Technical.

1. I apologize for having to blog in English (and also the quality of my English) for this particular entry. Why? Why not? Actually, I'm conveying some indirect messages through this post. I don't expect you to understand them.

2. Congratulation to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for winning the by-election and becoming the new Opposition Leader. I've kinda predicted this just after the last General Election. So, what will happen to Malaysia's political scenario after this? How would his win in Permatang Pauh benefits Malaysian in general or me in particular? It's already a waste of the people's money to held that by-election when the only need being fulfil here is DSAI's personal need and agenda to be in Parliament. If it is for the people or the party or reformation or whatever 'struggle', the wife and daughter are already in the Parliament to make his voice heard. Why does he still need to be the next Prime Minister?

3. I found it very amusing to see 'sumpah' being used so often for the last couple of months. One side repeatedly used 'akuan bersumpah' (statutory declaration) while the other used 'sumpah laknat' (swearing in the face of divine retribution) a couple of times to demonstrate that they are telling the truth. I am more inclined to believe the latter. Allah is the best witness and judge.

4. I'll be getting back to work next week eventhough I'm not fully recovered from the surgery yet. I don't think I'm getting any better if I stay at home anyway. Just about a week ago, the pain on my lower back and right leg started to come back. It is not as bad as before the surgery but based on Akak Kenakelayan's hubby's experience, I'm worried...

5. There are two possible causes for the pain to come back. First, I travelled to KL to see Ummi departed for Umrah and returned to Kuantan on the same day. Second, I picked up and held Syifaak to get her to stop crying after all other methods failed. I was the only one at home at that time babysitting her.

6. Syifaak is almost 10 kg now. The doctor said I should not lift anything more than 5 kg.

7. It is the most wonderful feeling to see Syifaak grows, learns new things, makes new sounds, vocalizes her baby-talks, smiles and laughs. It is the worst feeling not being able to pick her up and hold her when she cries.

8. Don't you find her adorable?



9. There is actually a third reason for the pain to come back, but I just don't want to admit it. No, it is not 'that'. To avoid further speculation, let me just say it. I've been sitting around too much in front of this laptop, trying to understand it and make it function the way I want it to be.

10. Like any other geek, I've formatted my new Dell Inspiron 1420 to get rid of all the 'bloatware' that came with it and reinstalled only everything that I need. It has only been about ten days, but the laptop has gone through the reinstallation cycle three times.

11. I'm beginning to hate the Dell MediaDirect (MD) feature. It supposed to make your life easier by allowing you to access media content faster via it's dedicated MD button built on the laptop without having to boot into Vista. However, in case the feature get messed up, standard reinstallation of the feature requires a complete format of the entire hard disk, which is very, very irritating and inflexible. I'm trying to figure out a way around this limitation.

12. I manage to get the button to work properly on the first and second reinstallation. The third one, it gone BSOD and the only way to boot back into Vista is by pressing the MD button again. Pressing the boot button will only cause it to load MD again, then BSOD. Loop.

13. After two sleepless night browsing through various online discussion on this feature, I found out that MD uses XP Embedded (XPE) on the Host/Hidden Protected Area (HPA) partition of the harddrive to get the direct boot function. It's dedicated button manipulates the Master Boot Record (MBR) to switch the active partition for bootloader.

14. I learned how to use the md3utils.exe to access the content of the HPA partition where MD resides. I manage to get rid of the BSOD, by accidentally making XPE's hal.dll or boot.ini 'corrupted' but I still don't know how I did that nor how to fix it. Bottom line is, the MD function is still not working properly.

15. Standard reinstallation of MD is not an option. I don't want to get rid of it either, because I want to utilize the MD button. I may consider other usage for that button, like dual booting but as for now, I'm sticking with just MD. So, can someone please help me fix it? I'm not an IT guy or a programmer like Kmie so any help will be very much appreciated.

16. BTW, I've found new joy in practicing the 3 x 3 Rubik's Cube, thanks to the amazing Rubik's Cube solver program I downloaded from the net. Sorry, I lost the URL.

17. I'm not really sure why I put these numbering on my post. It just seems 'cool'. Haha. Don't bother to figure it out.

End.

p/s: I'm not a pro-BN person nor any political party/figure fanatic. I'm just a taxpayer and a fellow Malaysian. I'm planning to post something before 31st August, but in case I don't, happy National Day to all. Let us pray for a better Malaysia in the future.