Ben Crox on Blog

We all go Expos, do demos and roadshows. Sometimes we need to set up for field training, ad-hoc site-office.

But… have you ever Get Stuck by the expensive LAN line and unstable WiFi ? Or that you simple want to save your valuable time?

I use a lot of the 3G data network. And now, with cheap and fast 3G infrastructure in Hong Kong, please just forget about the unsecured WiFi ( Don’t you know how easy to hack and log wifi channels ? Ask Youtube, they show how you by video)

But to use 3G for REAL work, you cannot rely on a simple 3G cell-phone plus bluetooth ad-hoc network. That’s unstable and expensive.

At least, you need a 3G data card and 3G data SIM. Perhaps you can find cheap 3G card for 1.5k HKD . A pre-paid data SIM can be as cheap as 120 HKD. Thus the minimum entrance price is 1.6k HKD. If you are willing to pay 200 HKD per month and sign for 2 year contract ( thus 4.8K ) , you’ve got a free ( subsidized ) data card and very limited throughput access ( 60Mb per month) .

Hey! Still not feeling good about the price ?

Now here is what I am considering to offer:

A preset 3G data card / SIM / router ( wifi can be disabled, has 4 LAN ports ) setup, NO throughput limit, 700kbps to 5Mbps down link ( average 1.2 Mbps in new towns, over 2 Mbps in Business area ) for rent

Say, HKD 500 per 3 days. ( Hmm… plus 500 deposit ? )

Advantages:

1. Very easy setup, just supply electricity and plug your LAN cables to it.
2. Support application service, such as Video cam / surveillance systems. ( I am very experienced in setting up Voip / Video systems )
3. A lot cheaper than renting LAN from Expo/Training centers, such as HKCEC . ( They will charge you 1K ~ 3.6K per event, while the network is NOT stable in fact ! )

Any comment ?
( Interested people please contact me at lxb [at] hkday [dot] net , of course you may negotiate for the price and term. )

[Update : The issue seems to be relieved. The following are *real record* of what evil things happened in between 12 Oct - 13 Oct ]

MartinOei blogs that Yahoo HK’s Image search is probably interfered by PRC’s Golden Shield ( the GFW / keyword blocking system ).

I hope it will be relieved very soon, otherwise it would be Yahoo’s own Doomsday.

Let the links speak for themselves:

1. Search 64 in Yahoo HK / Yahoo US Image
2. Search 65 in Yahoo HK / Yahoo US Image
3. Search 64 in Google HK Image

64 means June 4 massacre, or the TianAnMen Incident in 1989. In fact there are lots of non political content contains “64″, the word itself can be as natural and neutral as 65. Up till now, Yahoo HK image search flows me lots of blocked items ( an red [X] , usually coined as the pork bun ) for “64″, but no problem for “65″. This is totally non-sense, meaning nothing other then brutal Political interference.

And that is absolutely not acceptable.

According to Martin, lots of other keywords are censored.

Many of them are crucial for public interest, such as those related to the recent Poisoned Milk scandal. ( Ref )

Can we sue Yahoo HK for “Access to computer with dishonest intent” ?

Furthermore, will Yahoo HK’s auxiliary, such as popular photo sharing site Flickr falls down ? Yet not so far, Please DO BACKUP your Flickr account if any worry !

How about Yahoo Knowledge plus ? Lots of students just learn from that mess of interpretation. Will anyone speak up the truth got recorded and therefore censored by the Chinese agents ?

Tell you, I was once annoyed by the agents for a year, even in HK. That’s a hint about why this blog has been blocked by the GFW since 2004. ( It seems to be relieved just months ago, to my pleasure )

Related links :
0. Long long ago, Flickr HK had already leaned to HK Govn’t ’s indecent policy , refer to Deki’s blog and Oiwan of Inmediahk
1. First discussed at HK Golden
2. Very soon, EVCHK wiki get a page
3. Some more blog post
- Kirk Lim
- Jacky See
- MartinOei and Me as mentioned…
4. Facebook group, as you can expect ( but I am not interested to join … facebook is such an opinion sucker, dudes not for action )

Every time when I start to “play” with some software, I jot down a “damngram”, such as :

abc_software: dgddddggdddD
def_software: dddD
ghi_software: gggggD
jkl_software: dddggddddgddd
mno_software: D

A small d means “damn!”, but may be still working.
Big D means “DAMN !”, lose temper, don’t bother me anymore!
A small g means “good!”, I am somehow satisfied and willing to continue.
Big G mean “GOAL!”, the task has been done!

Today, I jot 13 big D , a mountain of d and 0 g/G on wikis …. -_-

Thanks very much for those who make and keep updating wikimatrix. I am sure that reading the big table on wikipedia has no fun.

All the below are my own opinion, which in turn are based on my special requirement and vision.

Tiddlywiki

I am a long time fans of tiddlywiki, for personal use. In particular, I love the BSD license, love the pyTW adoption when planting to server. Best for wiki / javascript hackers.

But it is simple NON-solution for multi-user environment.

Mediawiki

English wikipedia ( in fact most non-Chinese language wikipedia ) helps me a lot.

The downside is trivial, mediawiki means to be public, for text only application. I cannot blame it, but would not use it.

TWiki

Good to have ACLs ( by default, when compared to other wiki software and their often outdated ACL plug-ins ). Use it for projects and internal collaboration.

Bad, very bad when you want to install it ….

tikiwiki CMS/Groupware

Lots of features, you cannot treat it as wiki only.

Sorry, I always give up for its all-in-one, tiny font-size, rather ugly styling.
A mess of dot-php files when extracted.

PBwiki

Can anyone tell me what’s the point ? Using PB in barcamp.org is … a nightmare full with 500 and 404 for me.

Pmwiki

Good, very good for its advanced table cell syntax. Installation is not hard as well.

Yet, still have to figure out how to build up the user accounts.