Can You Read This?

A couple of months ago, I read this paragraph on Anina.net Lifeblog. Try it for yourself:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt!

Pretty amazing what your brain can interpret. Don't you think so?

Offline For 4 Days

It's the much celebrated Hari Raya Festival after a month of fasting. I haven't been online for the past 4 days because I went back to my parents place way up in the Northern part of Malaysia. With no internet connection, here's what happened to my Gmail account:

It will take a while for me to clear those e-mails. Luckily I've unsubsribed to most of the newsletter I'm to subscribe with. Alright, need to get back to work after a long festive holiday.

Lasik or Natural Vision?

I hate my glasses. I also hate the fact that I'm nearsighted. I've been wearing glasses full time since I was 16 years old. My prescription is -2.5D for my left eye and -2.75D for my right eye. When I was young, I told myself to make sure that when I grow up, I will not wear glasses like my parents do. I am so sure that myopia is not a heredity.

When I was 16, I noticed that I can't see what the teacher wrote on the whiteboard. That was when I realized that I am now a myopic dude. So, I went to an optometrist and made myself a pair of spectacles. At that time, my presription was only -1.25D for both eyes. I then searched for information to cure my myopic eyesight and found ISEE Website. I searched rigorously for other information especially on Natural Vision Improvement and even downloaded a complete ebook of The Bates Method. I lost the ebook prior to my hard disk failure though. This was all 8 years ago.

I soon got used to the glasses that I'm wearing because I have to see things clearly and as detail as possible. I tried contact lenses but it doesn't really gives me the comfort so I seldomly wear them. Eventually, I settle for glasses and learn how to deal with it in difficult situation. I wish I could get rid of my glasses. I then found out about LASIK. Since I've gone through a neck surgery when I was 16, surgery just gives the creep out of me. I don't like the fact of undergoing a surgery ever again. I even blacked out everytime a syringe penetrates my skin.

Anyway, I was browsing around and found Mike Davidson: Thinking About LASIK. I read the whole post including the comments. It's interesting to read what other people comments apart from David's post. Here's two interesting links that I found just by reading the post:

• LASIK advice?


• Bitch Slapped

Oh..look what I found:

If you are wondering what device is that. It's called The LASIK@Home device. For just $99.95, now you can have the LASIK procedure done by yourself. If you are broke like me, it's very tempting to order this product. However, I can't bare of thinking about losing my eyesight, it's better to wear glasses than being blind. If you notice, even the doctor who's modeling for the device wears glasses. How on earth would you believe that. The only sales factor that would make this product sold is the hope of having a 20/20 vision. By the way, this stuff is a hoax. You can read about it here.

No. I'm not going to order that device. I need to find out local LASIK centres to seek out more information about it. Here's a few LASIK centre I found online:

Optimax is the most prominent one I see with all the testimonial on their website from Malaysian athletes and even celebrities. I would have never known that one of my favourite singer had a LASIK to improve his eyesight.

Their website is a kind of ugly but as long as there is information, it's okay.

I passed by their office I think a few years ago. It's near the Star building in Phileo Damansara.

Now come the part where we find the downside of LASIK. Here's a website created by a n unfortunate person who underwent LASIK and had problems:

It's a pity for him to have a distorted vision. After spending thousands of ringgits for LASIK, he now has some eyesight problems.

You can search and find a lot more of LASIK experience from people elsewhere or else read this.

LASIK surgeries cost money. I don't have that kind of money yet. I think I'll find money first. LASIK can wait.

technorati tags:lasik, malaysia, natural, vision, glasses,

Which Malaysian Debit Card Should I Choose?

Nowadays, bringing a lot of cash can be quite dangerous. You'll never know when you'll get robbed or you dropped your wallet somewhere and the best part, if you are a serial spender, you can't track where your money goes. That is why credit card is invented to make it more convenient for you to pay without bringing a lot of cash money. The downside of having a credit card is, you can somehow spend more than what you can afford. This is one of the reasons I heard on the news recently that there are more than 80 thousand people in Malaysia who are declared as bankrupt. Most of them are young people such as me.

Being in my current financial situation, I am not eligible to apply for a credit card. My confirmed yearly income is less than RM18,000. It’s somehow hurtful to see such low income I have. I heard that living in Kuala Lumpur, if your income is less than RM1,500 per month (RM18,000 per year), you are considered “Poor”. Anyway, I’m trying my best to earn money from other source of income or would be considering changing to another job.

I love the online world, it is fast paced, easy for me and I’m online most of the time. Having a credit card would be useful for me such as, verifying my PayPal account and doing online transactions for online shopping and online related stuff. Since I cannot apply for a credit card, there is another way of doing it, Debit Cards. A few years back, Malaysian banks doesn’t really emphasize on this product, now they do and we should take advantage of what is available for us today.

Alright, I have 4 debit cards available to choose from. Every one of them is cool however I would prefer the best debit card that suit my geographical location and where am I going to spend it. Here we go:

BCB MasterCard Electronic

I have a savings account on BCB (now it's called CIMB Bank) and I use that account to withdraw my salary. The company I work has an account on CIMB Bank. There's a mini branch just down my office and there is also a branch nearby my house. This debit card one is on top of my list now since it gives me a lot of convenience. Here's more info about this debit card.

