Mixed Feeling

Why there hasn't been any update last week? Probably you don't know, I've been logging in everyday last week, trying the best to put something. I just don't know where to start...

Things started at the beginning of the week. That reminded me many things in the past, bitter and sweet.

I hate this feeling that makes me feeling insecure. Need to clam down, reinforce myself and sort things out.

It's time to go out and relax.

ICAC Psychometric Test

Received the invitation of psychometric test by ICAC. The test will be on Feb 7, 2005, which is the last 2 day of the lunar calender.

The position of Assistant Investigator is very interesting. I would resign my current job for this one if I got an offer. I need to take a leave for the test but, who cares?

Very excited.

6km walking

I have the chance to have field testing with Maurice and William today.

The new firmware gives extremely good coverage that we are able to archieve throughput over 200kbps at distance well over 1km. The test was repeated twice, which accounted for 4km walking alone for one particular test spot.

Maurice has a meeting in the after and I took over his responsibility. That means totally I've walked over 6km today.

Tired.

SinoCDN visit

The rain in the morning halted our testing today.

Maurice presented the testing result to the whole team after lunch.

Decided to visit SinoCDN after they've moved to Nagu Tau Kok. I took the 5:30 shuttle bus to Kowloon Tong: It was once a familiar route, but no more. Took the MTR to Nagu Tau Kok and Law Sir asked me to stay for a while as Dr. Tsang was in the office.

The new office is very small. Law Sir has told me a fun story of the new office. After watching the new office and updating the status of the current projects, I believe my decision to leave the company was a good move.

Received a phone call from Cathay Pacific to confirm my details in the afternoon. My application of MT should be under consideration. I just think I should update my employment detail to include ASTRI.

B4

We have a project called 'B4'. It is aimed at delivering wide range coverage.

William and Maurice were responsible for the testing this morning. I was on the roof with Michael to support them. The initial result this morning showed very strong performance comparing with other designs.

Doug celebrate the good result of B4 by buying the team with tea sets. Of course we didn't forget William and Maurice by saving some nice pieces for them.

The atmosphere here is very good.

First Day

The first day in ASTRI.

I arrived office late at the first day! Arrived the route 27 minibus station at 08:30, but with a long queue that held me for 3 buses before I got into mine.

On my seat at 9:45. After the security briefing by Fanny, Sharon leaded me to walk through the office and labs. William and Michael finally appeared at 10:30. We all met at the roof and William said we resemble the scene of 無間道. All of us have served the same company and joined ASTRI at different time.

The first day isn't as easy. I helped them to measure the performance of the access point, and to discuss the testing methodology.

Long Vacation

Tomorrow is my first day with ASTRI. It marks the start of a new milestone in both career and study.

唔開心的日子, 就把它當做長假. 我的長假完了, 要再次開始充實自己.

Wireless, finally

Went to SSP and bought a wireless broadband router. Back home and configured it as the AP for my home network. It is situated behind my ASL box on a dedicated interface. The WEP key, static DHCP mapping and strict ACL rules of ASL should provide secure wireless environment. Even if a hacker spoofed my MAC addess and guess my WEP kwy sucessfully, he can just gain free Internet access. My wired network is seperated from the wireless, this gives protection of my wired network.

One problem remains: how to access my file server for music when using wireless? The solution is PPTP VPN. I am experiencing L2TP over IPSec VPN and will update accordingly.

Finally I can surf anywhere. This is my first entry using wireless access. Also I can now sync my CLIE using wireless. Great.

Knowing she is sick. Get well soon.

2046

What's 2046? It's a movie by Wong Kar Wai, a famous director in Asia. I watched this film in Oct 2004 with Grace.

I love this movie, and the soundtrack is also as great. Shigeru Umebayashi has composed a few pieces that fit the movie seamlessly. The Movie Soundtrack brings out the elements of the movie, yet it is a masterpiece on its own. It is in my CD player tonight, bringing me to the mood of the movie.

Time to sleep. Tomorrow I have to go to ASTRI in Science Park to sign the employment contract at 15:00.

