Last post for year 2007

This will be my last post for year 2007 and I am looking out from the window I see LDP is congested because of the accident happen just before the tunnel. I think most of people who stay near by here might know that LDP got one death tunnel… hehehee.. Not to say death tunnel, but accident area. Accident always happen before the tunnel and also sometimes inside the tunnel.

Maybe lots of people are not familiar with LDP, but I already staying here for more than 5 years. I can say that LDP is always congested with the cars and accidents. This is considering normal for me.

My internet connection is slow, and I have to post it too, just because I want to make more post before I off to Bangkok tomorrow morning.

Ok, that's all and see you all next year for more interesting posts.

Happy new Year

Today is last day of 2007, and I would like to wish you all Having a better year for 2008.

I will be off for a week starting from tomorrow, going to have my long holiday until sunday. I cannot post anything during this period. hope you all can enjoy today's moment and wait for the better 2008.

See you all next year !!! Cheers~~ and Happy New Year.

Working in IT

I am working in the IT world for the past 6 years, and I found some interesting things to share about. I think IT work is more challenging than others. But if you're are working for a software house, which produce software in house and selling to the customer, you won’t feel the same like I do.

I am working in a manufacturing environment which will face lots of non-technical people and they simply hate technology in nature. I think I share some interesting part with you all.

Because the core business for the manufacturing company is not IT, they seldom accept your proposal about investment in IT system. PC against worker ratio here is 1 to 4. So, they need to take turns to do the documentation from day to day. They need to come in earlier to "book" the PC and complete their work. Sometimes I do pity them as they really need to queue up to just use the PC to check email.

Interesting feeling sometimes I got into is that I can be in a goat to hero situation and come back to goat again when facing some difficult situations happening in a day. Let's say if I am able to fix something that have been keeping employees from being able to work for the past 10 minutes like network connection down, you will then become their hero just for at least an hour. But you will be their most wanted enemy if they started to face some printing problem because of the network slowdown. Yeah, they will just simply forget about your hero anointment just a few hours later. Then, by the end of the day, you help them to extract some data from the system for help them to prepare some admin meeting presentation material. They will treat you like a hero again.

Another thing is when user makes mistakes on their system or maybe their PC, it will be your fault. Just admit it or keep quiet and solve their problem. One thing is really happen to my area is, when my down line go and change the layout setting for my boss's PC. He will call me and shout at me: "I don't know what she did to the PC, the layout is totally different from the previous one. Like that I cannot work one loo!!! How la!! That's why I said computer is stupid loo!!!!"

Working as IT guy in your company, your colleagues who work together with you will treat you as their personal tech support department for their home PCs and home networks.

I always got it here, they will simply ask for my advice on buying PC, and some even gave me the credit card number and ask me to buy for them. Sigh~~ I become their personal advisor and buyer.

I think it's quite difficult to handle non-IT people sometimes as they not really understand what technology can bring to them. But I kinda enjoy it. Ha!

I love My blogger Template!!

Just wanted to share with you all, I kind of love my new blogger template. When I look at it, I feel excited with my work. It's actually influence by my dear friend Sarah and makes me work hard to change my template.

I live my template by 20 December 2007, and posted New Year new Blogger template to share the excitement. Now, it already 1 week old, and I still progress with some minor enhancement to make it more complete.

Maybe one day I can come out with some template and let you all download and plug to your blog. So, really hope can free some times in future to do that. I am really looking forward for that.

Boxing Day’s soccer matches

Today is Wednesday and also Boxing Day, when is Boxing Day? Boxing Day is actually a public holiday celebrated on 26 December, the day after Christmas day.

It’s normally a long holiday for other league but not English Premier League. Every year during these days, English Premier League will be very busy with the double fixtures. Tonight will have some fixtures for the EPL team as well.

There are 9 matches will be going on tonight, Man Utd, Arsenal and Liverpool will travel away from Home ground to meet Sunderland, Portsmouth and Derby. Chelsea will have a comfort schedule to meet Aston Villa at home Ground.

I still thinking whether want to watch these games or not. But surely I will go for Man Utd match at 11:00 PM Malaysia Time. So, watch up for the match. Don’t miss it.

Why is technology important?

