Mine is a 32GB Black iPhone. The specifications can be found on Apple website so I am not going to repeat them again here. I used a sleek Nokia 6300 before this so it took me some time to adapt to the bigger/wider iPhone. This is not really a problem to get used to, actually. So, let’s put aside the physical differences.

I had been looking into various smart phones by Nokia and Sony Ericsson before I settled for Nokia 6300 almost two years ago. Well, nothing is comparable to iPhone as I find today.

On the 4th day, I had already got a chance to take my brand new iPhone into action. I completed a task outside and needed to go back to my home/office. I usually made payment to my suppliers at the bank. Then I would go back home/office to scan and email my suppliers before they could send me the goods. This usually would happen a few hours later or in the evening because I have the habit of being cost-effective when running errands outside. With iPhone, I snapped a photo of the bank transaction slip with its built-in 3 megapixels camera and emailed the photo to my supplier immediately. By the time I stepped out the bank, my supplier had called me and confirmed receipt of the fund. Everything was done on the iPhone at the bank.

While the competition in smartphone market is mounting with Google’s Nexus One and Android enabled phones with attempt to take down iPhone, nothing has come closer to the 3 billion downloads of iPhone apps at Apple’s App Store.

I am using quite a number of applications for productivity and I find them all useful. I am able to check my schedule and make appointment, follow my to-do list, review some documents (PDF, graphics etc,) which my co-workers and I shared. More, I can email, facebook and tweet anytime, anywhere with the iPhone (the list goes on.) These tasks are a little over killed on a MacBook I can say.

When my dad was in the hospital a few months ago (I still had not had my iPhone then), I had been in and out of the hospital with my backpack. It was quite annoying trying to find a good spot where I could sit down, open up my 13″ MacBook and connect it with a 3G broadband. Sometimes, the seat had been taken by patients’ relatives. Most of the time, my MacBook and I became the attraction of bored people sitting around me. Some nosy people would peep at my screen. Checking and replying business emails had became a difficult task as my privacy was invaded. It was like houseflies buzzing around while you were eating your chicken pie. Were you able to enjoy anyway?

With iPhone, this scenario has changed a little bit. I am still able to communicate and do some light tasks without the need of my MacBook and houseflies peeping. I can add, modify or delete appointments and contacts on iPhone and sync with my Macs via MobileMe. I am also able to update my to-do list and sync with my Macs via WiFi later when I am home.

As a software developer, I spend most of my time at the keyboard spewing codes other than blogging, emailing, facebooking and tweeting. I would rather save this coding task on my Macs if there is any code editing app available for iPhone. When I am not at my desk, I would want to follow up with tasks like the reviewing of drawings/images (icons, logo etc), design and technical documents on iPhone.

The iPhone is handy during short discussion sessions (less than 15 minutes) with co-workers and clients. A relatively large MacBook would look clumsy in this situation.

I can also use iPhone as a remote controller to navigate Keynote presentation slides using Apple’s Remote. This app makes me look more professional (and well, cooler) when presenting because I need not walk to my MacBook to press a key every each time I want to change the slide. I can do it on my iPhone.

Well, the list goes on and on so long you have not run out of imagination of  how to utilize your iPhone. I would never go back to Nokia or Sony or anything else except iPhone.

As far as “Unity” or “One Malaysia” is concerned, the word “Bumiputera”, should be strikeout and will never exist in the dictionary of the Malay language. Literally translated, it means prince of the land. The ethnics Chinese and Indians, although they are the lawful citizens of Malaysia, they are not the prince of the land.

Let all be referred to as “Rakyat Malaysia” (Malaysia citizens). For example, there should never be “Bumiputera” and “Non-Bumiputera” pricing in housing properties sales. But when election comes, they call all “Rakyat Malaysia” to vote.

How can the country unite whilst the people are divided into “Bumiputera” and “Non-Bumiputera”? I wish Mr. Najib, the new prime minister, will critically consider to abolish the word “Bumiputera” if he is really serious about uniting the people of Malaysia.

Ahmad is Buiputera Rakyat Malaysia. Sivakumar is non-Bumiputera Rakyat Malaysia. I am non-Bumiputera Rakyat Malaysia.

So why divide citizens of Malaysia into Bumiputera and non-Bumiputera?

The new fares will certainly burden a large group of citizens who rely on public transports as their locomotion. The increase of school bus fares will also stretch more burdens to households who depend on school bus service to send their children to and from school.

While the Najib’s administration has implemented some new economic measures to stimulate economic growth and unity, is this increment of public transport fares to balance up his check book?

9月28日，神七顺利回家，举国为之欢腾。

从神七返回舱顺利落地的那一刻，一个词——“归零”立刻浮现在笔者的心头。在2005年神六完美落地后，航天员费俊龙、聂海胜异口同声地说：“所有的成绩都已经‘归零’。”而今，神七同样不辱使命，我们同样需要自信、自警、自强地对自己说“所有的成绩都已经‘归零’”，进而尽快回到那光荣而艰苦的圆梦历程上，继续向更高的科技高峰攀登。

从某种意义上说，航天产品研制的过程就是一个不断归零的过程。神七按计划成功落地，载人航天飞行的技术“归零”就同时启动，我们不仅要在这项系统技术上追求完美无缺，还要举一反三地消除前进道路上的每一个科技难题，在不断地难题“归零”、成绩“归零”中创造新的辉煌。

