Christmas is just around the corner, just 6 more days to go and MERRY CHRISTMAS! So what do I want for Christmas? I'm not going to lie and say world peace or may dogs learn to climb trees...

This is what I REALLY REALLY WANT... It's a universal remote control. Not just any universal remote control. Its the Logitech Harmony. It doesn't matter which model. As long as it's the Harmony range, I'd be more than glad. It starts at 400 ringgit and goes up to thousands...

So what's so great about this Hamony thingimageek (woohoo just created a new word)? Imagine this, the entire thing is programmable via the computer and you can set 1-click activity buttons.

Say for example you're home and you're ready for a movie. Then again, the thought of turning on your air-cond (setting the right temperature), switch on the ceiling fan for a little breeze, then turning on the TV, switch to the right AV channel then turn on your home theater system with the right volume and input ... then the DVD player and press PLAY - just put you off.

Well, not if you've got one of the Harmonys! Just programme it in your computer, upload it to the remote control... wack that one button your control and EVERYTHING just comes alive with 1 PUSH OF A BUTTON including pressing PLAY! :)

Just imagine the possibilities... as long as your gadget / device supports remote control, harmony will work with it.

So there you go, my Christmas wish for 2008... takers anyone? :P If you need my address to send that AWESOME gift which I'd appreciate for a looooonnnnggg looonnnggg time, drop me a message, I'll send you an e-mail with an addy :)

Have I told you that I love Google? Not the company but more about the products they've created to enrich our busy internet lives. Sure, they've got some misses in the past, not everything that came out of Google was a BIG hit. As with anything, there are always failures and with failures, people learn.

To-date, I've been using countless number of Google-ish products – from Picasa (one of the best photo organizer I've ever used) all the way to the infamous Gmail. I still remember the day when Gmail first came out, everyone thought it was an April fool's joke when the web announced that Google was offering a 1GB space e-mail account for all. At that time, it was unheard of. Today, it's a norm – nearly every free e-mail provider I can think of has gone into the gigabyte-world – even Gmail has grown to allow over 7GB of storage!

Naturally, Gmail had to progress… it's gone through loads of changes from a simple interface to something that's a little bit more fancy yet keeping it's minimalist approach to enabling POP access, integration with Google docs, the list is endless!

Today, Gmail has announced yet another feature – it's almost like a Christmas gift! They call it 'tasks'. If you're thinking Jeez… what's the BIG deal? It's not revolutionary but it's just nice to have an additional task list by your side. How often have you promised to reply to an e-mail and haven't? How often have you told yourself to get something one minute and completely forget about it the next? That's what task is for – never forget anything and have the list with you so long as you've got INTERNET access.

True to Google's love for minimalist approach, Task is no different. Just enable it via Gmail's "Labs" tab, hit save and voila! Task appears as a box like Google Talk in Gmail. Its visible at all times and inserting a task is as simple as clicking on the box, type, hit enter and DONE! All in 1 click!

So check it out… Google's mini Christmas gift for the rest of us :P

Today is Wednesday, 3 days after one of the servers I was taking care of got attacked. To be honest, it's not even eminent, it's happening RIGHT now as I type this e-mail.

This is the other side of me which you probably have seen a little with my little Ben's Weird Discovery and me being my techy self. I was in a war - a cyber war.

It's just REALLY sad when people play STUPID - when they find that your server / business that's running on the server is doing well, out of jealousy, they ATTACK. Roping in an army of robots, computers to do whatever it takes to CRASH your server.

In the computer world, we call this DDoS. Distributed Denial of Service attack. It's a case when computers / bots overload your server with requests to a point where it just freezes, jams up, goes into cookoo mode and stops other REAL customers / web viewers from entering. This thing is RAMPANT. In fact, not only small servers like mine get hit, big ones - mega huge ones like that of Microsoft's or even Google's get hit. Remember the day when Microsoft's Windows Update site was completely down? Well, that's DDoS.

So back to where I was at, my server was hit - it started with a small number of bots and users attacking then as my server withstanded the hit, it became bigger, stronger almost as thought they were calling for reinforcements. I've had sleepless nights, constantly on the phone with my counterparts abroad and constantly finding ways to KILL this attack.

The war is not yet over but we're holding up. May the attacker rot and die. :)

Sorry, I just needed a place to place my thoughts of the day. Okay, I'm back to my jolly old self again - ice cream anyone? :)

As it is, it's quite sad that iPhone cannot be found 'officially' in Malaysia. Sure you can get it off the gray market and pay a stupendous price when the rest of the world is getting theirs are prices below 1,000 ringgit. Heck, even our southern neighbour has iPhones officially. The news is that it might be coming soon but that's the same saying I've heard for the longest time… iPhone itself has gotten to it's 2nd Generation iteration and still it isn't here. It might NEVER arrive at our shores coz no one from the many telcos we've got in Malaysia has announced anything officially – it's always 'testing with the networks' and 'it'll be here soon'

The sad truth is, it might NEVER come. The good news is, our Finnish friends are hard at work and as with any product that comes out from this company, they'd always launch it in our country (with the exception of the N810) coz they know Asians are phone buffs. The new deal – Nokia N97. I didn't get the numbering wrong. It is indeed, Nokia's latest that is touted to be the ultimate iPhone killer. Here's a taste of it…

So what's so great about this new phone?

• It'll be their first mobile phone that's got a touch screen capability
• Uses similar technologies to that of the iPhone (including the accelerometer etc.)
• A whooping 32GB of built-in memory – with the option of expanding further with a memory card
• Slide out keyboard from a REALLY slim body frame
• Buttons are touch sensitive (similar to that of current Samsung phones)
• The usual 3.5mm jack – listen to your music / calls using any earphones / headphones
• Surf the internet on a MASSIVE screen!
• The highest resolution camera on a PDA phone
• Record Widescreen HQ videos (when the iPhone doesn't even record videos)
• And more!

I'll let the videos speak for itself…

Price? Roughly 2,500 ringgit. That's cheaper than some of the high end PDA phones in it's class! Launch date, 1st ½ of 2009.

So iPhone 3G, you want market share? Come now or kiss your shiny black / white back cover good bye! :)