Putrajaya Immigration Department Doesn't Accept Passport Application

It has been a very lonely week at my office. A lot of my colleagues including my immediate supervisor is taking advantage of the year end to take their paid leave days before it get confiscated by the HR department. I on the other hand, am trying to save up as many paid leaves since I've just joined the company 4 months ago. So far, I haven't applied any day leave yet.

Anyway last Friday, because nobody supervising me except for the passcard which recorded my attendance time, after spending some time reading about how to make my Malaysian passport on the Immigration Department of Malaysia website. I might be flying to meet some international client most probably next year. So, I need to prepare myself just in case my company decided to send me out somewhere.

After my Friday prayers, I went off to Putrajaya Immigration Department office with a mission to make my own first passport. It is rather sad of me not being able to fly out of country. The last time I flew out of the country was with my family when I was 5 years old. Since then, I'm stucked in this country physically but I'm out on the web all over the world eventually. Just next to the building, there is a free parking space so you don't have to worry about parking fees.


Putrajaya Immigration Office Building
 

Putrajaya Immigration Office Front Entrance 

I arrived at the immigration office quite early since it was just a 10 minutes drive from my office. So, I decided to tour the rest of the building and found out that this is the place where immigrants register themselves:


Where Foreign Maids are Registered 

I then saw the flashing announcement board displaying something about the office doesn't accept passport registration. It was then confirmed that The Putrajaya Immigration Department office is only for diplomatic business and NOT FOR PASSPORT REGISTRATION! The officer I asked were kind enough to tell me that it was then too late to rush to the nearest immigration office which is in Kajang. They should have told about this clearly in their website.

Now I need to reschedule my trip to the right immigration office. Mmmm...

The Benefit of Using A Virtual Private Server (VPS)

I believe that every one of us are promoters. If we feel good about the stuff that we use, we will always tell it to someone else whether directly or indirectly. Today I'm going to write about a new high tech tool that I've been using for the past 2 months. Being introduced to Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) during one of my visit to a Microsoft road show, it has truly changed the way I've been looking at computers. If you are using Windows XP like me, the application is already built inside START > All Programs > Accessories > Communications:



If you have never used RDC before, you need to find another PC for you to connect and try out. However, it is best if you are familiar with IP Address and networking configuration before you use this facility. This application when in use and connected, acts like your normal Windows but you are actually controlling another computer remotely. If you want a free web-based application that is easy to use, one more tool that I use is a web service called LogMeIn:



If you look at the screenshot above, that is my remote computer or specifically known as a Virtual Private Server (VPS) located half way across the globe in Pennsylvania, US. I pay USD19 per month to use this VPS which is always online 24/7. If you do the math, I save a lot by leasing this VPS instead of owning one simply because:

1. I don't have to buy those expensive PC/Server stuff that will cost me thousands of dollars


2. The VPS is always online 24/7 and I don't have to worry about high electricity bill because the extensive need of cooling system the computers/servers need to have


3. The download connection in the US is superb. At 1GB per second network connection, it is hundred times faster than my normal internet connection. Of course, getting that file to my PC requires FTP that is limited by my internet connection


4. I can use a unique static IP address for my website or web apps for a fraction of a price rather than leasing one from my local ISP

My only problem for using this VPS is it can be sometime slow just to access and because of the low price, I only get 256MB of RAM which is rather limited. Occasionally, I need to restart my VPS at least once a week to free up the RAM or the VPS will crashed. Well as usual, you get what you pay for right?

If you are interested to use a cheap VPS for your Windows remote development or even Linux powered one, check out SWVPS. I'll write more of how and what I have use my VPS for in my next following post to come.

Talking Can Make You HAPPY!

