I had this old laptop that survived probably 8 years or more (seems to be bought in 2000) and the DVD-ROM drive's broken. I ripped the thing apart hoping to find a loose connection but unfortunately it was a cracked PCB, so I gave up trying to repair the drive.

The laptop booted up fine, but the Windows 98 installation was goofed. It would BSOD every other minute and I was faced with the ultimate challenge - how do you install Windows (XP) without a freakin CD-ROM drive?

You'll need the help of another computer, that's for sure. Here's how.

Grab one of those $10 2.5" external USB hard drive chassis from a PC store and stick that laptop hard drive in there. If you're using a 3.5", get a standard USB to IDE converter. If you're using SATA, get the SATA one (duh).

Install VMware Server 1.0 on another PC. Get 1.0. 2.0 is a memory hog. It's free for download and use at www.vmware.com.

Grab a DOS floppy image from bootdisk.com; get the .IMG files, not the .EXE. Yes, you heard it. DOS.

Attach the USB disk to the PC where you installed VMware Server. Create a new Virtual Machine. Select "Windows 95" as the operating system. When prompted to add a disk, tell it to use an entire physical disk - and this would be your USB disk.

Go to C:\Virtual Machines\Your Virtual Machine Name\ or wherever you created the Virtual Machine.

Open up the .vmdk file using Notepad. You'll need to change the type from SCSI (lsilogic or buslogic) to IDE (ide).

Open up the .vmx file using Notepad and change scsi0:0 to ide0:0. Also change the type from SCSI (lsilogic or buslogic) to IDE (ide) if it's there.

When you plugged in your USB disk, Windows would have detected it as a drive. Go ahead and partition / format it using Windows's Disk Management tool. This is found by right-clicking on My Computer and selecting Manage.

Now, get to VMware Console and mount the DOS .IMG file you downloaded earlier and boot it.

Once DOS is up, check your hard drive and make sure you don't get the wrong disk mounted by running the command FDISK C:

Now, you'll need to install the DOS O/S into C: drive. Issue the command SYST C:. If that doesn't work, you'll need to run FORMAT C: /S. Make super sure you didn't set VMware to use the wrong disk before running this step!

Now that C: is bootable, copy HIMEM.SYS and SMARTDRV.EXE from A: drive to C: drive using the COPY command, e.g. COPY A:\HIMEM.SYS C:

These files are required to allow access to the high memory area (above 640kb) thus HIMEM.SYS and in turn this will allow SMARTDRV.EXE to utilize disk cache for faster disk access.

You'll also need to create a CONFIG.SYS file to instruct DOS to load the HIMEM.SYS driver. Enter the following command to do so.

TYPE DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS >C:\CONFIG.SYS

You'll also need to create an AUTOEXEC.BAT file to instruct DOS to load the SMARTDRV.EXE program on startup. Enter the following command to do so.

TYPE @SMARTDRV.EXE >C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT

Now, you may reboot the VMware machine again to ensure that it boots from C: drive fine. After that, shut it down.

Unplug and reattach the USB disk. This is to ensure you see the drive in your Windows Explorer.

Get to Windows Exporer, and copy the entire i386 folder from your Windows XP CD to the USB drive.

Once you're done, get that drive back into the old laptop/PC and boot it up.

Once you arrive at the C:\ prompt, type the following command to start the Windows XP setup process:

C:\I386\WINNT

Have fun!

I haven't been to Sim Lim Square (SLS) for a long time. SLS is a popular "computer" paradise for tourists visting Singapore and it is one of the "tourist attaction" that I would highly not recommend visiting.

When I was young... like 10 years ago in 1998, SLS was the place to go for geeks. If you wanted to build a new PC, you'd go to SLS. If you wanted more RAM, you'd go to SLS. If you wanted the best graphics card money can buy, you'd go to SLS. If you wanted to get the craziest overclocking tools, you'd go to SLS. Most importantly, if you wanted a bargain, you'd go to SLS.