从差距到动力，中间需要一个“发现”——自我发现差距，产生奋起直追的内在要求。神七落地的那一刻就将成绩“归零”，就是要自我发现差距、内生前进动力。

神七回家日，成绩归零时。除了鲜花、掌声、贺辞之外，广大航天科技工作者又一次自信自强地站在新的起点，向着发射空间实验室、建立永久性空间站等更高更远的目标前进！

早在1990年代中，我的同事和我都一直难题“归零”，我们才有今日的成就。回顾十三年来我们经历的一番努力，心里别有一番味道。虽然，今天各自有所发展，我们还是把以前的合作永远铭记于心。令我最遗憾的是我的好友兼第一任女友不幸的在1998年车祸去世。我们在中四就认识。她也是一位电脑奇材。她最拿手的是彙编语言 (assembly language)。她写彙编语言程序简直是到了出神入化的地步。她也是我在中四刚开始接触电脑时的良师。1995年当我建议公司采用 Ada 为主要软件开发语言，她给了我很大的鼓励。她曾向我说过：“一切从头开始吧。从‘零’开始会更好。”

她给了我很好的启示。我把所有已开发完毕的软件系统拿来“归零”，以 Ada 从新开发。就这样，我一路发展下去。一有了成绩，我又一切“归零”，从零开始。周而复始。

1997年，全球金融风暴，也是她让我重拾信心，再次“归零”开始。1998年初，我的公司开始转型，迈向国外的时刻，她也考获博士学位，那时我们俩正是处于最颠峰状态。可惜造化弄人，1998年12月26日凌晨，我接到她爸爸的电话，听到厄闻，我顿时呆了。28日就是她的生日。我伤心了好几个星期。1999年1月30日，她爸妈从美国办完她的丧事回来，我见过了她爸妈。她爸爸给了我一样东西看，她的日记。看了过后，我很感激她。自从那时起，我就一直沉醉于工作、一切“归零”。

2001年，公司已经走向世界了，我也离开重组新公司，一切又“归零”。2006年，公司开发工程完毕，我离开公司了，一切又“归零”。要不是这“归零”、又“归零”、再“归零”，今天我也不会有这等思想。

今天我所做的一切，也是一切“归零”开始，希望我的孩子能够早日走出泥沼迈向世界。

More than half of the sugar produced in Brazil is supplied to domestic foodstuffs manufacturers, for domestic consumption and ethanol production. Brazil has increased her annual sugar production because export has outweighed domestic consumption.

High Sea Sugar supplies sugar and molasses directly from the mills.

I can never forget how he turned around his car and sped to rescue a spider he noticed on a road which he had passed. When we reached there, some boys were trying to kick the spider and they were preparing to capture it and played with it like a toy until its death. Sensei picked up the spider. He showed it to me. It was a black spider with some yellow stripes on its legs and body. It was harmless. He took the spider across the road to a bush and gently put the spider down on one of the bushes. Then we went to the town happily.

Speaking about mosquitoes, I hate mosquitoes. When I need quietness and a good and restful sleep, somehow, it will find a way into the bedroom and humming away near my ears as though it sings, “Blood, blood, I am going to suck your blood. Yummy!” If I ignore it, I will feel itchiness on my skin after a while.

My favorite weapon to fight mosquitoes is an electric bat. It operates on rechargeable batteries. It looks like a badminton racket but very much smaller. The netting is made of some metal wires and is electrified when you hold down the button on the handle. To catch/kill a mosquito, sometimes mosquitoes, just hold the button down and wave the racket against any flying mosquitoes. When the mosquito(es) come(s) in contact with the electrified wire, it will be trapped and electrocuted. When the batteries are strong, it will give up very loud electric snapping sound. “ta ta ta ta ta ta …..” and I can see electric sparks sparkling on the mosquito’s body and its abdomen will glow red hot. If I hold down the button longer, I can smell the barbecue mosquito. Love it! Sometimes, the electric snaps much stronger and tears the mosquito apart. I can see the mosquito without its abdomen but still alive beating its wing, making the humming sound, circling and dancing on the floor, as though it sings, “Ne, ne, ne, ne, ne…. I am still alive!”

I plow my own garden now after learning how to grow goodness from my master gardener. I need to keep my garden healthy. To keep my garden healthy, I need to weed it and get rid of the pests. There are two ways to keep the pests at bay. One is to use toxic chemical to kill them. Yucks! The other alternative is to build a barrier to keep the pests away from my garden. This is something called Green House!

Unknowingly, I have somehow built a shield surrounding my garden. I did not realize about the shield, when some pests were trying to destroy my garden and crops and I sprayed some aerosol trying to kill them, until my master gardener showed me his great wisdom.

The green house is a shield built surrounding my garden keeping the pest at bay, away from my crops. By keeping pests outside the garden, makes them envy of the delicious foods inside my garden and soon the pests will die by starving themselves to death. What a great way to kill pests!

This portable duplex scanner, ScanShell 3000DN, can scan double-sided document in one pass. Its portability and weighing at 0.59kg make it easy to tuck along on any business trip. Besides scanning documents, it is also useful to scan business cards.

ScanShell 3000DN plugs into any USB2.0 port. The scanner does not require external power supply. It can scan any documents and save to PDF or any of the following graphic formats: BMP, JPG, TIF, PSD, PCX, PNG or TGA.

