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I bet I am not the only one looking for ways to disable Metro UI on Windows 8. I was playing around with it and I was so annoyed with metro UI popping up once a while just to annoy me.

I still haven’t figure out how to disable the metro UI actually. The moment I found out how, I will let you guys know. If you guys to have more info, please share it here!

update: 1 hour later.. still can’t figure out how to disable the damn thing, if it is possible at all.

update: Thanks mandel129 . Here’s how you can disable metro UI

Rename c:\Windows\System32\shsxs.dll to something else =)

Preferred way, by editing the registry

1. Open regedit by typing regedit at the Start screen.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
3. Modify the RPEnabled key to a “0” instead of the default “1”.
4. To return to the Metro UI, just change the value back to a “1”.

I need to start writing again. I need to start writing again. I need to start writing again.

Having tested MacBook Air at my local Apple reseller, my interest in this little baby is rekindled. I know hard disk is the slowest part of any computer, but I can’t bring myself to spend that much money on a SSD. To my surprise, this hard disk isn’t that easy to source offline. After looking around, I managed to get my hand on a 500G version, which is the exact same size as my current hard disk on my MacBook Pro, which is the slower 5400 version.

Installation was relatively easy. I wasn’t looking forward to reinstalling OS X and then Windows and all other crapware all over again. Since the hard disk is of the same size, I simply make an exact, 100% sector-by-sector copy of the hard disk using EASEUS Disk Copy. You will need a portable hard disk enclosure to perform this copy. Create the boot image on a cd, reboot while holding ‘c’ and follow the on-screen instruction. For 500G, it took about 6 hours to complete the copy process. It was 10 pm, and I hit the bed.

4.00 am. Perhaps out of excitement, I jump out of the bed and ah, the copy process was just about to finish in 12 minutes. 12 minutes pass by easily by just staring at the progress bar. Reboot.

First boot was uneventful. Launch NetBean IDE. Ok, that wasn’t any faster. I close it, reopen it and close it again. The 3rd time I open NetBeans, I was sold!. Loading time improved from about 15 seconds to just 5 seconds. I did the same with MS Word. By the 3rd launch, Word loads almost instantaneously. I repeat the same process, training the hard disk to recognize my frequently used applications and all of them start so bloody fast now. 4Gb flash might not be a lot, but the improvement is noticeable. Everything just feel so much snappier.

Noise and vibration. Now, if you Google this product enough, you might have come across vibration and noise issues. Here is my take. Yes, it does make more noise than the one that comes with MacBook Pro, which is absolutely silent. But, other than occasional clicking sounds when there is too many IO activities, it really isn’t noticeable. After a couple of days, I no longer noticed it at all.

Battery life. No different as far as I can tell. I was at a conference and manage to get 4 hours of usage, mostly emails, Skype and browsing. I suppose if you’re running a hard-disk intensive apps, you probably going to get much shorter battery life, but for most user, there is nothing to worry about.

Conclusion. If you can afford it, order it now!. I have tested blood and will never buy a normal hard disk ever again!

I had to visit a lawyer to get some paperwork done today. I have never heard of them before and was recommended by others. What I remember vividly about the trip is how much appearances matter. You see, I don’t know much about what they do. I can’t tell if they will do my papers correctly, or if they just going to pass it over to some cheap intern.

It might be extremely superficial, but the moment I step into their shiny, marble-floored office, I kinda assured that it will be fine. For all I know, they might just put up the whole office yesterday, or that they might have botched so many cases, or sent someone to life-imprisonment  with hard-labor with guaranteed solitary confinement, 6 days in a week.

Anyway, the point here is, presentation matters.

Not too long ago, when high definition video format come about, (naturally starting with Shawshank Redemption, no less!) a new kind of war format broke. The battle was for the complete domination of optical disk format, with the main contenders being HD-DVD and Blue-Ray. You may google it up for more info.

What I want to highlight is that both supporter of those format work so hard to be the dominant format that they lose sight of what is important, the video content itself! Many years later, nobody care about these optical disks. High definition video won, and the internet, mobile phones and satellite broadcasting become the preferred delivery of these high def content.

Well, this is just a reminder to myself to look beyond the delivery method of the value and focus on the value that it delivers. Delivery methods changes frequently, but the core value that it deliver, really doesn’t change that much. Take our need to know what happen around us. It was once smoke signal, followed much later by newspaper and now twitter, but what we get from it is still the same, news.

