Year: 2006

Pikom reports dip in PC sales nationwide

Hey hey hey… PC sales has dropped? From The Star Online TechCentral:

PETALING JAYA: Despite the recent tax relief offered by the Government to help spur PC ownership in the country, PC sales have dropped by about 20% in September, compared to August.

The Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry of Malaysia (Pikom) said its members had reported the dip in sales, but it declined to provide details.

The intriguing paragraph:

Pikom, however, does not know the cause of the decrease. (But) “it is clearly evident that PC sales have dropped,” Pikom treasurer Low Wai Sun told In.Tech.

One thing that immediately popped up my mind is fuel price.

For people like me who is really nuts about PC and technology, nothing would stop me of course. But for others, would they buy more PC stuff if a big part of their income have to be allocated for a more important purpose – transportation.

I think I am not the only one who is feeling some effect on the fuel price increase. As we have to go places everyday fuel is nowadays very very very important indeed. No no I am not saying that anything is wrong or whatever, the point here is that we all feel something from the fuel price increase unless we are earning 5 digit income monthly.

What do you think?

Hey while I was at The Star Online I noticed that they also have a ‘Digg This’ button. 😉

The Star Digg This

Read more about the story here: http://star-techcentral.com/tech/…

As usual, click on the link below in case the original story link is no longer valid.

Continue reading Pikom reports dip in PC sales nationwide

Google Calendar With Holidays

Anyone else uses Google calendar? It’s my favorite web calendar, and I will like it more if it can sync with Outlook 2000 that my workplace still uses. One great feature that have been added a while ago is an option to add your country’s holidays in your calendar:

Google Holiday Calendars

Of course, I immediately added Malaysia Holidays to my calendar but I found an incorrect entry. Awal Ramadhan (Ramadhan Begins) is shown as 15 October 2006 instead of 24 September 2006. However, this date is shown correctly on the Islamic Calendar:

Google Calendar

It’s not really a big deal, but I just wish I can correct the almost perfect calendaring system. I’ve tried to look for the person to notify but can’t find any 🙁

Anyway, that’s just one wrongly entered date. I don’t really check the other dates. However the birthdays of YDP Melaka and Sultan Pahang, and Deepavali is correctly set. It’s just that Sultan Pahang is now also a YDP 😉

Well done, Google.

Google ‘in talks to buy YouTube’

According to this news in BBC News, Google is reported to be in talks to buy popular video-sharing website YouTube for $1.6bn (~856m).

For me, it would mean less choice for video bloggers and sharers for them to upload their videos. From the business point of view, Google is once again acquiring one of its ‘competitors’. In Alexa, at the time I am writing this google.com is ranked 3 with video.google.com having 3% of the traffic while YouTube is ranked at number 10.

It’s not like Google needs to do it, but they can. Especially if combining both of the techologies (Google Video + YouTube) could possibly increase the reliability and features of the service.

The same goes for Yahoo! acquiring blo.gs (http://trainedmonkey.com/…) and FeedBurner acquiring Blogbeat (http://www.feedburner.com/fb/…).

Nothing personal, it’s business. As a Google fan I might be a little bit biased. Anyone having comments are welcomed to do so.

JAKIM is Hosting PayPal Phishing Site?!

I visited some other blog today and read a fresh post about JAKIM site hosting a Paypal Phishing site.

Try yourself and go to http://www.islam.gov.my/online/cgi/. You’ll see this:

paypaljakim.PNG

And if you get to http://www.islam.gov.my/online/cgi/webscr_cmd=_login-run/primapagina.htm (I suggest you only go there if you know what you are doing) you’ll see this: http://www.phishtank.com/… which really looks like the main page of PayPal. Careless users or users who does not really care about what the address bar displays might log in to the site, effectively giving their username and password to someone else.

During this testing I also found out that my Firefox is able to identify and warn me that the site is a phishing site:

Firefox Phishing Detection. Bravo!

I am trying to inform the JAKIM about this so that necessary actions can be taken. I’ve also contacted NISER. This is indeed an embarassing incident 🙁

Update 09 Oct 2006:

It seems that they have removed the phishing pages. Very good and quick action.

jakim-update.jpg

I’ve received no respond from them or NISER, though.

HP Jobs Marched Offshore

Another news of big corporations juggling people around. I don’t think that anyone can do anything about it, but nevertheless it’s kind of a sad thing especially for the employees. Being laid off is not as simple as it sounds, even though if you have been kept in the loop.

It’s people lives we are talking about here.

HEWLETT-PACKARD will axe 200 jobs and move the work to Kuala Lumpur as part of a cost-cutting exercise at its computer support division.

Fifty workers left HP’s managed services business – which provides telephone computer support for big companies like Norwich Union and Pacific Brands – last week, and a further 80 staff will be laid off in November. Seventy contractors will be kept on until March.

The cuts affect offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.

Read more about it here: http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/…

Hey, this news above should be good for me as I am in Malaysia, but I am seeing it from the point of view of an employee.

