So I had problems with my pc at work for a long time. Blasted thing wouldn’t allow any USB storage devices to work, such as my portable external hdd or USB keys.Whenever I plugged my hdd in, the broken USB icon would show on the taskbar with the balloon message “USB Device Not Recognized”. Very annoying cause I had alot of eBooks etc on the hdd that I couldn’t access.

Nothing was wrong with the drive, as it worked on every other computer. I had admin access to the machine, which runs WinXP Corp. Tried everything from reinstalling USB drivers, uninstalling hardware in Device Manager etc to no avail.

So I gave up and just left it for a couple of weeks, and yesterday I wanted to do a search on google for something, and IE’s autocomplete came up with the term I used before relating to this. My trigger happy finger on the Enter key fired off this search by accident, and a couple of new entries from some forum came up.

One of the guys basically said he powered off the computer, pulled out the plug from the socket, and left it for half an hour. When he powered everything back on, his USB drive got recognised.

I had little faith, but left with no further options, and nothing at work to look forward to, I did the same before I left yesterday, came back this morning and tested.

IT WORKED! Hooray! Everything’s back to normal now.

Thinking about it, it does make sense. The computer doesn’t really power off completely while it’s still plugged in… and maybe the power supply wasn’t sending the right voltage to the USB ports and had to be reset… of course all that doesn’t matter cause it works now!

Half of the world probably knows this by now, and I found this out when Windows 2003 Server was just released years ago, but completely forgot about it. So I’ll blog about it now and never forget again!

Had a new server set up for work today, and installed Windows 2003 Server Web Edition. It was a test server, and I wanted to install SQL Server 2000 to have the web applications all run on the same box.

But double clicking on x86\sqlsetup.exe resulted in the error message “Windows cannot open this program since it has been disabled”.

I then remembered that Win2k3 Web Edition is a cheaper, scaled down version of Win2k3 Server that’s intended to run and host web applications. I reckon other non-Microsoft apps like MySQL will install just fine, but don’t take my word for it.

A quick google search brought me to the MSDN link.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/819258

jasonwong.net has been offically relaunched… no more beta! For the past year, I’ve neglected this site and have not done anything with it, which resulted in out-of-date content, huge drop in search engine rankings and tragically, a sharp drop in visitors.

Now, the site is powered by WordPress 2.0, one of the internet’s most popular opensource blogging software. Wasn’t too painful porting the posts from the old site over, as they were stored as XML originally. I have also recently upgraded my other blog, ahbeng.net (which runs on Drupal) to the latest version. Will blog more about my experiences with both WordPress and Drupal, and what my recommendations are should you be interested in setting up your own blogging system.

What are my plans for jasonwong.net? Well, I plan to update all the content on this site to begin with. I also want to make this blog geek focused, blogging about IT related stuff & toys. ahbeng.net will be a blog about my personal social life, and anything else that doesn’t belong.

I will also be using this site as a resource for web-development/coding/database/infrastructure related hints, tips & techniques. I can never remember something brilliant I did in the past, so blogging it on this site which I can have access to anywhere anytime would be ideal. Plus, others often approach or give me help so blogging about it benefits everyone, not only me!

How exciting!

After a very, very long hiatus, jasonwong.net is “almost” back with a new look & feel and powered by WordPress, one of the most popular PHP/MySQL opensource blogging systems.

Unfortuately, my previous host has also decided to go on a permanent holiday, but I found out too late. Therefore, jasonwong.net was off-line for a long period of time, and I’ve lost my precious search engine rankings! Serves me right for neglecting this site.

Nevertheless, I’ve rebuilt most of jasonwong.net. There are a few things that need to be fixed or tweaked up, and I’m going to climb back up the search engine ladder.

I’ve just launched a new blog, which you can find at:
www.ahbeng.net

Note: You may not understand it if you don’t know Engrrish.

Happy New Year to all of you.

It has been a tragic end to 2004 with the lost of many lives and massive destruction due to the tsunamis.

So help out by:

• Praying
• Pulling out your wallets
• Donating to the cause

Merry Christmas to all! Since I can’t give each of you targeted, customised greetings, Merry Christmas once again!

For all of you who didn’t go to church… shame, shame, shame. All the monkeys know your name.

Talking about monkeys, I got a really cool pressie from a friend, who shall remain nameless so as not to arouse any jealousy. His name is “Hornee Monkee”. Of course, my friend got me Hornee because he was the only one in pink. He has magnets on his eyes, ears, mouth and hands, so he cover himself up in all the right places.

Wayne Truong got me a willie warmer. He was concerned I would catch a cold as I haven’t bought new underwear in years and my current pairs are all worn and thinned out. Unfortunately, the willie warmer is far too large and I can never keep it in place.

