These days, branding and identity is a big matter especially in the digital world. This is why Bytes Hub Hosting is throwing away this contest for everyone to have a shot at getting a free web hosting together with a domain name that will be hosted in Malaysia. I’m sure there are times when you wanted a web hosting to host your WordPress blog, Joomla! site or even an e-commerce site for you online business but hesitated whether or not to get one. So, are you ready to win this?

This contest is simple, all you have to do is come out with a blog post and write why you should be supported by Bytes Hub Hosting. There will not be any minimum word count. In order to win, you will have to be as creative as possible, even with the title of your post. The winner will be judged based on the overall creativity of the post. Don’t forget to place our affiliate banner/logo at your site to be eligible (a guide on placing it can be found at the end of this post). Once you are done, leave a comment here with the link to your blog post. It is that easy!

*At least our affiliate sidebar logo must be placed at your blog if you choose to put only one

Easy steps to participate:
1) Write a blog post on why you should be supported by Bytes Hub Hosting.
2) You must link to http://www.byteshub.com/ in your blog post entry.
3) Be as creative as you can, even with the title of the blog post!
4) Place our affiliate banner/logo at your blog.
5) Leave a comment here with the link to your post.
6) The winner will be judged based on the overall creativity of the post.
7) Winning entry will be announced and contacted on the 31st of October 2010.

Terms & Conditions:
1) Your current blog/site must have a minimum of 50 unique visitors per day.
2) A link to http://www.byteshub.com/ is required in the blog post.
3) You must place our affiliate banner/logo on your site to be eligible.
4) The affiliate banner/logo must stay at your site if you are the winner.
5) Winner will be presented with 1-year Bronze web hosting and domain name (.com or .net only).
6) Bytes Hub Hosting reserves the right to terminate the contract should any terms be breached.
7) There will only be 1 winner. All decisions made and announced are final.

Placing the affiliate banner/logo:
1) Visit this link to register for an account.
2) Login to the client area and head over to the Affiliates section.
3) You will find the code to place our banner and logo. Place it at your website.
4) Placement of it must be at a visible spot, preferably high up at your site.
5) That’s it! You will earn commissions if visitors referred by you places an order.

Good luck and I look forward to see all the creative entries!

A young food blogger who demanded that he and his three companions be given free meals at an upscale restaurant in the Joo Chiat area has sparked a huge furore online. The group of four had walked into Private Affairs, a small but exclusive eatery in Joo Chiat, for its Sunday champagne brunch promotion that costs S$68++ per person.

The blogger in question, Brad Lau, who runs a food blog called ladyironchef (ladyironchef.com), had informed the management on Friday that he would be coming down to review the Sunday Brunch promotion. On the day itself, he and his partner came down at about 130pm, followed by his two other companions, each of whom came down half an hour apart.

According to Private Affairs’ operations director Ross Valentine,  the four of them had brunch until 430pm, even when the restaurant’s official brunch hours was from 1130 am to 330pm. Brad and his partner also enjoyed two glasses of champagne each.

When presented with the final bill of $435, the blogger initially refused to pay and repeatedly told the restaurant’s chef, “I never pay for food in any restaurant.”

The restaurant eventually offered to waive off the cost of the meal for him and his partner as well as the cost of the champagne out of goodwill, thus lowering the bill to $159. Still upset but finally relenting to pay, the blogger then threw his credit card onto the bar counter in front of the cashier before storming out.

Valentine told Yahoo! Singapore, ”This blogger looked very aggressive and was quite arrogant. The fact that he also walked in with his friends at staggered timings created quite a bit of problems for my chef de cuisine, who has to prepare and present his food at just the right times.”

“We decided to waive off the meal and champagne cost for him and his partner out of goodwill. But when we asked him when the review of the meal would be coming out, he said he was not obliged to write anything if the food wasn’t good enough,” he added.

Yahoo! Singapore emailed Brad Lau for his reaction but he has yet to a reply.

The incident, however, has enraged the local food blogging community.

Glenn Lee, who runs popular food blog Hungryepicurean.com since late last year, posted an open letter criticising the blogger’s behaviour for “tarnishing the good name of the community.”

Lee, 22, told Yahoo! Singapore, “We are food bloggers and I’m pretty sure the intentions of all of us in the community is to share the love that we have for food and writing.”

