VietCali.com » Computer

QEVP iPhone app is now free

VietCali — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 20:08:53 +0000

After a year of launching the Quick English Vietnamese Phrases iphone app, I still don’t recoup the expense I put into it. At the current rate, it’s going to take another year to make even. How sad! So I though instead of charging a buck for the app, I’ll just turn it into free app. At least this make me feel better by giving away free stuff. Now, you can claim there is such thing for free. And since my used Mac is no longer functioning I can’t update the app to put in some kind of ad, you get to use the app for free and free of advertising. Is that cool!

I just turn it free a minutes ago so please give sometime for the price change kick in. You can pick it up here or search for ‘QEVP’ in the App Store. Let me know if it still not free so I can ping the Apple guys about the price change.

Again, thank you for visiting VietCali.com

Enter WordPress comment in Vietnamese

VietCali — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 07:12:14 +0000

I just modified my VietCali’s WordPress template so everyone can now leave comments in Vietnamese. It takes me a little while to hack the WordPress’s theme files: comment.php, header.php, and the style.css to put in this support. To type in Vietnamese just click on the “VNKeys” line or checkbox so the box is checked and follow the key layout to type in Vietnamese characters. For example to type the word Việt you would key in Vi39t. To type normally just unchecked the box. This is the same layout as Vnkeys.com .
I’m learning to write WordPress plugin and will port this Vietnamese script into module so other WordPress users can easily install it. This is another challenge for me at this moment. In the meantime, if anyone want to do the same let me know and I can write a little instruction to hack yours manually.

How to setup Cisco VPN on iPhone

VietCali — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:52:59 +0000

It’s really frustrated that I own a nice iPhone that can do VPN and Microsoft Exchange email but the IT people where I work won’t bother to support it. They just say it is not secure enough. What the heck. I mean I already use Cisco VPN client to log in my workplace’s network using my notebook. So what is the different between VPN in using the notebook versus the iPhone. It’s the same Cisco VPN client that the iPhone also supports.

Anyway, I have it figure out and the key is the PCF profile files and little known trick. For Windows, the PCF files should locate underneath where you install the Cisco VPN Client. Mine is under C:\Program Files\Cisco Systems\VPN Client\Profiles. Now there could be more than one PCF files so only use the one that apply to you. Open it up as a text file and basically copy the values over to the iPhone VPN setup screen.

First, go to the iPhone VPN:

Settings, General, Network, VPN, Add VPN Configuration.   On top, click on IPSec.  The screen now displays a Cisco logo and these fields: Description, Server, Account, Group Name, Secret.

Now here are the PCF’s fields that you want to copy over to the iPhone setup screen:

Description: enter anything that you want here, UserName is for Account, Host=Server, GroupName=Group Name, Secret=???.

The Secret field is the reason I think why most of you end up here in this blog. Copy all the hex values you see after enc_GroupPwd in the PCF file and go to this Website to decode it. This is the whole secret that the IT people don’t want me to know. After you got the decrypted code enter it on the Secret field. And there you have it. You now should be able to VPN in yours work’s network.

My work has the browser interface to Microsoft Exchange email so I can use iPhone Safari to read emails after VPN is connected. I still can’t use the iPhone’s email reader directly for some reason. I think the IT just basically reject anything come in from iPhone. But who care, I can use the browser version and that is all I care.

Solution to wrong passwords nightmare.

VietCali — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:09:15 +0000

I think a lot of people now a day are run into this problem: keeping up with various user and passwords. I don’t know about you but I always forgot the user and password on those rarely use accounts. What make it worse is some of login system keep forcing you to update the password. So there are website and companies that making product to address this issue. But I can’t find any really good free solution out there. There is so called single-sign-on solution that help you get around this. But you have to purchase special key token and it cost you money. Why would I want to pay more money just to keep track of my logins. There are website that also help you keep track and log in but then another set of user/password to remember as well.
So what is my solution? I think it’s not perfect but at least it’s free and easy to maintain. I just use my Yahoo’s email account, which I use very often, and compose an email contains account URL, users, and passwords and just save it to Draft folder. Whenever I need to look up log in information for those rarely use account, I just open the email and look up the info. For added security, I don’t spell out the password in the file but just include hints or short phrases that help me recall the passwords. This way the one main password I have to remember is just my email account, which is not an issue because I use it pretty much everyday.
What is yours solution? Please comment and tell me what is yours solution to this passwords headache.

Better free Anti-Virus

VietCali — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 06:40:49 +0000

Now a day you just can’t operate a PC without an Anti-Virus (AV) software installed. You are asking for trouble and sooner or later yours computer will be infected. The problem is a good AV is not free. You have to pay hefty anual membership to keep them running. So is there a free AV out there that can actually protect yours PC?