I'm always on the look out for cheap but valuable services. Recently, I heard of a new phone services called "Happy". A couple of days later which was on the 14th of December, utilizing my Public Bank Visa Electron (after numerous frustration of the inability to pay online on 2CheckOut) I paid RM25 for the simpack. The website stated that they'll process my order in 3 business days, since it was a Friday, I thought I would only get it on Tuesday or Wednesday. To my surprise, the simpack arrive at my office on Monday 17th of December. The simpack was so cool, check it out:


My Happy Simpack

It is stated on the delivery mail that "TO BE RECEIVED BY THE NAMED RECEIVER ONLY" but that doesn't stop the courier service to just drop it by my office front desk counter. Luckily my colleagues are all trustworthy people so they drop the package to me after that.

Inside the package is the simcard but there were no fine print materials which usually comes with other simcard pack:



I've already using it for 5 days but I still have a balance of RM3 because it's so cheap. Besides, I only use the service to make long calls with my girlfriend while driving back home from work and during the midnight hours. Although the RM0.99 capped for each calls can only last a maximum of 45 minutes, it's so much cheaper than Hotlink RM3/call Super Savers. I might be going to Indonesia anytime soon, I'll bring my "Happy Phone" along with me to see whether the international roaming work or not. I'm lucky of not selling my old Nokia 3100. I now use 2 mobile phones instead of interchanging the simcards. I'm so HAPPY!


My Happy Talk Phone!

Major Website Downtime: What I've Learned from It

Last weekend was pretty much a miserable moment for me. Normally what I go out some where every weekend but for some budget reserving reason, I decided to become a geek at home and work on a few of my online projects I was neglecting. On Saturday, I noticed that I can't access my FTP and Cpanel. Suspecting something was going on so I went to my web hosting support page to find out. It was then I found out that the data center for my web hosting recently found some errors on the hard drive and they decided to check and upgrade the entire thing. They then found out that the some parts of the disk were corrupted and they had to scan and repair the hard disk. Unfortunately because of their clumsiness, the back up was also stuffed inside the same disk and in the end they couldn't restored the corrupted disk thus installed a new fresh hard drive. All of my years of web work went down the drain. It had crossed my mind to make a back up of the entire thing on my web hosting server but I kept on procrastinating it. So, the most important thing I learned is to always make BACKUPS! and DON'T BUY CHEAP STUFF.

My web hosting tracker reported that my web host was down more than a day:



Recently, I was trying to find a reason to change to another web host. I guess, I have found my answer but there is another reason why I don't think that web host matches my requirement. Oh well, I guess I need to do more web host hunting.

Lucky for me, I still have some of my old data in my laptop. By combining the practical use of Google cache and Google Picasa, I managed to restore my most recent blog posts and some other data that were lost. It required some hard work of re-coding back all my blog post to point all the images to Google Picasa but at least I don't have to worry about my image bandwitdh anymore.

I've also acquired some new tricks and triggered some new ideas because of this occasion. As people say, something must happen for a reason. I guess one can learn greatly from a defeat rather from a winning!

My current web host had learned their lesson. Hundreds of their paid customers will definitely find a new place including me. Now all I need right now is to wait for my domain name to expire and I'll subscribe to my new web host (haven't decided yet). If only my requirements were not so many..

I'm Heart Broken

My web hosting just recovered from a serious hard disk failure. All the data, my websites are all gone! I only had back up for just my blog. I had a horrendous weekend! I think it is time to change to a new web host.

I have to rebuild back all of my website thanks to not making back ups and thanks to my web host who was in hurry of upgrading their hard disk and corrupted all the data. I feel so miserable right now. Later..

Alien Vs Predator 2 Movie Tickets

3 days ago, I got a call from an Exabytes staff. Since I’ve attended the last Webmaster Gathering, they asked me whether I am free to come and watch Alien Vs Predator 2 at GSC Pavillion KL this 29th December 2007. I immediately answered yes! How can you resist free stuff right?



The Movie will be out after Christmas but you can check Alien Versus Predator official website (AVPR) and this fan made version of the trailer on Youtube:





This movie will be so scary to watch if you ask me. I’m guessing I’ll be jumping off my seat in the cinema. It’s so violent! Anyway, it’s a free show so I’ll definitely come! Thank you Exabytes!