“But what this certain blogger has done is highly detrimental to the integrity of the community as a whole and I felt the need to stand up for what I strongly believe in,” he said.

Kaelyn Ong, 22, who posted an entry entitled ”STOP asking for free food” on her food blog, My Food Sirens II,  also expressed her disgust.

“I’m surprised. It’s beyond my understanding how someone can actually request for a free meal on the house just because he’s a food blogger,” she told Yahoo! Singapore.

“Anyone can be a food blogger these days, all it takes is a camera and a blog… does that mean restaurants have to sponsor everyone for their meals?” she added.

She also apologised to restaurants on behalf of the food blogging community and said ”not all of us are such bad eggs”.

Cheryl Chia, who has a food and baking blog, cocoabutterscotch, was also appalled.

“I find it shameful. Demanding for free food on account of your supposed “status” as a person who blogs about food is not acceptable,” the 26-year-old said.

Renowned food expert KF Seetoh, who runs the popular makansutra.com, said the blogger in question lost his integrity by refusing to pay.

“The best position is to be invisible, pay for your own food. When you pay for your own food, you don’t take any prisoners when you write,”  he said.

But what if the restaurant offers to give bloggers a free meal?

“Then I won’t write about your restaurant. Even if they offer me 50% off the total bill, and if I write about it, they will take my review with a 50% pinch of salt. Some of them, after eating, they call the chef out and ask him to change this and that on the menu. Some would then say, let me do a consultancy role for you. You do what I say and I write nice things.

“My stand is, be neutral. I pay, I say and then I rate,” he concluded.

**Since this post was first published at close to 130pm, Brad Lau’s blog, ladyironchef, has been suspended. Attempts to contact the blogger have still proven unsuccessful.

So what are your thoughts on this? Should a food blogger demand for free food in return of a review?

Source: Yahoo! Singapore

The main site is rather simple looking so it all depends on each individual’s preferences whether or not this is good. As for me, I think the site is good enough as a sophisticated website can sometimes be rather confusing to some users especially the less tech-savvy ones. Just a simple search box there is rather adequate to serve its function since most people visit sites like this with an objective to search for a particular car brand or model.

An user-friendly interface with details that hit straight to the point is what some might find pretty helpful and useful for them. While I do like some catchy and interesting websites, CarSifu does not stray too far from my expectations too since it doesn’t take a lot of knowledge to figure how to use and navigate the website. So, if you’re looking for a car classifieds website, don’t forget to check out on CarSifu.my today!

You know, the first day I got Unifi, I asked you guys (TMnet) if I would be able to use my own router. Well you said no. When I discovered the SSH daemon running on the router (which used a different password than the web user interface), you said you couldn’t disclose the password. An hour ago, I discovered that password and the reason why you won’t give it out.

TM basically planted a backdoor in everyone’s DIR-615 router.

What is this? What are all these hidden options in this special account you neglected to tell us about? You mean to say I could have used my own router all along? You mean people spent >RM1000 on Cisco grade equipment just because you didn’t want to tell them about this?

You mean in a sample group of 900 nodes, 600 of them who think their networks are ‘secure’ are actually completely open? Even those companies on Unifibiz which use the same router? WOW..

That’s right guys, TM named the “administrator” account on the DIR-615 as “admin” when there was actually a secondary administrator account with a higher access level. The VLAN settings were never locked out, that account which we all assumed was the admin (because they told us so) was actually a noob piece of shit with <60% access to the router. This account has the same user/pass across every Unifi router that has been given out so far and cannot be changed or even seen with the default ‘admin’ account.

—-

What’s the fix?

Untick remote management. If you have a firewall on it, block all the ports (TCP 22/23/80/8080/443) from WAN access.

UPDATE : If you’re a Unifi user on firmware 7.05, if you read everything in the management page you can find the username for this account. The pass is the same, once you get access log in and reconfigure your router security properly. I can’t believe not a single technician set this account up properly.

