Email Identity Check

Got this email from Michelle Bostock.

Hello Goh!

I came across your blog while looking for rockstars and was wondering if you would be interested in chatting about openings we have here at Facebook. You do have 15 minutes to spare, right? Tell me this is my lucky day! Time for a change!!! Come work for us in Palo Alto, CA!

Michelle Bostock | Facebook Recruiting |
1601 S. California ave. | Palo Alto, Ca | 94304
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/18/businessinsider-facebook-engineers-get-incredible-freedom-in-their-jobs-2011-1.DTL

So, I wondered whether this is a valid email or spam. Here's what I did (and how you should do too!) to check the email sources.

Step 1: Quick check on Google for similar email

Just do a quick check on the contents of the email, see whether anyone got the same email or not. The search returned zero result, except my own post by the time you clicked this link.

(: Passed.

Step 2: Email Sender Check

The sender appears to be from @fb.com domain. Did a whois check and found out that fb.com is indeed owned by Facebook, Inc.

(: Passed.

Step 3: Profile Identity Check

Did a quick Google and found out that there actually a Facebook employee named "Michelle Bostock". And the FB account is affiliated with FB, and Google & Linked-In too.

(: Passed. (Not that important).

Step 4: Email Header Check

Did a check on the email header/source, its from "SC-MBX01-5.TheFacebook.com". The domain is indeed from Facebook, Inc.

(: Passed.


Conclusion

The email content looks like one of the spam email template. But the sources seems to suggest that its from valid sources. The possibilities are:

1. Its a valid email, or
2. Sender (FB employee) account got hacked, or
3. Facebook mailing system security breach.

I've email back. So, lets wait and see the reply :)


UPDATE (April 02): The email is indeed valid :)

What if Plan A fails

if "PLAN A" doesn't work out, don't worry.. u still have 25 letters left!

Saw this on friend's FB wall, so sharing it here. To remind myself, and those of you who encounter difficulties in life.

----

Was working on my own web application lately, but faced a lot of issues, even with simple user account/authentication. Nvm, one step at a time. Its still something that I architec-ed out on my own.

加油!　がんばって！

Great Power come Great Responsibility

Was working on a new server of one of the client, and got this interesting system message.

We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:

    #1) Respect the privacy of others.
    #2) Think before you type.
    #3) With great power comes great responsibility.

[sudo] password for admin:
admin is not in the sudoers file.  This incident will be reported.

The server engineers sure have great sense of humour.

Update: Just realize this is the default message shown :)

----

Quick update for my day:

Very mafan to work on other people's server. Got connection, firewall, account privilege, all kinds of issues. Just feel so unproductive today! argh!

Shokudo @ Raffles City Shopping Complex

Went Shokudo @ Raffles City Shopping Centre for lunch with YC, KaiJian, WaiKin and SinYing. The main reason we go there is because KaiJian received a $50 discount coupon as member.

Price

We spent about $130 in total, but minus off the discount, so about $16 per person. Pretty good deal.

Review

Overall, I think the food there "still eat-able". So so, nothing fantastic.

The only dish I think is nice is Okonomiyaki (大阪烧). I ordered seafood flavour, which is $10.80. Actually I manage to check the review on Foursquare before order, and most people recommended Okonomiyaki too!

Ramen! I didn't try this, because my friend warned me before we go there. And Foursquare review for ramen is also a big thumb-down!

Photos

Sidenote

When we leave the restaurant, the cashier gave us another $50 discount coupon agian. Erm... not sure when we will go there again... Haha.

Usavich 监狱兔 の Soft-toy

SiowChuen bought this Usavich soft-toy and keychain back from her internship in China. The keychain is for me, the soft-toy is for Simin. Loves it! :)

Facebook Like Spam - The bad and "good"

The Story

Got quite annoyed by the like spam on Facebook news feed. A lot of people were tricked to click on the spam links, and eventually got "hacked" to spread and auto-repost the link into Facebook news feed.

