No one’s here to claim it theirs…

Picture taken with a Samsung Galaxy S.

Are you prepared for the upcoming school exams? My camera is, for sure!

Let’s dance to this song, AYY!

Doesn’t everyone love the green robot? Just look at it skate around, having fun, worry-free in a wide, open field… Rather than being stuck in a walled garden and half-eaten.

If you’re interested on getting one of these for yourself or as a gift to a fellow geek friend, the high-quality premium white microfibre tee sells at RM60.

However from now until 7 August, order the tee and get RM10 off the usual price specially for you! And if you’re sporting enough, post a picture of yourself in your favourite white tee (any will do) to Zicco’s Facebook or Twitter page and get a further 20% discount!

How to order yours? I’m still working on the order form at the Shop, so for now you guys will have to do it retro style. Send an order email to Zicco at tees@zicco.com.my with the necessary details as listed on their site, and then proceed to make your payment and send them a proof of transaction.

Each tee is made to order, which means the greatest care is being put into the production of every shirt. You can read more about the production process that may justify the premium price over at the Shop, but remember that the order form is still not finalized yet!

What are you waiting for? Your style reflects your substance – get seen in something you’d be proud to be in! Get an Android tee NOW!

P.S. Happy August, folks!

It turned out that a code linked to a remote malicious Javascript had been inserted to each of my five-hundred-something pages and posts through an SQL injection attack which redirects visitors to a rogue antivirus page that downloads a rootkit onto the local system upon any click, even to close the window. This Javascript trojan is said to mostly affect MediaTemple-hosted WordPress blog.

I’ve managed to successfully cleared the databases in less than an hour on the phone. If your blog has been compromised, read on to find out how.

It would help if you knew as much details of the injection as possible. For example, Kaspersky Internet Security will report the threat name and URL. This can save time and speed up the remedial process.

Step 1:

Change your database user password. On MediaTemple, you can log into the (mt) AccountCenter, then navigate to your server controls and click on “Manage Databases”. Update your password under the “Global Settings” tab.

Step 2:

Log into PHPMyAdmin. The “Admin” buttons in “Databases List” will lead you there.

Step 3:

On the left-hand sidebar, click on the database of your blog which has been compromised.

Step 4:

It may be wise to back-up your database just in case anything happens.

Step 5:

Run a search for </script> in all tables of the database. This will return the rows that contain a Javascript code (including valid ones that you have added). Browse to a row that you do not remember having added a code, and identify the remote URL of the offending code. Copy the entire line of code which, in my case, is <script src="http://ao.euuaw.com/9"></script> (warning: don’t access the URL!).

Step 6:

Now return to the main page of your database and click on the “SQL” tab at the top. Enter the following query:

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = replace(post_content,'<script src="http://ao.euuaw.com/9"></script>','');

Here’s what it does: the first part says “access the ‘wp_posts’ table”, then the second says “look into the ‘post_content’ field”. By default, your database table should begin with “wp_”, however you can change this with the table prefix that you have chosen during installation. Then, the function does a search-and-replace in the ‘post_content’ fields of every row, searching for the Javascript code (change it to the code you copied earlier) and replacing it with a blank space (essentially deleting it).

Step 7:

Once that is done, your database table should be clear of the injection. Now update your blog’s wp-config.php file with the new database password. On an antimalware-protected system, check whether the malicious Javascript code still exists on your site.

The threat should be fully cleared from your WordPress blog by now. Just to be safe, you may check through your theme and plugin files for any traces of the threat.

Luckily, removing them is as simple as 1-2-3. Read on to find out how.

Step 1:

Get on the Facebook event page. Scroll down to the bottom and click on “Remove from my events”.

Step 2:

Click on “Remove”.

Step 3:

There’s no step three. Really.

Today I’d like to talk about blogs.

There are blogs, and then there are diary blogs. But what’s the difference?

Just recently, there was a friend of mine who made a tweet rant about diary blogs and their significance (or rather, the lack of) when it comes to distribution of content access and rights.

Most rookie bloggers start as diary bloggers. Such blog are commonly filled with day-to-day two-or-three-lines posts detailing their day. Many remain that way.

Here’s the thing: do these diary blogs deserve exclusive content and preference over other blogs? This may sound harsh, but let’s face it: no.

When you come to a diary blog, you’ll have to brace yourself for internet sins. Flash clocks, self-playing music, glitter-follows-your-mouse-cursor or snow-falls-across-your-screen Javascript junk, theme plagiarism and more.

