July 26, 2007

Online videos play an important role in Internet Age

In where we are for this century, online videos play an important role.

Below are some popular portals which provide online videos:
Youtube.com
Video.google.com
Vids.myspace.com
Uncutvideo.oal.com
Soapbox.msn.com
Video.yahoo.com
Stupidvideo.com
Break.com
Ebaumsworld.com
Dailymotion.com

Video portals become a more and more serious business from day to day. They are trying to attract the whole world to post videos on their sites.
Recent news says, Youtube.com has become a vital part of the campaign for the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

Earlier, YouTube and CNN teamed up for video style presidential debates entitled The CNN-YouTube Debates. This is the sign that showing Online video portal been playing a vital part in all the activities in this world.

By referring to the YouTube role grows as U.S. election nears, there’s no doubt that online video portals play a vital role in our lifes. According to the Reuters, More than 2.5 million people have viewed "I've Got a Crush...On Obama" about Democratic Sen. 2.5 millions??!!!!
Gosh…

July 25, 2007

WoW!! Cheap Flights to Australia

It is mentioned in both The Star and Sinchew Daily that the AirAsia X is expected to start its first flight to Australia starting from 8th September this year. It was told that the one-way air fare is going down to as low as RM9.90 during promotional period!!

I think this is really good news to all the backpackers out there!! Cheers!!

(Will update more once I got the details)

July 24, 2007

Internet down for some stupid reasons

I am just back from hunting the solution to get the line back. Company's internet connection is down because we've not pay a single sen to TMNet for 5 months. TMNet have decided to suspend our internet service.

The internet connection was cutoff suddenly this morning when I was trying to search around for more information about the downtime of Digg. I was wondering if it was the hardware that is causing the downtime. After checking both the modem and firewall, everything were working fine. So I made a call to Streamyx's hunting line to check on the internet service, making sure there was no interruptions.

The customer service personnel actually found out that we didn’t pay our bills for the past 5 months. That was just like a punch in the face!!

Even though my company is no big boy like Microsoft or IBM, but still we are a financially stable local public listed company. Of course we are able to handle the few thousands easily. But the question is why is this happening? I am still very upset about the incident.

The connection was back up after the bill was paid. I don’t know when I can get my claim back; but what to do, I just can’t live without internet.

Digg (out of service)

For all time famous website like Digg, They become news for the world if there is anything happen to their website.


I just wanted to see my favorite list in the digg this morning, and I saw this Message :


We’ll be back shortly.Digg will be down for a brief period, while we make some changes.

And My Digg icons at my blog also disappear, is this normal when Digg is down? So, I need to wait until Digg is up only will know this is normal or not.

Everyone is waiting to hear from Digg, and waiting for see the reason of the downtime, is that hacker attack? are they under go the upgrading service?
we need to wait until the service is up only we will know the main reason of this downtime.

July 22, 2007

The "Famous Claypot Loh See Fun" in TTDI

Erm… Let’s write about food today. There are a lot of food in PJ, but the one that I m going to write about today is located at Taman Tun Dr. Ismail (TTDI).


The restaurant is named “Famous Claypot Loh See Fun”. The best-seller here is definitely the Claypot Lou Shu Fun (you can tell from the restaurant name rite :p). You might be able to get claypot lou shu fun elsewhere, but the one selling here is definitely tasty. I think it is very much because of the minced pork that is put together with the lou shu fun. The lou shu fun is served with a thick layer of minced pork on top with an uncooked egg. It is nice to see, and nice to eat too!

The best-seller after Claypot Lou Shu Fun will be the ‘Siew Yoke (Roasted Pork) Mee’. The mee is special that it does not break easily. The dish uses a lot of garlic to bring out the taste of the roasted pork. (This is actually my favorite dish here :p)

Other than the 2 dishes mentioned above, the Yong Tau Fu is selling good as well. There are other variety of options here on fish, squid, lala, beef, vege and tofu.

I’ve personally tried on some other dishes, but my favourites still remain as Siew Yoke Mee and Claypot Lou Shu Fun. You may come and try it out yourselves too!

Location tip : Look for TTDI’s Pizza Hut on your right, go straight and you’ll see VADS building. Turn left from the traffic light, and immediately turn left again into the street of shops. The restaurant is located almost at the end of the shop row.

