“Have you checked your computer for spyware, trojans and other malicious software, sir?”, asked the support tech at Telekom Malaysia’s Streamyx Support Line.

“I use Ubuntu”, I said slowly and smugly, relishing her inevitable conundrum, not knowing what Ubuntu is, but being unable to admit it lest she seems ignorant. I let my superior operating system’s name sink in for a few seconds before I added, “Ubuntu Linux. I Use Ubuntu Linux.”

I could hear the relief on the otherside of the line as she recognised the word Linux, but before she could flip her Support 101 Manual to the Linux page I continued “my operating system doesn’t suffer from spyware, trojans and other malicious software.”

“Oh”, she said as she reliased that all of her other made-for-windows-cookie-cutter solutions suddenly didn’t apply.

You see, my notebook computer, which I’ve been using for some hardcore Internet interaction for the last 4 months, has encountered the grand total of 0 (zero) viruses, spyware, trojans and other malicious software. Why?

Because it’s Ubuntu. A community supported operating system of the highest calibre.  If any of the above exploits anything on Ubuntu, it’s patched even before most people know about it.  That’s of course assuming the nasties can figure out how to exploit anything, because each user on Ubuntu is self contained, and no malicious piece of software will ever have the power to destroy an entire Ubuntu installation.

And that’s how I know that virusses, spyware, trojans and other malicious software have absolute nothing to do with my slow Internet connection.

StreamyX doesn’t mix so well in my house

Yup, for months my broadband connection has been slightly faster than an ISDN line (remember those?) and after experiencing lighting fast connections, on slower packages no less, at my friends’ houses, actually watching a 3-minute YouTube video on the fly, I decided it was time to complain.

For the last week I’ve been in fruitless deliberations with the Telekom Malaysia’s tech support, them trying to solve the reason for my slow connection.  On 3 occations I had to sit through their 12-step solution-to-everything support exercises. It’s like calling to say your head hurts when you knock it agianst the wall, but then still different people ask you to knock your head against a wall to ask again you if it hurts.

At the support’s request, I’ve done more than 6 speed tests where I log into their ftp server with a piece of Java software that downloads a 1MiB file and confirms, time and time again, that I get max 245kbps off a connection that advertises 1028kbps and aims to deliver at least 80% of that.  As if by telling them my head hurts when I knock it against the wall isn’t enough, they have to see me knock my head and feel the bump before they believe me.

They’ve even sent over a technician (phone line technician) who looked at the admin area for my ADSL modem, saw that it says I’m actually connected at 1,536kps and took that as the obvious, irrefutable proof that they are in fact giving me what I’m paying for, yet couldn’t explain why his own website, www.tm.net.my took a good 3 minutes to download.

“It’s the computer” he says, pointing at my incriminatingly alien operating system. “Erm, no, it isn’t” I say as I repeat the slow-loading-tm.net.my page trick on my desktop computer that runs XP (and is riddled with malicious software that I got from sticking my pendrive into computers at my previous employer) and Julia appears, doing the same with her notebook that runs Vista.  But he has nothing to say about that.

Eventually he left saying he would switch the physical port of my line at the hub, but as it turns out he had the last laugh, as after he did that, my connection slowed to speeds I last experienced when I had to dial up.

The tech support saga continues, and I only hope that I can get up to a speed that will allow me to download the much anticipated Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex that is due to be released in about 8 days time.

Yup, it’s good to be using a free, community supported operating system that releases an improved version with new features every 6 months.  I had my first whiff of Ubuntu when it was Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon, my first steps away from Windows.

Soon after I was awed by my current installation of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron, and I can only expect great things from the Intrepid Ibex.  I see also that the next release has been named and will be Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope, scheduled for release in April 2009.

Of course, a fast connection sure would make life…. faster.

You know, I may feel many things in my life are beyond my control, but my blog is not one of it. Nope, my blog is mine, completely under my control.  What I say goes, what I say stays.  My blog is my country and I’m the dictator.

I therefore feel not unlike Robert Mugabe when Morgan Tsvangarai went all democratic on his ass, when something that I didn’t explicitly OK’ed appears on my blog.

So it was then, quite by accident, that I looked at my own RSS feed and saw some new stuff that I didn’t rubberstamp appear there.  Sneaky YARPP (Yet Another Related Post Plugin) had unilaterally decided to not only insert some related posts into my feed (new feature!), but also to reward itself with a promo link back to its own website below every single entry – without asking or even telling me!

YARPP is a free piece of software from the WordPress Plugin Repository.  It doesn’t require me to pay for it, it doesn’t even require me to link to it in exchange for using it.

Of course, it’s a great piece of software and we all have to eat, so donating a link is the least I can do to thank the creator for his hard work, right?

But for crying in a bucket, ask me first! Don’t go and be clever and write yourself into my country. Subverting a dictator will cause heads to roll.

When I auto-upgraded YARPP it came with these new features. One’s automatic inclusion in your RSS feed and two is an automatic link underneath every entry (which on an RSS feed with 10 items listed means 10 links to YARPP).  And it’s on by default – disable it in the plugin settings.

Here’s a link mitcho, please don’t take liberties on my blog like that again – there are other plugins that does that same thing out there.

There are tons of self-help and self-improvement and self-you-name-it books out there about being positive.

And not for nothing either, because being positive has a major impact on one’s life.  It goes beyond a happy mindset, being friendly, cheerful and all those other attractive qualities.  Being positive impacts on health, it boosts the immune system, lowers stress and, with it, cholesterol levels; to name but a few that I have personal experience of.

There’s plenty of positive reasons to be positive about being positive. But I haven’t been all that positive recently.

