Ni hau ma?

I was on the way down on the elevator when these three fellas entered. Probably some office workers from the same building and they were talking or rather, whining about the Mandarin course that they have to take. After spotting me, a Chinese who they assume to be able to speak in Mandarin this fella said to me, “ni hau ma?” (is the pinyin even right?). Mind you, he is a Malay guy who is obviously not a native Mandarin speaker and me being a Chinese who can’t speak in my own mother tongue went “huh?” and told him this “saya tak boleh cakap dalam Bahasa Cina la”. The moment I said that his friends laughed at him. Lol. Even my BM went K-O after not using it for a period of time since I entered university. Then he asked me if I’m a Chinese and I said yes to which he asked why is it that I can’t speak in Chinese if I’m a Chinese. Aduh. Same ol’ question and I gave him the same ol’ answer, “sebab dari kecil lagi I tak banyak cakap dalam Bahasa Cina” or something like that =.= Can’t help since my both my parents were from missionary schools those days and were English educated. Plus, at home, 90% of our conversation are in English (10% Hokkien).

*Sigh*

And then the other day when I was out shopping with mom at the supermarket an elderly lady asked me something about flour (she was showing me a packet of flour) in Cantonese (or Mandarin?). What did I do in the end? Lol. I told her I don’t know in Cantonese (that’s about as far as my Chinese vocabulary stretched) and from the way I say it I probably sounded rude. Can’t help it la since I don’t know Cantonese nor Mandarin.

Dang it. I’m getting sick of getting the “a Chinese who doesn’t speak Chinese” thing. Whatever la…

MySQL Server issues solved!

This problem has been plaguing me since last week when I needed to complete the report. Without much time at hand, I decided to use my older machine running on Windows XP operating system (OS) rather than wasting my time trying to get it work on my newer machine which runs on Windows Vista OS (which sucks, by the way. Big time.). Did that and managed to hand in the report just on time. But still, the nagging issue still annoys me especially now that I’ve heard from my fellow trainees that she managed to install it on her Windows Vista machine. She said that she could give me a hand at installing MySQL into my machine but seeing as this brand spanking Dell of mine isn’t even a year old (not even a scratch) I hesitated a bit at the thought of me having to bring it over to the office. What if somehow I drop my baby? What if it got stolen? Yup. Lots of what ifs were running through my mind which is so typical of me. So anyways, on to the solution to my problem.

***

- Installer used: MySQL Server 6.0 (Alpha edition) – means that it’s not a stable version as of current.

- Installation type: Full (it may work on Typical, I think)

- Configuration (only the important points):

1. Set it to MySQL 5.0

2. After doing all that, you may get Error 2003 (or 1045?) saying that its either the issue lies with firewall that blocked port 3306 or installation issues (where previous installation is not completely wiped off). Mine lies with the former.

3. To unblock port 3306: Control Panel –> Windows Firewall –> Click on Allow a program through Windows Firewall –> Go to Exception tab –> Click on Add Port

4. Add port 3306 to the list of exceptions.

And your MySQL server should be up and running by now.

***

Step 3 solves the whole problem that I had with MySQL Server configuration and if it wasn’t for this site, I’d probably have to lug my baby to the office tomorrow

And now, my only question is, will unblocking port 3306 cause security issues? There must be a good reason why it was blocked in the first place =.=

A Week That It Was…

It was crazy for the last couple of days…there was the report that I was supposed to submit today (and I did) and then there was the presentation.

The presentation was part of the training and we only had one night to prepare before presenting it on the following day. Was worried as hell and in the end, I took out one of the topic that I had presented before during my university years and I’m glad that I did that. The end result? One too many “errs” and “erms” in addition to one “la” (I am a Malaysian after all) which resulted in me getting the highest penalty in the class. Lol. Still, the trainer commented that my presentation was excellent and there I was going “huh?” No kidding.

By the end of all that, I breathed a sigh of relief but that’s not the end. I still have to study for a test and also to complete the report assignment. Did just that last night and managed to submit it earlier today although I was yawning like nobody’s business throughout the day. As for the test, I did not aced it but I did ok. Got one right at the very least

So what do I do now? To catch up on TV of course! Just found out that Grey’s is back since last week after the one month break and it was a crossover (Private Practice) episode. And oh, Project Runway is on again. Can’t believe that a year has passed since then.

That being said, I’m gonna catch up on Grey’s (before I get really busy when the large-scale Java project work begins). Ciao!

Busy Days Ahead

Yesterday marks the end of the first month that I’ve been training to be a Java developer. Time sure flies, which is good in my case. To be honest, I’d rather be working on a real job with fixed income every month. And mind you, it’s not getting any easier as the time goes by.

I have a deadline coming, end of this week to submit the Crystal Reports documentation of some sort that I’m supposed to be working on right now. But unfortunately, the MySQL server (needed to be used in conjunction with Crystal Reports) couldn’t run on Windows Vista OS. Indeed, Vista does seems to be Microsoft’s worst OS in the history.

So anyways, I had better start working on the documentation if I want to meet the deadline. Ciao for now!

P.S.: I’ll be on indefinite hiatus what with the Java thing going on.

All fired up!

It’s weird you know, for me to understand almost 98% of what is being taught about Java programming. Odd. Very odd. Back when I was still an IT undergraduate, I was always fighting to keep my eyelids from shutting during programming-related subject lectures and I can still remember that the lecturers were always reading from the Powerpoint slides on top of complicated explanations. Needless to say, every single time I only managed to scrap average grades for such subjects as they weren’t my strong subjects to begin with.

And then there’s this training that I’m currently attending (all the way till almost end of March). So far, so good I suppose; except for the part where I flunked the first test. But still, for some unknown reason, I’m now all fired up and motivated (at long last) in completing this training while on the road towards employment. Lol.

As of now, my goal is to complete this training with some achievement that I can brag about to prospective employers at the end of it and then land myself on a high-paying job in addition of excellent employee benefits that rivals (or on the same par) as a certain organisation. No joke about this one as the second set of my education loan repayment schedule has arrived just yesterday. Must get a job that will enable me to repay back two sets of loan in timely manner before the darn interest rate kills me.

Until my next post, ciao!