This might just be the solution (but it’s still in beta). Sigh.

The logo and colours look suspiciously like Skype‘s, no ?

Tags: fonolo

Which is kinda sorta at Kowloon Bay MTR – that’s where you get off and make your way to Telford Plaza. Ask for directions to the bus/taxi stand [just a few minutes' walk], and they’ll have free shuttle buses that take you to MegaBox [which is in the middle of industrial nowhere] every 2 minutes. There’s always a bit of a queue at the shuttle bus stand, but never for too long.

I was prepared for the gruelling trip from West Kowloon to Spotlight. To buy blinds of course – the missus couldn’t take it anymore, sun shining in at 6.30am, one precious hour before the alarm goes off. But nothing prepared me for the Deal of the Century. My eyes nearly popped out when all blinds [Venetian, Roman, etc. Take your pick] were going at a 50% discount.

I’m not sure if the sale is still on this week, but you can try your luck over the weekend. If nothing else, there’s plenty to see at MegaBox itself. There was this quirky shop that turned credit cards into garlic graters.

I got the 2-in-1 blinds, the sheer and black-out parts work independently of each other. Victor the Handyman put them up real nice for us. 2 x 120cm wide ones for about HK$740. Deal of the century or what!

Took this from the shuttle bus. Love the sculpture!

Tags: blindsmegabox

Haha! This’ll be the perfect gift for my Dad. Always one for a good fart joke.

Tags: t-shirts

It’s the easiest thing to pack in the morning for the missus, even if you’re still half asleep.

Sliced bread
Herbed Salami (or cheesed, or peppered, or whatever you fancy)
Cherry Tomatoes

Butter the bread and put everything together. Put it in a sandwich bag, give the missus a kiss, and go back to sleep :-)
I wouldn’t toast it because it’d be all soggy by the time she reaches the workplace.

Come lunchtime, I made one for myself too. Mine was toasted and had grilled cheese, that’s the gooey yellow stuff in the picture.

Tags: salamisandwich

Just so you know, 1 cattie = 500g

Watercress – 1 cattie
Pork Ribs – (about HK$15 worth)
Wolfberry – a baby’s handful
Red dates – same as above. (buy unseeded. If seeded, remove seeds ‘cos they’re bitter)

Chuck ‘em all in a pot of hot water. Let it boil for 2 hours, lidded. Done.

Easy peasy.

Add a little salt to taste. Have it with steamed rice or whatever. The missus dips everything in soya sauce. You can use light soy, dark soy, doesn’t matter.

I love leftovers. Day-old soup always has more flavour.

Tags: watercress, soup

We bought almost everything from Ikea. Please note that Ikea Hong Kong offers assembly services and wall-mounting for certain items only. They do not mount wall shelves and curtain blinds for you, even if you offer to pay them [which is what I did]. If I remember correctly, Ikea Singapore does mount almost anything for you, and they charge you by the number of holes they have to drill for you. But I could be wrong about this, because back then I used to do all the handyman work around the house myself.

After making several calls, I settled on Victor because [a] he spoke very understandable English, and sounded knowledgeable i.e. not dodgy and [b] his HK$250/hr rate was pretty decent.

The man is a bit of artist, the way he does his work, and he’s very neat. He didn’t leave a pile of dust [unlike the 3 guys who came to mount my TV. Yes, it took 3 of them to do one small job. But it was free.]

Laid out paper to catch the drilling dust

He had some pretty neat tools. There’s one which he flashes over the wall surface – if it beeps it means there’s some metallic beam there or whatever, and probably wouldn’t be able to drill too deep. He bothered to check both sides of the wall he was drilling, also to see how thick it is so that it won’t come out on the other side.

I only managed to sneak a picture of one. I call it the Wall-E lookalike. He puts this thing on the shelf above my TV, and what it does is it beams out a thin red line to the wall opposite of it, so Victor is able to accurately mount another wall shelf there at the desired height. At least that’s what I think it was for.

Wall-E’s distant cousin

I might use this picture for my header now.

I wished I could’ve taken a picture of him, but he seemed a little shy. You can expect a stout, bespectacled fella.
The fee came up to a little over HK$1,000 for 4hrs+ of work, which is a pretty decent amount for so many hours of hard work. I liked the fact he cared about what he did and how he did it. I wouldn’t do all that work for anything less than HK$30,000 but that’s just me – arrogant, greedy and always thinking I’m underpaid ;-)

I ought to mention that I found him through GeoExpat and I’ve left a nice little review there.

The missus and I are very happy with his work and would recommend him to anyone. Be sure to tell him what you’d like done, so he’d know to bring the appropriate equipment. The man does practically everything, from wiring, plumbing, painting to packing & moving (locally).

Handyman
Victor Cheung – mobile number 91000520

[23 Aug 2008 - Update: Looks like the link to my little review, or rather the page that is, doesn't exist anymore. I don't know where it went or how to get it back. In any case, this blog post here pretty much sums it up.]

Tags: handyman

Check it out first before you say anything in your head.

Tags: google, cuil, “search engine

“I called them and it took all of five minutes to solve the problem,” says one member who obviously didn’t share what the answer was. Thanks ah.

I didn’t share the same five-minute luck on the telephones last week. The friendly (but confused & clueless) cust serv person had instructed to me use “ndsmtp.netvigator.com” (which obviously didn’t work) and that Port 25 is blocked.

“So which port should I use?” bla bla bla bla ching chong bla bla bla but no answer.

I’ve signed up at Geoexpat since Shri assures me they don’t bite. Yep they don’t bite but they don’t come back either once they’ve found the answers to all of life’s questions. Big thanks to Shri for taking the time to help me out here.

It never occured to me to ASK there (missus says I’m a moron too, yeah, oh well), but the question had already been asked many times with no answer. I made a post there, it should appear once its been de-moderated (newbie initiation rite). I’m posting the same pics here, and I hope it benefits someone.

I’d heard rumours that outgoing mails would show that it’s from “me@netvigator.com”. I tested it and it doesn’t, it shows Sender as “me@mydomain.com”.

The missus will be happy cos I be sleeping early tonight.

Tags: Netvigator, apple, mail

It has been more than 4 days. I have an e-mail from custserv@netvigator.com saying my fancy Netmail Plus has been discontinued. Over the telephone last week, they guaranteed I’d be able to send mails from my own domain after the downgrade.

I still can’t send out e-mails.

Problem is, I don’t know what Port number to use, and what outgoing server to use. Not a soul on the world wide web has an answer to this. (I do spend hours googling.)

How can this be? I’m sure there are plenty of Mac users in Hong Kong. Perhaps there are websites/ forums in Chinese that offer a solution. The translation tools I used only turn everything into gibberish, not much help there. Anyone at GeoExpat who’s found a solution probably never bothered to update. I’m sure someone’s come across something by now! C’mon!

I have just shot the nice custserv at Netvigator a nice e-mail explaining my predicament, since no one understood my problem over the phone. Let’s hope they are able to understand my written English better than my spoken English (plus I sound calmer on e-mail).

I have no clue what SSH Tunnelling is and/or how to go about it. I’ve been sniffing around trying out whatever I can get my hands on, nothing’s worked so far. There’s a lot of tips out there for Mac/ computer dummies like me, but I think I might be dummier than the average dummy.

The missus won’t like it that I’m up this late trying to figure out “computer stuff” again. At least I hooked up the Airport Extreme this evening, that made her happy for a bit.

Tags: netvigatormac “hong kong