Chinese New Year 2010 will the transition from Ox Year into Tiger Year. Many things will happen this year, some could be good things, some could be bad things. As for Chinese or whoever celebrates this Lunar New Year, there is belief of Chinese Zodiac, Fortune Cookies and Chinese Lucky Symbols. What are they?

If you are familiar with Astrological Sign, then Chinese Zodiac is quite similar. The difference is Astrological Sign is assigned based on in which date range does your birthday fell and Chinese Zodiac is assigned based on your birth year. There are 12 animals representing the year. As for 2009, the animal is Ox and Tiger for 2010.

Meanwhile, Fortune Cookies is crisp cookie with “fortune” paper wrapped inside it. You can usually find it in Chinese Restaurant or access this Fortune Cookies application.

What about Chinese Lucky Symbols? Chinese characters usually have one or more meanings and some of them are particularly loved by Chinese people. You can pick one for yourself using this Chinese Lucky Symbols application.

Having these three information, I hope you will cherish the Chinese New Year celebration.

By the way, Cap Go Meh will be celebrated on March 1st, 2010. And don’t forget to give me angpao (money in red envelope), OK?

1. Open Device Manager in your computer/laptop. Click Start, then right click on My Computer, then click Properties.

After System Properties dialog box pop-up, choose Hardware tab and then choose Device Manager.

2. On Device Manager, right click on the unknown hardware driver. Click Details tab.
You can find keyword needed to identify the device. In this case, the keyword is “VEN_14F1&DEV_2BFA”. Having this keyword, we know that the Vendor Code is 14F1 and the Device Code is 2BFA.

3. Then, open PCIdatabase.com website, this is a popular website providing information about computer device. Enter the Vendor Code or the Device Code to start the searching process. For your information, PCIdatabase.com only provides information about the device, you can also find URL to download the driver most of the time. In case there is no URL, just search the required driver in the Internet. Having information about the device name, IMHO, is enough to retrieve several links from search engine.

I hope this information can be useful for you.

What I can understand from the image is that Japan has been penetrated with 61mbps internet connection and the cost is only $0.27/month. YES, IT’S TRUE. WOWWWW!!!!. Well, sorry for my hysterical response. I couldn’t help it. Indonesia is not even in the top 20, not to mention the internet cost.

I thought The Netherlands would be in the top 5 countries for Internet speed and costs (I lived in The Netherlands for 3 years), but I was wrong. The Top 5 countries were Japan, Korea, Finland, Sweden, and France (61mbps, 46mbps, 22mbps, 18.2mbps, and 17.6mbps, respectively). Netherlands was in sixth position. How about USA? Uncle Sam was behind Iceland and Germany (4.8mbps). In the 20th position was Greece.

I almost forgot to mention that about 60% of Japanese (approximately 76 million people out of 125 million people, data 2009) has access to this broadband internet connection. In USA, only about 8%-10% of American (approximately 27 million people out of 308 million people, estimated data 2010) has the access to the broadband internet connection.

I hope the cheap and fast broadband internet connection will penetrate Indonesia in near future.

• Click Start button
• Click Run
• Type GPEDIT.MSC. Then Group Policy screen will appear
• On Computer Configuration dan User Configuration menu, click Administrative templates
• Click System
• Right click on Turn On Autoplay, choose Properties. Then the Turn on Autoplay propeties screen will appear
• In Setting tab, pilih Enabled
• In Turn off Autoplay on column, chooseAll drives
• Click Ok

Well, good luck trying!

Some of my laptop problems are:
1. The DVD Room can not be used to read data. I can put DVD on it, and judging by the sound it produces when the DVD just entered the hardware, there is no problem with the power cable or the DVD optical reader. I suspected that it must’ve been the software.
Despite the hours I have spent on the Internet, I haven’t found the solution yet. I have tried fixing it by installing software, and the most extreme (I also got the advice from the Internet) is by whacking the laptop gently three or four times (and still FAILED).

I am still researching. Some says that it has to be the operating system that has problems. Well, I’ll inform you if I have the right solution. I found out that many people have the similar problems.

2. It’s hard to believe that my laptop series can not be found in Acer official website. My laptop is Acer Aspire 5672WLMi.
The implication is it’s hard to find the right driver for my laptop’s hardware. Until now, I can not find about 3 more drivers for the hardware. Even, it took me 3 days, wandering around the Internet just to search the right driver for my VGA card. For your information, the VGA card is ATI Radeon Mobility x1600.

I have tried to install the driver from ATI’s official website for this type VGA card. However, it failed big time. The driver is not suitable for the hardware.
After a while, I finally stumbled upon a great website, providing the driver and great additional software for my ATI Radeon x1600.

Before I give the website link, I also want to inform you that my device manager keep telling me that the correct driver is something about “Video Controller (VGA Compatible)”. I have searched the Video Controller (VGA Compatible) driver; however, after I downloaded the software and try to install it, the driver did not work.

Well, no further due, my ATI Radeon Mobility x1600 driver was downloaded from Omega Drivers website. Using tagline “Home of the ATI & NVIDIA Omega Drivers”, the website provides you the required VGA card driver. Along with ATI Radeon graphics, the website is also the house of NVIDIA GeForce drivers and 3DFX Interactive driver. The later sadly is no longer under development. In this website, you can search the right driver for your graphic card. By the way, if you are satisfied by the software, please do not hesitate to donate money. It can be used for further development.

Hope the remaining problems will be solved in no time.

Quoting from Charles Dickens (English novelist (1812 - 1870))’ book, A Tale of Two Cities:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only”

What can I say, 2009 maybe one case of the worst of times and lack of wisdom :D.
It’s 2010 now. Before talking about this year, I want to congratulate you with Merry Christmas 2009 and Happy New Year 2010. It’s not late to say Merry Christmas, in fact, I’ll have my first Christmas celebration this year in my place (last year Christmas is sometimes celebrated after 25th of December and in January the next year here). I can only wish that 2010 will be a great year for us, in respect of love, economic, work, relationship with family, friends, colleague, study or whatever thing you want to achieve this year.

Last but not the least, keep visiting my website, please don’t hesitate to comment. Okay?

Well, let me try to remember some interesting news happened around me recently. First, it is spring in Groningen now. What to expect? The sun has been brightly friendly lately, so I don’t have to wear thick astronout clothes. The record so far is 22 degree Celcius. People also start to have "praten over koffie" outside the cafe, students study in the park. I don’t know whether people star to remove their clothes and sunbathing in the famous nude lake in Groningen, Hoornsmeer:P.

**Daylight Saving TIme in The Netherlands was started on March 28, 2009**

Second, Indonesia will held its biggest democracy feast, election day, today. Thursday, 9 April 2009, was announced as public holiday so people who have registered as elector may exercise their right. I am still wondering how people will choose their favorite candidate among those hundreds candidates. May the best win!

I think that’s all for today. Ja ne! Mata ashita! Tot morgen!

The first thing I thought about New Year was that I am very grateful that I can enter this year 2009. I remembered a preacher told me that we have to give thanks to be able entering new year, because not many people can have the opportunity. This sounds positive rather than skeptical for me.

Well, many things can be put in to review from 2008, but I am rather tired now. I don’t want to talk about it here right now, instead, I just want to wish you:

Happy New Year 2009

May this year be prosperous and more importantly, we are blessed with healthiness

About my resolution, I have many lists to accomplish this year. Hopefully, all them can be fulfilled. Good luck with your resolution too.