Restore Bottom Panel at Kubuntu 8.10

My son, 4 years old, likes to sit in front my PC all day long. Playing games, surf the internet, watching movies. He couldn’t read, but his curiosity is so big. Big enough to ruin my laptop’s settings. He already warned several times not to click anything except VLC, KPPP, and games. Because Mami and me knew that he will mess the laptop.What i’m afraid was happened yesterday. I lost my bottom panel !

After googling, I found out the answer here, how to restore the bottom panel. I have tried and it’s successful. I’ll summarize for you and all credits shall be given to fooman.

The basic principle is .kde folder which will resets kde to the default values.

1. Open home directory using dolphin.
2. Click “View” and mark  “Show hidden files” because .kde is hidden folder.
3. Find folder .kde, right-click on it and choose “move to trash”.
4. Logout and everything back to normal again.

Yahoo is shutting down?

Yahoo is shutting down on November 17th. They want to get rid of free messenger. If you delete this and don’t pass it on, your name will be deleted. A lot of people have already been deleted. Right click on the group name of your buddylist and click, Send Instant Message to All in Group.. This is Yahoo President Anna Rubenecia, I am sorry to announce that Yahoo has reached its maximum number of accounts two million. If you would like to keep your account for free send this to everyone on your list. This way we can know which accounts are being used and which accounts we can delete. Send this within 8 days and your account will remain free. On

I considered above message which have sent to me via Yahoo Messenger, it’s a TOTALLY HOAX. The reasons are:

1. The message did not mention the exactly date. It could be 2008 or 1998, isn’t it?
2. No issue about Yahoo shutdown which have released by any credible source such as mainstream news or trusted bloggers. Yahoo is a big company, i’m sure there will be a rumour first before it happened.
3. Yahoo President is Susan Decker with Jerry Yang, the founder, as CEO as per Yahoo! Inc. Management Team until 29 Oct 2008. Not Anna Rubenecia.
4. As per http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm, Internet users in the world is 1.4 Billion (30 June 2008) compared with 2 Million users that be claimed above. If 20% of them are Yahoo user (which I think too small), then we get over 2.8 Million user). From Wiki, I found that on October 13, 2005, Yahoo! and Microsoft announced plans to introduce interoperability between their two messengers, creating the second largest real time communications service userbase worldwide: 40 percent of all users. See what I mean? The number is totally UNACCEPTABLE from statistic point of view.
   
5. The message itself is not complete.
6. Same topics have been raised several times in past. Check this and this in Snopes.com. It will give you clear understanding about useless and fraudulent internet petition.

I know some of you just copy and paste to message window and send it to your friends. You’re hoping that you do a good job by saving other lives. But, instead of that, why don’t you copy and paste to google search bar and see what you get. As far as I know, Hoax just re-circulated from the original form. Just change the date or name or add some ‘trusted’ statement, it will become a new fresh-look of hoax. By searching thru google + logic thinking, you can judge by yourself, is it a HOAX or NOT?

i mst nt txt in clss

Short Message (SMS) is destroying our language. Short the word by throwing and deleting the vocal letters. We use it for writing messages to our colleagues, or family. Chatting via YM, or Gtalk as well. We love it, because it short, cheap. We do it oftenly as part of social activity among them and get to be used to it. In several occasions, we didn’t realize that we use this language in formal documentation such as letter, etc. Carefull, Guys

The Strait Times 25 October, page E8

Another Story about Zimbabwe Inflation

Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rate – already the world’s highest – has soared to 231,000,000%, newly released official figures show.

The rise – from 11,200,000% – was largely due to increases in the prices of bread and cereals. (BBC)

Two Hundred Million Percent? Hello…We are talking a HUGE number here. It’s not a common percentage number for me.
Another story about Zimbabwean Billionaire in here.

Singapore Night F1 Race Facts (3)

Here are some design considerations about lighting the Marina Bay Circuit at night for 2008 FORMULA 1™ SingTel Singapore Grand Prix., with graphics from Allianz.

• The lights will be situated on only one side of the street circuit, to prevent the drivers from being disorientated in cases of spinning.
• Should one of the generators fail, the other generators will provide a back-up power by default
• Each generator will also have its own engineer on standby whenever they are in operation
• The F1 night light will be four times brighter than the lighting in a sports stadium. The lighting provides 3,000 lux of light (light intensity). In comparison, the lights at the National Stadium during a football game at night shine at about 650 lux. Lux is a unit for illuminance, and measures the intensity of light.
• The projectors are placed on one side of the track, at the same side as the television cameras, to reduce glare when broadcasting the race.
• Drivers would not be affected in the rain. Maioli, the designer, explained: “The light beams come in at angles instead of vertically, so that the reflection doesn’t get into the drivers’ eyes even if there are puddles during a downpour.”

Other technical facts:

• Valerio Maioli S.p.A, the Italian consultant company appointed by Singapore GP Pte Ltd. to light up the first Formula One night race.
• The system will feature a total of 1600 lighting projectors attached to aluminum trusses.
• Philips was awarded to provide lighting projectors for this night race.
• Aluminum trusses will be suspended 10 meters above the track on vertical steel pylons.
• Vertical steel pylons will be mounted on prefabricated concrete blocks, placed behind the barriers at intervals of 32m.
• A total of 240 steel pylons used and 108,423m of cables used.
• Lighting will be powered by 12 twin-power generators, each located in a sound-proof container.

Organisers declined to reveal costs, but early estimates put the system at around US$5 million (S$7.3 million). F1 commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone is pushing for several night races, especially in Asia, to increase television viewership in North America and Europe.

More pictures from designer presented here.