Google Apps for Your Domain

Google has released the beta version of Google Apps for Your Domain, a service where your organization or website will be able to use Google’s services personalized with a unique domain. This means that your users at yourdomain.com will be able to log in into Google’s services using yourdomain.com.

Simply put, you will not even have to host emails at your server. Just point mail exchanger entry for yourdomain.com to Google and you users will have 2GB of email storage each, with Gmail interface! In addition to that other functions offered in the current beta version are Talk, Calendar, and Page Creator. Pointing your mail exchanger (MX) to Google effectively routes all your emails to Google.

If you have a huge fan base and would like to offer these services to your visitors/users, try and sign up! According to Google:

Organizations accepted by Google during the Google Apps for Your Domain beta period are eligible for free service for their approved beta users even beyond the end of the beta period, as described in the Terms of Service.

This translates to: if you use the service now, when the service is finalized and Google charges for it, you’ll still be able to use it for free.

One thing to note is that not everyone will be approved for their application. Google will review your application before letting you use this service:

We’ll review the information you submit and contact you if we select your domain for this beta test. If selected, we’ll ask you to log in with the same Google Account to complete the registration process.

The service is interesting, and I am not surprised it comes from Google. To read more about it go to: https://www.google.com/a/. You’ll need an account before applying. Too bad I have no well known domain. Good luck!

Vacation At Last

People who personally know me must have realized that it has been a while since I talked about taking a vacation. But as people also know, I’m sort of a workaholic. I obviously don’t admit this, but even people closest to me says so.

My employer announced today that we will be getting a fully paid vacation to Berjaya Langkawi Beach & Spa Resort in November. It’s for a big division in the company and since the division is too big there will actually be 2 sessions, one during mid-November and the other one at the end. I chose the 2nd session as at that time my pockets will actually have contents (it’s after pay day). Plus most of my teammates will actually be going for that session.

photo-gallary_langkawi_nw1.jpg

From the Internet, people who have visited Berjaya Langkawi Beach & Spa Resort expressed satisfaction and willingness to go there again. It’s a 5 star resort after all.

It’s like a dream come true. My Nikon D50 shall be fully utilized then, hopefully. I’ll post more updates (and photos) after we return. What’s interesting is that 30th November is 2 days after my wedding anniversary and since spouse are invited as well, it’s a really perfect anniversary gift from my company.

Come to think of it, when I left my previous workplace in June they all went for (forced to) a getaway in July to Pelangi Beach Resort Langkawi. Looks like I’ve got a replacement getaway. In fact it’s better since spouse is allowed to come and being fully paid for, and not only dinner paid by the company.

Traffic Shaping on TMNET Streamyx?

Everywhere I see people complaining that their Internet access speed via TMNET Streamyx is slow, and there are accusations that TMNET is using traffic shaping technology to limit bandwidth for certain applications. I don’t know how true are these, and have never bothered to check.

However lately I have been experiencing very slow Bittorrent traffic, as you can see from the table below. October traffic is much worse. I don’t really care too much as long as web browsing and POP traffic is fine. So far everything else seems fine but connections to GMail via POP3S / HTTP sometimes chokes.

While I know it is not valid (legally and morally) for me to complaint about slow P2P or bittorrent traffic, this is just an example of how slow things are becoming.
August
September
Day
Outgoing MB
Incoming MB
Totals
Outgoing MB
Incoming MB
Totals
1
3397.6
2111.7
5509.3
2115.7
1321.8
3437.5
2
3136
1350.8
4486.8
2249.1
222.6
2471.7
3
3941.8
3239.6
7181.4
2570.1
1472.4
4042.4
4
3990.9
2352.5
6343.4
2447.6
3151
5598.5
5
3745.7
384.9
4130.6
2218.6
692.2
2910.8
6
3944.5
553.7
4498.2
1951.5
1666.9
3618.3
7
3969.4
836.9
4806.3
2485.3
1615
4100.2
8
3690.5
331.3
4021.9
2594.9
483.2
3078.1
9
3494.3
1153.2
4647.5
2754.2
911.8
3666
10
3332.9
680.5
4013.5
1979.2
1764.2
3743.4
11
3569.7
1801.5
5371.2
1752
777.2
2529.3
12
3693.2
5103.8
8797
988
255.2
1243.2
13
1476.2
3140.6
4616.8
1406.5
784.9
2191.4
14
3727
3272.3
6999.4
1459.8
211.8
1671.5
15
3740
3970.2
7710.2
1393.3
449.6
1842.9
16
3125.8
2780
5905.8
1443.7
397.3
1840.9
17
3151.6
1864
5015.6
1238.8
1774.7
3013.5
18
2158.1
6072.7
8230.9
1327.8
2465.5
3793.3
19
2077
6462.9
8539.9
1654.6
422.9
2077.5
20
1840.2
5045
6885.2
1628.3
741.9
2370.2
21
2014.2
5440.4
7454.6
1001.7
1339
2340.7
22
2151.6
2312
4463.6
874.3
908.2
1782.5
23
1864.6
2069.8
3934.4
1474.1
1133.6
2607.7
24
1843.1
1472.5
3315.6
954.8
735.6
1690.4
25
2235.3
1022.7
3258
887.9
563.4
1451.3
26
2241.9
2720.2
4962
705.6
459.2
1164.8
27
1899.7
259.3
2159
345.7
245.9
591.6
28
2173.6
1051.7
3225.3
567.4
197.3
764.7
29
2110.8
2146.8
4257.6
398.5
138.8
537.3
30
2597.5
2089.1
4686.6
475.2
833.1
1308.2
31
2308.3
524.3
2832.5
88643.2
73616.8
162260.1 MB
(158.5 GB)
45343.9
28136
73479.9 MB
(71.8 GB)