I would like to share this with some technology idiots, just because they live in their own world. They hate technologies; they just simply cannot accept the fact that technology is easing their daily activities. They still think that technologies bring them difficulties in learning new things. Surprisingly, my boss is one of them.

Technologies have been completely integrated into our daily living, such as TV, hand phone, Personal Computer, Projector and etc. All are great innovations that ease our daily routine. Let's focus on Personal Computer only, it's because my boss always say that computer is the most stupid creation in this world and make his life difficult.

Let's start with 20 years ago, when personal computer is not common to have, people were using typewriter to compose proposals and business letters. If there were typo errors, they may need to re-type the letter again or correct it by using some correction fluid. What a mess!! Today, Personal Computer with word processor has even a spelling check function.

Emails also play a part in our lives. Writing an email and sending it to the recipients with just a click and the information is just minutes away. Or back to the old age, writing mail using hands and post it thru postal service and the mail will delivered in days (dependent on the distance of you and your recipient).

Without PC, presentations have to be done in the paper, and that causes wastage of paper. Just imagine if all drafts have to be in the papers as well, how many papers will be consumed in a day?

With internet, people can now buy things online with just a click away. And we can even get information thru internet with search engines like google, yahoo and msn. I think without internet, people have to drag him himself to the libraries or book shops to just get information about some particular things. Users can also book flights online by using personal computer and Internet. With PC and Internet, people are able to pay bills online. We need no to go down to the counter and queue for just paying 1 bill.

I think there are still lots of advantages with technologies in our daily livings, but I only focus on some. I may use the whole day to list out all, but not now.. kakakkaa.

So, Wake Up all technology idiots!! Or you will be left out by this world.

Have Yourself a Merry Drummers Christmas…

Hey.. it is Christmas eve. Any plans in your mind? A family gathering? Candle light dinner with your loved ones? Count down at some decorative shopping malls?

Just make sure you have fun!!

1U might be a good spot for the celebration. I say so just because I simply like the theme so much this year. The drummers!! Just lovely! I think this is the best ever Christmas theme they have in 1U. Oh.. and the drummers, they can move too. The décor and arrangement are just charming.

So, maybe I’ll c u there tonite. :P

Too much of coffee?

I am having 3 cups of coffee and am working on the projects that are given by my boss. Looking at all the coding really makes me headache and extra concentrations have to be paid to finish the task.

Nowadays I am very tired with daily works, blogging, thesis and house moving plan. I am facing my PC for more than 8 Hours a day. So, I always drink 3 cups of coffee daily to keep me awake. I realize that actually I am kinda addicted to coffee. Good or not? I don’t know…

Without coffee, I will definitely lose my focus towards whatever I am doing and causing the result of work to be below expectations. My colleagues advice me not to take too much of coffee, but I can’t help as I need it to make me awake. I told them that I always put less milk or sugar, just to stay healthy and I think it’s healthy. This becomes my famous excuse for that.

I realize another thing that really makes me out of coffee is when I am not working. I am without coffee when I am out of office. I am so stressed up in the office and I need coffee to make me calm. (Excuse again)

I think maybe it’s time to reduce to 2 cups per day. So, I must figure a way out to stay myself awake without coffee, maybe facebook will do.. kkakakakaa… Or maybe some one can tell me that 3 cups of coffee per day is normal and ok to practice that. Please.....

Create free blogs with blogger.com

You are actually looking at my article, yes you. Do you know that FREE blog can gain by just typing in URL http://www.blogger.com/? Then you register yourself and create your own free blogs. Yeah, it’s as easy as 123 and it’s free at this moment.

I think some of you might already know, but I am focusing on newbie who knows nothing about starting up a blog. Blog is actually a good media to share information and current updates of your activities and you can even make some extra money from blogging by registering to some blog advertisers’ web sites.

But I got some friendly warning to you all, you can get addicted to blogging activities like what I am now when you understand the interesting part of blogging. You will crack your head out if you are not able to blog one in a week. And worst still you can even get sleepless if you not able to post one in your blog.

Something good is that you will enjoy exploring new things and share in your blog with your friends. Go traveling if out of idea to blog and get some fresh ideas to blog about.

So, why wait? Claim your free blog from Blogger now.

