2003-June-29

Come Tuesday (July 1st), all unsolicited commercial e-mails sent in Indiana or to Indiana computers must have a code in the subject field clearly identifying the message as an advertisement -- ADV: -- or as an adult-oriented ad -- ADV:ADLT.

The e-mails also must not trick someone into opening it with a phony subject line, such as "Re: Your Request" and must allow recipients to refuse to get further e-mails from that sender.

If the law isn't followed, you can take them to court. Violators can be assessed a civil penalty of $500 per offense. A Virginia law that also goes into effect Tuesday provides for criminal penalties.

As an indication of how severe email spamming has became, AOL blocks 2 billion spam e-mails every day, and customers click on a "report spam" button another 9 million times each day. Most spams originated from US , Korea and China.

2003-June-24

Apple Computer introduced its new G5 computer based on IBM's new 64-bit processor which can handle twice as much data as a typical PC. The new Power Mac G5, expected to be twice as fast as a similarly configured Pentium 4, will be launched in August with prices start at USD1,999.

Apple will also be launching a new Operating System, code name Panther, later this year. The new OS is designed to be more tightly integrated with the Internet.

2003-June-11

Microsoft has decided to acquire a Romanian anti-virus and security technology company GeCAD Software as a part of its Trustworthy Computing Initiative.

Microsoft hopes to utilize GeCAD technology in enabling the download of virus signatures which will keep Windows users up-to-date with their virus protection. GeCAD Software will not produce any more products once its purchase is finalized by Microsoft; the company's intellectual property will be utilized in developing Microsoft anti-virus and security solutions.

2003-June-6

We will be performing network infrastructure and server upgrade on Sunday, 8 June, 2003, 3:00PM-5:00PM. This is a planned upgrade and we will be re-routing some of our network traffic. Certain network services may be interrupted briefly.

2003-May-31

Jaring is having difficulty with their network. The problem is related to their telekom infrastructure provider. If you are Jaring user, you may experience slow down or even complete connection failure.

2003-May-28

Microsoft has updated its Software Assurance licensing program. The company has admitted that its initial approach angered a large number of customers, and is now bundling some training and support. The one interesting concession is that corporate licensees of Microsoft Office can now use that suite on a home computer as well.

Microsoft introduced its Software Assurance program in May 2001 but delayed implementation for more than a year after a customer backlash. Several large customers claimed they would have wound up paying more. A study by research firm The Yankee Group and Sunbelt Software found that 60 percent of Microsoft customers saw their costs go up after buying into Select License 6.0.

2003-May-27

Telekom Malaysia has informed us that one of our broadband connection is scheduled to be upgraded later today. The upgrade is expected to take one week, as Telekom's technician will need to install new equipment to go with the upgraded line.

Due to the unavailability of one of our Internet pipes, you may experience slow down or intermittent connection difficulty to our servers.

2003-May-17

Operation E-Con: several United States government agencies, including the FBI, the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, postal and immigration authorities and state and local law enforcement, launched a coordinated, nationwide assault on Internet fraud.

US Attorney General John D. Ashcroft cited some example of the Internet scams:

In Maryland, two men are charged with luring unsuspecting bank customers to fake bank Web sites. When customers submitted financial data, it was instead used to produce forged credit and ATM cards.

In Illinois, a defendant pleaded guilty to running a fraudulent at-home business scam, persuading 50,000 people to pay $30 to $45 registration fees for an envelope-stuffing business. The scheme raised $2 million.

In California, an investment scam that promised a 120 percent annual return took in nearly $60 million from 15,000 victims in 60 countries.

2003-May-16

TMNet is once again performing erratically, probably due to its upcoming (May 18) maintenance upgrade in the central Malaysia region. In a somewhat related news, we have decided to accelerate our planned data pipe and equipment upgrade to add bandwidth redundancy. A side benefit of this upgrade is to allow us to better cope with these ISP performance irregularity.

2003-May-14

IBM will be officially launching its eServer zSeries 990 next month as part of its "on-demand" computing strategy.The server will cost at least USD 1 million each, but organizations who only require such computing power occasionally can "scale-out" virtually instead of "scale-up" by buying one out right.

IBM started calling the system T-Rex after Sun Microsystems Inc. executives in 2001 declared mainframe computing as extinct as the dinosaurs. IBM is the world's largest maker of mainframe computers.

