Judging Incompetence At It’s Best

Last year I took part in this web design competition organized by the Sabah state government (Competition Website). Anyway to cut things short, I just found out the results a while back.

• This is the website I designed: http://www.sabah.edu.my/itmr07032/
• This is the winners website: http://www.sabah.edu.my/itmr07001/
• This is the first runner up’s website: http://www.sabah.edu.my/itmr07018/
• This is the second runner up’s website: http://www.sabah.edu.my/itmr07043/

After taking a look at the results, I came up with a few conclusions:

1. [CENSORED]
2. [CENSORED]
3. [CENSORED]
4. [CENSORED]
5. The judges really don’t know a quality website when they see one

And before some of you come saying that I’m a bit harsh and that maybe I din’t fulfil a certain criteria, then take a look at judging criteria. If you need any more proof that my website is better, take a look at the source code of the 2 websites. Come on, tables? bloated code? That’s really so last year.

The prize money for the winner was RM1000, and somebody who did such a bad job won it. The pain, I can just feel it. Oh well. If you’re the organizer and is reading this post, one suggestion from me is to get better and more qualified judges who really know what they are judging in the coming competitions.

[I sent a email to the organizers, partly to ask the reasons the winners competition is better than mine and partly to get my certificate of participation which they have not even given me. If they do reply I'll post it here.]

How To Get Around Network Censorship

One of the most important part of my computer is it’s internet connection. I use the internet a lot, and without it life becomes so much more dull. There is one thing worse than having no internet - a crippled internet. My boarding school here in Singapore blocks out a lot of websites and ports that I feel is unnecessary  and that it actually hampers the internet experience.

In my boarding school I can get 2 networks, one is my school’s internet network and the other is my boarding schools network. There are 3 different kinds of programs used to censor out and block the internet - Fortiguard, Trend Micro Interscan and another unnamed software. These 3 firewalls seriously makes life hard on us boarders by blocking out some innocent sites and some much needed ports. Friendster, Facebook, Youtube, Filestube are blocked. The firewalls are so strict that even some advertisements on websites are blocked. This is what I’ll call an overkill.

Here are the two software products that I have found and personally tested that can bypass internet censorship whilst providing anonymous surfing:

Note: These 2 programs can bypass and get around fortiguard. Personally tested.

Ultrasurf

UltraSurf is the flagship software product from UltraReach Internet Corp. for Internet anti-censorship. This was one of the first anti-censorship software I have ever used, however the recent versions of it has been blocked in my boarding school. Oh well, all good things have to come to an end.

Features:

• It is a green software (meaning no installation - just start and surf)
• Small download size
• Proxy speed is fast compared to other web-based proxies
• Supports most if not all of a normal internet users needs (implements almost all browser functions)
• Can use Internet Explorer without having to configure anything, however if you want to use any other browser, some tweaking would have to be done

Homepage | Download page

GlobalPass (aka GPass)

GPass is now my favourite software I use to bypass network censorships. It is even better at getting around network censorships when compared to Ultrasurf. The speed of it’s proxy server is even faster and the connection more stable too.

Features:

• It is a green software (meaning no installation - just start and surf)
• No need to configure individual software to bypass the firewalls, just drag the icon of the software into GPass and it’s ready to go
• It’s speed is fast
• Small download size

Homepage | Download page 

I hope that this 2 softwares help out other people who are facing internet censorship out there, especially students in boarding schools like me. Xp. I might be doing one comprehensive post about GPass one of these days.