Best home loan interest rate

I am wondering if I am getting the best home loan interest rate, since I’ve signed the agreement with the banker. Friend of mine said that home loan rate is dropping from day to day. But what I got from the banker is they generally predicted that the BLR for the home loan to be increase in the future.

The rate I got for my home loan is BLR -1.50% through out the loan period, but still some friends of mine said that their friends are getting even better deals. So, I am not sure how true the story from my friend is. But if I were to compare with my brother’s rate, actually I am much better because he is paying BLR + 1.0 %.

So, I think the rate is dropping from year to year, but what about BLR? Will it increase from year to year? Or maybe will it stay stable like now? I think I need to do some research to find out the correct data. And maybe I’ll refinance it if the rate is not good enough.

New Year, New Blogger Template

I finally found a suitable template for myself. This template is originally from B-Themes. Thanks a lots. I take out some features from the template and edited the layout color for myself. I also add footer items for some latest updates of my blog.

I don’t really know this template can bring me some problem in the future or not. But I do backup my previous blog template, in case there is any. After this template I learnt how to create a custom template for blogger. If time allow, I may come out with my personal template in the near future.

Since I found that blogging is really something interesting activities, I might try new thing in blogging in future.

Comments are welcome for my new template. Please drop me some, so that I can really improve my blog. Thanks in advance.
May you all enjoy blogging as well, Cheers~~

Hotel Reservations Offer

“This post is sponsored”

Hotelreservations.com is offering many different types of promotional discounts on world wide destinations. They are expanding fast not only in the United States, but also in Europe.

Besides attractive hotel reservations offerings, they have also resorts and motel reservations, vacation rentals, car rentals, flight bookings and vacation packages.

The price they are offering is just too good. If you are planning for your honeymoon, go check out this website, you won’t regret.

Mindtools.com

Found a really interesting website, www.mindtools.com, that shares about Project Planning, Time Management, Leadership skills and many others.

It provides many useful tips, techniques and tools to value-add yourself and facilitate building you a better career paths.

I will share my findings from the website in near future. Hang on!! :)

New Year Planning

End of the year, it’s time for me to plan for my next year again. I am thinking what to do next year in order to improve myself better from year to year. Looking back this year, I’ve achieved nothing much. I started to blog frequently and this is considered one of my greater achievements. I was promoted to dept head from just a programmer, but however, I still act like a programmer.

I have been working at this company for 2 and half years. I think it’s time to move on again. The reason I am leaving this company, is simply because IT is not the core business for the company. They are manufacturer for semi-conductor products, and some of the people are not keen to appreciate IT technology. One of them is my boss, he always tell people that IT is the most stupid course to go for. Although I am listening to his whining everyday, I have no hard feeling about him. In fact, the main reason I am considering leaving this company is the nature of the company. This company has stopped investing on new technology; they are still enjoying old mother hood technology. I am not saying I am good in IT, but whatever proposed to them, they will just reject without even looking into it. Their tag line is: “the cost is high”.

Enhancing my career path is definitely part of my plan for next year, but I’ve been dreaming about jumping out from the daily routine job and do something that is really my passion. Not sure if I can achieve that next year. Another thing to worry about is my master’s degree. I have been struggling with my master’s degree in UM for the last few years. I plan to finish it by next year, around end of May.

January will be a busy month for me to do the arrangement and renovation of my new house. My new house will be ready by then and I am just waiting for the CF and house key to move in. I am busy surveying for contractors and furniture, since I’ve got tight budget to work on with. We shall be moving in to new house after Chinese New Year. New Year, New Home!!

Man Utd got it again at Anfield

Last night was very wonderful night as Man Utd got the winner again at Anfield, thank to Carlos Tevez's 43rd-minute strike. Frankly speaking, last night Liverpool was the better side to win the match. However Man Utd managed to snatch the points out from the stressful Anfield atmospheres.

Van der Sar’s performance was a bit stumbled, but Liverpool’s striker failed to take the advantage from the mistake that make by the Dutchman. After the half time break, Liverpool made a bright start with one goal down. I was about to get heart attack with their continuous attacked.

But Man Utd managed to control the score and the final score is Liverpool 0-1 Man Utd. What a good result for Man Utd fans. Man Utd was back on top of the table after the win, but after a win from Arsenal, they are back to the top again.