When I am on business trip or visit project sites at universities, I need to scan some documents during most of the visits. I also like to scan business cards of whom I met so that I can keep organized and I am not afraid to misplace those valuable contacts. Perhaps I should put this in my wish list as this year Christmas present or may be include it in the budget 2008!

Visit her memorial website here and sign the petition to pursue accountability at UPM.

Until the roof above the area has been built, the sun will still shine at the window at this time of the year. I got an idea about installing blinds after building the roof. I prefer bamboo shades or blinds which give the Zen favor.

SelectBlinds gives 25% off everything until this Sunday and free shipping with FedEx or UPS. They guarantee delivery before Christmas! Should I get something for our home this Christmas?

One specific opportunity offered by PPP was a drug rehabilitation website. I was required to blog about their drug or alcohol rehabilitation program. That reminds me of an old-time friend whom we spent many after office hours at pub having happy hours. He became alcoholic and gradually withdrew himself from work and society. The last thing I know is that he is doing great now with a family. I took that opportunity to write about withdrawal symptoms and rehabilitation program and hopefully, people in need of it can find the program easily.

Although blogging can easily make money by just writing about the products or services of the advertisers, bloggers are urged to adhere to blog ethics. Honesty is the most important element for your blog readers to stick around with your blog. If blogger has been dishonest or found to be dishonest by readers, the blog will be deserted and no one will ever come back again. So, it is very important to be honest to your reader.

Another benefits of PPP is that I can learn to blog about products and services. This will improve my writing skill and as well as online marketing skill by blogging a product review or introduction.

The posts tagged under Marketing category are mostly sponsored. I would rather prefer to tag it under Marketing as I find it more appropriate and easy for me to keep track and organize these sponsored posts.

When I started blogging, my site is PR 3 and now, it is PR 4! The higher my PR, the more popular my site will be.

Are you interested to earn money while blogging? Start looking at Pay Per Post now.

If you would like to hire me to blog about your company, website, products or services, please click here.

I’ve look a few cabinets and found some metal cabinets made of high grade stainless steel. It is easy to clean and maintain if compared to wooden cabinets. And it lasts longer too. I think it will be the time to give a facelift to the kitchen.

The Internet has opened up a whole new dimension in our lives. We are able to communicate face to face looking at each other across continents, able to share information with a click of the mouse and etc. Many people has turn home based in this century to conserve earth resources like gas, time and to reduce company expenses. Many businesses also go home based to minimized operating expenditure.

Many people like to have home based business because of minimal capital involvement, flexible working hours, don’t need to meet clients, business across countries’ borders, and you are the boss! Just to name a few. The benefits of having your own Internet home based business have no limits. It is time to discover yourself the benefits of home based business.

What kind of business is good to start you off?

How about phone card affiliate program? USPrepaid.com offers you an attractive package to start you off with a website of your own domain name. Sign up is very simple:

1. Think of a catchy unique .COM domain name.
2. Sign up at USPrepaid.com.
3. Setup your website.
4. USPrepaid will provide you some training.
5. Market your site.

USPrepaid offers over 850 phone card brands with commissions up to 50% but mostly about 22%. Your operating expenses are the $74.95 one-time setup fee and monthly subscription fee of $19.95. There is minimum risk as you don’t have to pay a huge capital upfront. When you have made some sales, your commissions will be paid with cheque. But if you are not residing in the U.S., your commissions will be paid in the form of traveler’s cheque (in U.S. Dollar) via Fedex.

USPrepaid will provide you training for setting up your site, checking inventory, sales and profit; selecting products and setting up prices and all you need to run your Internet home based business. USPrepaid will also design your website and it will be up within 72 hours!

If you are thinking of starting up a low cost home based business with minimum risk, USPrepaid’s phone card affiliate program will be a good start for you.

I came to Cartridge Finder and found the cartridges for HP 810C DeskJet without any effort. CartridgeFinder.com‘s user friendly interface lets you easily figuring out which cartridges are required for more than 10,000 different models of printer, copier, and fax machines.

This site also searches PriceGrabber.com’s merchant listings to find you the best deals to save you time and money.

Technologies such as Internet and mobile phone services such as MMS and 3G have opened up a whole new dimension of marketing channel to businesses and corporation. A new marketing strategy called mobile marketing is increasingly becoming the most popular marketing tools. Businesses can deliver marketing content directly to the palm of targeted consumers.

A survey has found that more brands are ready to spend larger proportion of their marketing budget on mobile campaigns in the very near future. About 71% have projected to spend more than 10% of their marketing budget in mobile marketing campaigns in the next 2 years. The survey have also indicated about 10% of consumers receiving SMS marketing have requested for more information on products and services grew from 32% in 2006 to 58% in 2007. More survey details can be found here.

How do you perform mobile marketing? First, you need to have mobile marketing software. GoLive! Concierge is a industry leader in mobile campaigns management suite. Setting up your campaigns with the software is fairly easy. You can provide services such as: subscription, ring tones and wallpapers download, SMS voting, Text-To-Win, reminders, polling, auction, chat and much more; to your targeted recipients.

GoLive! Mobile is also having an in-house design team to provide your company WAP Site Design or Mobile Website Design. You can host your content with GoLive! Mobile’s WAP Site Hosting or Mobile Website Hosting plan. If you are looking for a complete suite mobile marketing products and services, GoLive! Mobile is the right place to look into.

