Microsoft Excel Bug??

Don't mind me changing fonts for a few posts as I'm wondering which font I should stick my blog with since I'm quite fed-up with "Verdana" lately.

Interesting.... I got this piece of news that Microsoft Excel 2007 has a calculation bug from The Age as I was scouring for news from OZ-land. Anyway, I did try out the test and it did offer a glitch!!

Give it a go.

Test as follows,

1. 77.1 * 850
2. 10.2 * 6425
3. 20.4 * 3212.5

The answer provided by Excel 2007 is 100000. The correct answer should be 65535.

According to David Gainer's latest blog entry, this bug is being fixed and should be available as a patch, downloadable later. I'm not sure if it would be bundled with the normal "Patch Tuesday" round of patches, but we'll see. ;-)

And just to show you that I wasn't kidding, here's the screenshot I took a while ago...

Click on the image for a larger pic...

Looks like someone needs to teach Excel 2007 some maths? (^ ^)

PhotoShop... Photography Again!

I've been spending a lot of time at home, especially during the weekends since my knees need rest. So, I've been working on my other favourite past time - photography.

I've only got a small digital camera now - Nikon 5900 which is a 5MP camera. I'm learning how to use it but dream of one day owning a DSLR.

Before I forget, let me wish everyone a Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!! It's not Pesta Tanglung or Hari Tanglung... ( >.< ) The bouganvillas in the garden are blooming. Yeah, expected it to do so since the weather has been rather dry. We used to have the orange ones, I think those died. These are just grown on the ground.

I managed to capture a bit of sunlight reflecting off the water droplet on this bamboo plant leaf. The light was just shinning at the right direction. I do wish I got a bit closer but that might have ruined the shot.

This was my attempt of trying to capture "nature at work". There was a small black ant scurring across the birds-of-paradise plant. So, it's not clear. Hehehee....

This is probably one of my favourite shots because it has a lot of different colours and I managed to capture the light and shadows just cascading down the leaves. Kind of reminds me of a Windows Vista wallpaper. LOL!!!

This is my late grandpa's orchid. The one which he forbade us to touch. If you touch it, you will lose your life.

Everyone was not allowed to touch or play ball near this plant except for my little sis. My little sis could come and take the paper scissors (for kids) and cut some of the leaves and he won't say a thing. Hehehe... That's favouritism for you.

This plant now belongs to my dad.













The following photo is also my favourite. Probably because of the colours and shadow photography. Thank goodness it was a pretty hot day.

Heheehe... Another candidate for Windows Vista wallpaper? Kekekeek... Perasan-nya.. Kakakaak!!!

Of course, plants and flowers were not my only subject. Snoopy is also my "reluctant" camwhore. Muahahaahaa...

So sorry to do that to her. But she was wearing her "lampshade" after her operation. You got to admit, that's a very good way to transport your toys around. Kekekekekee...














Snoopy and her paws. My first attempt of putting up some perspective shot. Yes, fur does grow in between a dog's toes.











There's a reason why I put up both pictures side by side. I'd figure that this photo looked better in black-and-white, rather than coloured. I didn't modify the photo except to increase the brightness/contrast so that the pillar stands out more in the black-and-white photo. Needless to say, Snoopy looked "sexy" in this shot. Hahaahha!!!!!!

Kekeke... This is a lot more fun than my last post.

You Had 4 Days Rest...

2 minutes to go before Monday officially ends. Aren't we glad that we can finally put Monday behind us?

Well... I woke up to slightly stiff knees this morning and contemplated working from home... again. Sure, I thought about going off to work but the thought of driving through the long journey (even in my automatic car) for about 2hrs (to-and-fro), just about turned me off.

I've been battling my knees (sprained/swollen ligament) knees for nearly a month now. At first, I tried the knee support. It did help but there were good an bad days. With the knee guard, I drove off to work, also elevated my feet (alternate if for a day since I don't have stools or cushions to support) while working. So, for about 1/2 a day, I felt relief on one leg, while the other had some pain. I was supposed to get ice packs, where I'm sitting was too far away from the pantry to put my ice-pack. Hence, I did not do the ice treatment during the day.

I thought about taking LRT but recalled that I still have to do a lot of walking, worse still, I probably have to stand all the way along the whole 45-minute journey to/from work.