We have to really work hard to chase closely with Arsenal. Man Utd Bravo!!

working on new blogger template

I just got to see Sarah Mohd Shukor's blog, updated her new paint for her "house". Title "Rumah Lama, Cat Baru", I am thinking of changing my blog layout style as well.
This current template is with me since I started to blog frequently this year, and I also receive some critics from my friends that my template is actually out of date.. It flag me to change my layout after Sarah changed Hers.

I think I might work out with some template with high tech view, but not too high tech. maybe look like with the Sebolku's blog with 2 columns beside, Maybe Sebolku can share with me your template. so, I can make modification on it.
Now still referring to others template to get a really my own template for this blog.

May you have any suggestion about the new template, can drop me some comment on it.

big four clash tonight

Tonight will be an interesting night for EPL football fans as Big four are going to clash. The big four is Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool. Tonight , the Gunners host the Blues and the Red Devils travel to Anfield.

Now that they have all qualified for the knockout round of the Champions League, English soccer's big four can concentrate on beating each other for the domestic title.


The features is:
Liverpool vs Manchester Utd 16/12 21:30 Malaysia time.
Arsenal vs Chelsea 17/12 00:00 Malaysia time.

I think I will be very busy to see this match tonight, sitting at mamak from 9:30Pm until 2Am tomorrow morning. to just watch football game.

What can be the result tonight? let's watch it tonight.

dental experience

Dental experience can be bad or good. Back to 3 years ago, I had a terrible experience when went for tooth extraction. The clinic is located same row with restaurant Murni. Doctor was a woman who really doesn’t have much skill and energy to be a dentist. After the last terrible tooth extraction, I decided not to go back to the stupid clinic again.

Today I went for my first dentist after 3 years of struggling on searching for a good dentist. I found this dentist good and I would like to recommend to you all. His clinic is located at Plaza Sungei Way, named LIM DENTAL SURGERY.

I switched dentist upon the recommendation from my colleague, I have no confident in dentists after the terrible experience. But this doctor really impresses me and made me realize that there is also some good doctor around.

He explains every possibilities and costs in detail, and asks you to decide yourself about what decision to make. And the interesting part is he actually enjoys his job and share about the technology of the dental services.

If any one got problem with their tooth, I highly recommend this doctor at Sungei way.

Joomla!

If you are a developer and plan to learn up of making some CMS(content management system) for your web site, please go to Joomla website and take a look on their CMS system. Joomla is highly recommended by me.

I been working closely with the CMS system, but not in my company. As part of my interests, I like to explore more in new technology, for those who work closely with CMS system might know Joomla as well.

Joomla! is used all over the world to power everything from simple, personal homepages to complex corporate web applications. It developed using PHP & MySQL. One thing that really interesting is it's open source. you can actually explore the coding and also develop some extension to plug and play for your CMS system with Joomla!

by 31October 2007, Packt Publishing announced Joomla! as the winner of "Best PHP Open Source Content Management System" for 2007.

If interested, Please download from this link

Which Cinema?

If you are a movie lover, you might go and watch every movie at cinema. To be frank, I am not that type of person that goes for cinema for every movie. I will pick some good movies to watch at cinema to get some extra excitement from their big screening and digital sound technology.

In Malaysia there are only few brands of cinema can be found, and like most of the people I am very familiar with three of them, which is Golden Screen Cinemas, Tanjong Golden Village and Cathay Cineplexes.

Which one is better? I think I will give my vote to GSC. My house is very near One Utama, automatically I will choose OneUtama as my hang out place if I have to choose one. In One Utama, there are 2 movies theatre, one is TGV and one is GSC. I am just comparing GSC and TGV in one Utama. And this is just my personal opinion and please don’t get mad about that if I've chosen the different one with you. Kekekee

Pending approval from blogitive.com

Making money is my initial plan for this blog, as the result I registered as more blog advertising web sites as I can. Recenlty I realize that I am having difficulty to get approval for my blog with one blog advertising web. blogitive.com.