July 18, 2007

Comment Captcha of blogger.com for minimize comment spam

I am so lucky that I received my first piece of comment spam today here on Blogger.com. For the Post Protest held against AirAsia. There are 27 thousands word been added to my comment, this is weird. This is the Comments look like :

Comment spam example


Blogger.com already Strip links from comments, but spammers are so keen to do the comment spam just only to flood the comment of blogger. So, I got kind of announcement with titled Women's track & field throw teams. Interesting post yeah.

So, I go to the comment site of the post and delete it from the post. But I decided not to delete off fully the spam comment and keep as a memory in my blogging life.. hehehe….


Deleted Comment

Without wasting my time but I still considering to let Anonymous post some comment on my post, I enable the comment captcha at blog setting.
How to enable? Below are these steps.

1. Log in to your blogger.com account and click on the "Settings" tab. You'll see a top navigator menu like this:


2. Click on the Comments sub-menu; scroll down until you see this option.

3. Choose “Yes” and save the setting by click on “Save Settings” button at the end of the setting page.

After enabled, when there is a user want to post some comment on your posts. They will see this section to verify the post is from “Human”.

Word Verification Section


Digg.com also have the same function when want to add a new story, the screen is quite funny by stated: “Are You Human?” as this is part of method to minimize the Spamming.

Captcha for Digg.com

I am not sure this will block fully from attacked by the comment spam, but this surely can make these spammers have to work quite a bit harder to achieve their nefarious goals.

Buying Your House in 5 Steps

Finally, I’ve bought my own house last Saturday. I find that buying house is easy, but selecting the right one is hard. :P

You may refer to my previous post on Mortgage vs Conventional Housing Loan to discover more about housing loan.

Below is my sharing on the steps you will have to go through in buying new house. It is not complicated, don’t worry. Just be patient!!

Step 1 : Place your deposit/booking on the unit you like to the developer.

Step 2 : You may start contacting the bankers (some developers would get the panel bankers to contact you though) to check on the loan packages. You may submit the loan application to the banks that you are interested in. You may try on a few banks. The bank might need the Photostatted copies of the following documents from you:
• IC
• EA Form
• EPF statement
• Bank book statement/transactions in recent 3 months
• 3 recent month salary pay slip
• Booking receipt of the property

Step 3 : Sign the S&P (pay the legal fees, lawyer fees, water and electricity registration deposit, if applicable) with the developer within 7 days from the booking date.

Step 4 : Pay your balance of down payment within 21 working days after signing S&P.

Step 5 : Sign the Letter of Offer with your selected bank within 60 days after signing S&P.

Once the S&P (from developer) and Letter of Offer (from bank) are signed, the deal is considered done!! Yes, just that simple!!

Oh, last but not least, some advise on EPF withdrawal to purchase your house. You will need the S&P Agreement and Letter of Offer (from bank) in order to proceed with the withdrawal. And the process will take approximately 2 to 3 weeks. The amount eligible to withdraw is the difference between the price of the house and the housing loan with an additional 10% of the price of the house.

July 17, 2007

My NexStar External 2.5" HDD (USB 2.0)

Finally, I’ve got my external hard disk yesterday, which I’ve been wishing to get one since last year. I bought it from the Digital Mall, the latest ICT hang-out place in Section 14, PJ.

Yeah, I know that PC fair is around the corner, but I’d still prefer to shop here than to be trapped in the PC fair jam for 2 hours for only an external hard drive.

When I went shopping around for the external hard drive, I got stuck with this handy and nice-looking external HDD enclosure, NexStar External 2.5" HDD Enclosure (USB 2.0) NST-280U2-BK.

The enclosure is nice from the layout and it is manufactured by Vantec, which is a US brand. The product comes in 2 classic colors, Onyx Black and Metallic Silver. The NexStar-SX also utilizes USB 2.0, offering up to 480 Mbps, 40 Times and the Speed of the USB 1.1. It feels light when I carry it on hand. The enclosure itself costs me RM42. And the hard disk costs me RM185. So, the total cost for this nice looking hard disk is RM227. Is that Cheap? I am not so sure.

I’ve decided to go for the Black one, as I personally think it is cool. The whole package for the NexStar External 2.5" HDD Enclosure contains of 2.5" HDD enclosure, driver Disc, user manual, USB cable, leather carrying case, screws, and screwdriver.