The Slippery Slope Of Mental Depression

I caught myself recently, over the last few days especially, being rather negative.  Something I usually don’t dabble in, because I know it’s a pointless, de-constructive waste of energy.  But I’ve been criticising much, finding fault and wallowing in a generally depressed mood.

I swear depression is in the colon, because it’s a really shit place to be.  I associate depression with the colour and smell of dark, red-wine induced faeces; something I certainly want to get away from as soon as possible.

My emotional elevator doesn’t go down to the depression level all that often and when it does, it usually sinks to the basement only briefly, opens the door for a rapid glimpse at exactly why it doesn’t go down there, and then quickly closes rising back up to the happy, bright place of optimism and positive outlooks.

However, the emotional spiral staircase that leads down to the stinky, dank level of depression, is long and slippery.  Once you start down this staircase of despair it’s not so quick and easy to get out.  On the way down you will slip, slide down quick and once you’re knee-deep in that gooey, cold emotional excrement, it’s alarming how soon you can lose your way, get used to it, and worse, start feeling comfortable in it.

There’s two ways out.  Good friends who come down, pinch their noses and extract you from the stickiness of your emotional sewerage, or an image from your memory banks as a profound reminder why you should get out.

Image Initiated Depression Ejection

A miscarriage.

Hating so much you become depressed.  Emotional stress. Impact on your system so great, you eject new life.  Or the new life aborts by itself, not willing to face a world that invoke such emotions.

I’m male. Obviously I can’t ever experience a miscarriage.  Or hate, and not that much, for that matter.

But this is the imagine that forces me to eject from the septic tank that is my depression level.  The image hangs on the wall down there.  It’s the reminder of why I don’t want to be depressed, or why I don’t want to spend any energy on hating, loathing, plotting revenge or dabble in negativity or pessimism.

Nothing good can come from it.

Depression, along with all these other soot-covered emotional states and thoughts, is the inefficient combustion engine of the the mind.  You have to burn so much energy to use it, and all you really can show for it is emotional pollution.

Why bother? It’s not the way I want to live my life. It’s hardly living at all.

Positive Energy

Optimism, on the other hand, is the mind’s perpetual motion machine.

Optimism and a positive outlook seemingly draws energy from the ether. From other people. From your surroundings.  As if by being positive, seeing the good in life, being optimistic, you are somehow connected to the universal power-grid

Positive people have more energy. Positive people live longer.  Positive people are more popular, have less stress, get better service, slice through traffic, stand in the fastest queue, see turtles in the TAR marine park, are healthier, happier and find luck often.

People who claim to be on top of the world, are.  They are on the top of their world.  I know that the top few floors of my mind are the optimism floors.  When I’m there, I’m standing tall, looking out ceiling-to-floor windows with a wide balcony, looking over the landscape and seeing everything that is good.

It smells like freshly brewed coffee, warm bread hot out of the oven.  It’s cool in summer and warm in winter and there’s always fresh air coming through the window.

I like being positive.

I’m a glass half full kind of guy, the one who makes lemon meringue pie when life gives me lemons, I see the silver lining, the light at the end of the tunnel, the bright side, through permanent rose-coloured inlays, with the wind at my back in the sun in my face, already standing on the greener grass.

I may have been on one knee in the shit you created.

But you won’t get me down.

Alcohol swabs. The rum had the distinct taste of alcohol swabs. Perhaps it was exaggerated. In contrast to the last of the whisky he had mere moments before.

He took another sip. With his palette cleared of the whisky he thought the rum might taste less of alcohol swabs. He was wrong. He took a third sip to be sure the whisky didn’t stick through two rum sips.

It didn’t. It still tasted like alcohol swabs. Like a nurse had grabbed his tongue, ripped open the little envelope with her mouth and quickly rubbed the alcohol swab across it. He took another sip. He was ready for the injection. Pure rum. Inject directly into the blood stream. Alcohol coursing through his veins on its way to his brain. Hoping it would reset his mind and rid him of this weight.

instead, it had a slightly psychedelic effect.

“Carrying the weight of the world”. Who would say that? Who could do that? If you carried the weight of the world on your shoulders, what would you stand on? The world? Surely not. If you did, the world itself would be twice the weight of the world. An infinite loop. Whoever conjured up that phrase must have been on something.

An injection of pure rum perhaps?

But his emotions where truly weighing on his mind. Like, he could imagine, the weight of the world. Only he had nothing to stand on. He felt like he was sinking. But into what, space? You can’t sink into space. Where would you go? Out of the solar system? Wouldn’t that be something akin to perpetual motion?

The rum was slightly hot now. A pool of condensation had formed at the bottom of the bottle. “Gotta keep the mouse away from that”, he thought out loud as he clicked the ‘next’ arrow on a MILF porn slide show he had running on the screen. He took another sip of the alcohol swab. At room temperature it tasted less like alcohol swab and more like the swelling welt where the nurse had pushed in the needle. Slightly salty, distinctly unlike alcohol swab.

This he imagined, because he had never actually licked the welt left by a needle.

He poured another from the bottle. The bottle was still cold. The little puddle of condensation slowly creeping towards his mouse. An optical mouse. The red eye flick-flicking on the table, looking for traction. Trying to get a grip on direction, orientating itself. Trying to establish which way is forward and which is back. Succeeding. Most of the time. Unless it hit something black.

He was an optical mouse and he hit a black spot. He lost traction. He was disorientated. He shook on the screen. He couldn’t quite focus on the icon. Jumped around just too much for the double click.

Maybe another thimble of alcohol swab would cure that. Make it sway, rather than shake.

He tried diluting the weight of the world with alcohol swabs.

He succeeded.

He passed out.

The world, diluted in alcohol swabs, floated before him for a while. Then separated. Piece by piece.

And disappeared.