This is the William Tell Overture of Mum by Anita Renfroe. Anita is a multifaceted creative artist, a Christian singer and a musical comedian. Her creativity is absolutely amazing. With a blend of musical comedy and inspiration, she leaves her audiences with hearts infused with humor and hope.

When a person become drug- or alcohol- dependent, the person will undergo personality changes and will have a lot of mood swing and become emotionally unstable. Gradually, [s]he will withdraw from social and family activities and worst, out of job because no longer competent in the work environment. Their appearance will deteriorate and no longer bother with personal hygiene. When the symptoms left untreated and the dependency continue to linger, it can develop into social problems with violence such as, theft, robbery and murder.

I come across The Watershed Addiction Treatment Program providing drug treatment. WIth facilities located at Boca, Boynton and Houston, Watershed’s program offers medical detox, 12-step involvement program, dependency education, detoxification services, group therapy, individual counseling, inpatient rehabilitation, intensive outpatient, partial hospitalization, women’s program, family therapy, recreational activities and residential rehab.

It was a long time ago and we have no idea where Hudson is. The last news we heard from his younger brother years ago was that he had gone else where to work and he was no more on alcohol. I believe he has successfully rehabilitated and recover from his alcohol dependency.

The Watershed offers professional program to help people with drug or alcohol abuse problem. I hope this blog entry may help those who need to rehabilitate themselves to have a better and healthier lifestyle. I wish them and our old-time friend, Hudson good luck! I really like to see Hudson again one day.

Sometimes getting Personal Loans is not bad at all, as long as, you can find good, cheap loans or mortgages to help you afford the things you need. PersonalLoansMania.com is the right place to start hunting for your personal loan.

My travel is always on very strict budget and have requirement constraint such as economical rate with breakfast included and free WiFi or wired Internet service in the room. Especially traveling in Asia countries, not every hotel is offering in-room Internet service. Some will offer in-room Internet service with a fee.

Having a friend or business partner to help looking for a hotel is also a hassle for both of us. Often times, the hotel he/she has made reservation with, does not meet my requirement and it’s not nice to turn down the reservation because my friend or business partner has already given their best effort to do a favor.

I prefer to make reservation on line. Hotel Reservations is my favorite place to go. It provides the best service I know to my extend so far. The information about the hotels listed on this website is very accurate. Some reservation sites do not provide accurate information about the services you get at the selected hotel. This causes frustration and most of the time arguments if the hotel does not provide the service but claimed to provide it at some reservation website.

When making hotel reservation, confirmation of room availability is utmost important. I remembered a few years ago when I made a reservation with a hotel in Taipei via a reservation website, I requested two double room with king size bed. The reservation was confirmed as is. I was on a working trip along with a female co-worker. When we arrived at the hotel, they put us in one double room! We had to made a lot of noises arguing about our reservation. The reason they told us was the had not enough room. After many attempts and an hour or two of waiting, we finally got one double room and one single room. I took the single room.

My recent experience with Hotel Reservations was sometimes in 2006 when I travelled to Bangkok for a seminar. The reservation was without any hitches and I was very satisfied with the service. I also made a reservation of a car rental to get me around Bangkok. I remembered when I arrived at the airport, the car was ready for me. I did not have to wait.

Hotel Reservations also provides low rates and offers discount up to 70% depending on promotion packages given by the hotels. This gives me extra savings when I am on a budget trip.

Besides hotel and car rental reservation, Hotel Reservations also provides flight and vacation package reservation. It provides all the service you need when you are planning your travel, saving times and hassle and most notably, frustration and argument for a unmatched service. So far, I have not tried making a vacation reservation but I am sure to try Hotel Reservations the next time I am going to bring my family to a vacation.

The military government of Burma does not deserve to rule the country. Burma has been a country practicing Buddhism which spread Buddha’s philosophy and compassion. How can this happen? Greed?

Weapons should be pointed outward to any possible incoming threat which will harm the country. Weapons should not be pointed inward to their own people. Killing their own country men is a crime which cannot and will not be tolerated by any God and by human race.

Today, humanity is lost. Do we, the almighty human, deserve to live and rule the wonderful mother earth?

Today, after some months, reinstalled fornax again with Ubuntu 7.04, code named Feisty Fawn. The UI is even more superb than Debian. Everything has been nicely done and packaged. To my surprised, I can run KDE applications from Gnome’s menu. This could not be done in Debian and some other Linux. How nice!

As the matter of fact, I did not like Gnome very much because KDE applications would not appear in Gome’s menu. Ubuntu has changed my perceptual experience about Gnome and once again Linux!

I find Ubuntu has more human touch than any other Linux distros. I also find that Ubuntu is very closely competitive with Mac OS X!

Really, I have download Ubuntu’s alternate install CD in June but I had never had a good reason to install Ubuntu over Debian. This morning, I had to install and configure many software, for instance, Subversion, apache and many other software development tools; it gave me a good reason to install Ubuntu. Not because Debian did not have all these software packages (Ubuntu is based on Debian), it was because I had to do most of the tasks which were almost like installing a fresh system.

Ubuntu’s installation is easier than Debian and faster. I had it up and running in less than 20 minutes!

Now, fornax has once again become my Linux development platform as well as SCM (Source Code Management) server. Oh! I run ktorrent for downloading movies as well. It really flies and sucking all the bandwidth. I have to stopped ktorrent whenever I want to work on Internet.