My sister and bro-in-law got me a 75ml bottle of Armani Black Code, a fairly recent fragrance that I absolutely love. It’s smells flowerly and light and very gay.

I also got many boxes of chocolate. And a gorilla key chain that when squeezed, will reveal his “kukujiao” with red tip.

Today’s blog entry is about Sylvia Santoso. Why? Because she told me to blog about her, and you can’t say no to Sylvia.

Sylvia’s my coffee buddy, and soon-to-be gym buddy. I’m trying to get her to come to at least one circuit class with me at Fitness First on Bond St.

Sylvia is very important to me. She’s very well connected with people in the retail sector, and she hooks me up with the important ones who can give substantial discounts.

We’re also actual partners in crime, because we were in an accidental hit-and-run on our last snowboarding trip, involving a poor baby kangaroo who tried to cross the street without looking both ways first.

Seduced by it’s simple, white, clean look and Apple’s promise of instant cool factor, I bought myself a 40g iPod 4G 3 months ago. Apple makes an absolute killing on this, as retailers earn very little markup per unit (as I was told by a friend who works in retail). Fortunately, if you’re a student and you buy one from an Apple center, you get a 10% discount.

Doing my part-time MBA finally paid off.

Soon after I bought it, Apple released the iPod Photo. You can imagine the severe case of buyer’s remorse I suffered shortly after seeing the ad on tv.

So how does the iPod fare? Before I begin, let me explain why I should be relied upon as a definitive source of info. I’ve grown up listening to hi-end, audiophile level hi-fis so in terms of judging sound quality, I do know my stuff. I also play the saxophone, and I’m a notorious karaoke mike-hog so I know my music. I listen to a range of music, mainly smooth jazz, r&b and most importantly, Chinese pop songs, which is absolutely essential to keep tone deaf guai-los from killing the mood when it’s your turn to sing.

The iPod’s sound quality, with it’s bundled ear phones, is average at best. Very poor bass response and treble’s a bit too sharp. It’s sounds much better with higher quality head phones of course. I’ve tried it with my Sennheiser PX-100, but because I favor earphones so as not to mess up my hair, I purchased a Sony MDR-EX71.

Why? Because it was the only one that came in white at the time (I suspect many others bought them for the same reason).

The iTunes software that comes with the iPod isn’t great, although it does rip sound tracks from cds and saves them in AAC format, which is what you should really use with your iPod. Of course don’t convert your existing MP3s into AAC. Just move them over.

EQ settings cannot be adjusted manually in the iPod. You’re left with pre-determined settings and I don’t like any of them. You can set your own eq settings on songs in iTunes, but it’s a major pain in the rear end.

Sounds like I regret buying my iPod hor? Most certainly not! The only reason why I bought it was to stir up jealousy among the non-iPodders. Although alot of people already own iPods, you still get the occasional oohs & aahs, as well as envious looks. This to me, makes it all worth while.

But if audio quality’s at the top of your list, I suggest you give the models from Creative, IRiver and JNC a go before making your decision on an MP3 hard disk player.

I’ve also bought a condom skin case and an iTrip which I will post mini reviews for at some stage.

I haven’t posted any updates in ages, so a lot of you probably don’t know about the latest toys I’ve bought. I’ll start by telling you about a very “big” toy I got in July.

I got myself a Panasonic TX-56P800H high definition rear projector TV. It’s huge, and although only weighing 70 kg (Whoah! I can benchpress that), it was the most difficult thing I have every tried moving in my life. In my excitement to buy it, I measured only the dimensions of where it would be placed, and not the areas it had to go through to get there. Ended up unscrewing lots of doors, and had to enlist the help of a strong neighbor and brother-in-law Adrian. The delivery guys just left it outside the house (lazy guai-los!).

But it’s all good. The Panasonic is the best rear pro I have ever seen, but only after I tweaked it using the Avia dvd. Of course, normal TV isn’t good, but I’ll be going digital real soon. DVD playback, with component video cables, is rich and clear. PS2 games look dark, pixelated and crap, but most XBox games are okay.

How much did I end up paying? A fraction of what it would cost if I got the cheapest LG high-def plasma. Sylvia, my coffee buddy, hooked me up with someone special at Bing Lee, and after agreeing to most of his non-monetary terms, I got it at an extremely good price. Let’s just say I’ve made the money back by going for extra long coffee breaks at work.

Having said that, considering the pains I had moving it, and the pains I will experience if I move it again, I should’ve bought a plasma instead lah.

Stupid thing’s so big… I’ve got no more space left in my room.