Kent J. Chen's WebLog

I believe most of people who have been using computer for a certain amount of time have encountered or even suffered this damned never end computer malware, either being a direct victim or being asked to fix it. Finding the better way and the better tool to fight with it seems to have become an inevitable mission to everyone who uses the computer, me included. And for that reason, here are 10 ways to detect computer malware from 10 things that came in quite handy, listed in 3 main…

Not sure exactly when, but just noticed that Google has this new 411 service that you can use for free, though it’s only available in US and Canada, and for business listing only at the moment.

Simply, you can just follow the 4 steps shown in the picture above and GOOG-411 will connect you with the business you choose.

Better, if you are calling from a mobile phone, GOOG-411 can even send you a text message with more details and a map by simply saying “text message” or “map it”.

Sounds pretty sweet.

Check the

Jeff Atwood originally posted a question on the new launched Super User asking what your favorite harmless computer practical joke is, which turned out getting almost 200 creative answers as of now. When I say creative, they are indeed creative, full of imagination crazy jokes that are totally harmless but would make you laugh to death.

Prank #1

At work we once put on someones unattended laptop computer:

Outlook Rule that went something like this:

when receive email with subject ‘duh’

• delete email

• launch the calculator

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You probably have noticed that I just added a widget in every post that automatically shows some related posts, the picture above is one example from one of my posts.

I didn’t actually write any code for this. All I used is to subscribe the service from an online web app, named LinkWithin. I came across it from other blog the other day and couldn’t help but try it out almost instantly.

So why I need it in the first place? Well, the home page of LinkWithin summarized pretty well:

First, don’t let your past stories

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If you have ISA server running as security firewall in your office you might want to give this freeware from GFI a try. More specifically, if you want to monitor who is browsing the internet and downloading files in your organization in real time.

GFI WebMonitor™ for ISA Server boosts employee productivity by giving you control over what users are browsing and downloading in real-time. Research by IDC shows that up to 40% of employee internet access is non-work related. As a network administrator, you need the tools that enable you to have complete web monitoring and internet

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Here are the 10 tips from 10 things over on TechRepublic, which you may find useful if being a boss is one of your career goal. Some of them may be different from the traditional way of being a leader but you may find that might be the way that’s should be.

1. Become a small picture kind of boss
2. Nuke the blackberry when at home
3. Stop treating vacation as an option
4. Improve the preparation for hiring new players
5. Develop your memory, (that’s a good one, it’s so

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I came across this article today that mentioned a new subscriptions business model that is used on FT.com, a model that:

I like the subscription model the FT has been using for some time now. I may get the exact details wrong but its the idea that’s important anyway. You can visit the ft.com domain something like nine times per month for free. They cookie you and when you stop by the tenth time in a month, they ask you to pay. And many do.

While I am not a typical marketing guy who…

I was trying to add a RSS feed in my sidebar on this blog the other day. And because this blog is powered by ASP.net I have to write a control page that pulls the feed in XML and render them to the page. I thought it was a simple task that only needs a few lines of code to make it work, until I get this message.

After googling a bit, this post seems to explain the reason why it happens when simply using ReadXml doesn’t work.

The problem is this:

An RSS

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Being a system administrator is not easy, non-stop learning, 24/7 on-call, always the one being blamed when things go wrong, etc. etc. If you are new and are thinking of being a system administrator as your main career path, you need to be prepared for all the dirty works involved and the little secrets about working as a sys admin.

But hey, there is one special day in every year that is only meant for us, system administrator, a day called System Administrator Appreciation Day that happens today this year, last Friday…

As I mentioned in check your iPhone warranty before it expires, I called Fido and claimed the problem I have on iPhone. Fido agreed to mailed me a new replacement. I also called Apple National Care center and booked a time to go to Apple store in downtown Vancouver. I didn’t get time so I simply waited for the replacement sent from Fido, and it arrived yesterday. The whole thing is quite smoothly so far.

The package came in with another two small white boxes in it, one of which has the brand new iPhone. However,…