อนจะเป็นบางรักซอย9) a drama of the sitcom sequel hit "Bangrak Soi 9" of Thai Channel 9 TV. As being a true fan of this series, I have been watching and collecting all of its VCD since episode 1. Now the series come up to year 5 already. I wouldn't miss a chance like this.

It a pre-sequel story of the before becoming the show on TV. It's a story of the two person, "Chadjane and Khun Pang" that they both actually met (on the old fashion technology of chatting by using paper-based mail" and fell in love without even met. The story gave clues on why "Ah Tu" (Khun Page's father become a henpecked (กลัวเมีย), How Chadjane became the boyfriend of "Miew", and How Chajane ended up renting a house from "Na Yao".

It's a fun and relax weekend of mine. The shows delivered what I expected. However, all the comedy gag was from the script, I still enjoy it. Some says it's a bit dull as the scene progressed too slowly. Some say it's very predictable. Any how, it's still a good way to let go of the stress.

One thing that struck me from the story was that the house where "Khun Pang" and her family was staying in Soi 19 was conceded by a bank before moving to another house in Soi9. But according to the main theme of Bangrak Soi 9, the house they are living in the series belonged to her grandfather who was a high ranking officer in the reign of the old king, not just a recently moved in.

Malaysia 2008

I had just returned from a training in Malaysia. This time I stayed at the Equatorial Hotel. It's quite an old hotel comparing to the newer ones around. It's right on the Jalan Sultan Ismail road (actually Jalan means the road itself), and just about 5 minutes walk to Lot10 and Sunkaiwan shopping area.

I was there for two nights. The first of my night, I just took a walk to find some groceries for my late arrival snack. I realized that the hotel was situated next to the KL's red light street. Yeb, many of the transvestite just go out hunting on the street, yelling at the passer by, especially the foreigners. Luckily, I look like a native Malaysian, or I'm not their type. They didn't pay much attention to me. Anyhow, it scared me.

The second evening after the training, I decided to take a walk toward the Lot10 department store. it was much nicer. I just found a new shopping center that was not there when I was in KL last year. Too bad, I did not notice the name. It is right after Lot10. It is a big, new, and beautiful establishment. There are many brand mane shops all over. Of course, it didn't draw any money out of my pocket. I just went for a dinner there.

I didn't take any picture at all this time. It was a very short two-day training trip. On the last day, I have to rush to the airport for to catch my flight. As you may know, the airport is somewhat an hour drive and you'll never know what the evening traffic would be like to get to the nearest highway. I made it comfortably two hours before the flight. I noticed a slight change at the airport. There are more shops. Some old one dissappear. More of the brand name stuffs. I went looking for the bookshop. It was right at the same old place, but took me almost an jour to find it.

That was a brief trip of me during the past weekend. I hope to come back to Malaysia again for another training, but may not be this year.

Suan Nok Chan-The final episode

As mentioned in the last Suan Nok Chan, this week, we will finised things off by getting everything in place. We went to Jatujak Flea Market agin on Sunday to buy additional stuffs. We bought a few more of the plants. We also bought the wooden fence to mark the edge line for the swing-out door, and also other necessary tools like trimming scissor for the leaves trimming.

We also re-wired the fountain so that the operation of it can be controlled by an on-off switch. Of course safety comes first. Before doing works with electrical parts, we cut off the main circuit before doing any work. I also bought the water-resistant connection box as all the wiring connection will be reside in the wet area. The box was sealed. The entrance and exit of the wire are also sealed with Silicone. The system is then hooked up to a switch. Now the turing on and off of the fountain is done by the switch. It really make my garden free from busy wire and look a bit nicer.

My son planted the newly bought plants to the garden. Some of them are flowers some of them are leave plants. We both help one another to set up the fence line to mark the edge of the door path. So everytime we open the door to access to the garden, we won't be interfered with the loose rock anymore.

Finally my son named the garden, "Sukhothai". It means "hapiness heart". We had the sign made and we put up a little ceremony of hanging the sign. Now our little garden of hapiness heart is finished.

Suan Nok Chan

Over the weekend, My wife, my son, and I decided to use our little space on the balcony to be useful. We decided to make our own skytop garden.

The balcony is on the 3rd floor just under the roof of our house. We have the area of roughly 2.20 x 1.80 m. with swing out door and the shelf for the air-cond. compressors. It's not really big but it was used for nothing.

We decided to go to Jatuchak Park, a wellknown weekend flee market that has everything to be sold, esp. pets and plants. With very little idea on how our garden would look, we get help from the plant seller there. We stop at a little shop that has many beautiful plants. We went to see the owner of the shop and told her what we wih to do with our little space. She was so reluctant to help at the first place as the space is too small for a professional work on gardening design. But finally after some explaination of what we expected, she decided to help selecting the suitable plants, but we still have to buy the extra sundries for the garden ourselves.