I registered for blogitive.com since I actively blog, but until now I still pending to get some post oppurtunity from blogitive.com. I am not sure what is the problem I am having with my blog, It been pending for at least 5 months. I still haven't get any confirmation and also notification from the party about the problem of my my blog.

I am thinking of sending some email to the web administrator to get some advise on it.

title race wide open again

By Arsenal crashed to their first Barclays Premier League defeat of the season last night, the title race wide open again with Man Utd only 1 point behind Arsenal.

Liverpool just ended their unbeaten start of the session with a 3-1 defeat at Reading, which means Liverpool might having some difficulty to take back the EPL champion to Anfield. The day after the defeat, Arsenal follow Liverpool footstep and down 1-2 to Middlesbrough.

Think back from the beginning of the session, if Man Utd start better, we should have at the top of the table. but the race will be more interesting with current situation. I hope Man Utd can overcome all the difficulty and finish top by end of the session.

missed PC fair

Because of the heavy workload from my Company I missed PC fair event. Just wonder what is happening with this PC fair.

I think I will just buy my LCD monitor at Digital mall when I am free for that.

It's good to have digital mall at PJ, as it only take me 10 minutes to reach there, I can just free myself maybe tomorrow to get my dream LCD monitor.

I will take advice from Sebolku to look into 16:9 LCD monitor, the advice is recently posted in my comment about PC fair.

No paid post

I am so busy with the work recently and until cannot free my time for the paid post. But one thing I still cannot understand is why I am not getting any paid post oppurtunity from some blog advertising web site like Smorty.
I don't know what is going wrong with my account and I can say I seldom get opportunities from them. or maybe other people also facing the same problem with me, Please let me know if you got updates.

English in my life

I grew up from a small village where everyone speaks Hokkien and Teo Chew commonly. There is only one Chinese primary school. When entering secondary school I hardly find English important, because uncle aunty in my “Kampung” never speak English.

To be frank, most of the Chinese school students are having hard time learning to speak good English in public. Surely I understand this, because I am one of them. Maybe it’s due to lack of exposure to English :)

From my blog posts, u can see that I only manage to write in very common English that really consider as easy to understand and to read. Kekeke.. I am still learning and keep improving in my English’s writing and speaking.

After graduated from form six, I successfully entered to local university (UKM). But unfortunately, their lecturers were teaching us all the subjects in Malay. So, my Malay standard is improving from there. On the other hand, I don’t really feel that English is a must to practice in my life.

I started realize the importance of English after entering working life. I got into an interview that really knocked me up, where the interviewer insulted me with sophisticated English, and even told me that why my English is so lousy after graduated from University. Thank you for that actually, or not I won’t be realizing that I need to improve my English.

In working life, people always communicates in English. I learn to speak proper English, thru out my conversation with my customers, colleagues, and also friends. In PJ, uncle and aunty who selling Char Kuey Tew also speak fluent English. Duhh...

And recently, I am exposed to blogging. Blogging really improves my English writing a lot. Blogging is actually a really good media to practice on your English writing; I can really tell you all that before I learn to blog, articles or essays that I wrote in a year was not more than 50. I wrote just because I need to reply some important emails, I wrote when I need to submit some reports to my manager. Today I looked at my blog, and only this year, I blogged for 128 posts including this one. What an achievement!!!!

I will keep learning and keep moving ahead. Cheers!! For Life!!!

Putting Application Online

As internet technology is growing from day to day, online application is taking over the desktop application ranking in even internal admin system in some cooperation. My company is one of them. I am current converting some in house system to web base application, but one thing I might need to be careful of is security concern of the application.

Why people moving their application to put it online? This is because of the conveniences of the internet and the speed of the broadband been increasing from decade to decade. Online application become famous to all the company nowadays, does this mean that desktop application is no longer use in the future? I am not sure about that, but I can sure that people are keen to make their in house software online.

This can be ease staff work, as they can access the system from home and even work from home. Some of the IT companies are actually implementing working from home concept, and make use of the online application to control the in house application and submit using online system thru just a click from home.

We can see the web site technology also growing from day to day, from static web site to dynamic web site and even lots of web site are building with content management system as their backend system to control the content of their web site.

PC fair

This weekend is going to be a busy day for all computer junkies IN KL area. As they will be heading to KL Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur for PC fair 2007(III). The event will starts tomorrow, 7th December 2007 and ends on Sunday (9th December 2007).