So, after about 1.5 weeks, I went to the physiotherapist to get some relief. I endured the pain for the rest of the working week until Saturday when I had my time off to go see her. After the session, I got some relief but I still could not walk down the stairs without wincing in pain. It was then that I found out that my knee ligaments were swollen as the physio felt some lumps at the inside-facing part of my knees. *Sigh*

The good thing was that my physio taught me some good knee exercises and I did it religiously. So much so that I hope that my knee and thighs are getting a workout despite me not going to the gym for a while.

This was when I did the mistake.

I went back and decided to apply heat therapy and there were times it worked, there were times it didn't. Whenever it did work, I felt relief from pain and also my knees were not stiff. For the last 2 weeks, I was still driving to work. I tried to avoid as much walking as possible but when you're at the office, you have no choice. You can't just ask your colleague to go get water and stuff for you. They're busy with work. Anyway, I should take care of myself.

Snoopy's "injured" as well..

Nope. I wasn't looking for any pity. I walked as much as I could, even when it was painful, I still kept cheerful.

So, right up until last Thursday, I went to work. I walked slower than any other person's grandma, drove slower than the 10-tonne lorry because my knee was in pain, and suffered the itchy side effects of having eczema because I was wearing the tubi-grip full-time. I decided to just work from home.

I was in pain. No painkillers for me. Don't want to rely on medicines too much.

I discussed insurance options with HR and found out that I still had to go back to the panel doctor for a recommendation letter. I hate panel doctors, especially the one nearby as the doctor didn't seem to care about the patients, only about how much he can earn from them. He drives a fxxking gold-coloured, 2-seater, Mercedes SLK. Go figure.

Anyway, I was rushing some stuff out and had to keep my @ss at home. So, despite the pain. I churned out something which hopefully satisfied the customer.

Finally, while my parents was at the pharmacist asking about something, they told him about my predicament. He prescribed some anti-inflammatory medication and gel for my leg. It worked.

Woo hoo... By Saturday, I could walk almost normally. Went out for a bit of lunch but dare not drive. Felt bad asking my Mom to drive me around when it should be the other way around. After that little outing, I was grounded for the rest of the weekend, just to rest my legs/knees.

Come Monday, I didn't want to risk going through the cycle of rest/stress on my knees again. I informed my team lead that I would like to work from home. He said that if it still hurts, I should go and see the doctor. He said something to the effect of "no", that the company frowns on the policy of working from home. He said that besides I had 4 days of rest.

WTF....

I went off to do some stuff and came back to tell him that I would be taking EL (Emergency Leave).

He said that he would let it slide this time.

*Sigh*

I stood my ground. If he had wanted to let it slide, he should have suggested it before I put up the suggestion of taking EL. I told him, it's ok, I'll just take the EL and went offline. I was supposed to be "resting".

Out of this whole entire thing, I've learned a few things:

1. I have small knees - hence the reason why I'm at the gym, working my @ss off despite a tiring day so that I lose weight.
2. Heat therapy worsens sprains. One should use cold packs always - apply for 15-20 minutes every 2-3hrs.
3. You know how well your company treats you when you get sick.
4. You know how well your boss feels about the team when you get sick.
5. You learn about your bosses' "principles" when you have problems such as these, i.e. do you have a boss who will fight for you or would rather advise you to not cause any trouble?
6. You learn how it feels like to be a person who is suffering leg problems or don't have legs at all.
7. If you have to wear a tubi-grip and you're an eczema sufferer, be prepared to tackle the eczema problem as well.
8. Never say, "At least you can get well over the weekend" when someone falls sick over the weekend. It doesn't sound cool, because nobody likes to get sick over the weekend and besides, aren't we allowed to utilize our sick leave days?

This post is really long... But its the entire story about my knees. Thanks for reading it, if you got this far. (^ ^)

It's almost time for me to get to bed as I have to get to work tomorrow. Wish me luck.

The Aunties Are Coming!!!

My knee is still screwed up. Am contemplating between using my own insurance or company's one.... Don't ask me why I'm thinking of it - all I can say is that one involves a lot of hassle, while the other is a bit more straightforward.