Ambank NexG Prepaid MasterCard

This MasterCard prepaid was launch earlier this year by AmBank. The building where my office is located is owned by AmBank Group. So, there is a AmBank branch just downstairs. The card is also available at 7 Eleven but what I don't like is the high fees they charge. Here's more info about this debit card.

Public Bank Visa Electron

This is the only Visa debit card I found. I once had a BSN Visa Electron but I've never used it before. It is actually almost the same whether Visa or MasterCard but MasterCard because of it's branding strategies look far more superior than Visa. Maybe I'll apply for one when I have excess cash on my hand. Here's more info about this debit card.

AffinBank Debit MasterCard

This debit card was launched last week. It has Touch n Go facilities with it. I have a Touch n Go card which I use frequently so this debit card would be useful. However, I have to open up an account with Affin Bank first before I can apply for one. AffinBank has a branch located nearby my house but I have to cross the road to get there. BCB (CIMB Bank) branch is just the opposite of it. Well, I prefer to not to cross the road here in Kuala Lumpur. The traffic here is crazy. Here's more info about this debit card.

My decision now is to go for BCB (CIMB) Prepaid MasterCard. I'll update you on the process I had to go and details stuff when I get my hands on the card. If you can read Malay, SmartUsaha.com has an interesting post about obtaining a debit Mastercard Electronic.

technorati tags:malaysian, bank, mastercard, prepaid, visa, electron,

Keeping Your Dell Laptop's Heat Under Control

My Dell Inspiron 630m is the most precious tool in my life nowadays. Without it, my life would be ruined so I take care of it very carefully. Unfortunately, tools no matter how careful you handle it will sooner or later develop problems of their own. Same goes with my Dell laptop when the battery just gave up even after it had survived the recent Dell battery recall.

Because of that, I am now using my laptop without the battery attached. At first I thought by doing so will solve my problem. However, the heat problem I'm facing hasn't fade away yet. I'm not so sure with my country's climate (hot and humid) plus with the latest haze problem is worsening the temperature of my laptop. Anyway, here's some photos and screenshots:

Whenever I type something, my palm will be resting on the position as shown above. Sometimes, it gets so hot that I had to cover the heat spot with a cloth or something.

Just look at the temperature on my CPU fan detector software. It's burning HOT!!

I had to find solutions to this problem and did some searching online. Wikipedia is a great place to find information. They have a special topic under Dell Inspiron Overheating Problem. After reading the article, I downloaded this piece of software.

The tool is called Dell Inspiron/Latitude/Precision fan control utility. It can overide the default setting of your dell laptop fan so that you can cool off your CPU manually. Anyway, I don't really want to do that because there are certain risk involved and it is not under warranty if something suddenly malfunctioned. So, far I've manage to track what is the cause of problem which is my CPU is working hard processing on something while it should be idle whenever I'm not using the laptop capability to the maximum.

Here's a few other links which I find good for you to understand and keeping your Dell laptop or any laptop heat under control:

• Mac Help - Laptop Temperature Information
• System Idle Process
• Cold Wheather Tips for Laptops (If you live in a cold country of course)
• Computer Cooling

technorati tags:laptop, heat, control, temperature, dell, inspiron, 630m

Business Proposals..Is it Worth Writing?

Over the week, I wrote a lot of business proposals for my sales director in the company. My sales director is an aggresive old man who will keep on calling if he doesn't get what he wants. However, he has no clue on what to write for his proposal to what he has market. My managing director on the other hand wants to tailormade himself each and every business proposal that is going to be submitted. Eventually, as the sole remaining person in the company who can read and write English better than anyone else in the company, I had to edit, proofread, print and bind those business proposals. Sometimes, when the upper management is lazy, I had to figure out the proposals myself. When some misspelled words were discovered, I was blamed for not doing the job correctly.

Alright, I think you heard enough of my whining. Now, let's look into our topic of the day. In my line of duty, I've read a lot proposals. Some were short while some are xtremely long. Business proposals are like a thesis a university student would produce for their graduation, except it is focused on making a sale for the company's revenue. Here is a few questions you should ask if you are making a business proposal for a potential client or so:

• What is the objective or purpose of this busines proposal?
• What is the client's best interest over the solution that is proposed?
• Will this business proposal would develop a one time occurence or a long term business relationship with the client?
• Will the client make or save money by using what is going to be proposed?
• Is the client technical or just making evaluation?

Writing business proposal is just one part of the process in making a deal. The ultimate objective is to begin the transaction so the company can make a revenue. Money is oxygen in a life of a business.

technorati tags:business, proposal, writing

The Basement Guru: A Must Read

I 've been reading a few successful web entrepreneurs blog that I'm planning to model. I like the way they work because they are very different from the Internet Marketing model that I used to read about. They work really hard to accomplish what had been plan and they are very unique in their own kind of way.

In my country, the only basement I know is the basement car park. There are no basement in homes that I've seen because it's not a practical thing to have. Eventhough Google was first established in a basement, not all web entrepreneur started out in a basement. It's just an interesting term to use. If you ask me, I would prefer to call them 'Bedroom Guru' because all it need is a computer and an internet connection in a small room just beside the bed.

Anyway, here is the website:

So now, the only thing to do is to search within myself and move forward toward my personal goal.

technorati tags:web, entrepreneur, guru