In the previous post i guided how to set up a free VPN server on the home computers. But if you are looking for US VPN to use from Thailand, be prepare to have very high latency (ping).

Why VPN in Thailand and many SEA countries soo slow? It is related to the distance.

There is only one Submarine Cable going from the US to SEA. It’s called Asia-America Gateway and it is 12,400 mile long submarine communications cable system, connecting South-East Asia with the USA mainland, across the Pacific Ocean via Guam and Hawaii.

This submarine cable is only 2.88 Tbit/s – and this serve all countries located in the South East Asia.
Compare it to the Google’s 7.68 Tbit/s submarine communications cable connecting the United States to Japan….

If you are in Thailand, use UK based VPN service…

Setting up VPN is easy, free and takes less then 20 minutes on Linux Ubuntu or Mac OS X server. If someone tells you it is complicated, he probably, want to sell you a VPN service

Why someone need a VPN (virtual private network)?
Once you are out of the USA you become a third world person like everybody else who live abroad. Many websites are not available from overseas.
There is no google voice outside of US, no Hulu, no Netflix… Until now i can’t figure out how to login to american monster.com with foreign IP address…. VPN access will give you an american IP address and that will unlock everything for you.

You can buy VPN service from many VPN providers, but really, there is no reason to spend money if you have a computer at home connected to the internet. You can connect to this computer and then go to internet with the same IP as you would be at home.

To connect to your home computer from the outside network, you need to install a VPN server on it.

How you can install VPN server on your home computer:

If you have a PC with Ubuntu OS, it is very easy and takes less then 20 minutes. Read the rest of this entry »

When I was in Asia last time, I decided to visit some of my customers in several European countries.
The Europe was cold and unfriendly as usual, but I enjoyed a personal communication with an extraordinary people.

On my way back to Bangkok, I was in the VERY old Boeing 777 (Transaero Airlines if you ever heard about) and it was so much fun!

First, it was one of the first of 777′s produced by Boeing. I guess this equipment was flying without repainting, remodeling or refurbishing for almost 17 ​​years. It is amassing! Now I’m truly believe that Boeing 777 is the superior aircraft ever produced.

Second, there was a security guard on the plane. Have you ever have seen a security guard on a board? As I understood, his duty was to prevent economy class passengers to use a lavatory, designated for the business class area.

Except of this, he was the one who taken care of the intoxicated passengers in the economy cabin… Base on the howls coming from the economy class, a lot them were intoxicated. I guess, due to the luck of any kind of entertainment system in about 12 hours long flight.

I made this video with a slight of sarcasm and humor, I hope you enjoy it I appreciate your comment regardless of your point of view.

Transaero Boeing 777 going to land in BKK. Transaero B 777 Business Class cabin. from Alex Voinich on Vimeo.

P.S. Update: Seems like this video is a rare recording of the Transaero business class cabin.

Permalink http://alex-v.com/2011/03/22/transaero-airlines-business-class-the-oldest-b777-ever-found-landing-in-bkk/

Transaero B-777 business class cabin seat

Here is the actual pictures of Boeing 777 Business class cabin served by Transaero Airlines going to Bkk (Bangkok).

As I understand, this is an ex-Air India 777-200ER (EI-UNV msn 28714/205 ex VT-AIK / N205UA). Like Transaero’s existing 777 fleet (1 x 777-200, 2 x 777-200ER), the aircraft was originally delivered new to United Airlines.

The Transaero B 777 Business Class seats were showing their age: functions not working, no video, no AC outlet, no massage etc.

The seat is a little hard and narrow for sleeping and does not recline all the way as Thai Air or Singapore Airlines, which both offer flat seats with plenty of legroom. Also fully reclined you don’t have enough room to relax your arms to the side, even with the arm rest out of the way. I found the most comfortable position was reclined about halfway, so that I could put my arms out a bit onto the armrests.
The space between the seat cushion and the arm has enough room for a small water bottle and a magazine. I also used the coat hook to hang a small bag with some personal items.

I am 6’0 and sat in the first row. No storage space except the overhead bins, but there are a couple of crannies that can be used. . My feet could not touch the floor and I could not get the seat adjusted to reach the tray to eat without worrying about wearing my food. I thought the whole experience miserable.
Read the rest of this entry »

It is easy to make a bootable USB drive on Linux Ubuntu, but only to boot Linux.