We then went to another shop to buy the fountain jar with water spring, and another shop for the wooden fence and patio path. Next day, the lady at the plant shop delivered all the plants as she described. She then help arranging to put all the plants in place.

We used all the indoor plants that have the good meaning by their names. "Chon Ngern" (Silver Spoon) and "Chon Thong" (Golden Spoon) are the two main big plants in the area, trimmed the edge by "Bhuda Flower" and small "Phillipino Bamboo". Our garden turned out like the one in the picture on the left. Now our house is much more beautiful.

Knowledge cafe', KM the IBM version

Yesterday, I had the chance to attend David Gurteen's workshop session conducted by IBM on Knowledge Management. David's session was brief and took only a few minutes, but worth the attendance, while the rest of the day talk was for IBM to sell their products.

Anyhow with David's session, I gain a lot on the KM body of knowledge. Many interesting questions arises during the sessions including.

1. The quality of context from the open collaboration community.
2. The comparison of KM1.0 and 2.0 (based on Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0), and more...

David believes that KM is about conversasion. It's the conversation that drives business to evolve. It's the conversation that make the topics more understandable. It's the conversation that make Knowledge Sharing possible. His pragmatic approach is then based on conversation. He had spent over 30 years developing software for collaboration. And the collaboration software is the heart of KM.


David mentioned that there are two forms of KM.

1. Techno-Centric
2. People-Centric

Techno-Oriented has to do with

• management of unstructured information
• Database search for context

People-Centric deals with personal KM with the following tools.

• Community of Practice (CoP)
• After Action review (AAR)
• Peer Assist
• Story Telling
• Knowledge Cafe'
• Opensources

With social tools people are allow to contact one another, to share knowledge, to exchange things, etc. Many tools for social exchanges for example, Blog, WiKi, Bookmarking & Tagging, Social Network Community, RSS, Podcast, Mashup (IBM term to combine portlets into a portal page).

The Knowledge Management facts.

• KM is everybody's job (not a corporate function).
• Knowledge is no longer controlled centrally. Ownership and control is distributed through the organization.

The social object is the topic of discussion. The social network is the collection of social objects.

KM is about understanding --> Making better decision --> Improve innovation

Understanding can be made through conversations.

Knowledge Cafe' is when a group of people get together to have an open, creative conversation, to share ideas & to gain new understanding of the issues.

Daniusoft Ripped DVD with Sound Out Of Sync

I had a hand on Daniusoft DVD ripping software just last month. You can refer to my blog in December 2007. At that time I found Daniusoft an intriguing software to rip DVD for AppleTV. I was wrong. I found lot of problem on many DVD tilte to appear with sound out of sync to the picture. I had contact thier support. An agent named Alex had responded. I gave them as much details as possible. Now their support turn to silence. I haven't heard from them again since. My problem is still not solved.

Luckily, I just came across a new free software, called HandBrake. It a good DVD ripping software with output to many device format ranging from iPod to AppleTV. The output picture and sound quality are excellent. I get full display on my wide 16:9 Plasma screen. However, the interface is not at all attractive. It requires some understanding about the Display ratio. I am impressed with the solution. esspecially its free. Thanks to the development team. They really made the world a bit nicer to live on.

Khaoyai

It's been awhile away from blogg. I did so many things during the new year holiday. Most of them are nonsense, but yet one of the best new year ever. I got to stay home with my boy doing the father-son things. It's a wonderful time of life to see him grow. Arguing with him over cartoons and pets.

Last weekend, I decided to take a fatherhood off and play golf with friends. It was a long time since my last grabbing the golf club and go out and play. Yeb. The score turned bad. Two of my friends and I went out for golfing in Khaoyai, 200 Km away from Bangkok.

We start our day with golfing at Voyage Panorama. The course is beautiful. Lots of Korean golfers. We manage to get a good start It was fun. I got a Birdie. It was a reward for a long break. Anyway, the second day ws different. We went to Friendship Meadows. The course was badly ruined. The green was excellent. Quite contradict, isn't it. Yeb. I got late 50 for the last 9 hole. My drive shot was not working at all. The travelling and short play was still good. Putting was alright. But I got punished a lot from driving outrageous and loos a lot of dropping points.

Anyhow, we decided to stay at a newly opened cottage called "Bann Ing Dao" (leaning agains the star cottage). We had a great time finishing our Vodka talking about old time.

For sure, next year we will come back for golfing at Khaoyai again.