Number of Blog Posts Trend - Lowest in 2015

This blog has been alive since 2003 with my first post made on May 25, 2003. Looking at the number of blog posts made over the years, 2010 was the highest while this year's the lowest at a mere 63 inclusive of this current one.

Time to get year 2016 resolution written down :)

MsSQL: Shrink ALL Databases Using 1 Single Line of SQL Statement

Over time, the database logs on your database server may take up significant amount of disk space especially if there are many databases with lots of transactions. One quick method to free up disk space is to "shrink" your databases. Instead of shrinking one database at a time using the GUI, you can run a single line of SQL statement to do just that.

EXEC sp_MSForEachDB 'DBCC SHRINKDATABASE (''?'' , 0)'

Hope it helps.

Putin's Perspective On 'Who Created the ISIS'

Putin, President of Russia, discussed on his perspective on who actually created the ISIS.

Putin also accused countries including some G20 members are financing the ISIS.

Learn Android and Web Development from Google for FREE

What is better than learning Android and Web Development from Google experts for FREE? Google courses hosted on Udacity caters for beginners to advanced developers are opened for enrolment.

Find the Wi-Fi network password in your saved list on Windows

There may be occasion you may have a second mobile device and would like to be connected to the Wi-Fi network but sadly, you could have forgotten the password completely. What you need to do now is to run a command on the Windows command prompt in administrative mode to reveal the already added Wi-Fi network password in clear.

Replace THE_SSID with your own Wi-Fi SSID.

The below will show details of the Wi-Fi network.

netsh wlan show profile name=THE_SSID key=clear

To see only the password ignoring the rest of the details, feed it with the findstr command like below.

netsh wlan show profile name=THE_SSID key=clear | findstr Key

For similar hack for Mac and Linux, read How to Find the Wi-Fi Password of your Current Network.

FREE Computer Science and Programming eBooks Downloads

If you are looking into absolute FREE eBooks for Computer Science and Programming, you may look be able to find something interesting here.

1. Learn the Art of Computer Programming With These Great Free Beginner Books
2. List of freely available programming books on Github
3. Free Microsoft eBooks

Free Microsoft eBooks

FREE Microsoft eBooks! Microsoft Press is giving away tens and hundreds of eBooks for FREE! Start browsing and download them now!

Betternet - Free, Unlimited VPN With No Registration

I have used VPNs and many aren't really free and if they are free, it usually comes with some restrictions like data cap. Betternet is a VPN I just know of recently that is 100% no frills free of charge with NO usage limits and NO requirement of registration.

According to Betternet, the service does not track any user information for privacy sake. 100% of its revenue comes from ads within some of the Betternet apps to stay sustainable.

Betternet is available on several platforms including Windows, iOS, Android, Chrome and Firefox. Have tried Betternet on Android and it is seamless.

Unlink Skype from Outlook.com

It is time to find a way to find out how to stop Skype from logging in automatically whenever I visits Outlook.com for the sake of just wanting to check my email. This is just so infringing my privacy!

To disable Skype from logging in automatically, you will need to unlink Skype from your Microsoft account. This is how you can do it:

1. Sign in to Skype.com
2. Under Settings and preferences, click Account settings
3. Beside your Microsoft account, click on Unlink

I hope this helps.

» How do I unlink my Skype account from my Microsoft or Facebook account? | Skype Help

How do we interpret PM2.5 value?

The haze condition in Singapore worsens especially on yesterday when the Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) breached hazardous level. PSI is used and well known in Singapore as an air quality descriptor. Another important descriptor not to be over-sighted is the PM_2.5 level which is a dominant pollutant during haze episodes. The smaller PM_2.5 particles can pass through the smaller airways and travel deep into the lungs.

How do we interpret PM_2.5 and at which level should we be cautious?

PM2.5 (µg/m3)	PSI (Singapore)	Health Concerns
0 - 12	0 - 50	Good
12.1 - 35.4	51 - 80	Moderate
35.5 - 55.4	81 - 100	Unhealthy for sensitive groups
55.5 - 150.4	101 - 200	Unhealthy
150.5 - 250.4	201 - 300	Very unhealthy
250.5 - 350.4	301 - 400	Hazardous
350.5 - 500.4	401 - 500	Very hazardous

What is 'Emotionally Intelligent'?

