Bird Nestling - Day 5

Look! The mother just hatched another egg today! I think the whiter one (top) is the new egg. Amazing. No wonder she didn't fly away when I was so close to her this afternoon, I think she was in the process of getting the egg out at that moment.

P@s$w0rd Cracker

The two-day course I attended this morning on Security Awareness almost made me fall asleep, well partly due to lack of sleep thanks to Man Utd vs Arsenal match. The full name of the course is Security Awareness for IT Personnel. It is sort of a small part of the introduction to BS7799/ISO17799 Certification. To those who don't know what BS means... it's British Standard (not Bull Shit), while ISO means International Organisation for Standardization. The BS7799 is an international recognised accreditation on IT infrastructure by practising the best practices in managing an IT organisation.

In the afternoon session of the course, there was a workshop to test on the passwords we use when logging in to Windows. They use a software which cracks any passwords. I think they are many softwares to do this, but this one mainly just for testing purposes, on how long it takes to crack a password.

We tested several, here are a rough estimate of the time (if i remember correctly):

p@$$w0rd = 2 min
IT55D_765 = 4 min
JGZ_783G = 4 min
$%^&FG78 = 5 min
.M1LeForcE = Took one day to crack only 4 characters.
F1rewéæll = unable to crack

So to those who have been using only numerical passwords on important personal profiles/bank accounts, etc, I suggest you do change them. Long passwords are difficult to crack, but still possible, just that it takes a longer time to do it. The last password: .M1LeForcE with a '.' in front makes it difficult to crack too.

Notice the weird characters in 'F1rewéæll', password like this is extremely difficult to crack. These weird characters are called Extended ASCII Codes, and can be found at www.lookuptables.com. To type these keys from your qwerty keyboard, you will need to hold down the 'Alt' key followed by the 3 digits which represents the ASCII code. For example: Pressing 'Alt+134' gives you this: å.

If you are using laptop, the Extended ASCII Codes can be typed by holding both 'Alt' and 'Fn' key at the same time, then type the respective 3 digits numbers from the (normally) bluish numbers and not from the usual numbered keys on the keyboard.

Have fun trying!

Bird Nestling - Day 2

A better nest than Day 1 although egg is still exposed.

The mother sitting on satellite dish waiting for me to leave prayer room.

Bird Nestling - Day 1

My brother was praying this afternoon and found this on the window of the prayer room, just beside the joss-stick pot. An egg about one inches long! I think the mother's nest elsewhere has been destroyed by the frequent heavy rain lately. Notice that the nest is not even complete, only a few sticks and I guess this is an emergency case for her. I managed to take the photo while the mum was nestling a moment ago (at night) and I was like only 3 feet from her! She didn't flew away.

Earlier in the evening when my brother was praying, he said a pair of birds is noticing him from the fence, I think they were trying to build the nest when my brother leaves the room. It's not the common pipit, but this type of breed is quite common in Brunei too, anyone know the name? And is it common to have only one egg for this breed?

Being a chinese, and a bit superstitious, something came to my mind, especially that it's a prayer room that this bird is nestling. I mean of all places, why on the window of my prayer room near the joss-stick pot. I hope this means nothing, and even if it does, something good.

The Household Expatriates

My Indonesian maid just came to Brunei from her two years contract period with us. She has been good and my mum wanted to extend her contract. I had a chit chat with her over dinner today and asked about her family.

She said she spent all her 2 years of hard-earned money on a sapi (buffalo). It was an adult one and really fat, probably about to give birth. The buffalo normally gives birth once a year, and normally only one offspring each time. Once the buffalo given birth, my maid will sell the baby buffalo which she will earn equivalent to 5-months her salary in Brunei. Not bad investment eh?

After this new 2-years contract term, she will go back and buy another female sapi. This means she will have 10 months of salary in a year. And she will probably retire, and live a happy life?

My previous Indonesian maids most of them went back to buy lands. Some built a house. And there's only one that became a real businesswoman, in which she set up a company that supply maids to Brunei. She's very successful now, infact I have an agent friend who get new maids from her. At times she would send her new maid some mangoes to us.

Sometimes I feel that household maids are like the European expatriates working in Brunei. Only that they are household expats. And normally at the end of a two year contract, they will be quite wealth-off. They don't need to be really educated to become rich (when viewed in their country's perspective).

Sometimes don't you just wish you could have a simple life? Routine work at home, no expensive needs, no luxuries yet contentment in life. I guess it's being trade off by having borned in this peaceful and prosperous country.