Anyway, I opened up my e-mail and got this message from our admin manager who forwarded some info from the building management...

Dear Tenants,

Please be informed that the forthcoming Isetan Sale is scheduled from
Friday, 21st September to Thursday, 4th October 2007. From previous
experience, we are expecting a large vehicle turnout, especially on the
first day of Sale (21st September, 2007).

Following the above, we wish to advise all season card holders to display
their season access cards to the Traffic Controllers on duty during the
sales period. This is to avoid inconvenience and unnecessary hassle to
access the Car Park on full capacity.

OMFG....

The "joy" of working in a building where there are departmental stores around.

I did get to work on a Friday to discover that the traffic had been diverted and that I had to jostle with the aunties for a parking slot. It sucked. It sucked monkey balls BIG time.

Hey, we regular Joe's and Joanne's got to work for a living, not like you aunties, who get to spend your $$$$ on a workday. So why don't you people go and park your expensive cars, SUVs and mini-SUVs at P3 or P4 and STAY THE FXXK OUT OF MY WAY????

*Sigh*... I'm pissy today as my knee is giving me pain. I'm not apologizing for b*tching about this.

:-)

Wow! I can't believe that this little ":-)" has turned a quarter of a century old.

Hehehe.. We tend to use it a lot in e-mails and during our chats. Heck, even my little chatbox has the smiley.

Anyway, Happy 25th B'day :-)!!!

It's an icon of the computing age. :-P

(^ ^)

Lunch Tapao (Packed Lunch)

I've been taking a break from the laptop for the weekend as I've got a lot of resting to do. (-__-)

My knees are still out from my over-indulgent gym exercises and I'm just lazy to setup the laptop in the living room to surf the Net and etc. In short, I was being a lazybum the entire weekend.

Anyway, my mom cooked a fantastic roast chicken last night and since we had some leftover, I decided to cook some pasta for my lunch ta-pao (packed) today.

It's nothing fantastic, just some simple roast chicken breast meat, white mushrooms, garlic, olive oil, parsley and tomato paste which transformed itself into this...

Kekekekeke.. Nice or not?

Anyway, it's been a while since I've ta-paoed something from home. At least I get a change of taste despite all the yummy stuff around my office area. Besides that, it's healthier as I can control the level of salt, sugar and oil in my ta-pao food. The only problem is... I'm too much of a lazy bum to just cook my lunch the night before.

Oh well, another Monday is about to close. I'm soooo relieved!!!!!!

I Need A Holllliiiidddaaaayyyy!!!!!

Me: Hi! My name is Angie and I'm a WORKAHOLIC. I've been a WORKAHOLIC since 1999.

Everyone: Hi Angie!

Hehehe.. I wonder if that is what it'll be like when there is a WA organization (Workaholics Anonymous). (^ ^)

Anyway, I was chatting with my team lead a few days back about a colleague who suddenly took a couple of days off just to clear leave.

Team Lead: Yeap, he took a Mon and Tues off to clear leave.
Me: oic
Me: i wonder how many days i got left.
Team Lead: Yeah, you should consider taking some time off.
Me: yeah.. i got 15 days. :-P
Team Lead: Hmmmm.. I've got about 17 days... :-)
Me: :-o

Image Source : here

Yep... I only managed to take 5 days off this year, that includes my emergency leaves. I've decided to allocate some time for EV so that she can torture get my help when she moves down to KL for good.

It is about time I took a small cuti-cuti as I've been working my @ss off ever since 2002. One acquaintance of mine used to berate me for not taking time off. Well, I've been "tied" up. If it is not about work, its the $. Time to save a bit of moolah for the nestegg, you know what I mean?

Nevertheless, I've given up some time for my parents too as they want to travel to some place but need someone to look after the dog and house. This, I don't mind since they've worked hard all their life in bringing us up.

Now, I'm thinking of a small trip either with a few friends to get to a few places. Or, a trip to somewhere I can take my dog too. (^ ^)

Currently, on my list this year is....

1. Melbourne/Tasmania - visit kawan2 n relatives
2. Korea
3. Cuti-Cuti Mahrasia (Malaysia)

Kekekee.. Now, I've got to figure out where I want to go and also figure out how much $ I can spare. :-P

Oh no... I've neglected Snoopy's blog. I'd better do something.