This is how my external hard disk looks like:


NexStar External 2.5" HDD Enclosure

Full Package: NexStar External 2.5" HDD Enclosure

I tested on the hard disk right after the shopping. The speed is fast as in writing and reading data. The aluminum casing helps to cool down the hard drive, which I don’t really feel the heat even after 4 hours of usage.

I do think that this product is valued for money. Don’t you think so?

July 16, 2007

Protest held against AirAsia

I just came across this article on thestar.com.my, with title Protest held against AirAsia. It was reported that the airport facilities provided by LCCT are not good enough for the disabled and wheelchair-bound members.

I’ve been a fan of the low fare flights provided by AirAsia ever since they launched. I’d fly with AirAsia for a few vacations every year. And I’m sorry that I’ve never pay attention to the facilities that is provided for the disabled people.

When I try to recall my memories, I realize that it is true that LCCT doesn’t provide special assistance to the disabled ones for boarding. And they do not incorporate aerobridges, which allow easier access for passengers to board planes. Passengers are instead required to walk up a flight of boarding stairs, which is a daunting task for the disabled person.

But should AirAsia be blamed? Or should it be the LCCT? Maybe both.

I think what we (the Government) really have to do is to look into the welfare of the disabled ones as we are still looking forward to achieving Wawasan 2020. We must be able to take care of every community in our country before we actually claim ourselves as the "Developed Country".

Transformers

“Wow!! That’s what we call special effects.” That’s the first line that came across my mind when I was enjoying Transformers (my last movie was Fantastic 4 (which was quite a disaster), I guess that’s one of the factors that made me think that Transformers is really cool!! I know, I know, it is not fair to compare Transformers with Fantastic 4 (I mean it is not fair to Transformers. LOL)).

As I don’t recall much of the Transformers cartoons or comics, that make me easier to take the movie as it is, I guess. Though the film is a bit too sensational (well, you know, it is still Hollywood after all), especially the sentiment plot between Bumblebee and Ben; and all the sacrifices, but well, I still enjoy the movie very much. :)

I like the part where the Autobots transform into vehicles, and how they flip-flop and transform back into their original forms. I like the part where the Sensitive BumbleBee got upset and transform into a gorgeous Camaro. I like it when Barricade transform into a Saleen 5281 Mustang police car.

Autobots Rule!!!

July 15, 2007

Trip to Bukit Belimbing Firefly Park Resort, Kuala Selangor

Saturday night was a very interesting night for me, as it was my first time to witness the beautiful and amazing Firefly Park in Kuala Selangor.

We started off the journey at 4pm from PJ. It took us approximately 1 hour to reach Bukit Belimbing. You’d be able to see a lot of palm tree fields along the way. Just follow the Kuala Selangor road sign will do.

Roadsign Showing way to Kuala Selangor

There are 2 firefly parks, one of them is at Bukit Belimbing, and the other one is at Kg Kuantan. And we’ve decided to go for the one in Bukit Belimbing, named as Firefly Park Resort.

Ticket Counter

You'll have to purchase the boat trip tickets from the Ticket Counter. The boat trip (which could fit in 15 persons per boat) took us to the swamp, and there was where the amazing journey started. But too bad that we were not allowed to take photo during the boat trip. sad....

Signboard showing no photos allowed

Along the swamp, we could see thousands of fireflies stopping at the “berembang” trees and blinking at each other. The lights are small yet bright. Sometimes it looked almost like a Christmas tree, and sometimes it was just like the stars blinking in the sky ( and I started singing “Starry Starry night, paint your palette blue and grey ~~~” :P).

In the middle of the boat trip, we tried to ask for the permission to take photo on the fireflies, and the captain said can, but without flash.. I was so excited and took out the camera and took a snap on the natural Christmas trees. But.. my screen returned blank because of the darkness of the night.

So, I am sorry to not able to provide photos of the beautiful and amazing Firefly Park. No choice loo, you all need to go and witness yourselves.

The boat trip lasted not more than half and hour, but it was really value for money.

Some details of the park:

Boat Fare : RM 10 per person

Service Hours : 7.45pm – 10.30pm (everyday including public holidays)

Personal advise : Don’t fill your stomach at Firefly Park Seafood Restaurant. The food is ok but the service is really bad. When we had our seafood dinner there, the so called air-conditionered restaurant’s air –con was spoiled and the staffs never got us a fan or provide us with any other solutions. We were sweating all the while during dinner.

