October 2008 Archives

To get better performance and let other Internet activities work, I set my router's DD-WRT as below:

Change IP Filter Setting,
Max Ports 4096
TCP Timeout 120
UDP Timeout 120

The smaller timeout will drop in-active connection faster.

Emule is one kind of P2P software. All P2P needs a lot of connections anytime.
If "ip-conntrack" table in router is full, the router will hang.

So give big Max Ports to allow more connections.

Any other P2P software can use this settings to improve performance. Including eDonkey, BT, etc.

I received the email from BlogRush. The heading is BlogRush is Shutting Down.

You may read my previous post BlogRush - It is a cool stuff to improve your traffic, when I first try the service on September 21, 2007. Or, BlogRush launches phase-2 on October 31, 2007.

Almost one year. It is closed.

I think it is the winter for IT and all other business. Some one will change, some one will give up, or some one will keep going on. Only the people survived will win.

You may find my blog is not available this morning.

It is happened because of the file server error of Dreamhost.

It is fixed after two or three hours site down.

I hope Dreamhost can make their service more reliable. Then I can trust them more and move my commercial site on it.

OK. It works now. Enjoy it.

The phone connected with my VOIP adapter, SPA-2002, is always get the wrong time. You know, we live in North America, with Daylight Saving Time. The clock of phone will update depending on the time info from the VOIP adapter.
Even I change the phone set time manually, it will changed back next day.

So the setting of clock or time on SPA-2002 is the key issue.

Let's see how I did to make it work perfectly in Canada.
1) NTP server.
I choose the Canadian NTP server pool. Enter the following server address into NTP server field.
ca.pool.ntp.org

2) TimeZone.
I am in Vancouver, Canada. Choose GMT-08:00.

3) Daylight Saving Time Rule
In the 'regional' tab, Daylight Saving Time Rule field enter the following data.
start=4/2/7/2:0:0;end=11/1/7/2:0:0;­ save=1

4) Save and it works.

Rule

Start: Second Sunday in March

End: First Sunday in November

Time: 2 am local time

Beginning in 2007, Daylight Saving Time is extended one month and the schedule for the states of the United States that adopt daylight saving time will be:
2 a.m. on the Second Sunday in March
to
2 a.m. on the First Sunday of November.

Year DST Begins 2 a.m.(Second Sunday in March) DST Ends 2 a.m.(First Sunday in November)
2008 March 9 November 2
2009 March 8 November 1
2010 March 14 November 7
2011 March 13 November 6
2012 March 11 November 4
2013 March 10 November 3
2014 March 9 November 2
2015 March 8 November 1

vi

The font of Windows always needs to be improved. Say I have ClearType on Windows XP. It is good and looks clear and sharp.

I found GDI++ last month, and I tried it on XP.

The font in IE and some native windows programs are better. But it is bad when I run some program made by other company.

It is so powerful that anybody is affected by it in mainland China.

Sometimes we call it GFW - Great Firewall. Sometimes we call it Chinese Lan.

Here is the comparison made by the special Firefox addon.

China Channel Screencast from fi5e on Vimeo.

Just watch the video, you will know how bad Internet environment in mainland China.

vi

When use VOIP service with a VOIP adapter, you have to choose the codec.
The codec is very important. Unsuitable codec will make your call intermittently.

Codecs are settings used to fine-tune the audio compression of your VoIP devices.

Different codec needs different bandwidth.

The following protocol header assumptions are used for the calculations:
40 bytes for IP (20 bytes) / User Datagram Protocol (UDP) (8 bytes) / Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) (12 bytes) headers.
Compressed Real-Time Protocol (cRTP) reduces the IP/UDP/RTP headers to 2or 4bytes (cRTP is not available over Ethernet).
6 bytes for Multilink Point-to-Point Protocol (MP) or Frame Relay Forum (FRF).12 Layer 2 (L2) header.
1 byte for the end-of-frame flag on MP and Frame Relay frames.
18 bytes for Ethernet L2 headers, including 4 bytes of Frame Check Sequence (FCS) or Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC).

So the most used often protocol/codec are listed below.
Codec Name - Bandwidth Ethernet (Kbps)
G.711 (64 Kbps) - 87.2 Kbps
G.729 (8 Kbps) - 31.2 Kbps
G.726 (32 Kbps) - 55.2 Kbps
G.728 (16 Kbps) - 31.5 Kbps

So, if you use two computer and one game palyer, or Wii, and the Voip Adapter in the same home network, you'd better set codec to G.729 to save the bandwidth and get better voice quality.

The data is provided by MSB.

Key Cost Trends in Canada
The average wage rate increased by 0.9% for the quarter and 3.6% for the year. The average material cost increased by 0.3% for the quarter and decreased 1.3% for the year.