I recently came to watch a webinar on 'Understand the Human Factors in Project Management for Success' by Muhammad Mirza. There is one particular presentation slide on the definition of 'Emotionally Intelligent' which I find particularly interesting. It defines as:

1. You have Emotionally Vocabulary
2. You are curious about people
3. You embrace change
4. You know your strengths & weaknesses
5. You are a good judge of character
6. You are difficult to offend
7. You know how to say no
8. You let go of mistakes
9. You give & expect nothing in return
10. You don't hold grudges
11. Your neutralize toxic people
12. You don't seek perfection
13. You appreciate what you have
14. You disconnect with work regularly
15. You get enough sleep
16. You stop negative self talk
17. You won't let any limit your joy

Skype is down web.skype.com is still working #skypedown

Skype seems to be experiencing a global outage with desktop users, including myself, having reported unable to login. While waiting for the service to be up again, you may try to login through their web version - web.skype.com instead.

Lee Hsien Loong speech at People's Action Party (PAP) rally, 9 Sep 2015 #GE2015

English Speech



Chinese Speech



Malay Speech

Tharman Shanmugaratnam speech at People's Action Party (PAP) rally, 9 Sep 2015 #GE2015

Dr Lily Neo speech at People's Action Party (PAP) rally, 9 Sep 2015 #GE2015

Lim Swee Say speech at People's Action Party (PAP) rally, 9 Sep 2015 #GE2015

Workers' Party - Empower Your Future

People's Action Party - With You, For You, For Singapore

Chiam See Tong speech at Singapore People's Party (SPP) rally, 6 Sep 2015 #GE2015

Chiam See Tong looked frail as he made a brief speech for Singapore People's Party (SPP) rally for Mountbatten on 6 Sep 2015.

NSP's Choong Hon Heng - BOO to PAP

Can someone enlighten me what message NSP's Choong Hon Heng is trying to convey?

Just for entertainment

Lee Bee Wah speech at People's Action Party (PAP) rally, 8 Sep 2015

Lee Hsien Loong speech at People's Action Party (PAP) rally, 8 Sep 2015

Lee Hsien Loong almost an hour's lunchtime rally at the CBD area.

Sim Ann speech at People's Action Party (PAP) rally, 7 Sep 2015

Watch Sim Ann's rally speech, described as a speech "dripping with sarcasm" against her opponent in the election contest, Dr Chee Soon Juan. Ms Sim Ann remarked Dr Chee "chu pattern".

I feel that in the whole of Singapore, if Dr Chee claims to be second-best in "chu pattern", no one would dare claim to be number one.

Chee Soon Juan at Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) rally, 5 Sep 2015

Chee Soon Juan lunchtime rally at the CBD area.

Chee Soon Juan at Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) rally, 4 Sep 2015

Chiam See Tong speech at Singapore People's Party (SPP) rally, 4 Sep 2015

Admire Mr Chiam for his dedication towards Singapore.

Tharman Shanmugaratnam speech at People's Action Party (PAP) rally, 5 Sep 2015

A speech full of facts and substance. We really need to keep Tharman as our Finance Minister.

Lim Ee Ping at Workers' Party (WP) rally, 4 Sep 2015 #GE2015

Watch Lim Ee Ping insulting Singapore's founding father Mr Lee Kuan Yew a liar and current Foreign & Law Minister K. Shanmugam a dog.

Chee Soon Juan at Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) rally, 3 Sep 2015 (Hokkein) #GE2015

You may also want to read Chee Soon Juan's rally in English.

Chen Jiaxi Bernard at Workers' Party (WP) rally, 3 Sep 2015 #GE2015

Chee Soon Juan at Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) rally, 3 Sep 2015

Powerful Speaker. Passionate, Composed, Sincere.

You may also want to read Chee Soon Juan's rally in Hokkein.

Sylvia Lim at Workers' Party (WP) rally, 3 Sep 2015

He Ting Ru at Workers' Party (WP) rally, 3 Sep 2015

Leon Perera at Workers' Party (WP) rally, 3 Sep 2015

Han Hui Hui heckled at her rally - Guy shouting 'No' to voting for her

A guy spotted shouting 'No' to voting for Independent Candidate for Radin Mas, Han Hui Hui. This just sums up her campaign.