July 12, 2007

Notification from Payperpost.com

I got a notification from Payperpost.com today, saying that my blog is not meeting requirements yet. Well, this is how it looks like:

Notification Info: Thank you for your blog submission! I'm sorry, as per our terms of service, we do not accept blogs with a non-writing period of 30+ days in the past 90 days. Please re-submit when your blog meets all of our requirements. In the meantime, feel free to use PPP Direct and Affiliate tools while you work on meeting the requirements of our Marketplace! Thank you!

It directly flagged me to check about the term of service in order to participate in the Payperpost Market Place.
After going thru the whole terms of the service, I found that I’ve missed out some important conditions when I submit this blog.

Below are the Terms of service provided by Payperpost.com.

Item 5.3 BLOG ELIGIBILITY.
D. Minimum Blog Age
. Blogs must be live for a minimum of 90 days, counted from the date of the Blog's first post, with at least 20 pre-existing posts prior to registration with the PayPerPost Marketplace. The majority of these posts may not be in a single month and there must not be a gap of more than 30 days between any posts during the 90 day period immediately preceding sign up for registration in the Marketplace.

Base on the terms, I need to post more than 20 Posts within 90 days in order to participate in Payperpost Market Place.
In fact, My blog is not even reaching 10 posts yet, muakhahahahaa…
So, what I have to do is to blog actively in order to make money and also to share with you my thoughts.
For those who are interested in joining the Market Place, please be aware of the terms as well ya :)

Mortgage vs Conventional Housing Loan

I was busy looking and comparing all the rates of housing loans lately as I’ve planned to get myself a house :) There are all kinds of loan out there; conventional, mortgage, Islamic and etc etc. I find myself in a dark hole when I first searching for loans cos I don’t even know what the difference is between conventional and mortgage loan. I was busy calling up banks. Some of them are very informative and helpful; some are really lame. And there’s one who only call me back after 3 weeks after my first call (it is even an international bank).

Basically mortgage is more flexible as you may choose to deposit in extra money monthly, and the bank will treat these extra money as a 2nd account that you may withdraw the money back at anytime (but please be aware that there will be no interest on these money that you deposit in). But anyway, it will still minus off your principal with those extra repayments, but once you withdraw them, they would revise the principal again. This is the only difference comparing to conventional housing loan that I managed to discover.

But of course the interest rate by applying mortgage would be slightly higher than the conventional ones as it is more flexible. You can’t actually say one is better than the other; it is very much depending on your needs. So enjoy choosing you housing loan :)

July 11, 2007

Broadband service

I got to know that some Local company has just introduced its mobile wireless broadband. I am quite sure a lot of people including me like to know efficiency of the service. I had been trying to browse for the new broadband service as some company needs a fixed line to get a broadband service.

I personally like to use Wireless Broadband as I can carry the modem and move around, as I don’t always sleep at my house. And no need to pay for the fixed line service fee. Access limit is not a concern as all service providers provide unlimited access for a fixed rate by monthly basis.

If I would choose a broadband service, reliability is the most important overall consideration, and follow by the value for money.

Broadband is revealed as a key enabler in flexible working from home, this is why people are concern about the surfing speed. I hope soon, when I am ready to leave my daily work, I will prefer to work from home. That time I hope I won’t be get headache by searching for a good broadband service.

So, I started to see around all the broadband services and survey as much as I can to get the best service with value for money.

July 10, 2007

Signed up for PayPerPost

As I mentioned that I started to make extra money with my blog. This is the first step I may need to do is register at Payperpost. Basically this website provides some Opportunity to let blogger towrite about some services provided in the internet by linking the blog’s post to advertiser’s website. The other words, Instead of displaying ads or affiliate programs payperpost puts ads on blogs as a simple news post, people read our news, and click the links in the news.
It’s a good start for me, as I don’t write much in my life.
Sign up now at PayPerPost, and try out a new way of monetizing your blog.

July 9, 2007

Blogging for money

Today, I started my blogging activities. I think like others on the blog, that is I want to make extra money and soon can quit my daily work. And focus on my own daily activities.

I been out of time since end of 2005 when I got to know that my mom infected by Hepatitis C. chasing for money from day to night. I know it’s not right to use up time to chase for money. But by that time, this is the only way I can go for.
To be surprise, I knew adsense and blogging stuff since early of 2005.
My only concern is I don’t even have time to blog and earn extra money.

