Alternatively, this post could have the following title:

1. How to Change Your Life
2. How to Change Your Personality
3. How to Achieve Perfection
4. How to Be a Better Person
5. How to Stop Procrastinating
6. How to be a Better Programmer
7. How to get Better at Everything

Apparently it is simpler than we think. It is called small iterations and focus.

On small iterations, Teachers used to say ‘Practice makes perfect’. Indonesians often said “sedikit demi sedikit, lama-lama menjadi bukit”. And Jerry Seinfeld said, “Don’t break the chain”.

On focus, Confucius said “Chase two chickens, you will missed both”. Scientist also shown that our learning process become worse when we are multitasking.

I suggest you to follow the discussion HERE, many people have contributed a very insightful stories and advices.

Symptoms: Windows 2003 hangs after booting and never reach the login screen.

Background: ACPI stands for Advanced Configuration and Power Interface. It is an open standard that defines platform for hardware discovery, configuration, power management and monitoring.

Possible Cause and Resolution

1. Cause: CMOS Battery is Dying

   Resolution: Goto CMOS setup, scroll to POWER MANAGEMENT SETUP, hit Enter, look at it, Hit ESC to exit, Anwser Y to save.

   Source: Win2003 freezes at acpitabl.dat solution

2. Cause: RAID Problem

   Resolution:

   1. Turn off the server.
   2. Unplug one of the hard disk in your RAID.
   3. Boot the server. The RAID status now should change to degraded
   4. You should now be able to see the login screen.
   5. Login, do the necessary backup
   6. Plugin the hard disk, rebuild the RAID array with its software

   Source: sbs 2003 r2 acpitabl.dat hang in safe mode

I stopped my search as the solution no 2 solved my problem 🙂 I am still not clear with the exact cause, but I suspect that the RAID controller was having problem synchronizing between hard disks (my server is using RAID-1).

For this past few days I had discomfort in my throat. There was this feeling of almost-vomiting, like when you super-bloated after too much eating and/or drinking. Another uneasy feeling was the feeling as if you need to burp, but the air is refusing to move up from the gastric.

This uncomfortable feeling is actually quite familiar. I think I experienced it during Ramadhan month, albeit not as bad as now. I suspect it has something to do with immediately sleeping after meal.

So after skimming a number of Wikipedia articles, I found out the ‘possibly’ correct term for my discomfort as Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. The mild vomiting-like feeling is called Regurgitation.

Moral of the story:

• Never Ever Immediately Fall Asleep After Having Meal
• If you really need the sleep, try not to fall-flat in the bed. Sleep in the sofa, or use multiple pillows to make the head in elevated position compared to the stomach
• Coffee, or any acidic drinks/foods will amplify the uncomfortable feeling.

So far I did not take any medicine, nor I know any treatment to alleviate the discomfort. The discomfort will be gone by itself in 2-3 days. As long as you didn’t repeat to immediately sleep after meal.