The table above is combined from 2 tables produced by trafvol.pl script downloaded from the Internet sometime ago. Measurements are taken only on the eth1 interface of my torrent box, which is the external interface connected to the router. Traffic above includes web traffic as the box is also running squid serving 4 PCs in my home.

I think October results will be much lower, as can be seen below the daily traffic passing through is less than 1GB (compare this to August and September daily values).

Day Month Outgoing MB Incoming MB Totals
1 Oct 308.7 525.1 833.8
2 Oct 321.6 268.4 589.9
Month Oct 630.2 793.5 1423.7 MB (1.4 GB)
statistics last updated at 18:35:02 on 02. Oct 2006

I’m too tired to rant anymore, so from now on I’ll just see what happens, while praying that a miracle would happen and the Government will realize that if TM monopoly to the Internet goes on, their IT-vision for Malaysia is just a dream. Angan-angan Mat Jenin.

A Book or a Sony® Reader?

For those who likes to read like myself (if only I could find the time), there’s now an option for keeping multiple books in one digital device. According to Sony®, the device can store hundreds of book titles. Now I’ll say that will be great if you need to move; instead of carrying those heavy boxes and bookshelves now you only have to bring along the nifty device which is more or less the size of a normal paperback.

Traditionally, I’d prefer the old way but from the pics posted at their site the e Ink® technology is really something:

e-Ink

I’ve never seen the actual device anywhere, but from the image above you can see what I am talking about. The quality is really impressive. The cost? Well… for $349 you can buy about 50 normal sized paperbacks. It’s not really that expensive. So people, which do you prefer?

DVC SR

To read more about this product, go to: http://www.learningcenter.sony.us/…

No, I am not paid by Sony®. I don’t even think that this product is available in my country yet.

Lack Of Sleep

I am really really sleep deprived this first week of Ramadhan. This is due to the fact that I have to wake up in the middle of the night for sahur. Also, I am struggling to finish up a freelance work for a Singapore client; I am lagging behind the schedule because of the hard disk incident. That reminds me that I have yet to make a post about that 😉

Sleep has been my main problem every Ramadhan, not hunger. I have trouble falling asleep so when it takes only 30 minutes to take a meal, I might be awake for 2 hours. Anyone want to share their experience?

Take care, people. Sleep well. Maybe tonight I’ll take a break from the extra work and go to bed early.

Pacific Regency Hotel Apartments

I am writing this post from Pacific Regency Apartments, in KL. It’s a new experience for me to spend time during Ramadhan in a hotel apartment. I have CCSA training tomorrow, and since I hate driving / commuting so much (especially in Ramadhan), I’ve decided to stay 2 nights here.

The hotel is really great, and the price is right too since it’s not peak season and they have a promotion. Here’s a picture from the website (I am sitting in front of the TV with my laptop):

Pacific Regency One Bedroom Apartment

Despite of a bad experience at the reception with a female staff, the other staff seems to be very helpful and polite. Just about ten minutes ago I received a phone call from them to confirm about the time for sahur.

Lucky for me, the training is actually in the same building, on the 20th floor of Menara Pan Global.

Room Shots

Continue reading Pacific Regency Hotel Apartments

Ramadhan Is Back

Just a few hours earlier, I bet every Muslim in Malaysia sat in front (or near) the TV while watching the news. Even those who have never watched news most probably waited as well 😉

We were all waiting for the starting of Ramadhan announcement. Yes, as anticipated it’s going to start tomorrow, Sunday 24 of September 2006.

I can already imagine what it’s going to be like at the Baazars, in late afternoon where people will rush to buy food for break fast.

As for me, this Ramadhan I’ll be working 2 weeks of 7am-4pm and 2 weeks of 3pm-12am. It is going to be a new experience. Hopefully everything goes well. I’ll try to get myself to go for Tadarus during lunch hours, and perhaps steal some time to update this blog…

Selamat berpuasa semua!

WordPress Posting Problem

I’ve seen some WordPress users complaining that after they post something, sometimes their browser gave them a blank page, or an error. Many blamed it on the plugins. I had the same problem, and deactivating or removing plugins didn’t help.

I found out the real problem: Update services (Options – Writing – Update Services)

Try to root out the problematic site; they are indeed just normal websites so some of them might be outdated or dead. Your pages timed out, that’s why.

I just removed the entire list, and maybe look for a reliable list later. Now, I am posting without any problems. See me smiling? 🙂