After spending several hours today scouring the web and experimenting with various network and firewall settings, I finally managed to establish a VPN connection to my remote server.

This fix might work for you. If it does, do leave a note to let me know. Otherwise, sorry I can’t help further.

First, the specs:

• MacBook Pro (early 2009)
• Mac OS X 10.7.4
• Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac, build 7.0.15094
• Windows 7 Professional, Service Pack 1
• Zonealarm Extreme Security 10.1.079.000

Second, the network settings on Parallels 7:

You might wonder why I have two network devices. The Network 2 is disconnected as shown below. I defined it because I saw somewhere that someone managed to fix his VPN issue by doing this but without giving any further details. I did the same but it didn’t work, it always disconnects my Windows network connection.

Then my Zonealarm settings:

The “Allow VPN Protocols” must be checked.

On Zonealarm’s main screen, clicked on View Zones and added the IP address of my remote server.

I hope the above helps you.

My assignment in Singapore is coming to an end. Just a few more days and I should be off to somewhere… or home sweet home.

Three eventful days! Nice…

Took Liza with me to visit this wonderful island in the Visayas. The weather was cloudy, drizzled a bit on the first day but the succeeding days were fine.

We stayed at the Metrocentre Hotel in Tagbilaran, which is less than 10 minutes from the airport. The hotel arranged for a driver to pick us up from the airport and to take us to the usual touristy places.

The great thing about Bohol is there are a number of ways to tour the island. You can choose to do a land, sea and/or underwater tour. We chose land, of course. On land, we were asked to choose Chocolate Hills Tour, Panglao Island Tour and/or Sagbayan Tour. We chose Chocolate Hills and Panglao Tours but skipping a few places in our itinerary as we do not have the time nor the interest to look at all of them.

Day 1:
We arrived at around 5 pm at the hotel from the airport. Walked to the St. Joseph Cathedral and then to BQ Mall for dinner.

Day 2:
Breakfast at the hotel at around 7 am. From 9 am, our driver took us to the following places:

Was back in the hotel at around 2:30 pm. Paid PHP3,000 to our driver for the whole trip.

Hotel actually arranged for a tourist guide to take us to these places but she didn’t show up. If she did we would have paid about twice as much. I don’t think we needed a guide.

Day 3:
Left the hotel at around 10 am to tour and have lunch at the Bohol Bee Farm Resort. For lunch, had grilled marlin, seafood spaghetti, fruit and nuts salad and malunggay ice cream for dessert. All great!

Paid PHP400 to the tricycle driver to transport us there (roundtrip to/from the hotel). Toured the farm and bought some pasalubongs. Back in the hotel before 2 pm. At 3 pm, hotel driver took us back to the airport. Our flight back to Manila was at 4 pm.

There are certainly a lot more places to see. I’d like to return one day and go diving.

Here are the photos:

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You might find this interesting. I took my family to Shoemart Mall of Asia yesterday to watch this fireworks display.

Currently at the gate waiting for my plane to take me home to Manila.

I was home last November. 5 long months. Hmmm… I’d bet there are plenty of things to do.

One thing I’d do is fix the house. Then maybe go jogging with the kids around our village. What else can I do? Go to Cebu maybe? Bohol? Will give it a thought for sure.

Need to try my target shooting again and learn from Derek how to box. Study a new programming language or maybe develop a cool new app. Maybe do a DVD marathon for a couple of days. I hope I can shoot more pics though and show them on here. Reminds me of setting up my Celestron Telescope to view the night sky. Venus, Jupiter and Mars are visible with the naked eye but I’m sure I can see more interesting stuff with my scope.

Plenty of stuff to do.

Now what do I do with my 2 weeks?

We’ll see.