nüvi, the pocket sized GPS for urban travellers

July 21st, 2006 at 9:44 · Filed Under GPS, Technology · Comment 

The new Garmin’s nüvi is a pocket sized SiRFstar III GPS device with lots of features for urban travellers.


The nüvi


The nüvi in the car.

It is very much smaller than the GPSMap 60CS I owned. Features include MP3 player, audio book player from Audible.com, JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, currency converter, measurement converter, and calculator. With microphone and speaker integrated, the nüvi lets you make and receive phone calls via optional Bluetooth wireless technology. Its touch screen makes operation, navigation and dialing easier.


GPSMap 60CS

I think I shall add nüvi to my Christmas wish list.

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Decoration on TV set

July 21st, 2006 at 8:08 · Filed Under At Home, Family, Photography · Comment 

I got up early to finish some undone tasks from yesterday. After emailing my works to my colleagues, I stared at the TV.

I don’t know why I suddenly think of the decorative items on top of our TV set. This photo was taken sometime last October.

Dietrich is very handful and likes to explore everything he sees. He pulled down the cloth and the pot. Soil was scattered everywhere. Since then, he started to take the stuffed toys and the lion dance toys (in the white translucent plastic boxes behind Pooh). Last month, both lion dance toys had become junks.

The top of the TV is bare now. The feeling is like I miss them so much.

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The best Tandoori chicken in Malacca

July 20th, 2006 at 17:13 · Filed Under Eating Out, Food, Malacca, Malaysia, Travel · 6 Comments 

It is hard to find a good Tandoori chicken restaurant in Malacca. By chance, I came across a restaurant in Taman Kota Laksamana serving Tandoori chicken and other Pakistani cuisine. First, I was just going for a tea with a friend one night. I saw many people came to this restaurant and ordered Tandoori chicken and Naan. Next, I decided to give it a try one day with my family.

The chef himself some staffs are from Pakistan. The Tandoori chicken, Naan, and other Pakistani cuisine have gotten the authentic taste and style. We especially love the spinach potato, Tandoori chicken and their curry.

We think this is the best Tandoori chicken restaurant in Malacca which worth a try. If you visit Jonker Street on Friday, Saturday or Sunday night, try to find this restaurant and have a nice supper before return to your home or hotel.

If you enjoy walking at night, a walk from Jonker Street to this restaurant is not too far away. I am sure you will have satisfaction after a delicious meal.

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Young girls are getting violent!

July 20th, 2006 at 6:09 · Filed Under Karate, Social · Comment 

A few weeks ago, there was a video clip posted on YouTube about schools girls bullying a schoolmate in Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia.

I found the video clip somewhere eventhough it had been taken down. The video had been rasterized for anonymity.

 
icon for podpress  Miri girls bullied girl: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Download the video here.

What has happened to our society today? Young girls are getting violent.

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Self-defense for women

July 20th, 2006 at 5:10 · Filed Under Karate · Comment 

Recently on TV, there are a few programs talking about women self-defense. Women self-defense classes like kick boxing with a mix of aerobics suddenly flourish, especially in big city Kuala Lumpur.

I wonder if these women self-defense classes are really effective in training.

Self-defense is not an easy task. Self-defense requires life-long commitment to training. Techniques will require long time, and often a life time, to be polished and refined.

Do these women self-defense instructors and students really understand the concept of self-defense? Do they believe in learning kicks and punches can prepare a person especially woman to defend herself?

In a real life-threatening situation, self-defense is a matter of dead or alive. It is totally different from kicking and punching sand bags, sparring with partners and etc. No rules applied. Another disadvantage of women is their physical strength. Can their training take down a 180 lbs male?

Many young people stop their Tae Kwon Do or Karate-do training after they receive their black belts. Many of them think a black belt is adequate to defend themselves. They do not understand the concept of martial arts and self-defense and often they are confused between sports and combat. Their instructors are solely responsible for this misconception.

Often in real-life situation, a person could have adrenaline rush. Adrenaline is a hormone secreted by human body under stress. A right amount of adrenaline could make a person stronger. For example, when chased by a dog, adrenaline will be secreted so that you can run faster to get out of danger. When the amount of adrenaline is over a person’s threshold, that person can experience trembling in their limbs. Not everybody is built the same. So, no matter how good your training is, if you get too much adrenaline, you will not be able to apply techniques effectively with your trembling limbs. Many people lack the understanding of how our body system works.