Back in '98 SLS, shops in SLS would openly display prices that were very competitive. A bargain hunter would walk past these stores and grab paper flyers with full pricing information of all products they carry and go from stall to stall to find the best bargain for, say, a hard drive.

Although this is still practised today, many stalls are starting to use con tactics. I made about 4 or 5 visits to SLS lately because I've been visiting a luthier's shop nearby. I thought SLS had changed for the better, but in fact it has gotten worse. I shall write my experience here for the unweary shopper.

No Pricetag Scam

If you see a product without a pricetag, just walk away. Most likely they're going to quote you based on how you approach them. If you're a tourist, be sure to get the highest price quote ever. These sellers will then try to talk you into buying the product, such as offering a "lower" price if you pay cash.

Wenxi approached a stall that was selling accessorries and asked for the price of a 4GB Toshiba USB thumbdrive. The seller quoted him $45 and surely we knew it was a ripoff price and wanted to walk away after saying thank you. The seller then started asking Wenxi if he would be paying by cash. The way he asked was very dramatic - he leaned forwarded, asked if he would pay cash, then whisper the price in his ears as if it was the best deal and nobody else should hear it. $38 was the quote. Stores that were openly displaying prices for 4GB thumbdrives were selling them for $29.

That's not the best part yet. I was at the cafeteria in SingTel Comcenter and saw that an 8GB thumbdrive (not 4GB) was selling for $29.90. Pushy con(sales) man not included. I'm sure with my Challenger membership, I could have gotten it for somewhat cheaper than $29.90.

So you decide, bargain or no bargain?

Goods and Services Tax (GST) Scam

Sellers would first quote you a good price, and then just before you make the payment they'd tell you that you'll need to pay 7% GST on top of the quoted price. Most people would take this as something that they "have no choice but to pay". This is not true. In fact, GST registration is not mandatory for all shops in Singapore; GST registration is only mandatory if the turnover of a business entity exceeds S$1million annually. A proper GST registered retailer must also quote prices inclusive of GST during a sale, and at the same time must have their GST registration number displayed prominently on the sales invoices with the exact amount of GST paid reflected.

I was hunting for an Axioo Pico UMPC in SLS. I decided to make my purchase at a particular store that served me well as they were kind enough to open the box, show me the unit let me feel it's weight with a 6-cell battery. After I agreed to buy the unit, they informed me I had to pay GST. The GST added a whopping $52 dollars on to the price tag of $749 making its total slightly past $800.

Being a retail business owner myself, I knew the rules of the game and left the store. I bought the same laptop from another store at $758 inclusive of GST.

Missing Component Scam

Some of you may be aware of the last two scams, but this may be new to you. Being a mobile phone retailer, I have heard numerous horror stories relating to such scams.

In this scam, the seller would quote you a price that seemed either unbelievably cheap or very resonable. After you make the purchase, the seller will then ask you if you'd like to purchase an accessory that would otherwise have been bundled with the product.

For example, if you were buying an iPod, they would quote you $380 when everywhere else retails it at $399 and later inform you that you'd have to buy the data cable at a whopping $40 when it should have been bundled.

Counterfeit Scam

This largely applies for software, but at times also to hardware. Nowadays anything can be replicated to look just like real. Earlier this year, some SLS shops were busted by the police for selling counterfeit copies of Microsoft Windows.

As I walked past Sim Lim Square, I saw counterfeit copies of the popular Apple iPod music players on sale. They had the same packaging, material, shape and even colour choices. But what's inside of these "MP4" players are nothing like a real iPod. A sales girl tried to convince me it was an (Apple) iPod, so I tried playing with one and it was barely useable with a trashy chinese software inside.

For the unweary, Apple controls the retail prices of its products. If somewhere other than an Apple store sells an iPod, it would be very closely priced to what you'd get at an Apple store. If it's unbelivably cheap, chances are that it's a fake.

Top-up Scam

In this scam, the seller would convince you to buy something that you would later find to be unsatisfactory and then offer you a top-up for a pricier product.