Movie - The Phantom of the Opera

I watched this movie in first day of 2005 at Langham Place.

A bit disappointed.

The theater (house 1) is not big, however there are ample space around the seat. The arm rest can be raised for those sweet couple. The only complain for it is the sound system's poor dynamic range that hide find details of the movie and poor positioning. (Later on I found the quality of the soundtrack is also very disappointing, which could be a reason of the poor performance of the sound system.)

The Phantom (Gerard Butler) is the worst. He lacks the power and the feel the character was meant to be when he sang. Emmy Rossum is doing a good job, bringing a charming voice to the character Christine. And she can act. Don't expect too much on signing from the leading characters. Actually the team has do some fine pieces, one of them being Masquerade.

Probably the originals (CDs) are so good that new singers find it difficult to compete with. Focus on setting and acting and the movie should not disappoint you, and I would consider these are the key elements instead of singing.

Think twice if you are very serious about the signing. If you just want to get the story, I would recommend it with no hesitation.

The final message: If you really love someone, set him/her free.

PHANTOM:
Take her - forget me - forget all of this . . .
Leave me alone - forget all you've seen . . .
Go now - don't let them find you!
Take the boat - leave me here - go now,
don't wait . . .
Just take her and go - before it's too late . . .
Go . . .
Go now - go now and leave me!

(RAOUL and CHRISTINE move off towards the boat. The PHANTOM looks mockingly at his mask. The musical box starts up magically, and he listens to it)

Masquerade . . .
Paper faces on parade . . .
Masquerade . . .
Hide your face
so the world will
never find you . . .

(CHRISTINE re-enters and walks slowly towards him. She takes off her ring and gives it to the PHANTOM)

PHANTOM:
Christine, I love you . . .

(She hurries off The PHANTOM puts the ring on his finger)

CHRISTINE:
(In the distance, to RAOUL, as the boat pulls away in the shadow)
Say you'll share with
me, one
love, one lifetime . . .
say the word and I will follow you . .

RAOUL:
Share each day with me . . .

CHRISTINE:
. . . each night . . .

BOTH:
. . . each morning . . .

PHANTOM:
(looking after her) You alone can make my song take flight -
it's over now, the music of the night . . .

firewall

Wondering why the blog hasn't been updated recently? Cuz I was busy setting up a firewall using the computer that my friend returned.

The Linksys BB router I have been using is aging. It also have difficulties when coping with WAN traffic more than 2Mbps. This is especially obvious after I have swiched to HGC - when my download speed reaches 300kB, all computers running Windows XP often return a warning messages saying "Disconnected", which is an indication that the router has rebooted and all connections were dropped.

The FYP server has got a new life: running at 770Mhz, the RAM increased to 512MB, added a 3Com 3C982-TXM dual port server NIC and a 3Com 3C905B NIC, loaded with Astaro Security Linux V5. I choose ASL over m0n0wall or LEAF because ASL as a commercial grade product, it should provide higher stability and is properly maintained over the others. I think the problem of open source is that many projects are not properly managed/maintained, and the qualities vary.

Performance-wise the ASL box is amazing: I can reach speed over 1300kB, that translate to 10.4Mbps, both Up and Down link at the same time. ASL also allows VPN connection for me and my sister to the home network. While commercial grade firewall like Netscreen often cost over HKD$4000, the ASL is a sweet alternative: even more features and powerful, at no cost. The extra computational power of the ASL box should easily fill the 10Mbps pipe with VPN traffic.

My next goal is to setup the VPN, and add a wireless AP to the last port of the server NIC. With ASL, it feels more secure to use wireless as I can define strict firewall rules on WLAN traffic.

The ASL box does have some drawbacks - space and a bit fan noise. Nevertheless I am very happy with it.

Welcome to 2005!

Welcome to 2005!

Thanks to those who helped me thru the years, and I am sending my best wishes to you all. Let's forget those bad memories of 2004, and ready for the upcoming challenges. If 2004 was good for you, don't stop there!

Went to Langham Place for the movie <<The Phantom of the Opera>> at 23:30. I will write a review once I am free.

New Year; a new page. I am heading for a new era.