Tamta’s blog

Well well so long I haven’t been back to blogging (and I think I have good reasons for it) but this topic deserves a post anyway

My Thinkpad T43 is running clumsy after I tried some datawarehousing and BI stuffs on it. It’s good time for a HDD upgrade considering the cost for a new HDD (which is around a business dinner) and the urge to make a fresh reinstall of Windoze.

My first concern is to copy the pre-desktop partition of the OEM HDD to the new HDD and make it work with the blue ‘Access IBM’ button. I did some search on Google and came across with this article which seems to be interesting: http://tech.slupik.com/

Thinking it’s enough, I bought a Samsung 120GB disk from a retail store in Low Yat Plaza and rushed to the hotel room to begin my disk change process.

It didn’t work, simply because the post was intended for a T42 and mine is a T43 which has different config. Yeah that’s me, silly TT

Continue reading ‘Replacing HDD on Thinkpad T43’ »

Part one:

Geoff says: “You’re talking to yourself again TT”

“Clearly one symptom of insanity”

“But don’t worry yet”

“Until you begin replying to yourself!”

Part two:

It’s several days before Lunar new year, and you’re having heaps of things to do

You write a short email to your boss, telling him you’re gonna have one day off from work

You board the night bus to Dalat. Sunday night.

Monday morning you join with those people, younger stronger and more adventurous than you are

And go canyoning with them from 8AM to 5PM

Canyoning includes abseilling down a 20m cliff, letting yourself flown through a mini waterfall of about 1.5 metres high, abseilling again down a waterfall of about 15 metres high and ending with a free jump from the height of 8 metres. You’re a chicken-hearted guy, because the others jump straight from the top of the cliff, 15 metres high. SPLASH!

And take the Monday night bus back to the city, as you have a scheduled meeting Tuesday morning

There is one adjective in English to describe this.

That word can be found in the title of this post.

My first Linux experience is a Knoppix LiveCD. To be fair enough I’d say it is a PC-Linux experience because this poor handheld is also a Linux device by itself.

It’s nice, like the feeling you have when you find yourself first time in a big city abroad, and although things look strange they turn out to be rather easy. Without difficulties you can find out what you basically need: food, drink, cash exchange and Starbucks where you can get online:)

Beyond doubt it’ll take you quite a while to fully catch up with things and be that city’s citizen, but at first sight it gives you good feelings and a bit of confidence.. and overall you’re not badly homesick !

It’s probably late to say thank-you, but these people did influent me in 2006:

• Mike L. who shows me how a man should be assertive and what leadership is about. Probably too late as this dates back to 2005 but I’ve only recognized it recently. Shame he’s not here anymore
• Quynh H. who is an example of how people can succeed in a very simple and straightforward way. Kind-heartedness. Keeps me from being too bad!
• Giang N. who is a walking example of continous self-improvement. Latest move is that he’s getting into wearing the helmet while riding the motorbike!
• My younger sister who sweetly shows me how family members can be kind to each others
• The #vietlug community who open my eyes about how open source works and what the real geeks are like
• Beyond doubt there are more but I’ll do the same review in 2008 :)…

Thanks, thanks..

Things which always stun me:

• The revolving garden sprinkler
• Fingers of the guitarist playing
• The sea, behind a  curve
• The starry night
• Children’s eyes
• Deep-sea fishes
• Big feline animals

Another post from the handheld.

It is 4am and I’m waiting for my dad at the interprovincial bus station. The very last day of 2006. It must be cold in my hometown, somewhere in the highland and some 400 kilometres away from Saigon. It is difficult to locate that small town from wikimapia, and the weather is said to be around 10 degrees Celcius these day.

But here, in Saigon, it’s nothing like coldness. And there is no night at such places. Bike drivers waiting for late passengers from the arriving buses, coffee and food vendors keeping their shops lighted all night serving those people.. I just wonder whether these noctune citizens do sleep at all…they’re all looking so calm and enduring.

It is quite an inspiring scene, and this post would be several hundred words longer if my dad’s bus didn’t arrive a little earlier than expected. However here it comes and that’s it. See you again next year in the next post (hopefully from the next handheld!)

20061227 16h30: it comes to my mind that the existing host is about to expire, and I’ve had enough of it. Works OK inside Vietnam but horribly for visitors from outside…must do something

20061227 16h30: one of the old name comes to mind. Hostgator. Have chatted with ‘em several times…seems to be good guys. OK let’s do it.

Continue reading ‘Host transfer..’ »

I created the category ‘E680i’ quite a while ago but haven’t had a chance to post anything to it until now. First it’s because the ‘post’ function doesn’t seem to work with this Opera browser. Second there are plenty of other secondary reasons which are always good excuses to stay idle and not to do something.

However spending more than 1 hour everyday in a public bus may become extremely boring, unless you give up your seat to an old lady or some hot chicks which all ends up with standing along the way and rocking while the bus’ rolling on the bumpy roads.

Yep here it goes. It’ll be short posts, as I wont have more than 30 mins tapping on this poor Linux device. And it’ll be in English as I don’t bother to find any VN keypad for the E680i (I know just too well I’m no geek after talking to the #Vietlug people)

And I’m renaming the category to ‘From handhelds’ as I’m planning to switch to some wi-fied device in forseeable future!

The flight is at 10:30AM and luckily the waiting lounge is wifi - covered

So what’s on today?

VN becomes member of WTO

And nuclear and corruptions and politicians’ promises

And crimes which are most read

And the speaker saying something in Vietnamese, English and Mandarin

And me.. sitting here typing and waiting to join the queue… several minutes left

What are you doing on a Saturday afternoon?

You’re sitting in a cafe, listening to a female singer whose voice reminds you of Joan Baez.

You’re sitting in a cafe, watching members of the Linux user community chatting via IRC, and hate yourself because you don’t understand some of the things they’re talking about

You’re sitting in a cafe, trying to configure Joomla for your site, and find youself going nowhere. And that’s only Joomla, save Typo3!

You’re sitting in a cafe, your parents are hundreds of miles away, your siblings are struggling with life, your dear one is working and your friends are busy

You’re sitting in a cafe, and time is going by