My web hosting along with my domain name will expire in another 2 months time. I might be shopping for a new web host or continuing my existing plan. Although Exabytes is so generous of sponsoring events and free stuff, I still find that their web hosting offering is beyond my budget. Maybe I haven’t found my answer to what is so special about Exabytes that might lead me to become their client. However, it’s good to know that my question during the last Webmaster Gathering has been answered (Check out Exabytes VPS Offering).

Discovering The Open Source Issues Upclose

I am a heavy user of open source software for only ONE reason, it’s FREE! I don’t really mind if it there is a steep learning curve to it, as long as I don’t have to fork any money, I am willing to learn all how to utilize it. However, there are so many open source softwares available for download that you might get overwhelm if you like doing software testing like myself. One more thing is, I always have this question of how free is open source software? It’s one the question that has this vague answer if you are not the kind of person who likes to read fine prints.

A few weeks back, I was doing a research to get more information on an Autodesk product called MapGuide. The product is one of the component that can enhance the Computerised Facility Management System that my company is deploying. I was surprised to learn that there is now Mapguide Open Source. I then wondered, “Why am I seeing this trend of more and more commercial software being developed in open source?”.

Last July, I went to PHP Meet Up 3.0 and met Aizatto. From him I got to know the Free/Open Source Software Society Malaysia and from Aizatto’s blog feed, last Wednesday there was a meet up at OUM Angkasa Raya campus. The speaker was Simon Phipps, Chief Open Source Officer from Sun Microsystems. I was surprised to see a person from a big corporate company came all the way down and give a talk to a small group of open source people here in Malaysia.

Unlike the recent Webmaster Gathering I went last month, the open source community is really different. I can understand that because normally developers are a bit reserved but are really well connected. Well, that is not what this post is all about. Here’s a few snapshots before I write about what the content of Sun’s FOSS Philosophy and Strategy is all about.


The Mesh Revolution

The software pattern

Mr Simon Phipps answered almost all my questions about open source softwares with his presentation. I have learned quite a number of new information that I might have never even think of before. One statement that is really interesting is that Gartner studies predicts 70% of commercial software by the year 2012 will be in open source. No wonder I’m seeing this trend is getting more obvious.

So where will the open source software will be heading? Mr Simon Phipps gave example of how Brazil is utilizing open source software to gain sovereignty in the country. Basically, the money spent on open source stays inside the country instead of going out to Microsoft or mainly the US. By keeping the money inside the country, the country benefits from skill development and resources. Apart from that, types of licenses such as the GPL, Gnome etc were also briefed and the way patterns in software development are created. Basically, an open source code is something that is given away freely but the provider is not responsible if anything happen. This might not interest corporate users as they need support whenever they have installed or developed a system for their use. Mainstream corporation is also making a move into the open source community, of course they have their own agenda.

The most interesting part I find is about the open source community roles. To summarize it, lets look at the diagram below:



Excitingly, the one that makes the most money is always the deployer developers. I do a lot of deploying and customizing so I tend to fall in that category. I however don’t make that much money yet but the opportunity is huge. There’s a whole lot of other stuff that Mr Simon Phipps presented all are which are related to the open source development. There are also stuff that I can’t really understand mainly because it were not related to me or its a whole different game plan.

In summary, the open source is definitely a fascinating world mainly because it is somehow free besides providing a level playing field. I love the idea of open source and will welcome and support its movement in the next coming years to come. Check out Mr Simon Phipps blog.

Being Locked Out From My Own Blog

I was trying to log into my blog control panel and all of sudden this screen showed up:



At first I thought my office IP address was being blocked. So I thought, maybe I'll try and access it from home and see if my home IP address can get through. Then I said to myself, "How come I am using my new found proxy server technique but still I can't access my own blog?", "There must be something wrong here!". So, using my new HTTP-Tunnelling proxy technique accessing through another web-based proxy called Guardster, I still cannot get into my blog control panel. Now this is ridiculous!