I recall my old schooling days when one day, my sister Jenny presented me a dictionary. It’s an Oxford English dictionary. I was so happy. Ever since then, I started to read my dictionary. My second dictionary was presented to me by Jenny again when I accepted my first job offer as a computer programmer on the east coast about 16 years ago. It was an Oxford English mini dictionary, great for traveling.

When I was having my sabbatical karate training on Okinawa, I saw a huge dictionary in my sensei’s (teacher) house. It was about 5 inches thick, 1 foot wide and 2 feet long! It was hardcover. I could not remember the title of the dictionary but it was certainly splendid to see such a huge dictionary! That’s a dictionary of my dream.

I forgot to ask my teacher where he bought this huge dictionary from. I will email him this week to find out. I can’t find any of such huge dream dictionary in on-line bookstore. Perhaps someone can give me a hint?

Alright. That’s a dictionary I dream to have. Do you have a dream and you do not know how to interpret your dream?

Last night, I had a dream. I dreamt I was teaching Dmitry to read a dictionary. What did the dream mean? According to Dream Dictionary, the interpretation of my dream is:

To dream that you are referring to a dictionary, signifies you will depend too much upon the opinion and suggestions of others for the clear management of your own affairs, which could be done with proper dispatch if your own will was given play.

It is quite true that some of the time (may be most of the time), I depend too much upon someone’s opinion and suggestions when I need to get involved in something serious, sometimes not so serious though. I hope I will not pass this bad quality to my children as my dream implied.

One discovery I found out recently was when I acquired a new Apple MacBook two months ago. I installed a widget called iStat Pro.

At one of the section, I noticed an information about charge cycles. Whenever, I charged my MacBook’s battery, the charge cycle will increase by one. It will increase even though if I plugin external power for 1 second.

During charging, the positive active material is oxidized, producing electrons and the negative active material is reduced, consuming electrons. Every charge cycle will oxidize and reduce the positive and negative electrodes respectively in the battery. This is the cause of the degrading of the battery health. To maximize your battery health:

1. Make sure your battery is fully discharged before begin charging again.
2. Make sure your battery is fully charged before unplugging your charger.
3. If you plan to use your notebook computer for a long time, make sure computer is connected to external power source even though the battery is fully charged. The charger in most modern equipment such as Apple MacBook has intelligent charger. It will stop charging when the battery is fully charged.
4. If you plan to use your notebook computer for extended long period of time, charge your battery to full and unplug it from your computer and work with external power source.
5. If you plan not to use your notebook computer for a long time (more than a day), charge your battery to full and power down. Do not put your notebook computer to sleep or hibernation. When the computer is sleeping or hibernating, it withdraw power from its battery to preserve the contents of its memory. The battery power will be drained off in a few days time.

Oh dear! She picked the wrong person not knowing my sister is a research scientist (microbiology and cancer research). She is a Ph.D. in this field and has very strong command in her research area. She is doing her Master in Law (Patent) and is a scientific advisor to two law firms in New York and London. That innocent girl just picked the wrong customer! Of course, my sister started burbling about the “Nano Calcium” and she gave the girl a look in her eyes disagreeing the “Nano Calcium”.

There are many websites promoting “Nano Calcium” in their nutrition supplement products.

Calcium is a chemical element in the periodic table and has the symbol “Ca” and atomic number 20. Its atomic radius is 180 pm (picometer), 194 pm (calculated radius) and 174 pm (covalent radius).

1 picometer is 1×10⁻¹² m while 1 nanometer is 1×10⁻⁹ m.

That means, 180 pm is 1.8×10^-10 and still smaller than 1 nanometer (1×10⁻⁹ m)!

Marketing hypes! Ignorant consumers will get overexcited with the term and thinking that will be a real benefit to them as nowadays many people are talking about Nanotechnology. Calcium is calcium and there is no such thing that atomic or molecular structures can be shrunk further beyond the law of physics.

That reminds me a few years ago when one of the water filter marketed by Diamond can produce “Energy Water”. Water is water, how can a simple filtration system energize the water molecules to become “Energy Water”?

To our surprises, that girl approached my sister again to get her opinion about Calcium supplements which her uncle told her to take. Mee and LA educated this innocent girl about a good and balanced diets. Hopefully, she will listen to their advice and follow it.

I have fallen ill due to a strong virus. It happened on Friday night when I finished practicing, I jumped into my car with AC on to go pick my sister, Mee, at Melaka Mall. When I reached there, she wasn’t there and first thing struck my mind: The bus could be late due to long holiday traffic on the highway. It always happens when a long holiday over the weekend. So I parked my car and got down and went inside Melaka Mall. The AC was cooler there. She did not appear  and apparently, she got on a different bus which used a different route and she arrived at the terminal. I rushed down to the terminal to pick her up.

When arrived home, I began to feel cold. I guessed I had caught a cold. My body started aching and shivering. After Mee finished with the gifts she bought for the kids, I took some paracetamol and went to bed. I felt better the next morning.

Last evening, I collapsed onto the couch after coming home from Jasin class. I was so tired and I took a rest. At 1900, I got up and took a quick hot shower, took some bites and off to City Church class. When I arrived there, I started to feel cold when I stepped out the car. I began to feel sick during the class but I managed to close the training by 2200. After the class, I felt really lousy.