One one hand, I'm very irritated by those programmers who create all these apps to exploit the loop hole in Facebook.

On the other hand, it is VERY interesting to see what are your friends looking-at in Facebook world. I guess you can call this a "statistic" app to actually "infringe your friends privacy" and monitor your peer's activity/interest.

(Who to blame? Shouldn't Facebook take security measures on this immediately when this loop hole surfaces?)

Protect yourself

Here are few steps you should take note when browsing on the net (in general).

• Check the links before you click!
• If you really want to browse the pages that your aren't sure of the identity of the links, 
1. right click and copy the link.
2. browse the page in 
• IE: InPrivate Browsing,
• Chrome: Incognito Mode,
• Firefox: Private Browsing,
• Use HTTPS. (Not related to this topic, just remember its a good practice when you are the Internet, especially when you are in public area.)

Check the links before you click.

Internet Explorer - InPrivate Browsing

Chrome - Incognito Mode

Firefox - Private Browsing

Conclusion

So people, be smart! Learn how to protect yourself in the virtual world. Just exactly how your protect yourself in the real-world - Look left and right before you cross the street!

[Blogger] Add Facebook Like Button

To add Facebook like button to Bloggerm

Step 1

Copy the following code.

<iframe allowTransparency='true' expr:src='&quot;http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=100&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&quot;' frameborder='0' scrolling='no' style='border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:40px;'/>

Step 2

Go to Blogger -> Design -> Edit HTML, insert the code in between the following code

<div class='post-header-line-1'/>
<!-- insert the code here -->
<div>

Firefox4 lags on Firefox download-count page?

Firefox4 download-count page

Update 29 March: Looks like Firefox corrected the page, the animations are normal/smooth now.

To my surprise, only Firefox4 lags on the Firefox4 download-count page. Both IE9 and Chrome10/11/12 render the download dots animation smoothly.

This is not a good demo page, Firefox team should do something about it. At least optimize the site so that Firefox4 can display the page smoothly.

When IE9 shows its demo pages - Santa' s Workshop, and Pirates Love Daisies, the team make sure that IE9 renders the page smoothest, using IE9's strength - Hardware Acceleration.

When Chrome demo its pages - HTML5rocks and 20 Things I learnt about Browsers and The Web, the team make sure that there are no flaws when users browse the page via Chrome.

On another node, saw a lot of bad comments (compatibility) on the new Firefox mobile as well.

Maybe its time for Firefox team to QC before launching their products. :)

Updates

Haven't update my blog for quite some time already. So decided to do a quick update here.

New home

Found a new place to rent with friends at Serangoon. The place is really good. Its just beside MRT station, across NEX shopping complex, a stone throw away from the market just behind our block.

The house is newly renovated and refurnished. Went over to take a look during last weekend. The owner told us that they just painted the walls. Looks pretty!

Signed the contract for 1-year already - $2500/month. So will be moving in around mid-June. Excited!

Jobs

Pretty much the same, still busy with the same project last week.

Company just finish setting up and done IP/firewall planning the new servers. Got the opportunity to involve in the process. Really learnt a lot since day-1, especially on server virtualization. Didn't know that there are so many open source, or proprietary software (with free basic features) that can be combined to power the whole server system. (If only I start to look for internship in my early days in Uni, I would be able to learn much more and maybe do a better job in my FYP. =.=")

Projects

Got a few projects that I want to work on. But just can't seems to find the time to sit down properly to do. Gosh! Gotta force myself to do over the coming weekends!

Home

Miss home (actually, miss slacking at home), but not time yet to go back home! Still need to chiong first! :p

Update @ Work

Been busy, I mean really-rushing-for-deadline that kind of busy, these few days. My boss even stay until 3am in the morning and come back office at 10am just to rush the project. Of course, this is not the first time. But the same 'guilt' feeling just came naturally - I'm not fast enough to finish the tasks.

Come to think of it, yeah, feels that way. Just feel accomplished very little everyday when I about to write a short log for each day.

I want to be efficient!