I suspect that there might be something wrong with my plugin, so I immediately went to Bad Behavior plugin blog. There it is, a download solution to my login problem. Now comes the most challenging part, replacing the plugin with the new updated one. My FTP was not working because there is a connection problem where the directory can't be retrieved. I had to do it using my web hosting control panel file manager and replace the files manually one by one. It took me longer than I thought because the download files were not being in the order as the previous plugin.

Luckily, I still managed to log into my blog eventually. Frustrated, I decided to disable the Bad Behavior plugin once and for all. It's a shame though because this plugin is good to prevent blogging spam. Without this plugin, I predict my Akismet spam plugin could easily reach thousands with the amount of traffic I received nowadays. I should have hacked into my Wordpress database and disable this plugin but I don't want to mess around with it since I haven't done my back up yet.

I can't imagine someone who doesn't have the necessary skill of repairing a Wordpress blog enduring this problem. Being blocked out from your own blog can drive you NUTS! I hope that this incident won't happen again in the future.

Breakaway From The Corporate Proxy Server

It has been a very busy week lately. However, that doesn't stop me from being idle. When you work for a company, you can't really work throughout the whole 8 mandatory hours, it is advisable to take a short break. What normally what happen is that break becomes a long break where for most PC workers would wander around in Cyberspace. That's when it affects the productivity of a company. I am guilty of doing that as well but eventhough it is unethical, I kind of redeem myself by not claiming for overtime hours when I come home late so that it is fair for both myself and the company. I think everybody do this type of thing, I even saw my superior got caught by me in the act.

Because of that reason, unlike home network where all the network ports are accessible directly to the internet. The IT department in my company deploys a proxy server and a dedicated network port for accessing the internet. To make it more comprehensible, here's a diagram taken from "Punching Holes into Firewall".



The reason of this deployment is because:

1. To prohibit the idling staff to surf time wasting websites such as blogger.com, friendster.com, youtube.com that can eat up a lot of your office time thus reducing your productivity


2. Instant Messenging is blocked because it is also considered time wasting as well. Think about it, which one do you spend more time on, chatting on Yahoo Messenger or calling people up on the phone?


3. These kind of social networking activities can consume a lot of bandwitdh and bandwitdh is expensive (except if you have chosen an unlimited plan). For critical moment, these activities can clogged the router's performance (if proxy server is not installed) and affects your internet connectivity


4. To prevent intruders/hackers from entering the network from outside of the domain beside protecting the network from any harmful viruses, malware or network attack


5. Why are you doing personal stuff on the internet during office hours? You are breaking the agreement you have signed when you were employed, right?

All those reason are so valid. I must say that I can even get fired almost everyday if I get caught of doing personal stuff during working hours but then again, as human we are not robots. We need some loosen up a little so that we can cope with the busy hectic environment or the quiet idling moment.

Luckily, Google Search website is not being restricted. This is where creativity take place. Using a combination of the right keywords, I found, "How to Bypass Most Firewall Restrictions and Access the Internet Privately aka The Surf At Work Page". I find the page to be quite technical and time consuming for me to understand how the method is. I saw an advertisement on the page and soon downloaded a software called HTTP Tunnel. Now this is what I am looking for all along, a simple Windows-based software that I can install and easily configure.



I wasn't happy about the restriction especially being blocked from Youtube. Using this software, I can now watch Youtube eventhough the corporate network has blocked the website. At first, I used the free server to connect but it was painfully slow. I wanted to pay the High Bandwitdh Subscription using my Public Bank Visa Electron but accidentally paid it using my Paypal credit. Oh well, it's only USD4.99 a month. Doesn't burn a hole in my pocket though.

Voila..I can now watch my favourite Youtube videos and my company wouldn't know what my online activities are. Although it says high bandwitdh, it is still limited to the internet connection my company subscribed from the ISP which in this case, TM Net Streamyx. I can now access Meebo, Friendster, Youtube and Blogger without fear of being blocked. The only problem right now is my Yahoo Messenger client program wouldn't work even after using this service. I then learned that the port for Yahoo Messenger is being blocked so I can only access the web-based Instant Messenging service such as Meebo. Oh well, that's not so bad.