Chances are, the diary blog you last read was on Blogspot. The blog address contained more than one word, one of which is an adjective or common noun. The blog has a theme that is bright pink with plenty of placeholder links in the sidebar/footer – the lousier ones take inspiration from pages like these. You could hear Justin Bieber in the background. Pictures seemed like they came from a motion-blurry, oversharpened Sony Ericsson Walkman phone camera album.

I’ve been there, done that. Silly days, they were.

But of course, diary blogs will continue to flourish for as long as there are readers willing to suck in all of that with their conscious mind in tow.

Diaries are meant to be kept for yourself for a reason. Alternatively, setting a with-permission-only access would seem like a good idea too. We wouldn’t have to accidentally stumble across it.

Have fun blogging, all.

P.S. It’s a nice day today. I found a snail in my garden. But I won’t post a picture because it’s blurry and I genuinely care for your sanity. I hope it can be mutual.

P.P.S. Of course, this does not apply to every diary blog out there. There definitely are gems among the thorns, and some actually prove quite entertaining. This post isn’t directed to anyone in particular – it’s just here to highlight a common trend among blogs. There is no right or wrong when it comes to blogging (with a few exceptions. Self-playing Flash music player is wrong, wrong, WRONG.)

Above is the official logo and banner design of the Sri Garden International Food Fiesta 2010. Done entirely in Photoshop with vector masks, shapes and font.

Click on the little arrow above the sidebar to expand the post, or click on the image to view it in a lightbox. Alternatively, you can view it on DeviantART.

Update: If you’d like to view my photos from the event instead, they’re on Facebook and Flickr.

Apple made purported demonstrations of phones by rival companies such as RIM, HTC and Samsung, with video grabs showing a drop in signal strength on devices such as the iPhone 4, Bold 9700, Droid Eris and Omnia 2 when held in a particular manner.

What interested me most is Apple’s illustration of signal attenuation on the Omnia 2 with the ‘death grip’. I own an Omnia 2 myself, and attempted to replicate the claimed result of attenuation “from 4 bars to 1 bar”.

I tried holding it in my right hand, then my left, then cupped it in my palm, and even in both my palms. The worst extent of the degradation effect was a drop from 5 bars to 4. But that only happened once, and didn’t happen again when I reattempted.

After that, I experimented with a borrowed BlackBerry Bold 9700. I could fairly easily achieve the attenuation effect by cupping the bottom portion in my palm, but it didn’t drop from 5 bars to 1 bar – rather, just 5 bars to 4.

While I do agree that holding a phone in a manner that obstructs the internal cellular antenna would cause attenuation, no other phones portray a similar extent of degradation as the iPhone 4 would. Also, I had to hold my tested devices in very awkward and highly deliberate manners in order to achieve the effect. As you can see demonstrated in this video, you only need to hold the iPhone 4 casually in order to achieve the effect.

In response to a question at an Apple press conference about whether anything could have been done to avoid its antenna issues with the iPhone 4, Steve Jobs took the opportunity to say that making a phone so big “you can’t get your hand around it” helps, but that “no one’s going to buy that”. He went on to call them “Hummers”.

Apple even took a step further and offered tech journalists a peek in their advanced antenna design and test labs (also known as the “black lab”). You can read Engadget editor Joshua Tolopsky’s recount.

What seems like a counter-measure to Apple’s confidence is an announcement that free bumper cases are being given away with every new iPhone. If the iPhone 4 really is free of flaws, why the need for free cases?

Unimpressed, Nokia has slammed Apple with a directed statement that addresses iPhone 4′s flaws.

“Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature.

Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.

In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design.”

Like adding fuel to the fire, RIM co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have also come forward with a strong-worded statement (as usual).

“Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation.

RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage.

One thing is for certain, RIM’s customers don’t need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple.”

Here is what’s more interesting: blogger Erica Sadun reported on the TUAW blog that the new iOS 4.0.1 update that Apple claims will fix the signal issue simply doesn’t. And then Engadget quoted Apple Senior VP of iOS Scott Forstall that the antenna issue isn’t something that can be fixed by software.

So, after investing over $100 million in their advanced antenna design and test labs, Apple brings you their most revolutionary feature ever: convenient one-touch cellular connectivity toggle. Just touch to disconnect!

Also: The evolution of Steve Jobs.

Not sent from an iPhone

Spot the Nike logo in the beautiful morning sky!