In my previous post back on January I recommend a free Anti Virus (AV) software from AVG. This one works but it probably not the best one. I found a better one and have used this for couple months now. It’s the free personal version from Avira. In my opinion Avira has better detection and than AVG.

The download is about 32Mb and installation is easy. I just use all default settings. Click on the AntiVir logo below to go directly to its download page. Don’t worry it’s safe to click.

Free Anti-Virus Software.

VietCali — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:38:00 +0000

You know the first place to check for free anti-virus software is from your Internet provider. A lot of people doesn’t know this but Internet provider like mine DSL from ATT comes with free anti-virus from McAfee. It’s just that the information is not forthcoming. In my case I have to actually search around for it. If you are using DSL from ATT the free Anti-Virus software download can be found here . Click on Download and enter your account log-in info to get the software.

If your Internet provider doesn’t provide the free Anti-virus software then it’s suck. In this case you have to settle for the next best thing and it’s free version of AVG. Even this free version is hard to find if you just go to theirs portal. You need to Google for it and the current link is: http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition

In my opinion, anti-virus should be part of the OS functions. End user shouldn’t have to worry about finding and installing anti-virus on theirs own. I guess anti-virus company doesn’t like this idea much.

How to get rid of malware?

VietCali — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 02:43:00 +0000

My wife called me one day and tell me that the store couldn’t process the credit card. Strange I though to my self, how could that be. So I call the customer service and found out someone got a hold of my card and order some stuffs on a hunting sport related website. How can some one get a hold of my credit card information? At that moment, I realize I could be a victim of some spy ware virus. Someone could tracking my computer activities for private information.
So I search high and low for a free virus scan to detect these spy ware virus, a.k.a malware. The problem I realized then, how can you trust anything download from the Web these day. A malicious website can disguise itself with legitimate looking pages and you just can’t tell.
Anyway I just got luck out when my Web host service who actually get attacked by malware and they sent me a link to this free scan. I downloaded the utility, installed it, ran it, and sure enough it found a whole bunch of malicious Trojans and other spy ware virus. So if you ever click on some suspicious link and have a gut feeling that yours computer is infected with malicious malware, please take my adivce and down load this malware scanner to make sure. If the link is broken, please do a Google search for “malwarebytes anti-malware”. The software is for free to use for scanninng. You can purchase it to get more advanced features.

Connect 5 Game.

VietCali — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:17:00 +0000

Connect 5 is a popular tic-tac-toe version we play in Vietnam. The game is the same as tic-tac-toe but you have to connect 5 spots in order to win. I used to play this game with my schoolmates while waiting for class to start or sometime even during class. Back then there were no video games and computers so we kids just use our notebook and pencils to play this game and other games like find the next number, shooting the dots, or build the triangles.
I wrote this Connect5 game for Cafe75.com site. The algorithm I came up is pretty rudimentary. Give it a try and see if you can beat it.

Play in bigger window.

Online Vietnamese Keyboard

VietCali — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 02:44:00 +0000

If you ever want to type in Vietnamese and the system you’re using doesn’t has Vietnamese keyboard suppport, try this online Vietnamese keyboard. To use it, type your text then copy and paste it over whatever application you’re working on. The Javascript just bascially filter some assigned keys and convert them to Vietnamese characters using Unicode. It’s a pure and simple tool to get Vietnamese characters into any application. All thanks to the popularity of UTF-8 encoding and Unicode. I tested the Javascript on IE, Netscape, and Firefox browsers and it works fine.
Try out the VietCali’s Online Vietnamese Keyboard.
Nếu các bạn muốn đánh tiếng Việt mà computer của bạn đang sài không có cài phần mềm cho bộ gỏ tiếng Việt, bạn có thể dùng bộ gỏ online của VietCali viết bằng JavaScript. Xin mời các bạn dùng thử.

System hang with blinking cursor

VietCali — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:33:00 +0000

Good to be back and post some computer tip to VietCali.com. This time I want to share with you a fix to a computer problem I ran into last week: a corrupted MBR or Mater Boot Record. The symptom on my case is the system no longer boots into WinXp. All I see is blinking cursor on upper left conner of the monitor. How do I know it’s corrupted MBR? Because I can boot the system from bootable USB so there is something wrong with my hard drive boot sequence and it only point to MBR. So if your system suddenly blinking on you, just try to fix the MBR on your hard drive. How?
1. Put the Windows XP installation disc in the disc drive, and then start the computer.
2. Press a key when you are prompted to boot up from CD.
3. Press “R” to start Recovery Console.
4. Enter your Administrator password.
5. At the input prompt, type FIXMBR and confirm with Y
6. Choose EXIT to reboot the system.
7. Remove the CD, and the system should now boots WinXp normally. No more blinking cursor on my case.