Every martial arts share the same fundamental concept of bio-mechanical, science, physics and mathematics. For instance, when throwing a punch, the skeletal alignment of your limb, shoulder, hips and legs together with the proper contraction of muscles are important to generate speed and power. As I observe some martial art instructors conducting their classes, they apply “monkeys see, monkeys do” approach. A punch is not just merely lunging your fist. It is a science. To understand the science, one must understand the external and internal weight change. To understand the external and internal weight change needs a lot of practicing, feeling and thinking and that takes years to achieve. One must also understand how the human body functions because not everybody has the same build.

Besides, self-defense is also psychologically and tactically demanding. Lots of mental and tactical training required.

I would say the best way to prevent crime is to instill high alertness of the environment and possible threats. Despite of many reported cases of bag snatching, I still see women hanging their handbags on their shoulder providing lots of good opportunity for crime to happen. People’s mentality is attributed to such happenings.

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Malacca is developing real fast!

July 18th, 2006 at 14:16 · Filed Under Malacca, Malaysia, Travel · Comment 

Umphhhh…. What can I write about Malacca?

Well, Malacca is developing real fast. I remembered when I came to Malacca 11 years ago, it was not much of development and the traffic was not heavy. I really liked Malacca then.

Now, although I still like Malacca, I hate the traffics and especially some roads have been converted to one way traffic. It’s kind of mess.

The place I stay was very nice, quiet and cooling at night. Now with the development, it is a busy small town and very hot. Trees are chopped down to develop more housing estates and high rise apartments. More concretes than 11 years ago. Addition to that, the students from MMU (Multimedia University) are causing real havocs. They are very rude and inconsiderate on roads. They don’t care about cleanliness and feelings of their neighbors. They do what they like to do as if they are the only one on earth. They are rude and uneducated bunch of yuppies.

Well, in the other side of Malacca, it is somehow beautiful with its own charms and heritage. Perhaps I will write about these next time.

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Scenic Malacca

July 18th, 2006 at 13:34 · Filed Under Malacca, Malaysia, Travel · Comment 

Here are some scenic photos of Malacca.

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Welcome to Malacca’s Blog

July 18th, 2006 at 11:27 · Filed Under Blogging, Malacca, Malaysia, Travel · Comment 

I must say this is the first blogs for Malacca (Melaka). There will be some customization work going on from time to time. But you can start blogging.

We want to make this blog enjoyable to read and to serve useful information about Malacca. So please refrain yourselves from malicious posts and be a polite citizen of the world. This can help us to keep moderation to minimum.

You can blog about your experience, views, thoughts, suggestions and anything else you find interesting for others to read. You can also upload photos (no indecent photos please) about Malacca and her people that you find interesting.

So, go ahead enjoy your blogging.

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Malacca’s Blog

July 17th, 2006 at 17:53 · Filed Under Blogging, Malacca, Malaysia, Travel · Comment 

I have just created Malacca’s Blog. My intention is to share experience, views and thoughts about Malacca. No politics. No flame war. No bias. No advertisement. No non-sense. Just about Malacca and her beauty.

If anyone is interested becoming a member of Malacca’s Blog, please send me your email address using contact form. I will send you an invitation to become a member of Malacca’s Blog.

UPDATE October 24, 2006:
Malacca Blog at http://malaccablogs.blogspot.com is not longer available. I have moved Malacca Blog to my weblog under Travel:Malacca.

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Apple’s WWDC 2006 – Wish list

July 17th, 2006 at 17:11 · Filed Under Computing, Mac OS X · Comment 

I am not able to attend WWDC but I surely like to see the following:

  1. Apple’s plan to incorporate Ada compiler (gnat) into Xcode. At present, the Ada compiler (gnat) is maintained independently by MacAda.org as well as individuals.
  2. Apple’s processor roadmap for PowerMac and if there is still some possibilities for Apple to adopt AMD. AMD is known for lower power consumption than Intel. Apple’s Intel roadmap has been concrete but I still wish Apple will adopt AMD.
  3. If any plan for making cross-platform GUI application development possible by making GTK native to Apple’s. At this moment, it is an open source project at http://gtk-osx.sourceforge.net

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Wonderful photos

July 17th, 2006 at 8:02 · Filed Under Photography · Comment 

Here are some wonderful pieces of work by Igor Siwanowicz.

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马六甲博客成立啦！

July 17th, 2006 at 5:45 · Filed Under Blogging, Chinese, Malacca, Travel · Comment 

马六甲博客成立啦！

如有兴趣加入马六甲博客会员，可和我联络。提供你的电邮箱我将发出邀请加入马六甲博客会员电邮。

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Why do I choose Shorin-ryu Seibukan?

July 16th, 2006 at 19:42 · Filed Under Karate · 2 Comments 

Many people ask me why I choose Shorin-ryu Seibukan. It is not affiliated to MAKAF (Malaysia Karate-do Federation). Wouldn’t be a waste if I join Seibukan?