On Mac you can make a USB drive to boot any OS. No software, only one command line on terminal.

1.Download (or make from CD using Disk Utilities) .img file with OS (Windows, OS X, Linux)
2. Open a Terminal and run diskutil list to get the current list of devices:
$ diskutil list

3. Insert your flash media. Run diskutil list again and determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/disk2)
$ diskutil list

4. Unmount your media
$ diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN

5. Execute
sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/diskN bs=1m

6. Eject your media:
$ diskutil eject /dev/diskNRun

Now you can install your desired OS from the USB drive.

VMware Fusion initializes some daemons (vmnet-bridge, vmnet-dhcpd, vmnet-netifup, vmnet-natd) at startup. “vmnet …” process remain after after load OS X after quitting VMware Fusion. The number of processes depends on the number of network interfaces you have configured. Also, VMWare Fusion causes host NIC dropout in bridged mode. This might slow down your system startup and generate an additional traffic on your network and slow down the internet access.

Additional, if you are running a VPN client like IPsec VPN client as I’m, you NEED to disable vmnet interfaces because it will complain that the device is changing IP addresses to the vmnet1 and vmnet8 devices IP.

Besides, there is no necessary for vmnet-* to load at system startup .

I was looking for how to stop the damn things. Why it load at system startup rather than application startup? I HAVE NO IDEA, ask vmware!

This is makes VMware Fusion as a lovely apps for those who do an illegal duplication and distribution of software- simple add a few lines and the pirate version of VMware Fusion will non-stop connect victim’s mac to any IP (websites or services in order to generate a traffic for them). Most likely any pirate’s version of VMware Fusion will act as a trojan-type malware affecting your OS X system – it is so damn easy to convert VMware Fusion to Trojan-type malware!

If you are using a pirate’s VMware Fusion, i would give a 99% chance that you are using a Trojan-type malware.

Why? After i have checked this out, i assume it will take me, not a skilled man, only a few hours to make a normal VMware Fusion distribution to act as a malware app that will do a non-stop connecting to a various different online services who willing to pay some cash for an extra traffic. It will pass NAT and firewalls on your mac and your router, because in order to VMware Fusion work YOU will open ports 80, 443, 9010, 123, 53, 443 or whatever VMware Fusion (or pirate) will ask you to open. I’m preatty much sure i would able get all the info from your system too… So do not use a pirate software, lol…

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m going to join the world’s longest non-stop flights from LAX to Singapore. Seat 15A on the largest all-business class plane in the world – Airbus A340-500.

Read the rest of this entry »

First, check if you are running 32- or 64-bit Ubuntu

uname -a

If it says x86_64 then you’re running 64 bits

Download and install Citrix Receiver on-bit Linux Ubuntu
Download and install OpenMotif v.2.3.1 (upd: openmotif 4)

1. Download the client: http://www.citrix.com/english/ss/downloads/details.asp?downloadid=3323

Read the rest of this entry »

A Skype Me button on one of my client’s website was gray and show an offline status even when my client was online.
It took me a while to figure it out.

This is what you need to do to make the skype me button to show your online status correctly:

1. Open Skype program.
2. Select Tools -> Preferences (Options on Windows)
3. Go to Privacy.
4. Find “Show Advanced Options”.
5. Find “Allow my status to be shown on the web” and click on the check button.
6. If you are on Mac, you are done, if you are on Windows, you need to click “Save” button and reload skype client.

Installed a new Ubuntu 10.10 Beta. It is better. Obviously, Ubuntu is going to take a place of Windows soon.
What is new:
1. Easier sign-on for Ubuntu One
2. Ubuntu Software Center makes it easier to find what you’ve installed from the Center
3. Shotwell has been replaced by Fspot as the default photo manager (if you care)
4. Boots my old-old IBM laptop (not lenovo, meaning it’s 4 years old+) upgraded to Intel’s SSD and 4Gb Ram in gust 12 seconds now

What is bad: install Ubantu on Mac still be tricky (easy on PC though), most of PCs still 32bit

Personal: Installed Citrix server to one of my clients who was stupid enough to open an office in third world country (Moscow, Russia). I was surprised that Citrix receiver doesn’t need so much time now to install as used to be (i’m talking about OpenMotif — the stupid thing ever done by Citrix).