Singapore GE 2015 - Party Political Broadcast 1

Pritam Singh speech at Workers' Party (WP) rally, 2 Sep 2015

Png Eng Huat speech at Workers' Party (WP) rally, 2 Sep 2015

Gerald Giam speech at Workers' Party (WP) rally, 2 Sep 2015

Chan Chun Sing speech at People's Action Party (PAP) rally, 2 Sep 2015

Rousing and impactful speech

Lee Hsien Loong speech at People's Action Party (PAP) rally, 2 Sep 2015

Sounds a bit like another National Day Rally or Budget speech.

Cheryl Loh speech at Workers' Party (WP) rally, 2 Sep 2015

Daniel Goh speech at Workers' Party (WP) rally, 2 Sep 2015

Koh Choong Yong speech at Workers' Party (WP) rally, 2 Sep 2015

Sylvia Lim speech at Workers' Party (WP) rally, 2 Sep 2015

Chen Show Mao speech at Workers' Party (WP) rally, 2 Sep 2015

Low Thia Khiang speech at Workers' Party (WP) rally, 2 Sep 2015

All About That Bass by Meghan Trainor Parody - "All About That HAZE"

A creative video parody done to highlight the environmental issues of haze in Singapore.

Rebuild all Indexes on a Microsoft SQL Server

As part of database maintenance, a DBA may wish to do periodical rebuild of all indexes. The below may come handy.

EXEC sp_MSForEachTable 'ALTER INDEX ALL ON ? REBUILD'

President Obama 'AMAZING GRACE' Eulogy For Clementa Pickney

President Obama delivered a 40-minute 'AMAZING GRACE' eulogy for Clementa Pickney who was murdered by a racist terrorist on June 17, 2015 at an evening Bible study at his church. This touching speech is a thoughtful meditation on the whites and blacks race in America.

Watch the video below:

NDP 2015 Theme Song: Our Singapore

The theme song, written by Dick Lee, for this year's National Day is released.

How do you feel about this song? For your pleasure, I have consolidated all NDP theme songs from 1998 to 2013.

Chen Tianwen's un-un-un-un-unbelievable song got a remix

The famous Mediacorp's 'Spouse For House' actor Chen Tianwen music video "Un. un. un. un. unbelievable!!!" now comes with a remix version.

If you are interested to listen to the original version, do check out this link!

MsSQL Split Function

The following demonstrates how to do a string Split using a character delimiter.

Edited: [dbo].[Split_PerformanceEnhanced] added - better performance results (31 July 2017).

--SQL function to do split (performance enhanced)
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[Split_PerformanceEnhanced]
(
 @List NVARCHAR(MAX),
 @Delimiter VARCHAR(5)
)  
RETURNS @RtnValue TABLE
(
 ID INT IDENTITY(1,1),
 Data VARCHAR(MAX)
) 
AS
BEGIN
 INSERT INTO @RtnValue(Data)
  SELECT [Value] FROM 
    ( 
    SELECT 
     [Value] = LTRIM(RTRIM(SUBSTRING(@List, [Number],
     CHARINDEX(@Delimiter, @List + @Delimiter COLLATE Latin1_General_100_BIN2, [Number]) - [Number])))
    FROM (SELECT Number = ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY name)
     FROM sys.all_objects) AS x
     WHERE Number <= LEN(@List)
     AND SUBSTRING(@Delimiter + @List, [Number], LEN(@Delimiter)) = @Delimiter
    ) AS y

 RETURN;
END
GO
--Test out the SQL function
SELECT * FROM dbo.Split_PerformanceEnhanced('one|two|three|four', '|')
GO

Below SQL function still works but prefer the above new performance enhanced version.

--SQL function to do split
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[Split]
(
 @RowData NVARCHAR(MAX),
 @SplitOn CHAR(1)
)  
RETURNS @RtnValue TABLE
(
 ID INT IDENTITY(1,1),
 Data VARCHAR(MAX)
) 
AS
BEGIN
 DECLARE @count INT
 SET @count = 1

 WHILE (CHARINDEX(@SplitOn COLLATE Latin1_General_100_BIN2, @RowData) > 0)
 BEGIN
  INSERT INTO @RtnValue (data)
  SELECT Data = LTRIM(RTRIM(SUBSTRING(@RowData, 1, CHARINDEX(@SplitOn COLLATE Latin1_General_100_BIN2, @RowData) - 1)))
  SET @RowData = SUBSTRING(@RowData, CHARINDEX(@SplitOn COLLATE Latin1_General_100_BIN2, @RowData) + 1, LEN(@RowData))
  SET @count = @count + 1
 END