After returning home, I took some paracetamol again and went to bed. Everything was fine until Monday morning when I started to feel some irritation in my throat. I took more paracetamol in the afternoon but this time it did not work. I began to shiver. At last, I went to see a doctor and she prescribed me some antibiotics and some other medication. My fever was 39C. It was another strong virus attack since July 7, 2006.
After the clinic, I went to buy some masks and wore the mask at home and began to isolate myself from the kids. Dmitry and Dietrich were looking at me lying on the bed with a mask on. They must be curious what happened to daddy. This is the first time I isolate myself. I got a feeling, when both of them looking at me pitifully and curiously, that I am a weird and horrible old man in isolation waiting to for his time. I felt weird.

I hope the isolation will minimize the chance for transmitting the virus to them.

Today, I prepared the two dishes for the kids and LA. They loved it so much!

Last year, while I was seeding a software development project at UTAR and I got a chance to work with some students. We planned to do a live data collection from a GPS device which required us to drive around in the car with the GPS device connected to a notebook computer to log live GPS data. We chose to do it at night when road traffic was low. We were having some problems to get the data in from the GPS device and we were resolving the problem right outside the main gate of the PD campus (FICT campus in Section 13 PJ). It was dark and I noticed some people drove by. I look into their faces and I could sense these people were not good people based on their facial appearance. I was on all alert while the students resolving the problems. I also saw a few students who stayed back in school to complete their assignments/project came out from the campus. Male and female. I noticed they did not have the alertness while leaving the campus. They talked and laughed all the way from the campus to their cars parked outside the campus gate. I had also noticed the two security guards were staring at the female students.

A few months ago, a female student at one of UTAR campus in PJ (Section 13) was almost raped by a security guard. Why didn’t this incident ring the alarm and knock some alertness and commonsense into students, the DSA (Department of Student Affairs), local police and the public?

I was talking (Skyping) to a female friend last night. She was working as a kindergarten teacher in Cheras and had moved back to her Penang home with her parents some time ago. She was kind of lonely in the new environment. A couple of months ago, one day, she Skyped me and told me that she was not in a good mood. She sounded scary as though something had happened to her. I got her to talk about her feeling and she told me that she had been drug-raped by a guy appeared to be her new found boy friend. Now she is working in KL and we chatted for a while. During the conversation, I found that she was kind of materialistic. I asked her what was her goal in life and she told me she wanted to make a lot of money. I asked her why so. She told me without money she could not survive in this capitalism world so couldn’t anyone.

I told her that she could not be rich just because she was a kindergarten teacher. She agreed but she argued that she could make more money with other job and she sounded like she wanted to get another job. I told her that she should not have an objective just to make more money. She refused to agree with me. The conversation did not last very long simply because I did not want to talk to her further in this topic. She is extremely stubborn and has very shallow vision and her thinking is so simple and naive.

I personally think that it was her objective which led her into her ordeal. She was having an “objective” so that she would not be lonely. She was having an “objective” to venture into opening a cafe in Penang hoping to make more money and friends. I feel sorry for her and I don’t think I can change her taking into account that she is stubborn and with very low education level. She left school after her SPM (form 5 or 9th grade and how could she involve herself as an educator while she does not have enough education?) I will write about the education issue later when I have inspiration and time for it.

Young people (particularly those local university students) nowadays lack of social skills. I encountered many who simply refused or ignored the importance of getting socialized. Socialize in this context means having a communication with people outside of university and their circle of friends. I have, many times, told the students who worked with me to pick up the phone and call the vendors to check prices and availability of certain components. They did not want to call. They emailed instead. And most often times, they did not receive any reply. They liked to resort to quick and easy solution by asking friends or lecturers to help acquiring the necessary components. And these friends and lecturers would most willing want to help. This leads to the lack of social skills which can develop a person’s instinct to identify good and evil intention of a person.

Like the aforementioned friend of mine, she lacks social skills while she is so engrossed in her money-making objective and at the same time, her loneliness and desperation (to make more money) led her to suffer an ordeal.

The number of cases of break-in burglary has increased tremendously at Bukit Beruang (Malacca) where I live. Many of these victims are university students, and of course, include some local residents. The students’ attitude, ignorant, carelessness and senseless mind have created a great opportunity for criminals to lurk and grow in the area. Many of these young students’ left their home for the first time to study in university which they feel so prestigious to be a “University Students” and therefore having the naive thinking and lacking commonsense of security. Many of them think highly of themselves and ignore the facts that danger is always stalking them without their consciousnes. These naive senseless young people put their own security into other hands. If you drive around the neighborhood, it is not difficult to find these “houses” infested by careless young people have the doors and gates wide opened inviting the watchful eyes of criminals.

Having good exam results and being a university student or scholar does not mean they can take care of themselves. Many of these adolescents have not learned to take care of themselves and to be independent.

It is a very common scenario to see these university students going to cafe in downtown Taman Melaka Raya and many other parts of the town to take a moment out of their busy studying and “exam” schedule, gossiping and usually with aimless objectives. They should be studying or discussing in school library. But they choose to have an easy and relaxing moment with their “friends”. It is a huge difference you will see in these local university students and university students in the western world. They feel lonely away from home and they are desperate to find partners and friends to fill in the vacuum in their heart. Some of them who are fortunate that their homes are not too far away, will go back to their mommies and daddies for a good indulgence during a two-day weekend break.