Lumber - Lumber prices decreased 2.6% for the quarter and 7.8% for the year.
Plywood - Plywood prices decreased 2.6% for the quarter and 4.5% for the year.
Drywall - Drywall increased 0.4% for the quarter and 0.4% for the year.
Asphalt Shingles - Asphalt Shingles increased 0.1% for the quarter and decreased 2.2% for the year.
Ready Mix - Ready Mix decreased 0.4% for the quarter and increased 0.3% for the year.
Copper Pipe - PVC Pipe prices remained unchanged for the quarter and decreased 5.3% for the year.
Structural Steel - Structural Steel increased 6.2% for the quarter and 8.8% for the year.
Reinforcing Bars - Reinforcing Bars increased 8.0% for the quarter and 11.3% for the year.
Steel Deck - Steel Deck decreased 0.3% for the quarter and 1.7% for the year.

It is a history now. Financial crises is coming. How about the 4th quarter 2008?

I think it will be a decrease and big decrease next year.

I used Movable Type as my blog platform over Four years.
Now MovableType will have a 7 years old birthday party in head office. If I am in San Francisco, I would join it.

The party is next Thursday, October 30, 2008.

RSVP required.

Dreamhost has a site stats facility included.

But sometimes it is not accessible because of the .htaccess file.

Say WordPress or some customized .htaccess file which will change the rewrite rule.

To make it works, add following code in top of the .htaccess file.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/(stats|failed_auth\.html).*$ [NC]
RewriteRule . - [L]

RAM Idle LE is a smart memory management program that will keep your computer running more efficiently, faster, and longer. The program's intelligently manages the free RAM that is available to Windows, and prevents your computer from running progressively slower over time.

It works on Windows 98/Me/2000/XP.

The following screen shot is taken on Windows 2000.

Please be advised that Ram Idle LE is a freeware. No cost on your pocket.

Download it from the official site.

There are facts of Burnaby Douglas Riding.

Language:
English: 50,820
French: 970
Non-official Languages: 57,125

Citizenship:
Immigrants: 52,475
Non Citizen: 12,740

It is not clear who will win in this riding.
NDP or Con?
Bill Siksay or Ronald Leung?

It is 21:30 PST now.
Bill Siksay to Ronald Leung is 14,521to 14,405. Very close.

I will update this page when the final result come.

Update: Final results is NDP win this seat.
Bill Siksay is MP again.

Liberal Bill Cunningham 9,177 19.4 19.4%
Communist George Gidora 205 0.4 0.4%
Conservative Ronald Leung 17,139 36.3 36.3%
Green Party Doug Perry 2,822 6.0 6.0%
NDP-New Democratic Party Bill Siksay 17,937 37.9 37.9%
Total number of valid votes: 47,280

I will vote this afternoon for Canada.
It is Burnaby - Douglas. Let me see the riding profile.

This is an urban riding, located east of Vancouver on the southern shore of Burrard Inlet. It contains that part of Burnaby bounded in the east, north and west by the city limits and on the south by the Kingsway. According to the 2006 census, more than 47 per cent of this riding's residents are immigrants. About 30 per cent are of Chinese origin. Burnaby-Douglas has a diverse economy, which includes retail trade, manufacturing and other services. Simon Fraser University is here. Residents are well-educated - almost 30 per cent over age 25 have a university certificate or degree. The average family income is $78,973 and the unemployment rate is 6.7 per cent. This riding was created in 1996, drawing three-quarters of its population from the old Burnaby-Kingsway riding. In 2004, it retained 85 per cent of its population and added about 7,500 people from Vancouver South-Burnaby. Population: 112,119 (2006 census; an increase of 3.0% since 2001)

There is a simple tool you can use to find out your real IP address.

It is very helpful when you in a LAN and have limited rights.

Just click the link

You will see something looks like below:

Your IP is 64.180.xxx.xxx

Web browser required only.

I used Voipstunt as my long distance phone service provider almost two years. It gave good quality phone connection.

Now I change to poivY. A new voip provider name, but actually same company as voipstunt.
The most important reason is that China main land is the free call country in poivY.

All setting is similar to voipstunt. Let me describe how to use it.

1) Sign up the account.
2) Buy credit about US$15 to top up the account.
3) Call free in 90 Freedays to free countries or area.
Including Canada, Chian, USA, UK, etc. For full list please click here.
4) Max 300 minutes per week of free calls.
5) After 90 days, the normal rate apply.
Say, China USD0.027/min, USA USD0.02/min.

The Setting of SIP device shown as below:

SIP port : 5060 Registrar : sip.poivy.com Proxy server : sip.poivy.com Outbound proxy server : leave empty Account name : your PoivY username Password : your PoivY password Display name/number : your PoivY username or voipnumber Stunserver (option) : stun.poivy.com

You can still download the softphone to use through your desktop.

Update SeoQuake as regular.

[*] Fixed bug with Yahoo Siteexplorer SERP
[*] Fixed bug with Yahoo Link parameter
[*] Fixed bug with Yahoo Linkdomain parameter
[*] Fixed bug with Yahoo Linkdomain2 parameter