IMO, it is not important if Shorin-ryu Seibukan is affiliated to MAKAF or not. What is MAKAF? It is just merely a political barn where people are playing with politics to ensure their continual survival and to secure their personal interest and benefits. Only people with limited karate knowledge will want affiliation to MAKAF.

Karate-do is not a sports. I want to train combat karate and not sports karate. At Shorin-ryu Seibukan, the original Okinawan traditional essence is still preserved in their training. The powerful and effective techniques of kata and ippon kumite are still in their traditional forms. It is one of the few traditional karate-do in Malaysia.

Sadly, karate-do in modern days can’t survive without sports. MAKAF, for instance, needs sports in order to survive. Without sports, there will be no funding from the government. Without sports, there will be no activities. We are also doing sports but our emphasis is mainly traditional karate. It’s alright for me.

We can see many other karate styles (ryu) make changes to their kata from time to time. Why? By making changes, they create an opportunity to give seminar worldwide so that they can make money from the seminar. They have to do this partly because they need money to survive. To my knowledge, Shorin-ryu Seibukan does not make changes to kata. Seibukan kata is still in their original forms. That’s how they preserve their traditional techniques.

I have a friend from my previous karate association. He was awarded Sandan because he had contributed as a committee member and donated some money to the association for buying their own dojo. He does not even understand what ryu or style means in karate-do. And he always talks about MAKAF and affiliation stuff. He was also former treasury of MAKAF. What is the point here having Sandan and served in MAKAF?

My decision was once reinforced when I met my second sensei, Rashid Dulkarnain Sensei of Aishoto-ryu , in June. Aishoto-ryu is not affiliated to anybody at all and they have no interest of doing so.

Rashid Sensei told me that my forth sensei performed kata wrongly 3 times when he took his sandan grading together with him many years ago and he still could get grade “A” while Rashid’s result was not as good as him even though Rashid could perform his kata without any mistakes. That’s one of the major reasons he and his brother, Syed Pakri Sensei (my first sensei), left and founded Aishoto-ryu. (Please refer to my website for more details about my karate life.)

The grading test took place in Port Dickson and I have verified this with undisclosed source.

I then realized that I had misunderstood Pakri and Rashid and I owed them my apology. They are truly for karate-do and they have sacrificed a lot for what they have done. They deserve honor.

UPDATE: May 1st, 2007
I have decided to quit the authentic Shorin-Ryu Seibukan due to political issues. I am devoted to improve my skills and to teach karate to young people and I am not interested to be caught in all kind of political conflicts. Whether authentic or not, I find it is the same as the other clone. It is better for me to embark on a search for a system which I believe is still untouched and have no interest in organization politics.

UPDATE: December 1st, 2007
I have switched over to Okinawa Karate-do Uechi-Ryu Zankai and officially become their member in July 2007. I have setup Malaysia Branch Doukoukai in Bukit Beruang, Melaka. You can visit our website here.

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Recycling program

July 15th, 2006 at 19:27 · Filed Under At Home, Days in My Life, Dmitry, Family, Recycling · Comment 

Dmitry was helping to sort out garbage for recycling. After sorted out the garbage, we would sent them to recycling center. We would keep the money (not much) in his piggy bank. It is not the money that matters but an education program so that our children will be aware of pollution and environment.

We started this program last year. I suggested to my wife after we discussed about recycling.

I discussed about recycling with a taxi driver while I was having a business trip in Taipei 2 years ago. I would order his cab to go to the airport every time I traveled to Taiwan. He told me about his recycle program. He said if we wanted to live on this earth, we must love it and keep it clean. But where to begin?

“The best place to start is our home.”, he said, “If we keep our home clean, our country will be clean. If we keep our country clean, the world will be clean.”

He possesses a master degree in mathematics. He chooses to be a taxi driver because he loves to have flexible hours and freedom to do things he loves to do. He also develops statistical and application software in his free time as a hobby.

Today, most Malaysians are so engrossed in work so that they can earn more money. Do they really care about the environment they live in? Do they think how the world will be in the future for their children?

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PC is dead!

July 15th, 2006 at 12:08 · Filed Under Computing, Linux · 3 Comments 

My Linux power workstation cum server is dead. It’s motherboard problem. The motherboard is Albatron’s KX-18D Pro II socket 462. It sported an AMD Athlon XP 3000+, 1GB RAM, 120GB SATA hard disk, 256MB Video Graphics.

It was one of the fastest PC 2 years ago. Now, it is ancient. It is hard to find a replacement motherboard that supports Athlon XP 3000+.

Perhaps, I should get a dual G5 PowerMac. But it is very expensive.

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