Since last few weeks, I got to know I have a little time to catch up with my dream which earning money online and starting to quit my daily job. Actually company decided to hire extra headcount to help on my work as previously I am doing it alone. But I do like my work as this is part of my life. Maybe you will feel that I am crazy, but to be frank I am not stupid.

I work as a programmer in a local known factory, but day and night I need to standby for 7x24. Yes!! 7x24. I even need to come back during 2 am and also come back to work on 8:30 am every morning. This is my life for the past 2 years. And for the same time I am doing my study at local university, why am I still studying? Every one got their own dream, my dream is to fulfill my mom’s wish as a son. Stupid isn’t? Yeah I also think like you.

But end up that I need to tell u all that this is my life, my extraordinary life.
I think it’s time for me to arrange my time for build up the ranking of my blog. And start to earn money from blogging.

June 20, 2007

My plan for Travel

After 2 years later, I decided to activate back my blogging activities, and transfer to this blog.
By sharing all my Life to the world.
as Travel is part of my plan in my life, Saving money for travel is never been easy, if the person is full of commitments.If the person is stay alone and no commitment at all, then they maybe can make it easily.For all typical Malaysian who keep heading for the travel wishes with a proper daily work. I can say that it’s not easy to make it.
So, wonder why foreign investors like to come over Malaysia. I am in the Manufacturing line. A lots of Foreign investors find our worker attitude is better than other country, especially Chinese. They find us commit a lot when working. Just to make a living.
Since child, I always dream of travel around the world, coz I really like to travel. Yeah, just tell me that everyone also like travel. :DI admire someone that really can let go lots of thing and go for back pack and travel. Backpack, Yeah! This thing had been my dream since child.
Because of commitments we have, most of Malaysian will work harder to keep money and plan for some trip every year. And I as well will plan out something every year. Just to fulfill my wish, as I love travel.

May 26, 2007

Coffee

Coffee is one of my favorite daily beverages, I will always take a break during work by enjoying the beauty of Coffee taste. But as my canteen only selling Nescafe and Kopi’O, then I will have one during the break time to refresh myself.

Coffee is made from the seeds of the Coffea plant, which are popularly known as coffee beans.
3 famous shops in Malaysia and I always hang up at are Starbucks, coffee bean and San Francisco coffee.

These are the coffee that I like the most when hang up at famous café:
Espresso (also name caffè espresso)
Cappuccino
Americano
Latte
Mocha

You can browse thru wikipedia for more details of coffee.

May 4, 2007

Office Politic

What a nice topic in our current work environment.
Office politics seem like an unavoidable fact of life in every workplace.

As this also happen in my working place, how I handle it. This is interesting.
I am a quite honest guy in my company, so that I always struggle with arguing the fact when attending some important meeting. This is some bad attitude I got in myself. I don’t know how to praise my boss well. That’s why I always find the solution for myself in order to get my boss raise me up.

But now, situation changed from day to day, I starting realize that you will get rewarded if you just trying to do your best and not to complain to others about your boss, accept whatever is given, and try your best to finish all the task been given by your boss.

Therefore, I am kind of person that never involved in big gossip like other person like to spend some time and telling the whole world about the bad side of the company. We should know that trumpeting your unhappiness far and widely will only get you in big trouble. This is how I learn from the book: (Secrets to Winning at Office Politics by Marie G. McIntyre, Ph.D.)

Please do study this book as this book really helps you to win some battle in your office Political. Personal advice from me.

December 19, 2005

Dream

Dream, have you ever have a dream?
Life is boring if without dream and ambition. Things will get stuck if never have one aim.

I used to have dreams, dream to be famous, dream to be rich, dream to do something huge like Einstein did.
June 2005, life changing when I was noticed by my brother that my mom infected by Hepatitis C. When my mom started to get the day and fighting with Hepatitis C virus. I started to forget about my big dream.

Now, I am living in a very peace mind that only prays for my mom to recover from the disease. Every day doing the same work and never seem to be fight with what is wrong.
No high expectation about thing happens.

Thing is better when you never set high expectation for it. This is what I learn nowadays.
When you expect more, you will get disappointed more if the thing is hard to achieve.
But at the end thing will be better and better if you never rushing to improve that.