HTNet - A Notepad of Tech, Business, Science and Self Improvement

Photo Credit: Aaronage

One of my clients has been having a really weird hard disk problem on their office PCs. The computers will randomly hang with a BSOD and it has been going on for weeks!

The problem is intermittent. Apparently its favourite time to appear is when I’m not attending this client. Needless to say, it causes a lot of strain on both me and the client because it consumes my time as well as theirs.

One consistent information that I gathered every time this problem happens is that whenever the computer is rebooted afterwards, the hard disk cannot be detected by the BIOS. And whenever I changed the SATA port it’s connected to, the problem will go away… at least until it decides to resurface again; which is usually less than 24 hours later.

Read the rest of Mysterious SATA Hard Disk Problems Solved »

After moving it to its new home, the web server at my office decided not to boot up. The server runs on CentOS4 and is configured to perform updates daily. It choked during init and the last messages shown before the system froze are as follows:

VFS: Cannot open root device "<NULL>" or unknown-block(8,22)
Kernel panic - not synching: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(8,22)

Read the rest of A Tale Of An Unnecessary Linux Reinstall »

From last Friday to Sunday, PIKOM PC Fair came to town. On Saturday, I decided to check out the wares on sale. It wasn’t a case of casual booth-hopping. I was actually looking for a specific equipment; a fan and heatsink combo for my aging (but still useful) Athlon Thunderbird processor. The processor may be old, but it runs on the still pretty common Socket A architecture.

So there I was, just in time to see the doors open for the 100 or so early birds (not really that early since the fair starts at 11:00 am). Surely I can find the heatsink of my dreams, right?

Read the rest of Malaysian PC Fairs Are Not For Techies »

I started my working life being a support/sysadmin guy with a computing giant in Singapore. Needless to say, spending over three years in such an industry made me learn a few unconventional tips and tricks to rectify common computing problems. One tip I’d like to share here is on reviving a seemingly dead notebook battery.

Read the rest of Reviving A Dead Notebook Battery »

The past few days have been quite hectic for me and it’s all related to servers!

• The database server at work suffered from a faulty processor on Awal Muharram (10th January, a public holiday in Johor) and the maintenance agreement for that particular server had expired. Luckily, it’s sorted out within a few hours and a replacement processor was installed.
• I’ve also taken on a project to set up a Linux web server for a medical supply company which needed to be delivered by the 11th. I manage to meet the deadline and the server is up and running right now.
• I’ve purchased a VDS to host some web sites including HTNet and there were some complications in the delivery. However, it’s all sorted now.

Touching on the last point, I’ve moved the content of HTNet onto this new server and if you’re reading this then you’re seeing the first post published on the new server

If you happen to find something strange when browsing HTNet, please let me know by commenting here. Thanks!