IMHO, these teenagers have been excessively pampered by their caring and loving parents to the extent that ignorance, naiveness, carelessness and senseless mind have developed in these precious “children” of the wonderful parents.

Last night chat and the brutal crime have inspired me to write this post/essay which I think it will be a good reading material and food for thoughts for some good and wise samaritans to realize what the hell is going wrong in our society. I also hope those ignorant, naive, senseless and obnoxious folks will open their eyes and hearts after reading this article and realize the danger and begin to make a change in their attitudes so make our society/world a better place to live.

The patries were so tempting to look at and of course they were very delicious. I wanted to eat everyone of them but I got a small stomach. Here are some photos of the pastries they baked just to share with you.

They are mouth watering, ain’t they? The environment is cosy, soft classical music is playing, French atmosphere and of course the fresh pastries aroma right out from the oven!

After we had our breakfast/brunch, we went down stairs to browse the local market. Because of the typhoon Min-Yi the week before I arrived, the prices of vegetables and fruits became very expensive. I also saw some clay pots that were used to store Japanese wine. They were very expensive just for the pot itself.

The scenery outside was very attractive as well. Although it was hot and sunny, the breeze from the East China Sea was refreshing with the view of blue water.

The beautiful scenery by the blue sea reminded me of my late sister, Angie. She would love to be on Okinawa and she would jump into the sea. She loved the sea so much.

This is the lounge view from outside

Training for transition is being conducted with careful planning and most of the students were not aware of the transition until they have been informed a couple of weeks ago. When they received their new gomon last week, they were surprised and excited. I am happy to see the transition is bearing fruits. Thanks to my working experience while I was working as a consultant in transition to Ada (see my blog here).

The preparation for demo has some hitches. The preparation training coincides with school’s mid-term exam following a 2 weeks break starting tomorrow. What a wrong timing!

The rest, I have been tied up with work, family and not so much of my training. I got the chance to train a little when I teach the class.

1C DC 57 78 9F 6C 6C 91 B3 C1 86 F3 28 DD B9 92

Why do I need to own an 128-bit integer for? Seriously, I have no idea at all at this moment. Perhaps, I can use it as encryption key. I will find out some purpose of owning my very own integer! Or perhaps people can call me by that number instead of my name. Or perhaps I can tattoo this barcode onto myself. Cool!

If you want, you can get one here. Please tell me if you find out its use.

Now have I found the true path and I continue growing and changing leaving behind the ironic retrospection. Be it, in future, my memory to be told to my children and let them continue my saga as their own, in their own time.

The keys are crisp and there is no sticky key. The white keyboard is pleasant to look at but it can be a real hassle to clean. I tried to look for a keyboard cover which is made of silicon and molded according to the keyboard but seems like it is selling like a hot cake.

With this keyboard, typing is absolute pleasure. I was using a keyboard from one of my Compaq PC and the feeling is not comparable.

The installation and setup is a breeze. Just pop in 4 AA batteries. The power switch is located at the bottom of the keyboard. Switch it on for the first time and click Set up Bluetooth Device and in a few seconds, you will be prompted to enter pairing code on the wireless keyboard. As soon as you press Enter, you are on your way enjoying the keyboard. To conserve batteries, it will be a hassle to switch the keyboard on and off. It will be nice if the power switch is conveniently located at either side or at the back of the keyboard.

When the car arrived at the junction in front of our resident area, it suddenly slowed down and made a U-turn. It was not supposed to make U turn there. A few cars sounded their honk. I managed to take a look at the driver. Ha! An African student with his friends.

Many MMU‘s foreign students behave and drive like hooligans. These rascals ignore the safety of other road users. I once had a bad experience with a student from middle east last year. When I was negotiating the corner to my resident area, a car sped from the right and overtook my car at the junction. Luckily, I was alert and I was alone in the car. I chased him until he stopped at one of the dead end and I really gave him a stern warning. I guessed I scared the hell out of him.

I have a handful during the last week of the Dog year because of my new job and the cross-training in karate. My sensei in Okinawa requested me to write my training journal for him two weeks ago and I could not find time for it. I may post less often but I will find some time for it.

Last August when my wife gave birth to Dominik, my mom sent her maid to our home to help. She helped to wash and cook. We did not want her to even lay a finger on our kids. But my 2nd son, Dietrich, liked her very much and liked to hug her. We left it to be but we tried to prevent him from doing so as much as we could.

Then I had retinal detachment in September. Had a surgery and needed for follow-up examination in KL. My wife would drive me to KL for the examination. One day in October, my wife sent me to the clinic in KL without taking any kids along (we left them at home together with my MIL and the maid), we discovered a small bruise on my eldest son left inner arm. We became suspicious about her and my wife asked Dmitry who did this. He told my wife that the maid “pinch” her! My wife asked him 5 times and he answered 5 times the same answers! Then my wife and I checked on Dietrich and found a bruise on his right waist. Dietrich did not know to express yet. Then we decided to file a police report and sent her to the police station for investigation. And we had to sent our kids to General Hospital for examination! After the police investigation, we deported her back to Indonesia.

Why did she pinch the kids? We trained our kids to do household chores. It appeared that Dmitry wanted to help her to clean the dining table. Apparently, the maid did not want him to do that so they were snatching the cleaning cloth. And the bitch pinched him. As for the case of Dietrich, we did not know what happened because he did not know how to express himself yet.