It is good to know that there is no boundary what you can do over the internet. You just need to be a little creative and a little work to find the solution that you need. Happy proxyless surfing everyone!

The MOF Tender Briefing in Putrajaya

My brother is sitting in a classroom half across the globe in Boston, USA and is chatting with me using Gmail Chat while I'm writing this post. I wish I was in his place. 3 years ago, I brought him into the previous company I joined just to accompany me since I was the only employee in that company and was feeling lonely. I then brought in a few other guys and girls into the company before I sent them off because I was planning to leave as well. It was then my brother's turn to bring me into his company and I'm now doing what I've been doing all along, serving the most important department in the company in doing marketing and bringing in sales.

Anyway, being in the sales and marketing department is not so bad after all. I get the chance to go to places I've never think of going. For example, yesterday I went to a tender briefing at one of the most powerful Ministry in Malaysia, The Ministry of Finance (MOF). The tender briefing was to invite vendors and developers to come out with a proposal to develop an asset management system for them to use. It was kind of a surprise to find out that a lot of the government agencies especially one of the most powerful ministry of all, doesn't have an asset management system. Well, who said adopting new technology is easy right?

The Ministry of Finance building located in Putrajaya is quite awesome. Check the picture I took outside of the MOF building:



Inside the building host hundreds of government department offices mainly related to the financial segment. The area they have is pretty huge. If you've ever went to offices in KL, in Putrajaya, you'll have so much space that you might get tired just from walking to the bathroom. That is of course if you are not used to walk around and just drive around a lot. I know this because I used to drive around a lot instead of walking which I should be doing for a healthy living.

Back to the tender briefing. This is a screenshot of the theater inside the MOF building:



The facility is not so bad. Unfortunately, my company decided not to proceed with this opportunity because of some issues concerning the right of the source code and licensing. It is however a good opportunity if your company is a web-based PHP developer since the government is really interested to adopt the web-based open source kind of application. The tender will be closed on the 3rd of December so if you are a developer and can create the asset management module that they have specify in their tender document, you should better hurry up and team up with companies who had attend the tender briefing. My company welcomes that as well.

It was a great experience getting this opportunity to go to places I never would have think of being. However, I still wish I was in Boston, USA. Maybe I should work hard assisting and getting more accounts for my company. Then they'll send me off somewhere. That's a great plan, don't you think so? Hehe..

A New Way of Internet Protection

I just love the concept of virtualization. It's like doing something dangerous but in a contained and controlled environment where it is basically safe. Before this, I've seen how a big corporate IT department utilizes VM Ware for their server virtualization, tried Virtual PC on my own computer and the latest, Virtual Private Server. If you've seen movies such as The Matrix or the 13th Floor or you've played Second Life, you might understand the concept of it. If might provoke some radical idea of how you live your life but I think it is natural of a human being to fantasize about something that they don't have.

I found this free application a couple of weeks ago. It's called SafeSpace. So, how does this virtual application works? Well, a picture describes a thousand words:



If you can't understand the figure above, let me just brief you a little bit. See that red box surrounding the registry, file system and application. SafeSpace actually creates some kind of layer on top of what your windows system have. Basically it's like a protective layer that protects you from getting something harmful. If that layer gets an infection, you just tossed away that layer and you'll have a new one. Sounds like a condom to me. Anyway, based on my experience, my Internet Explorer version 6 has been hijacked by numerous toolbars that suddenly appears out of nowhere. There was one time, my Internet Explorer 6 just went unusable because it got corrupted by these malware stuff. In fact, even before I installed SafeSpace on my system, there was a pop up box that keeps on appearing whenever I launch IE6. I tried cleaning up my registry and boot up applications but it was still showing up. Luckily, after I've installed SafeSpace, that pop up kind of dissapear. My problem was solved.

