Suspended for JNCIP-M

Yesterday my request for taking JNCIP-M exam was rejected by my superior. When I heard the news, it hit me like lightning strike on the broad daylight. Well, I have been doing several routing projects in the last three months. The first one is Excelcomm MPLS separation in which I involved as mere project engineer, i.e : helping my colleagues doing router configuration. It's very easy and it was a very good way for entering routing world once again :)...

The second one was Indosat Hongkong gateway upgrade phase 1. This task was very easy too since we encounter power capacity problem at the Hongkong site. Therefore, Indosat decided to split the delivery of the project into two phase. The first one - which had been done just recently - was meant to deliver the router physically into the site and doing some initial configuration on them. The second phase - which far more challenging and interesting since there will be migration activities - will be begun in early January.

The third one is the current project I and my team handle. This is the most interesting task I do between these three projects. In this project, we coorporate with Ericsson Indonesia delivering 3G Network for Axis, one of very fast-growing GSM provider in Indonesia.Ericsson engineer is very nice and I must say he possess networking skill more than mine right now. Being inactive for two years in routing activities is enough for me to forget many things. I'm still struggling reviewing back all the material needed for doing decent configuration.

It's really fun anyway. I realize I still need time to be back even at JNCIS level. And for taking JNCIP-M at the end of January, actually I think I'm still capable to pursue the deadline. Since there are only two more chapters in JNCIP-M that I haven't practiced. My plan previously is to sacrifice this year's Christmas, New Year and Chinese New Year event for practising JNCIP-M.

So, when my superior rejected my request and ordered me to do routing work for at least 6 months, well....first thing I feel is upset. Of course, I have already planned it since three months ago. But now well, I think that's not a really bad decision anyway. In this way, I could reduce my stress and having fun for New Year's event :). And meanwhile waiting for JNCIP-M exam opportunity again in the next 6 months, I could use the time to take another exam. My CCNA is also going to expire in less than 6 months later.

I am going to take the next level, either CCNP or CCIP, and this time I must use my own money since my company doesn't support this exam. Well, 6 million rupiahs (about $600) is not a small amount of money for me. (Well, There must a reason that keep me still single until this day, mustn't there?). My savings will decrease a lot so I don't want to waste any my hard-earned money this time.

Still a long way to go to be a truly networking expert....;)

Kworld TVBox 1440ex review

Well, having injured my back somehow my appetite is decreasing a lot. On the peak pain hampered me, I even ate nothing for a whole days except bread. Thank God, I stored bread in my room so when I was unable of getting up from my bed, at least I could reach them and ate them :D. The result is I lost 4 kilos. It's a new record since the biggest loss I was able to manage is 3 kilos when I got "germany measles" 5-6 years ago.

But the good "side effect" of losing my appetite is I'm able to save my penny - that suppose I spend for buying food - and buy this good : Kworld External TVBox 1440 ex. After toying with it for a while, here is the verdict.

Kworld is designed for no brainer. Even an idiot can use it without any sweat. There are tiny buttons on the tuner box that feel a little bit uncomfortable to press for controlling the tuner functions, but nevermind we won't use them a lot since the remote control will take over anything most of the time. The remote control use infrared as its transmission so we must point it to the tuner straightly. The remote control button is really good but for those with big fingers may wish the buttons there are slighly bigger too.

Hooking them to the monitor and the CPU is really easy. As I said in the beginning : this product is for no brainer. It's too easy to use! That's a good thing anyway ^_^. Using this product, we can watch television with our computer monitor without need to turn on our pc. But when we use our PC and want to watch tv for a moment, for example for watching news, we don't need to turn off out PC before turning on the tuner. Not necessary!

Just press the power on button on the remote control and the monitor will switch to display tv programmes instantly. And when we power off the tuner, we can continue using our PC just as we left off for watching tv. There is no data loss, no hassle. Very good product.

And for those who like to multitask a little bit, can use PIP function offered by this tuner. For example, when we want to kill the time by playing solitaire but we don't want to lose any single scene from our favorite movie broadcasting on the tv, the PIP surely come into useful. We also can arrange the position of PIP windows so that it won't disturb area we want to view. Very nice feature.

But inspite of the great features this product offers, there are two weakness I note. The first one is the sound quality it produces. While it seems a really good idea for including small speaker inside this tuner, the quality of speaker is proven to be too bad for music and movie. Those who really are music and movie lover should think of investing more money for buying better speaker and hook them to this tuner.

The second and last one, since computer monitor is more superior in displaying pictures than analog tv we usually use in our daily life, the weakness of analog tv signal is become more and more apparent. But this is actually a problem for every tv tuners if they are paired with digital monitor anyway. Kworld TVBox 1440ex provides us with noise reduction function, but I noticed that it doesn't help a lot for a very bad tv signal.

Anyway, this is a very good product for daily use. It's very easy to use and that's what makes this product fun to use :).

And last note, for those looking for better resolution, they can go for its sibling, Kworld TVBox 1680ex, which is nothing but a same product with better max resolution support (1680x1050) instead of 1440x900.

Be a fans of Chelsea Olivia...

I'm not a kind of person who likes to spend all my evening for watching drama tv series. But in the recent year I recognized a girl who played - and still plays - a lot of drama tv series. First time I saw her acting, I think she needed more polish from other senior actresses. Her acting just like an "acting" not actual scene.

But now after several drama tv series, she is getting better and better and I really appreciate her improvement. Especially when I knew that she is only 16 years old! Oh boy. Now that sounds like a really great accomplishment. At that age I am nothing but an ordinary teenager looking for my self identity :P.

Go Chelsea! I'm rooting for you ^_^

Why are you so happy, Steve?

Approximately one months ago, I shocked one Excelcomm guy because I looked very different. He said to me "This is the first time I see you very happy" and he wondered why I looked that way. The reason is simple. At that moment, I just can barely walk without pain after thinking I will be in doom forever. The physiotherapy that doctor treat me in Bandung was really worked. And two weeks ago, all the pain disappeared. It's like a gift God give to me ^_^. And as usual I cannot resist the temptation of practising basketball again. But that was foolish decision - I realized it after it was too late!

Be in basketball field after a long time really made me happy. The wooden floor and leather basketball was acting like they called me. "This night will be a perfect game again", I thought at that time. Everything felt great, no pain no restriction. All system clear! And I tried to do several movements like layups and long shot. And one missed three points made me felt really awful. Not only because that was a bad shot, but when I did that, I felt something gone from my back. Like there was numb muscles and suddenly the pain came back again. Oh my!

Fear of unable being a normal person again, I rushed emailed my superior, asking for medical treatment the next days. She brought me to the hospital. Graha Medika hospital. The doctor there analyzed me and then he injected something - later on known as some painkiller - to my lower back and my upper bottom. 4 injections and I felt better. The pain was remedied a little bit but I felt slightly dizzy that day. And tomorrow will be two weeks since that incidents happened again. The pain is relieved slowly day after day. Even now I still have to be careful and wear a belt around my back everyday to prevent a wrong movement again...

And the worse thing is the doctor forbade me to do any sport activity at least for one month except swimming. But as you may know, I can't swim. And I have no time to learn swimming at the moment. The tasks from my office has already made me suffer enough in the recent weeks since my productivity decreased because in the recovery period, I need more rest than before. I don't care anyway, I'll do anything to be cured from my back injury totally and be able to playing basketball again in the future.....