Saturday, August 29, 2009

Scam or no Scam? You Judge. - part 3 (end)

No, I was not in the meeting. I actually said that because I just wanted to make sure its a scam, or not a scam. I found the name of Kebajikan that she mentioned online and eventually found one really matching.

I gave them a call to clarify the matter. The receiptionist ask me to called a guy by the name of "Subra" when I mentioned about the word "Hadiah". Seems she know what I want. Maybe alot people had also called up for this matter?

Nevertheless, I called "Subra" as told. I told him somebody called me on this and that. Is it true? His reply, "Yes. We are promoting bla bla bla...". What he told me on the phone is almost similar with the Indian Lady (IL). The difference is that "Subra" tell me upfront about the VIP card, flight tickets and so on. Finally understand why they called me.

1/2 hours passed. And the IL really called back hoping to get my so call "nombor giliran".

IL : Hello, ini Mr. Gary ya?

Me : Yes. So what else you want?

IL : Itu nombor giliran apa nombor?

(You won't quit talking about the nombor giliran will ya?)

Me : Sebelum tu hor, saya mau tanya ya. Itu ticket kapal terbang kena bayar de?

IL : Oh tidak tidak. Itu ticket semua free, tetapi, you need to apply for VIP card for RM495 (Somewhere around that price).

(Oh. Means I need to pay also la!)

Me : Wah... Itu macam means saya pun kena bayar lor.

IL : Mr. Gary, itu VIP card hor, you boleh pergi Bali, Philippine....

(Well, now I know this IL is trying to get my credit card info, so she can squeeze the amount out of me with or without my knowledge. Am I a fool? The whole lot of conversation is a waste of my time. Guess its payback time and an extra few more minutes chatting with her wouldn't be all bad.)

Me : Itu macam hor, saya mau itu ticket, tapi tak nak itu VIP card. Kalau free saya nak la, bayar punya saya tak nak.

IL : Mr. Gary, sakarang hor, mana ada free punya benda lagi? You pergi tandas pun kena bayar la.

(See! Now she say its not free. The first time she told me I am one of the choosen, got free ticket. Now she say where got free things.)

Me : Siapa cakap. Saya pergi tandas rumah tak payah duit la!

IL : Tapi Mr. Gary kalau kerja dekat luar pun kena bayar ma.

Me : Itu saya kerja saya pun pakai office punya tandas pun free ler.

(She starting to get frustrated at me.)

IL : (Sounded got pissed off) So itu macam Mr. Gary pergi shopping tak pergi tandas ke?!

Me : Betul! Saya pergi luar memang tak pergi tandas. (Haha! This one really got her!)

IL : (Bad mood cause cannot get sales) Itu macam tak apa la Mr. Gary. Mr. Gary punya hadiah saya bagi lain orang.

Me : Ok la. You bagi saja la. Thank you for offering ya. Bye bye...

And then she ended the phone without even saying bye bye at all. What a rude irresponsible telemarketing person. Ha ha~~~

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Scam or no Scam? You Judge. - part 2

Finally, Wednesday had come. No luck, she is not calling back. Not on Thurday either. But I waited only till Friday only to receive a call from the Indian Lady (IL) who promise to call back.

IL : Hello, ini Mr. Gary?

Me : Ah ya saya.

IL : Mr. Gary, ini dari Kebajikan Pekerja-Pekerja something something (KPP). Kami ada.... bla bla bla...

(She was explaining all the way from last week... -_-")

Me : Ok. You boleh sebut sekali lagi tak, slow slow punya.

She while she was talking about the name, I quietly went to google this so call "Kebajikan". It was a company located in Subang alright. Then she started to ask for my company name and address again. I willingly gave her those info. After that, she start to verify my credit card again.

IL : Mr Gary pakai credit card bank apa?

Me : Maybank, Visa.

IL : Ok. Saya nak verify credit card Mr. Gary. Mr. Gary boleh baca expiry date credit card Mr. Gary?

Me : XX/XX.

IL : Ok. Itu nombor kad Mr. Gary?

Me : Har?

IL : Itu depan punya 16 digit.

Me : (So troublesome?) 1234 5678 9098 7654.

IL : Ok terima kasih Mr. Gary. Mr. Gary boleh baca nombor giliran di belakang credit card?

I didn't even know we have serial number on credit card. So I just mum...

IL : Mr. Gary. You tengok itu signature sana. Tepi sana ada itu 3 nombor. Itu nombor giliran.

WTF? Now they are showing its true colour. Asking for my security code. I'm a goner if I gave them that.

Me : Itu mana nombor giliran? Itu security code credit card.

IL : Bukan. Itu nombor giliran.

She on went defending herself and keep on saying that the 3 digit is serial number.

Me : Itu tak boleh la.

IL : Mr. Gary tak percaya saya? Saya datang dari... bla bla bla...

She start explaining the company and the free gift, and I was browsing the net on this company. I don't . Then I remember i heard her saying something about VIP card and RM490+ to get this package.

I started to read the Internet and suspicious. No information can be found on the net. Then I bullshit her that I have a meeting and ask her to call back in 30 minutes.. more to come...

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Scam or no Scam? You Judge. - part 1

2 weeks ago, someone called me direct via my office number. She spoke in Malay, but with some Indian accent. No offence, but I assumed that she is an Indian Lady (IL). She never introduce herself, only saying that she is calling from Kebajikan Pekerja-Pekerja something something (KPP). When I ask her that is this Kebajikan is from from the Govt body, she say yes.