—-

FAQs

Some less tech-savvy people have asked me what this all means, so here goes:

Q: What is this and how is this possible?
A: Every consumer router has a username/password combination to access it. This is a basic security feature to ensure that only you (the owner) can access it. This Unifi router however, has two accounts by default. When TM installed Unifi in your home/office, they only configured the first account. The second account — which has a higher level of access was left configured with its default username/password. They also neglected to inform the customers (you) and their own technicians who did the install about this second account. As every Unifi user is ‘forced’ to use this router and this account has not been configured properly, every Unifi user is also vulnerable to have their routers accessed by unauthorized users simply by using this default account user/password combination.

Q: So what if outsiders can access my router? What does this mean?
A: The Unifi router is not just a simple box that sits on your network. It can be considered to be a full computer system and has the capability to run any executable that’s made for it. Since an outsider can access your router, he can also do the following:

- Turn your router into a proxy, if he commits any crimes online it will be traced back to you instead and you will take the fall for it
- Use your 10/20mbps Unifi account so he doesn’t have to pay for his
- Use up your bandwidth quota (once quotas are implemented) as much as he wants and you will pay for it
- ‘Spy’ on your Internet connection and view every site you are visiting
- Forward all connections to your home PC using DMZ, making your home PC completely vulnerable to Internet attacks.. if you have an open NAS (network attached storage) on your home network, he will be able to access all your files

And the list goes on and on..

Q: So how can I fix this?!
A: Make sure remote management is disabled (as it is enabled by default). With this enabled, anybody with this default user/pass combination can access your home router and perform the attacks I mentioned above. This fix however, doesn’t prevent people on your own LAN network from accessing the router. If you are running an open Unifi hotspot (shop wifi, etc) and you are using the default DIR-615 router, the only fix is to access this second account and change the password.

For an uploaded Router Security guide and VLAN bridging guide (to use your own hardware with Unifi), find it at http://unifi.athena.my

*All the findings on this matter are credited to rizvanrp

Lovey-dovey: Chubby Taek Jho Low and Paris Hilton

The Malaysian splashed out £1.8 million, yes in pounds on drinks in one night alone at the exclusive Byblos nightclub. Apparently, he was competing with Paris’ ex-boyfriend Doug Reinhardt on who can splash the most cash on booze. Indeed, Taek showed who’s the man that night. However, questions arised, what was Paris’ ex-boyfriend doing there? Was he stalking her? There are also rumors that bills are the only thing that Paris has been racking up.

Who is Taek Jho Low?

Name: Taek Jho Low
Age: 28
Occupation: Officially he is an adviser to some international corporations, but no one knows what that means or seems to believe that is the truth. People say he’s involved in oil, gas, and construction. He and was appointed to the board of Malaysian bank UBG Berhad last year. It’s rumored that he’s an arms dealer.
Residence: Rents several apartments in the Park Imperial on West 57th St in midtown that house him and his staff—including several body guards. Famous neighbors include Daniel Craig and Sean Combs.
Motorcade: Travels about town with his entourage in a fleet of Escalades.

Nightclub Spending:

• Spent $160,000 in one night at Avenue this September during Fashion Week.
• Routinely spends between $50,000 and $60,000 at Pink Elephant.
• Bought Lindsay Lohan 23 bottles of Cristal at 1OAK when she was celebrating her 23rd birthday.

Birthday Party:

• Just celebrated his 28th year starting last Wednesday with a four-day bash at Ceasar’s Palace in Las Vegas.
• Megan Fox was flown out to Vegas to hang out with the birthday boy, who routinely surrounds himself with models.
• The hotel pool was surrounded by caged lions and tigers and filled with girls in bikinis. Later, at a nightclub, Low bought 120 bottles of Cristal for the revelers.
• Jamie Foxx gave him a red sports car for a present.
• Paris Hilton and Usher also attended the party.

Source: maidoali.wordpress.com

In this case, Malaysia definitely boleh!

The price slash however did not apply to the price of the device but only to the monthly voice + data package, or rather known as the iDiGi plan. The iDiGi is now as low as RM60 per month, even cheaper compared to their current DG Smart Plan.

As you can see from the above image, the former iDiGi 88, iDiGi 138 and iDiGi 238 are now priced at RM60, RM90 and RM160 respectively. From the looks of it, this is definitely a plan which will attract potential iPhone customers for sure, even I myself was shocked to see how cheap it is at the moment! Could this be a sign of DiGi trying to clear off as many 3GS stocks as possible to make way for the iPhone 4? Maybe.

