Boyd Chan

My name is Boyd and I’m a Service Management Specialist with a knack for operational data gathering, transformation, analysis and reporting. In 2012, I obtained my Masters of Science in Information Technology through the University of New South Wales @ The Australia Defence Force Academy (UNSW@ADFA). I was also part of an online community known as the Panasonic Insider Crew in the capacity of “Insider Guru” for Panasonic Australia where I interacted with other tech enthusiasts and find out more about Panasonic's latest gadgets. I love technology, gadgets, and the Internet and maintain a keen interest in these areas locally, nationally, and globally. I hope by sharing my views on these topics that people will receive an honest point of view from someone with a genuine interest in these topics. I have also written and edited articles for Neowin - you can check out my articles over @ https://www.neowin.net/news/poster/boyd_chan I hope you enjoy reading my blog!

Most commented posts

  1. How to Find a Missing Fitbit — 241 comments
  2. Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale and the Cold — 88 comments
  3. How to Fix Windows Activation Error 0x80072F8F — 71 comments
  4. Why is GainSpan on my Wi-Fi Network? — 54 comments
  5. There Was a Problem Installing Mac OS X (Lion) — 48 comments

Author's posts

Oct 07 2012

Android Easter Eggs

What’s an Easter egg you ask? Yes, there’s the chocolate egg-shaped variety that makes an appearance once a year but I’m not talking about those ones but another variety. In technology, Easter eggs can take on various forms such as hidden messages or a fun secret that would otherwise go unnoticed for most users. A …

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Oct 06 2012

Tomato Firmware with IPv6

I am looking at getting our home network up to speed with IPv6 capability and one of the obstacles to overcome is the limitations imposed by our current router. It’s a Linksys WRT54GL which has been quite reliable over the years particularly when it has been running the fantastic Tomato firmware. Unfortunately, the vanilla Tomato …

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Oct 05 2012

Alternate POP3 and SMTP Port Numbers

Here’s another quick tip. Some larger ISPs restrict the traditional ports for POP3 (incoming e-mail) and SMTP (outgoing e-mail) to only work with their own mail servers. This can be annoying particularly if you have your own domain name with e-mail hosting and you don’t fancy having to use your ISP’s SMTP server for a …

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Oct 04 2012

It’s Easier to Save Than to Script Again

While this probably applies more to a significant part of my line of work and others that do coding and/or scripting this can be applied generally to any other sort of data, content or programmatic creation. SQL or Server Query Language is what I use to import, manipulate, interpret and extract data from databases almost every day …

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Oct 03 2012

Converting Units of Measure – No App Required

Here’s a quick tip. Smartphones and tablets have all sorts of apps for them these days but you might be able to save yourself some screen real estate by using online services instead. For instance, Google can convert between measurements for you just by typing in the search bar. If you keep forgetting how many …

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Oct 02 2012

Convert Text Files From DOS to Unix Format

Here’s a quick tip if you happen to use both Windows and *nix systems on a regular basis. If you need to edit and move text files (such as HTML or PHP files) between systems then you need to convert them to ensure that their format new lines are created properly then you might find …

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Oct 01 2012

Panasonic NR-BY552XSAU Inverter Fridge – Installation

Last Friday, I finally took delivery of a brand new Panasonic NR-BY552XSAU inverter fridge after having knocked back delivery the Friday prior due to a clash in timing. Yesterday, my wife and I actually got around to installing and replacing the existing fridge which took about three hours all up. The process from start to finish …

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Sep 30 2012

Shortcuts to Restart, Hibernate, Standby or Shutdown Your Computer

Here’s a tip that might be handy for those using Windows 8 or most other recent versions of Windows. If using the charms bar in Windows 8 makes your head explode then you might fancy creating a shortcut to restart, hibernate, standby or shutdown your computer. It’s very easy to do as follows: Right click …

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Sep 29 2012

Attunity, MS SQL and Oracle – Back to the Drawing Board

Earlier this week, I shared my intention to try and use Attunity to satisfy my requirement to get MS SQL Server to connect to Oracle to facilitate the transfer of data from various databases. Unforuntately for me this idea was stopped in its tracks because the Attunity connectors are designed to be used with MS …

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Sep 28 2012

Current Cost EnviR CT Clamp Installation

It’s taken a while but I’ve finally arranged for an electrician to come out to install the CT clamp for the Current Cost EnviR Power Monitor in the electrical meter cupboard outside. Given that I was taking today off to get an extra day for the long weekend and also take delivery of a brand …

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