Of course not all Indonesian maids are bad. My mom had one maid earlier and she was very hardworking and quick in her work. We, particularly my sister Angie, really missed her. Angie missed her so much even until the last days before her departure. We tried to contact her in Indonesia but failed.

Before this happened, my wife and I had talked about installing CCTV at home. But before we could finalize the decision, this unpleasant thing had already happened. It was too late to install and we would never need to install one because my mom had decided not to employ any maid anymore.

If you want to install one, then do it! Don’t think about the cost or its worthiness. You never know what these fanatic Indonesian maids can do (but not all of them are like this).

Luckily, the incident did not leave any permanent psychological effect on our kids.

I can understand why some people will do something great so that they can leave behind for generations to know about them.

Sigh! That’s life. We are nothing but only a capitalization sapheads for corporation and government. We are worthless unless we have something great to leave behind. Like Buddha, he left behind his great philosophy but after three thousand years, there are so many deviation and fraternities. I wonder people are still remembering the true teaching of Buddha?

i always wanted to write about Buddhism and to finish my article about Buddhism but I never find time for it. I don’t know why I will write about Angie, life and Buddhism today. Although this is a short post, I believe it will be a good beginning.

It requires more work to service the air conditioner. To do it, first the front bumper has to be dismantled. Followed by removing the radiator reservoir then unfasten the radiator cooling panel before the compressor can be removed for service. The filter was built into the compressor so to replace the filter, the compressor must be removed. How troublesome!

Fortunately, the workshop is very experienced and has done a good job. After the service, I asked one of the technician why was a sound when the air-conditioner was switched on. He checked and told me that it could be the belt. He said the belt was still good but was already harden. He tried to tighten the belt but there was still some noises coming from the bearing. He suggested to change the belt.

I decided to change it and he proceeded. After changing the belt, the noise was gone. I can feel my car is more powerful. Why? Because the belt runs the air-conditioner, the power steering and the alternator. The new belt provides better power transmission to these components. I also learned that if the belt is broken, the car will be immobilized. First, the power steering will not work. Second, the alternator will not run so it cannot charge the battery and cannot provide electricity to the car.

I am quite furious because I was not told by Honda service technician and they did not check my air-conditioner and the belt. I was having the noise for almost a year. Every each time I complained to the service center, they would spray some silicone lubricants and told me it was alright. After a while, the noise would come back when the silicone dried off.

So good of Honda’s service! I am going to call Honda tomorrow and make a complain to them.

When we arrived at the park, it was noon time and there were some crowds at the tracks and some kite sellers and parents with kids were flying kites. So we went to Roger’s Kites stall and bought a kite for RM45! It was quite expensive for a small one but according to the man, it will last for 2 years because of the stitching. So we bought it.

I had not been flying kite for more than twenty years. I could not get the kite up. After many tries, the man who sold us the kite offered to help us. He slightly explained and I had recollection of the techniques in the younger days. With his help, we finally got our kite soaring high in the sky. Can you spot which kite is ours? The photo was taken using my cell phone the kites look small.

Six years ago, my sister, Angie, enjoyed so much her first snow in New York together with another sister of mine, Mee. So, Mee, enjoy The Snows of New York. Is there any snow this year? The weather in NY is not cold enough to have snow this year.

I can see you now by the light of the dawn,

And the sun is rising slow,

We have talked all night, and I can’t talk anymore,

But I must stay and you must go;

You have always been such a good friend to me,

Through the thunder and the rain,

And when you’re feeling lost in the snows of New York,

Lift your heart and think of me;

There are those who fail, there are those who fall,

There are those who will never win,

Then there are those who fight for the things they believe,

And these are men like you and me;

In my dream we walked, you and I to the shore,

Leaving footprints by the sea,

And when there was just one set of prints in the sand,

That was when you carried me;

You have always been such a good friend to me,

Through the thunder and the rain,

And when you’re feeling lost in the snows of New York,

Lift your heart and think of me;

When you’re feeling lost in the snows of New York,

Lift your heart and think of me,

Lift your heart and think of me.

And to my friends who fight along with me for the things we believe, I hope you enjoy this song as my new year wish to all of you.

I was not happy with such a slow download and upload time. In this Information Age where Internet connection is prevalent, the service provider could have setup a redundant cable systems for the time like this. Apparently, they do not have a redundant system. Even their tech support does not know what is redundant system when I called them about connection problems some months ago. Sadly, these tech support employed by the service provider are local university graduates in ICT (Information and Computer Technology). How can they not know what the hell is redundant system? We can see how bad the local university standards are.

When we arrived home, it was an hour before midnight. We prepared then ate the crabs just before midnight. Nik was sleeping already. D and R were so eager to eat te crabs with toasted breads.

Just before the clock struck 12, I called Michal in Poland to wish him and his mother and girl friend a Happy New Year. Michal, if you are reading this, Happy New Year and we wish you were here to celebrate with us New Year 2007 and have crab party. Do you still remember the restaurant we had crabs party beside a temple?

I had to make a detour to avoid the flood. While I was driving head on, I saw a petrol kiosk was flooded. The detour had built up some traffic congestion. When I finally got to Leboh Ayer Keroh, the traffic there was long. I took another detour through Taman Sentosa to get to Bukit Beruang. And yet, another traffic congestion. Most of the cars heading to Ayer Keroh were taking alternate route through Bukit Beruang. That’s the reason for the heavy traffic going into Bukit Beruang.