BUT WAIT, this is actually something that would blind a customer’s eyes. If you do the maths and compare with the previous charges, you only save about RM200 now. The price slash on the monthly fees is what seems to be a marketing gimmick to me. Pretty nice marketing strategy eh DiGi?

Just when most people think that the UniFi service from TM is expensive, a good argument to it is the triple play bundle which includes Video, Internet and Phone which in short is the reason behind the VIP names of their packages. The IPTV which broadcasts interesting channels such as LUXE.TV HD, Fashion TV HD, STAR Chinese Movies, Channel News Asia and many more including our local free stations. However, TM has announced that some channels will be chargeable after this year’s Independence Day.

This definitely will put TM and UniFi especially in a bad position since now quite a lot of stations will be charged and what remains free is of course our local free stations. If this is really going to be done after the 31st of August, I don’t think the IPTV will be a success and it might soon just be a service for display purposes. Furthermore, say the RM149 for 5mbps is going to be more like a double play service rather than a triple play. One question that comes to mind is of course how much are the charges going to be? The pricing will definitely be a matter of life or death to the IPTV service since most users are already Astro subscribers, even if it is just a couple of bucks, people will still think twice since they are mostly subscribed to the paid satellite TV service.

What do you think of this? Will this kill off the IPTV service?

In my opinion, I think ISPs in Malaysia should at least improve the stability and reliability of our connections and also providing us more bandwidth considering the monthly fees we are paying. Even if they choose to not amend the monthly fees, at least give us a better and faster connection! Malaysians have been waiting for the day when ISPs could provide a stable yet fast connection. However, it seems so near yet so far.

Malaysia telecom operators paid the most for their Ethernet broadband lines in the Asia-Pacific region while their peers in Hong Kong enjoyed the lowest access bills, according to a recent study by the Asia-Pacific Carriers’ Coalition (APCC).

Released on Jun. 14, the survey revealed that Malaysia topped four out of five categories–differentiated by network speeds–covering Ethernet broadband monthly rental and installation costs. It was second highest in the fifth category, revealed the study.

For instance, the monthly rental and installation cost for 2Mbps circuit would cost an operator in Malaysia US$4,564 but only US$374 in Hong Kong.

Surpassing Thailand, which was ranked second in the study, Malaysia had the costliest local Internet access lines in the Asia-Pacific region.

Only countries with the top two most costly bills, as well as the country with the lowest access bill, were ranked.

The study showed that Singapore, which was the costliest for telecom providers when the survey was last conducted in 2006, dropped down the list this year. However, the Republic was still “two to three times” more expensive than the cheapest country, Hong Kong.

The report also stated that demand for Ethernet broadband access has not only “continued to rise” but the demand for higher bitrates is also increasing. This upward trend is reflected by the availability of information, compared to previous years, on carriers requesting for 10Gbps access circuits.

The study, which Telecommunications Research Project Corporate (TRPC) was commissioned to conduct, gathered information from seven international carriers and looked at three forms of access platforms: Ethernet, leased lines and DSL (digital subscriber line).

For Ethernet broadband cost, the survey covered 13 countries–in which the seven carriers offered Ethernet services–and assessed the monthly rental and installation costs of various Ethernet access speeds: 2Mbps, 10Mbps, 50Mbps, 10Mbps, 1Gbps and 10Gbps.

Leased lines were “the most widely used leased circuits across Asia-Pacific”, according to the APCC study.

Of the 14 regional countries surveyed for leased lines access, nine countries saw their costs reduced in real terms since 2006. The five countries that bucked the trend were Malaysia, India, the Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand.

“We are disappointed to note that local access charges have risen in real terms in five countries since 2006,” said APCC President Simon Smith. “Our members continue to experience challenges in obtaining competitive local access price charges, which are often disproportionate to charges for an end-to-end international service.”

Smith called for “fair” local access charges as these were a “critical requirement” for the creation of a competitive communications environment.

He also encouraged regulators in the markets reviewed to “take the necessary and appropriate regulatory action” to lower access pricing.

Source: ZDNet Asia

What are your thoughts on the broadband situation here in Malaysia?