The Penguin Meets The Oracle

I've not done a technical post for a looonnnnngggggg time.

It is high time that I write something geeky as I am a big geek after all. (^^)

Anyway, I've been dying to try my hand in installing Oracle on Linux. I always came close but due to some hardware limitation, I ran into a lot of problems. What to do when you're given a machine which only has the capability to run MySQL and you're asked to install Oracle??

Oh well, my torture weapons of choice today are as follows,

1. CentOS 5 - A open source version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5
2. VMWare Server 1.0 - My virtualization software so that I run this off my laptop
3. Oracle 9i (9.2.0.4) for Linux x86

I began life by creating a new virtual machine and installing CentOS. The Linux installation went pretty smooth but as usual, I had to customize a few services and software to be installed - development libraries which you always need as some software depends on it.

Anyway, do take note that unlike the Windows installation, Oracle requires that for *nix based systems, some pre-installation steps need to take place. Note: Although the steps were outlined for RHELAS3, the pre-install steps are pretty relevant. Do check out the Oracle Installation Guide for more information.

However, since I'm running CentOS 5, naturally, a few things need to be changed or else you'll run into some library issues.

1. Change the LD_ASSUME_KERNEL environment variable in the user oracle's profile to match the current version of your kernel by running the command "uname -a". Edit the oracle user's ".bash_profile" file.

LD_ASSUME_KERNEL = 2.6.18; export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL

2. Create a symbolic link for the libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2 to your server's current version of libstdc++
ln -s /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6.0.8 /usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2

3. Install the libXp library as this caused a lot of funny issues with my installer.
yum install libXp

NOTE: Ensure that you are "root" when executing the commands.

4. Create the libcwait.so file as follows
- Ensure that you are "oracle" user
- Ensure that gcc is installed by issuing the "locate" command.
- Create a file called "libcwait.c" in the home directory
- Enter the following content and save it.

#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
pid_t
__libc_wait (int *status)
{
int res;
asm volatile ("pushl %%ebx\n\t"
   "movl %2, %%ebx\n\t"
   "movl %1, %%eax\n\t"
   "int $0x80\n\t"
   "popl %%ebx"
   : "=a" (res)
   : "i" (__NR_wait4), "0" (WAIT_ANY), "c" (status), "d" (0),
     "S" (0));
return res;
}

- create the environment variable LD_PRELOAD as follows at the commandline

export LD_PRELOAD=/home/oracle/libcwait.so

- compile the file as follows
gcc -o -shared $HOME/libcwait.so -O -g $HOME/libcwait.c

Once this is complete, you may run the Oracle Universal Installer from Disk1 of the installation directories.

All hail the penguin God... **Ohhhhmmmmmmmm**

P/S: Unfortunately, I ran out of diskspace in the virtual machine before I could even install the software. I've got to move some stuff around before I can start my Oracle install. Oh well.....

UPDATE: The LD_PRELOAD variable should be entered in the oracle user's profile.

Ethical Entrepeneurship

I just got news that Anita Roddick, the founder of BodyShop has just passed away yesterday.

She struck me as an inspiration as someone who was an ethical entrepreneur who not only started her own business but was able to use her business as a platform for world issues such as environmental concerns, women's issues and children's causes.

When BodyShop first opened in M'sia, I was rather excited since I was interested in the environment to learn that there is a cosmetics establishment which cared for the environment. The shop was different as the staff explained that the products were not tested on animals and that they do not encourage people to take a bag when they bought things unless necessary. My mom used to go back to the shop to get refills on some of the products as they encouraged recycling.

Later on, my sis joined their organization and she told me that the staff were shown videos of how animals were slaughtered for cosmetics products as well as how animal testing was conducted. She said many people had tears in their eyes after watching the video.

Anyway, it is heart-warming to note that there are entrepreneurs out there who feel that their business can give back to the community. Certainly, she is not one of the first business leader who became a philantrophist but she used her business as a platform to spread awareness and fight against world issues.

God Bless Her and her family.
Note: this entry was written in green as it is a green post.

Image source: here

Look Ma, My Photosh.. Photo-Taking Skills Has Improved...