Our teleconference is as such:

IL : Hello, ini Mr. Gary?

Me : Yes, saya.

IL : Oh, Mr. Gary. Tahniah ya. Mr. Gary teleh dipilih oleh KPP untuk menerima ticket kapal terbang percuma. Kita ada information Mr. Gary dan semua maklumat credit card Mr. Gary juga. Mr. Gary boleh bagi tau alamat Mr. Gary untuk saya hantar hadiah Mr. Gary?

Me : Ok. Boleh send to my office address. Alamat saya...

IL : Oh, Mr. Gary boleh bagi nama company dulu?

Me : XXXXX Sdn Bhd. Alamat 123, Jln 123, Off Jalan Kuchai Lama, 58200 KL.

IL : Ok. Mr. Gary. Mr. Gary ada credit card apa? Saya nak buat verification saja.

Me : Hmm... Saya ada Maybank Visa...

IL : Mr. Gary boleh baca expiry date credit card ini?

I started feeling suspicious. This is the first time I heard verification using expiry data.

Me : Errr... Itu saya tak tau ler. Saya punya dompet hilang hari itu. So saya punya credit card pun kena buat replacement. You next week call balik boleh tak? Saya perlu pergi bank collect credit card baru dulu.

IL : Ok. Minggu depan Wednesday boleh?

Me : Boleh. No problem. Bye bye.

After ended the call, the curiousity rise even more when they called me just after I lost my wallet less than 1 week ago. Ok la. Nevermind, I wait see how.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Dev : Upload File Mimetype

Storing an uploaded file to the database is not as easy as just storing string information. Storing the attachment as just a physical file and other info such as path, file name, mimetype and size is much easier.

But how come, all these while uploading file was never an issue, only until recently? Clients complaint that whenever they upload a ".docx" file, error will occur. After some findings on the log file, the error is actually the mimetype size that I have set for the database table was insufficient. Mine was varchar(50), but yet insufficient. So how long do you actually need? As for me, I have increased my original varchar(50) to varchar(100).

Why this long? After reading this, you will know why. This is the problem with MS. I don't even know why they need it to be so long. Here's a list of office extension with its mimetype from the Net.
Extension MIMEType
.xlsx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
.xltx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.template
.potx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.template
.ppsx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.slideshow
.pptx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation
.sldx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.slide
.docx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
.dotx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.template

Dev : Download File With Semicolon

Created a spreadsheet, named as wifes_acc;children_acc.xls. Uploaded to an webapplication, and try to download it using IE7. WTF?! How come my spreadsheet became wifes_acc only after I click download. Where is there remaining name? How come the file was not found on the server?

Damn, what happened. Try with mozilla. Wow, it downloaded just fine. What happened?

We came across such problem when dealing with upload and download of attachment. After some finding on the Net, I realized that the actual problem lies with IE7. When ever user click the download button, we will execute "response.setHeader("xxxx")" on our coding to set the file name. In such, IE will always read the semicolon ";" in the header data as a delimiter for others parameters. Therefore, the name was actually splited into 2 parts.

Damn, an IE7 bug, hopefully such problem will be resolved in IE8.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Dev : Informix Inner Select

What if you are trying to create a virtual table for SQL?

As per standard database query, usually we would write something like:

SELECT some_fields FROM (SELECT selected_fields FROM table1) vtable

But in Informix, one of the much used relational database worldwide (but which I do not really like to use), had to be written in a slightly different way:

SELECT some_fields FROM TABLE(MULTISET(SELECT selected_fields FROM table1)) vtable

That's all. Not too much difference, but gosh, why on earth it has to be so complicating. Haha~~~

Monday, June 01, 2009

Dev : Java Send Mail

Ever wonder why your application did not send the email out? Your code seems fine, but still fails. Single mail address is OK, but when coming to a list of emails, you're getting "550 5.1.1 User unknown" or some other error stating that one or more emails are not valid.

Well, this feature is actually intended by Sun. But I still want to send the email to the valid emails and how do we overcome this problem? Simple, by just added an extra line to the email property will do.

Normally, we would tell the mailserver what is the values for "mail.transport.protocol", "mail.smtp.host", "mail.host" and such, we just need to add in this "mail.smtp.sendpartial" and the value for it is true. With this, although the exception will still be thrown, but those with valid email will received the mail.

Of course, if you have cater for a resend if exception occurs, better check your code and list of emails. You would not want valid email owners keep on receiving the same mail over and over again. :)

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Dev : URL Extension

In your webpage, there is a hyperlink in your web is as such http://localhost:8080/webname/help.chm. You could not click it, as it will open as a garbage, alien language in your Internet Explorer. Have you come across with such problem?

No matter how I write the javascript, I can't manage to get it to "force" download using javascript. It will always open it as garbage. At last, I turn to my manager. He told me to use mime-mapping in web.xml.

After some research online, found that we can actually tell app server that such "extension" is a certain file type. As simple as 1-2-3, we just need to add these codes in the web.xml correctly. You might want to verify the placement.

<!-- set mime mapping for help file -->
<MIME-MAPPING>
    <EXTENSION>chm</EXTENSION>
    <MIME-TYPE>application/mshelp</MIME-TYPE>
</MIME-MAPPING>

Likewise, for other extension, we may put it as other mime-type, such as "application/pdf" for pdf, "application/vnd.ms-excel" for xls and others. You should be able to get the correct type by browsing the net.

After saving your web.xml, you just need to restart your app server and clear your temporary Internet file.