How many of you BlackBerry Bold 9700 users or rather any other models that has the trackpad have experienced it wobbling? The situation goes like if you glide your finger on the trackpad, it moves. If you search about this problem on the Internet, you will find that many encountered this problem and went through several replacement units before they find a perfect trackpad that does not wobble. Apparently, even if some units don’t have this issue, the trackpad can become wobbly after prolong usage as well. While some might not be bothered about this problem, some users have experienced really bad wobbling and someone by the name of alin_tiniuc at crackberry was kind enough to share a DIY fix to this issue.

The Solution
1 – Tools needed* I skipped over this the first time because I figured that people that will be taking apart their phone pretty much already know and have what they need.
- T5 Screw driver. They should have them at Home Depot or Lowes if you need it right away. I got mine with stuff I ordered online.
- Next, a tool to separate the Chrome bezel from the housing. Don’t have an exact name for it but if someone posts it then I will update. You can see what the tool looks like in the video below.
- Some sort of fine blade to GENTLY remove the warranty sticker and replace when done. I usually just leave it on the edge of the blade until I’m ready to apply it back.

2 – Now I ran into an issue when doing this for a friend. His wobble wasn’t so bad but just to the left a little bit. Now when I added the tape and put the phone back together, his Menu button and Back button would cause the trackpad to be pressed down. This was because I raised it too high. If your wobble is not that bad then I just recommend putting 3-4 pieces and not the 5. Another person posted on here about that so I just want people to be aware of that.

If you don’t feel comfortable taking apart your 9700 then please don’t follow what I have to say. But if you do, then I hope this guide will help you fix the silly trackpad. If you don’t know how to take the phone apart then just click on the link below. Now I highly recommend having some kind of FINE SHARP BLADE, like a razor or exacto knife. And please don’t blame me if you screw this up. I am not responsible for whatever happens.

VIDEO: How To Dismantle A BlackBerry Bold 9700 | CrackBerry.com

For some reason the guy in this video seems a little too “rough” when taking apart the bottom part. A secret I learned is if you pry the bottom on the ends first and pop those up then it comes out really easy.

Once done with that be very careful when taking of the chrome trim because its very delicate. Once the chrome is off then there are 4 screws that need to be undone. Once those are out, you must unclip the screen at the very top which is point out with my screw driver. That part is connected to the back piece and you could break the ribbon if you pull to hard without realizing it and your screen would stop working.

Now lift the middle circuit board out and flip it around and unplug the trackpad sensor in the middle. Just like you did for the screen.

Ok now to the bread and butter of the thread. Why the heck does that trackpad have to wobble? Well from what I could figure out it has to do with the plastic piece underneath the trackpad itself. I believe that on some units the piece is too low and thus causes the trackpad to wobble around in the keyboard frame.

So I what I did was lay a piece of Scotch tape on a table and trace a circle with a razor. They don’t need to be the exact size of the plastic piece but as close as you can get it. I applied about 5 pieces on top of each other.

And please, please whatever you do. Just take your time doing everything. There is no need to rush.

Now this might not be the “coolest” way of fixing it and we probably shouldn’t even have to go to these extremes to fix something that shouldn’t be an issue in the first place. But hey my trackpad is now PERFECT, and what a wonderful feeling it is.

Credits: alin_tiniuc at crackberry

The long awaited improved version of the Apple iPhone is expected to be introduced to Malaysians as early as August 2010 by Maxis. This news was unveiled in one of the interviews with Van Overbeke conducted by The Star InTech. I wonder what the prices are going to be like though but I’m expecting it to be roughly the same as the current 3GS model.

This is straight from the horse’s mouth, the animal here being our local Star paper’s tech pull-out InTech. The report has the Maxis boss telling the paper’s reporter this: ‘Van Overbeke said the iPhone 4 could be available here by August, but declined to provide prices.’ This is only a ‘could’ scenario.  It doesn’t confirm that Apple phone is actually going to sell here in that coming month.

The same reporter also wrote: ‘As for the iPad, he said it is possible that Maxis will be distributing the 3G version of the tablet computer.’

That word ‘possible’ can also be roped into the same familial ‘could’. But at least Van Overbeke is quoted to say, “But it’s really up to Apple at this point.” A lot of readers, in Star, and in here, genuinely hope Apple decides to let Maxis bring in the iPhone 4 and the iPad. Here’s keeping our fingers crossed.

Source: Mobile World