2003-Apr-29

More Telekom's International links are being added, routing configuration is quite messy right now, DNS servers are the hardest hit. As a result, all Malaysian Internet users may experience intermittent connectivity problem starting from April 28 around 11:00PM. It affects all aspect of Internet services, including email, VoIP phone, instant messaging, ICQ, etc.

Please note that this problem goes both ways: you can't send email to Yahoo or Hotmail users, neither can you receive emails from them.

Although the problem seems to have been resolved by April 29 around 3:00PM, you should expect similar problem in the coming months.

In related news, Jaring users may have encounter intermittent email problem since April 24. The problem was not due to Telekom's issue, but is now made worse because of it.

2003-Apr-22

Intel has resumed shipping its new 3GHz Pentium 4 800MHz FSB* system. Shipment was halted a week ago because of an "anomaly", which could affect some premium users who obtained the new system from vendors such as HP, Dell, and Gateway, before the processor has been officially launched. These selected few will need to contact the vendors for a software fix. New system will come with the software fix pre-installed.

* Current 800MHz FSB 3GHz Pentium 4 system uses Intel's 875P chipset

2003-Apr-21

Malaysia's international Internet connection was disrupted between April 16 11:00AM and April 17 10:00PM. Even though the problem had been resolved, expect the ripple effect to last for a week or so.

2003-Apr-10

On April 4, TMNet issued a press release acknowledging the difficulty they had had with regard to Streamyx:

Traffic congestion on the international links, is the key contributor to the slow browsing problem. As an interim measure to rectify International congestion, we have rerouted part of the traffic through an alternate gateway. On a more permanent solution, TM Net is adding more international links to the existing 4 x 155Mbps to the US to provide more bandwidth for the benefit of the customers...

In light of the inconvenience faced by our tmnet streamyx customers, TM Net will be giving a two-week rebate to all streamyx customers, which will be reflected in our bills by May 2003.

TMNet is upgrading its international bandwidth, and is targeting to have 12 x 155Mbps circuits by the end of 2003.

2003-April-7

TMNet is doing a series of network upgrade between 4 - 13 April, all at around 11PM - 2AM. Jaring is performing maintenance work on 13 April at around 3AM-6AM. You should expect intermittent Internet services interruption over this period.

2003-April-3

We have observed that TMNet network showed signs of instability for the past two days, TMNet users may experience intermittent connectivity problem to some overseas destination as a result.

UPDATE : The network is back to normal by April 4.

2003-April-1

Due to increased email spamming originating from TMNet users, Jaring has blocked off a segment of TMNet's IP addresses. As we are registered with TMNet, we are also being affected and have contacted Jaring about this issue, this is their reply:

For the past 2 weeks, JARING has been experiencing heavy & continuous spamming activities originated from TMNet IPs. Due to this, we have to block those IP blocks since we do not get fast action from TMNet Abuse Team.

Thanks.

Therefore with immediate effect, we can no longer send emails to Jaring users. We apologize for the inconvenient, and are trying to find a solution to this situation.

UPDATE : This problem is resolved on April 2 by routing all our emails through our server at Singapore. Thank you for your understanding.

UPDATE : By April 3 everything is back to normal. Jaring sysadmin was very supportive and uplifted the blockage to our IP range. However the blockage will be reinforced if there are further spamming by TMNet users originating from these IPs. We would like to thank Rohaizam Abu Bakar and the rest of Jaring sysadmin team for their prompt response. Rest assured that we are on top of the situation and will resolve any issue quickly.

2003-April-1

Due to a vulnerability in sendmail (a program which handle outgoing and relaying of emails for most Unix servers), many organizations are now frantically patching their sendmail to version 8.12.9 to protect against possible exploit. We have seen some servers being attacked, or applied the patch incorrectly which resulted in their users not being able to send and/or receive emails.

2003-Mar-31

There were some intermittent connection problems to our system between 1:00PM to 9:30PM, during which you might have experienced some difficulty in sending out and/or downloading emails. This was due to our outgoing gateway digital connection being interrupted. We apologized for any inconvenience caused.

Incoming emails were not affected.

2003-Mar-17

You may experience Internet performance degradation due to Telekom's upgrading exercise on Sunday morning, TMNet is affected, possibly due to obsolete network routing configuration: Intra-Malaysia traffic appears to be unaffected, but International Internet traffic has slowed significantly.