Francis walked into a SLS store and saw a cordless phone that was on sale really cheap, so he asked the seller if the phone was good. The seller informed him that it's a good phone but with intermittent "poor signal quality" that was not a cause for worry. So Francis decided to get the phone and paid for it while at the same time requesting to test the unit before he leaves the store. Note that SLS shops usually do not allow you to test a brand new unit unless you commit to buy it.

When Francis made a test call, he found that there was a persistent chirp made by the phone and told the seller he could not accept it. The seller then started getting defensive and said it was exactly what he had informed Francis about - the intermittent "poor signal quality". When Francis asked for a refund, he was denied and the seller started to get aggressive. The seller also said that if Francis didn't believe him, he could test the other units and they would all be the same.

Francis knew right away this was a scam and that they had kept a defective batch of phones to close a sale. The seller later recommended him another model that was far more expensive than the one he bought. In the end Francis left the store without making the top-up.

Buyers, please note that unlike large stores like Harvery Norman, SLS stores do not have a refund policy. In fact, it is almost impossible for any small shops to honour a refund policy due to the way their business operates with cash stock. So before you make the payment, insist that you want to test the product. If it's a product that can't be tested (such as RAM or hard drive), make very sure that it's covered by a manufacturer's warranty (not the store's own warranty!)

Where's safe to shop?

Now that you've read the horror stories, where's a safe(r) place to shop?

• Funan center. This place is also touted as the "computer" paradise, but for the "richer". If you are an unweary tourist, this place is certainly much safer.
• Harvey Norman, Courts, Best Denki, Challenger, Cyberactive. Any of these big stores found at major shopping centers such as Vivo and Suntec are safe places to make your IT purchases.
• Buy direct from manufacturers such as Dell or Apple. You won't go wrong with this one - at least there's warranty coverage.
• Now for some publicity of my own, my business WhyMobile was founded on the principles of consumer fair pricing; prices are displayed prominently and quoted nett. We stand by our principles and do not practise any GST or missing component gimmick. If you need a mobile phone, this is the place to go.

Edit: I have updated the SLS page in Wikipedia hoping that this would help the unwary. Please contribute and fix the bad English!

For those who are wondering WTH is a /31 subnet (255.255.255.254), here's some very interesting information.

Traditionally, PtP links were assigned a /30 subnet (255.255.255.252), yeilding a network address, 2 host addresses and a broadcast address. Objectively speaking, this is a 100% waste of network addresses - for every 2 host I need, I created 2 unused addresses... unless you use IP-directed broadcast, that's a different story.

The 31-bit netmask is proposed by RFC 3021. This reduces the number of wasted addresses and makes the 2 addresses in the network completely available for use by hosts and removes the network and broadcast addresses.

So what happens to broadcast? Directed broadcasts are not supported, but 255.255.255.255 broadcasts can still be accepted. Also, the network now becomes the first host addresses, e.g. 192.168.0.0/31 is the network where 192.168.0.0 and 192.168.0.1 are both useable IPs.

For the Cisco gurus, it is currently supported by Cisco devices running 12.2(T) and above. Here's how:

ip subnet-zero
interface Vlan1
 ip address 192.168.0.0 255.255.255.254

My copy of CentOS 4 running kernel 2.6.9 supports this as well.

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0C:29:CD:7C:00
          inet addr:192.168.0.1  Bcast:192.168.0.1  Mask:255.255.255.254

Here's the two boxes communicating...

PING 192.168.0.0 (192.168.0.0) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.0.0: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=7.02 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.0: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=2.32 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.0: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=3.02 ms

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.254 U     0      0        0 eth0

Vincent has also verified that this is completely routable in his lab router setup (via OSPF). I'm sure it would work for other routing protocols... it doesn't really matter.

However, Windows XP gives me an error indicating that there's only 1 host bit so that means it's not supported. I'm not sure if Vista or Windows 2008 supports this, maybe somebody can verify?

ISPs, why are you still wasting your limited IP address space!?