As usual, I can always rely on my regular camwhore, Snoopy to provide me with some interesting shots.

Somehow, alot of humans these days are not very keen on having their photos taken. They look at me like I'm some wanna-be Papparazi. -_-"

In this case, I'm Snoopy's "Puppy-razi" since I take a lot of her photos. But I know she doesn't mind.

Snoopy: Don't hate me for being beauuutifoool...

My garden isn't really big but it's so easy to create the illusion of a large garden just by adding some perspective to it, hor??

Anyway, with my photoshop, photo-taking skills, I managed to put that same photo up for Snoopy's blog. She was really feeling a bit sulky that day.

Heehehehe.. Her pic does look good on Black-n-White. Probably because her body has got a balance of black and white. My favourite medium was black-n-white but that was during the pre-digital camera days. Rolls of films were so precious that you have to rethink a few times on the shot you're about to take.

Hehehe... Snoopy does give some really cute shots.

Here she is, doing her "howling" thing. She likes to howl at a particular newspaper man who comes by the house every morning.

While the neighbours dogs will howl at every Old Newspaper truck which passes by, Snoopy is selective.

The maltese at the other side does not howl but only barks at the Newspaper man who delivers newspapers every morning. Something about motorcycles must irritate that little guy.




Oh well.. these days my photoshopping photo-taking is more focused on non-human subjects (other than Snoopy - she's partly human), i.e. plants/scenery/food.

But i really like to work on my macro shots. Heheehe...

Nevertheless, I've still got a long way to go. Especially when I've got more features to play on my camera.

The only thing which I wish to have is a Vibration-Reduction (VR) since I've got such shaky hands. I'm planning to get a little tripod but lazy to bring it around unless I'm going somewhere nice.

Note: All the photos were edited by Picasa2 and PhotoFiltre... heee heeee

Boss, We Got a Small Problem...

Heheehe... I'm finally done with Wednesday.

Anyway, anothe rvideo... Imagine if you have to tell your boss that you encountered a problem..





Heheehe... I'm nursing a bad headache. Damn, I need some sleep.

Your First Day At Work...

I still haven't had time to compile my thoughts for some real "serious" blog entries.

Anyway, continuing my forray into work-related stuff. Imagine you are at your first day at work...

You notice some stuff about the boss/colleagues/environment.

You attend your orientation - if you have any....

Anyway, hope tat your first day isn't like this video.




Meanwhile... Have a great Wednesday! Two days more to go!!!!

What If Your Boss Ask You To Do This Every Morning?

I'm bored. I can't say that. I'm supposed to be working on some very important documents.

Anyway, my colleague sent me a video some time back.

It sure was funny. Take a close look at the "girl".

This activity which this Phillipines prison imposes on its inmates has gotten some acclaim as witnessed in the news here.

I can't imagine if my bosses started asking us to do this as our morning activity before we start work everyday. (o____0)

Anyway, back to work for me... *sigh*

Oh!! For the Love of... @#!!@#$!#!@!!!!!

You betcha.. This is another rant.

I was all geared up to post a couple of things like Snoopy's birthday but nooooooooooo... Tmnet had to make sure that their lines was down and sh*t.

WTF

I pay RM88 each month so that I can say "I pay Tmnet to screw me each month..."

*Sigh*....

I'm having sh*tload of problems even just surfing the local sites. Don't even get me started on the international links. So, for those of you who relocated your sites to overseas servers - good choice. Your readers may still visit your site, but for those who hosted locally, tough luck. They may encounter problems accessing the local servers here as once they get into the M'sia network, the network probably is too busy to entertain requests.

Not sure where the problem lies, i.e. the network equipment, people, process or brains. My guess is all of the above.

Anyway, got word that there was will be a lot of disruptions due to upgrade work as mentioned in Liewcf.com but then, it's 7 days ago?? Isn't there a dependency in your little project plan to state that if a particular site did not pass the user acceptance test, i.e. customers not experiencing connectivity/internet problems that you should not go on to the next task in the plan???

What kind of stupid project management is Tmnet following??? My guess is, their project plan probably consists of a long line with just two milestones - start and end.

*Sigh*... I'll just have to hang tight until it gets better.

But wait a minute. When has the connection EVER got better after ANY upgrade??