You can actually shop from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm. So, are you ready for this year's computer shopping? Buying list is already in your mind?

I am thinking of buying a LCD monitor as my old monitor is meeting it age, aside of that I need to buy a display card for my PC as games technology is growing from day to day and my integrated display card is no longer good enough in displaying the graphics. I need to find one in order to let myself relax by playing my favorite game.

PC fair is also good in letting people exploring new technologies, a friend of mine always say that he never miss PC fair ever since he knew about the event. He will take this chance to explore new technologies that were not in the market yet.

Click Here for more detail of the event. If you intend to get more information about the PC fair, please visit http://www.pikom.org.my/ and contact the administrator.

LCD TV monitor?

My house is going to ready soon, I am doing some survey about television. Some of my friend are actually ask me not to buy LCD TV as technology still new, and maybe need sometimes to pick up for stable version of the product.

But, I have some idea in my mind to buy the type of monitor. Just to share it before I buy, maybe just to make me feel that I make a correct choice. :D

It's true that Plasma and CRT Monitor are cheaper than LCD tv and some of my friends claim that LCD got shorter lifespan, and why we should buy something with limited lifespan to calculate. You may sound right in this term, but actually LCD got Lifespan of 60,000 Hours, which equates to at about 40 years of usage if you have the set on for 4 hours a day. 40 Years!!!! I think by that time LCD is no more famous like now.. kekekee... and for your information, plasma TVs have a same life span with LCD TV.

Because the crystals in LCD TV do not produce light, LCD TV consumes less energy compare with Plasma and CRT. Plasma TVs generate more heat than LCDs, due to the need to light of phosphors to create the images. When come to this it consumes more energy.

That's why I am going to buy LCD's TV for my new house. but maybe with small Screen nia la .. kekeke...

I don’t know whether I get the correct information or not, or maybe you got some new Information about TV, just drop me some comments.

Menara Alor Star

As I went back to Kedah for my friend’s wedding, we have some good time and revisit one of the Alor Setar’s wonder. Menara Alor Setar!!! Kekeke…

Don't play-play with this Tower. The Alor Star Tower is the world's 19th tallest telecommunication tower and also the 2nd tallest in Malaysia. It stands at a height of 165.5 meters and involved a construction cost of RM 40 million. I am not sure about the correctness of the data, but I pick it from http://www.menaraalorstar.com.my/. Hope it still up to date. :)

There is some Observation Deck to see some beautiful night scene of Alor Star town. I used to go up and hang up with my friends. Just because we don't have more time for that we just go and walk around and chit chatting below the tower

Menara Alor Star(day)

Menara Alor Star(night)

Sorry for Low quality pictures, as I still keeping money for SLR Digital camera.

I am back

I am back again, been out from the town for few days, last weekend was very busy with friend's wedding again.. I took leave for Thursday and Friday just to attend my friend's wedding which fall on Thursday. But consider a good vacation for me, because I managed to hang up with penang's friend during weekend at Prai. Just because I never stay at their house since they move in last year, I felt like really appreciate the time when we being.

I took this chance to hang up with them, and drink some wine until midnight. Just because they are working on the next morning, we decided to end the session by midnight.

All of my friends are very similar to me, they really committed to work, after Saturday night hang up. They need to work on the next morning (Sunday Morning). Sunday Morning I took bus from Prai to KL, it took me 5 Hours to reach KL.

And today I am back to work, but still tired.. After this, I think need to wait until Chinese New Year for the next gathering.

Flying Kites

What pops onto your mind if your friends were talking about kiting activities? I think some would picture a happy family having great time flying kites out at a park on a bright and sunny day.

But what I can think of is…… traffic jam! I know it doesn’t seem to make sense, but I am telling this from my experience.

Metropolitan Park in Kepong is one of the favorite spots in KL for kite lovers. During weekends, in the evenings, you will see kiters from all ages showing up here at this park. BUT, what is not so good is that some of them actually double or triple park their cars along the highway next to the park. It leads to at least a 500 or 600 meter long traffic queue.

So, People, please be more considerate. Park your cars at the appropriate car park lot before you go on and fly your kites.