 INSERT INTO @RtnValue (data)
 SELECT Data = LTRIM(RTRIM(@RowData))

 RETURN
END
GO
--Test out the SQL function
SELECT * FROM dbo.Split('one|two|three|four', '|')
GO

So stunned like a vegetable by Chen Tianwen's "Un. un. un. un. unbelievable!!!" music video

Mediacorp's 'Spouse For House' actor Chen Tianwen music video "Un. un. un. un. unbelievable!!!" is so unbelievably funny. What a multi-talented guy.

Spouse For House airs every Wednesday, 10pm on Channel 5.

Google Malaysia access disrupted and hacked

As of now, access to Google Malaysia (www.google.com.my) remains not possible and is showing 'Google Malaysia HackeD' message.

The disruption is reported to be due to DNS redirection as confirmed by a tweet from Google Malaysia.

Getting reports some users are experiencing http://t.co/uIvl6RbDzu DNS redirection. Please use http://t.co/AdkzwxVR4U in the meantime.
— Google Malaysia (@GoogleMsia) April 14, 2015

A WHOIS check on www.google.com.my domain confirmed the DNS redirection.

Introduction to Project Management

Greg Balestrero (Strategic Advisor on Corporate Consciousness, Leadership & Sustainability, IIL) provides a quick but thorough introduction to Project Management, how it is being used, and why it should matter to you, especially if you are into Project Management.

Charlie Munger in 2010: ‘Don’t ask Charlie Munger. Study the life and work of Lee Kuan Yew, you’re going to be flabbergasted’

In a Q&A at University of Michigan in 2010, Charlie Munger who is Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Corporation praised the Singapore system and Lee Kuan Yew. He said, ‘Don’t ask Charlie Munger. Study the life and work of Lee Kuan Yew, you’re going to be flabbergasted’.

Watch the segment in the video below.

Project Spartan: Beyond Browsing

Amazon newly revamped design - RETRO

As part of April Fool, Amazon has just launched their newly revamped retro design. See below if you like it!

My condolences to Lee Kuan Yew's family

Dear family members of Lee Kuan Yew's,

With the great loss of founder of modern Singapore, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, I would like to send my deepest condolences to PM Lee Hsien Loong and his family members. Without the late Lee Kuan Yew's courage and lifelong commitment, it would have been impossible to see what Singapore has achieved since independence day.

Lee's contribution will be remembered for generations to come. Let us continue building Singapore into a fine, gracious nation.

With deepest sympathies,
A Singaporean born and bred here

Remembering Lee Kuan Yew, 1923 - 2015

Restore wrong or unknown program icons in Windows 7 Start Menu

Should you see wrong or unknown program icons in your Windows 7 Start Menu, you may try the following steps to restore them.

1. Open Windows Explorer.
2. Copy and paste %userprofile%\AppData\Local onto the address bar.
3. Find and delete IconCache.db. This file is hidden by default.
4. Open Command Prompt.
5. Run taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe on Command Prompt.
6. Run start explorer on Command Prompt.

I hope this helps.

How do I remove the cached username and password from SQL Management Studio?

You may have your reasons to want to remove the cached username and password from the SQL Management Studio e.g. before handing your laptop to someone else.

The step to remove will require deleting a file but differs depending on the version of SQL Management Studio you are using.

SQL Server Management Studio 2014
Delete C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SQL Server Management Studio\12.0\SqlStudio.bin

SQL Server Management Studio 2012
Delete C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SQL Server Management Studio\11.0\SqlStudio.bin

SQL Server Management Studio 2008
Delete C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Shell\SqlStudio.bin

SQL Server Management Studio 2005
Delete C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Shell\mru.dat

One good news is as of SQL Server Management Studio 2012, you may delete an entry by using the tool itself without the need to delete a file. To delete, you will need to click on the 'Server name' dropdown in the 'Connect to Server' dialog. Move your mouse or use your keyboard arrow key to highlight the server to remove followed by hitting on the 'Delete' key on your keyboard. This is so convenient!