UPDATE : By March 19, most of Johor Bahru no longer experience this difficulty.

2003-Mar-13

TMNet user authentication problem has worsen. They are having difficulty with their authentication servers in KL, now affecting ISDN, ADSL and Dial-up users. We are also being affected by this problem.

We would also like to inform our users that due to equipment upgrade, some of our services will be interrupted between 2:00PM-3:00PM on Sunday, 16 March 2003.

2003-Mar-12

PC Notebooks based on Intel Centrino architecture, officially launched today, have finally become available from Dell, IBM and Toshiba. Not to be confused with its predecessors Pentium III-M and Pentium 4-M processors, notebook equipped with the new Pentium M (1024k L2 Cache) 1.6GHz processor should perform the same as a notebook that uses a desktop Pentium 4 (512k L2 Cache) 2.8GHz processor, yet has a battery life twice as long (six hours versus three hours).

2003-Mar-8

Sun Microsystems has announced the release of its StarOffice 6.1 beta. OpenOffice.org is expected to follow closely with the release of OpenOffice 1.1 beta; these announcements came right after Corel announced the first beta release of its WordPerfect Office 11, but before Microsoft release its third beta of Office 2003 next week.

2003-Mar-5

TMNet and Jaring are both still plagued by Internet connectivity issues, dial-up users may have difficulty dialing in to their services. This is primarily due to equipment upgrade, and affects TMNet dial-up users in particular:

TM Net Sdn Bhd would like to inform our customers that due to technical issues with the authentication system, TM Net customers may experience occasional interruption of service. Customers attempting to log-in to the Internet may experience slight difficulties in being authenticated.
TM Net Sdn Bhd apologizes for any inconvenience caused and are working to resolve this as quickly as possible.

For jaring's users, emails which rely on UUCP106.jaring.my will be interrupted.

2003-Mar-3

There have been intermittent Internet connection problems from Malaysia to the rest of the world since February 28, and it affects both Jaring and TMNet. This problem is now severely affecting all Malaysian's DNS (domain name servers) performance. Our log indicated that the problem started from 3:15AM today (Monday). If you are in Malaysia, you could face difficulty in any Internet-related applications, such as e-mail, instant messaging, web, internet phone, etc.

UPDATE : the problem was resolved at around 3:00PM.

2003-Feb-10

Telekom Malaysia has resumed installation of xDSL in Johor area.

2003-Jan-22

We have brought our Internet site (infoarch.NET) and its services in-house. It used to be hosted on a Yahoo server in San Francisco, but as most of our customers are physically located here in Malaysia, bringing it closer to home will shorten the latency and our response time.

The Internet is behaving rather strange lately, causing intermittent service disruption. This affect TM Net and Pacific Internet.

2003-Jan-20

The interruption to TM Net's network is also disrupting our Internet Services. Over the past few months our Internet (infoarch.NET) and our Extranet (infoarch.org) have became too mingled. We are in the process of consolidating the two segments.

2003-Jan-17

Please note the following news announcement from TM Net Sdn. Bhd.:

TM Net Sdn Bhd would like to inform our customers that there will be a short service interruption on Friday, 17 January 2003 between 6:00 p.m. — 10:00 p.m. tmnet customers may experience interruption due to the upgrading and maintenance work to be carried out.

Customers may experience difficulties calling our Customer Interaction center as well as performing the self-care service through our web page. Other services which may be affected are tmnet prepaid, tmnet corporate roaming and BlueHyppo’s Hypptalk service. Customers using the tmnet prepaid card, postpaid accounts and credit cards for micropayment services will also be affected.

We, however, observed significant degradation of TM Net's Internet service affecting all TM Net's users (including Dial-up, ISDN, DSL) since Jan 15. We suspect it's due to the variants of Avril Lavigne email worm virus flooding TM Net.

No problem with Jaring's Internet reported.

2003-Jan-08

Microsoft Windows .NET Server 2003 Release Candidate 2 is available for download. Windows .NET Server will have four flavors: Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, Datacenter Edition, Web Edition. New licensing scheme will be introduced together with the launch of the new operating system on 24 April.

2003-JAN-01

Telekom Malaysia is no longer installing xDSL in the Johor Bahru area because the equipment capacity has been reached. Applications are still accepted but will be put into waiting list. Installation will resume only after new equipments are installed in the future, date unknown.