AhYap’s Blog

Surprise surprise, I found a book in my cupboard that I bought in 2006 (11 years ago). The title of the book is “The Internet Complete Reference” by Harley Hahn. Bought for RM62.40 from Popular Bookstore. The book was recommended by Computimes Magazine (not publishing anymore).

11 years! I have been using the internet for 11 years! And that was the 486 PC, 28.8 kbps modem and Windows 3.1 stone age hardware, software and connection! There are so many changes in just 1 decade. Do you know that there is an option to TURN OFF images loading so we can surf the net faster? People are now enjoying broadband connection with live video streaming, dual core super power processors, wireless connection, 3G ….

But what I am interested in pointing up today is that the internet changes a lot in the last decade, after referring to that book. At that time, internet was made by the following components:-

1. Mail
2. Web
3.Web Search Engine
4. Usenet
5. Gopher
6. Veronica and Jughead
7. Anonymous FTP
8. Archie
9. Mailing Lists
10. Telnet
11. Talk Facilities
12. MUDS
You might not even recognize some of the components because many of them is now obsolete. Let’s look at them today.

1. Mail - Email is still popular today, but one of the biggest changes is that web-based email arise (Hotmail) and dominate the original POP email.
2. Web - World Wide Web is the component that grow up to the strongest which is basically the INTERNET today!
3. Web Search Engine – At that time was Yahoo. Later Lycos, Altavista, etc. Today is Google.
4. Usenet - Still existing today but most has been replaced by Web-based discussion forums.
5. Gopher - Hah, you sure don’t know what is this. This is the ‘web’ that doesn’t have pictures but pure boring text. No wonder they are obsolete now.
6. Veronica and Jughead – This is the search engine for Gopher, dead now.
7. Anonymous FTP – Still exist today to host download, but most downloads are hosted directly from the Web. Even if a file is hosted by FTP, modern browsers support direct anonymous FTP download without the need of another software.
8. Archie - This is the search engine for files download. Now everyone is using Google to search. Dead.
9. Mailing Lists – Still quite popular, yahoo even have a free service for this. Members in the mailing list can send email to the whole group easily.
10. Telnet - Telnet is remote access to a computer. The new generation for telnet is called SSH (secured shell access) for better security. Now we also have remote desktop connection for Windows and a lot of other software for remote management.
11. Talk Facilities – This is the grandfather of Yahoo Messenger, Skype, Microsoft Live Messenger, Google Talk, etc. There are lots of talk facilities at that time but most are dead now except ICQ.
12. MUDS - This is some kind of text-based gaming where online gamers meet. Yep, playing games by just typing words and reading text. No graphics! This has been replaced by online RPG games today like World of Warcraft, Ragnarok, DotA!!!!, etc.
What else changes in the last 10 years?

1. Google is not even mentioned in the book!
2. Altavista, Lycos, Excite, Webcrawler are history.
3. Netscape is dead.
4. TM-NET came out and screw Jaring (for Malaysians only)
5. You actually need to type in commands to connect to the internet, and the commands are
ATZ (means reset modem)
ATDT1511 (means dial 1511)
Then you need to enter username and password.
I forgot the command to logout.
6. Banner advertising is dead. It actually created the Dot Com Bubble because the advertising create no value to the advertisers.
7. There is no such thing as blog or blogging at that time.
8. Mahathir retired. Hmmm…. but he doesn’t know ….

It is indeed a bit weird that I have actually bought a book to learn about the internet. But then, at least I know what is bcc! Do you know what is the use of the bcc field when you are sending an email? 9 out of 10 people have no idea what is that and yet it exist until today. Check it out baby.

There are a few types sohai in DotA that are very annoying. They don’t understand DotA is a multiplayer game.

1. He joinned a 10 players public game and after he was pawned 2 times, he left the game. NOOB SOHAI.

2. After the game started, he type in -random to pick a random hero. I thought he is a pro. End up that he didn’t like the hero and he immediately left the game. ACT-LIKE-A-PRO SOHAI.

3. A teammate dropped off from the game leaving his teammates some items, he took all the items himself without sharing with his teammates. Worst, he sold all of them for 50% gold instead of giving to teammates who need them. SELFISH SOHAI.

4. For the whole game, he solo from the start to the end. He farms creeps or kills hero all by himself. Or course, he dies alone too. Why don’t he just play with the computer AI if he like to solo so much? SOLO SOHAI.

5. He scold people NOOB while he himself is the real NOOB. While everyone is already level 15, he is still level 9. He killed 0 but get killed 18. SUPER NOOB SOHAI.

6. Almost all DotA games is at least 1 hour long. But after 30min in the game, he told all the players he had to leave because his cyber cafe package was going to time-out! %^*$#^% HEAD-NEED-TO-BE-CHOPPED-OFF SOHAI.

7. “Sorry Guys I have to leave because my dad ask me to go supper”, “I have to leave because my mum is very mad now”, “I have to leave to take dinner” … LAME EXCUSE SOHAI.

8. He ‘tunjuk perasaan’ after his teammates say something he don’t like. He want to revenge his teammates. So he intentionly and repeatly get himself killed by the enemies and say, “I don’t care, I’ll feed them!”. ACT-LIKE-A-KID SOHAI.

9. He saw 4 enemy heroes partying and he thought he can kill 4 of them. So he run to them and before he manage to hit once, he was already a dead duck. BRAINLESS SOHAI.

10. When all of us are busy farming peacefully without any battles, suddenly he get killed. This doesn’t make any sense. Who killed him? After we read the sub title, he was killed by neutral creeps!!! DAI SOHAI!

Because it takes so many weeks to climb up but takes only 1 or 2 weeks to crash like SHIT. I really means SHIT.

Look at the 1 year chart of Dow Jones Industrial Index. It takes a full year to climb up steadily but takes 2 weeks to crash like SHIT.

So, you still buy mutual fund from your ‘bankers’? LOL. If you want to know why the stock market (the whole world incluidng KLSE) will crash like SHIT and why your EPF will no longer be able to give you decent returns, read the book PROPHECY by Robery Kiyosaki.

Then why I still like the stock market when it crash like SHIT? Short Term, you can make fast money by trading PUT options. Long Term, it gives you the opputunities to grab stocks at bargain. I am sorry to say that this opputunity doesn’t benefit mutual fund and EPF holders. Because mutual fund and EPF can only make money when market is going up.

今天去PATHLAB验血。小姐为我介绍了很多不同的pakcage。她讲下讲下竟然跟我说，“这个package我们会送鼻癌给你！” 意思是说这个package有免费检验鼻癌。

我听了一次觉得很好笑，然后她又重复讲了几次。我想啊，幸好这个pakcage只是送鼻癌，不然可能她会说，“这个package我们会送爱滋病给你，还会送鼻癌，大肠癌，肺癌给你，而且还有Hepatitis A, B, C, D, E… 统统都有！”

那时你说死不死？