Perhaps, despite all the technology, human has largely remains the same. We’re just too lazy to change.

In my work, I have to go through tons of resume to find great people to work join our team. It isn’t as easy as you might think. Some people might actually do have what it takes, and can actually do the job well, but the way they present themselves, their resume, they way the talk and dress might not do them justice.

As an employer, I am always on the side of cautious. Do understand that as employer, we are actually scared to get that offer letter out. Just work a little harder and you will be fine.

I could not have summarize it better than this. http://www.howtonailaninterview.com/

I am curretly using P1 as my primary broadband provider at home. This isn’t a review, but rather a rant on one particular issue with P1 broadband.

For the most part, P1 is OK. During the first week of using their service, it wickedly fast. For 1.2 Mbps package, I can consistantly hit 900 kbps. On international sites, speed of 500-700 kbps is not uncommon. But obviously as more as more people are signing up, I rarely see the 900 kbps nowadays, with 600-ish being a norm. These figure, isn’t bad at all, ad is comparable to StreamyX on a good day. All and all, it does edge StreamyX slightly.

Now, the bad news. For some reason, P1 seems to enjoy a late night detour. Almost every night, the service will go down at some wee hours in the morning, typically 15 to 30 minutes, sometimes up to an hour and even a few times a day. The excuse given is ‘maintenence mode’, which is acceptable if it was done on a monthly, or even a weekly basis, but come on, this is becoming a daily occurace. P1 might think that no one uses the internet at night and it is ok to disrupt the service, but imagine is TNB uses the same logic. Hey, at 3 am, most people are asleep right ?, lets cut off the electricity for a while, no one will notice.

My worry is that, there is no sign of this getting any better and P1 seems to take it for granted that no one complaint. So, here I am now. For those thinking of signing up with P1 and work late at night, be prepare to have your chat with your business partner across the globe to be cut short.

Th Star on Saturday carry a feature on broadband penetration in Malaysia. I feel bad for the reporter, because, really what is there to write about ? So, they throw in a couple of articles on what you can do with high speed internet, (sigh!).

While everyone blame each other and making promises, I flip to the next section knowing that, I better not hold my breath, waiting for any improvement, anytime soon.

Yes, you heard me. I tried to be patient, but I am just too damn annoyed by now. Chedet.com is run by a bunch or amateurs!. First of all, why the heck did you guys moved from .com to .cc . Do you guys even have a clue what a .cc is ? Here, let me help, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.cc

.cc is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an Australian territory.

Why would a Malaysian politician use a .cc ? A .com is good enough. I remember, when they change it, I lose all my rss feed and have to configure everything all over again. As I type this, they just changed it to .co.cc which is a bloody redirection service, typical amateur.

Oh yes, this bunch of amateur also at one point uses http://test.chedet.com as a live production url. Shocking.. now, they happily apply redirection whenever they feel like it, with zero consideration for SEO. As I type this, the url is http://chedet.co.cc/chedetblog/ . Hello! we all know it is a blog, why change it to /chedetblog/ ? .

Why not use this url instead ?. http://test.chedet.co.cc/chedetblog/

Another thing that annoys me is me, such a high traffic site can easily make a lot of money. Instead, this clueless amateur quote a ridiculous amount of advertising rate. Last time I check, it was RM 300 per day.

Enough rant. Some advice.

1. Let someone else run the site.
2. Just keep the damn site at http://chedet.com . DONE!
3. To make money, deploy Google AdSense. Charge a more reasonable rate. A full traffic stats need to be disclosed.

I have been staying with Digi and their slow (but reliable) Edge network all this while, hoping that, when they finally get their 3G act in order all this waiting would be worth it. So, I was a little excited when they finally account their broadband packages at http://www.digi.com.my/broadband/index.html .

Sadly, the excitement only last a couple of seconds. The 3G-based broadband is NOT accessible within my existing voice account. You will be given separate sim card purely for the broadband access which cannot be use with any voice services.

I don’t understand why DiGi would want to chase the most crowded space, land-based broadband when there are simply tons of other providers. I am sure there are thousands of Edge user who would readily upgrade their account to 3G-based network in an instance. Instead, they roll out yet another wireless internet services that require expensive modems. Opening this service to their existing customer, who already own 3G phones would greatly speed up their adoption. It will also reverse the voice user migration from their service to other 3G enabled provider.

I am so disappointed with DiGi..