There is however one issue that was quite significant. The installation of SafeSpace caused my boot up to become longer. I had to wait almost 5 minutes before I can launch any other of my other application. Then there is this annoying coloured box surrounding the application which I don't like. Since I'm using Firefox for my browser and normally Firefox doesn't get hijack like IE6, I removed Firefox from the default setting of SafeSpace where it includes every Instant Messenger and browser that you have. From what I heard, this application is still buggy so it's not really recommended if you are the kind of person who just use a computer for basic need. Oh, there is one more issue concerning SafeSpace. When I tried to insert attachments in my e-mails, the files just went corrupted. Most probably because of the layer filtering the files you are trying to put in.

The plus point of SafeSpace is that it prevents your internet browser from being hijacked and most of all it's FREE (for personal use of course). Some screenshots of SafeSpace in use:




Visit SafeSpace from Artificial Dynamics for more information.

Webmaster Gathering 17th Nov07 @ KL Sentral

Yesterday, there was a gathering for Malaysian webmasters at Starbucks, KL Sentral. I happened to know about it 2 weeks earlier from one of my RSS subscription but didn't really consider on attending it. It was a last minute call a few days before the event when I decided to join the gathering. I don't really have anyone I know personally but that is the point of having a gathering, to get to know people around your community up, close and personally.

So, my journey started with hopping on to the KTM Komuter after I've parked my car at Sentul KTM Komuter station free parking space (fingers crossed in hope of last year's daylight thieving doesn't repeat). At first I wanted to drive to KL Sentral but then I heard of someone telling me of the high parking fees over there, I guess I'd better off paying RM2 (getting there and back) for the trip. I got to KL Sentral and saw a good amount of crowd already there networking and getting coffee for themselves.



Check out the guy in the green shirt, that's LiewCF, a full time Malaysia tech blogger. I stalked him last year at eBay Explained 2006. Didn't talked to him last time but this time I did said 'hi' and introduced myself to him. The first guy I greeted when I got to the gathering was Sumardi, the CakePHP guy who did the CakePHP presentation during the PHP Meet Up 3.0. I then got myself a cup of coffee and strike a conversation with Menj, he is so taller than me. I hang out for a while with a couple of other guys. Then it's show time!



The MC was LimCS, the Webmaster Malaysia forum moderator or is it Administrator? Mmm..Anyway, he did a great job of facilitating the event while the Exabyte team who was the sponsor of the event supported him all the way. The Exabyte team took a flight and came all the way from Penang just for the event. I think they did an awesome marketing strategy since Webmasters are the one who will splurge their money for webhosting and internet stuff. A picture of the boss of Exabytes giving some introductory speech:



Moving on to the presentation, the first presentation was done by a mysterious guess only known to be a Googler. Apparently, he is Hanson Toh (read more about him here).



His presentation was all about Google. I like the part where he told about the 80 - 20 principal that Google enforce their employees to adopt. A lot of Google's product are inspired during the 20% of the time spent on personal project. I wonder how that can be applied for other non web industries? Some latest news from Hanson Toh was Google Map for Malaysia is progressively on its way to be ready and Blogger is going to be available in Malay language. Other than that, he shared his experience of traveling to the Google HQ and how work is done at Google. By the way, he said he is the only person in Malaysia currently employed by Google. The wonders of working remotely nowadays.



After all the crowd being fascinated by Google stuff, it's time to learn new webmastering stuff. Najib from SuccessIdeaWeb enthusiastically presented all about a Content Management System called Drupal. Najib is an electrical engineer by profession but he does webmaster stuff outside of his office hour based on my conversation with him. I remembered there was a time I've played around with Drupal but it seems too complicated to me so my journey with Drupal ended there. Now that Najib showed about the beauty of using Drupal for a portal site, I think it's time to play around with Drupal for my next personal project. Najib also said that eventhough he gave up on Joomla a couple of years ago, he still uses Joomla for a few of his websites. I was quite impressed with the lists of big commercial websites that is developed using Drupal. It is another good open source CMS software to try out. Join the Drupal Malaysia Group if you are interested to be part of Drupal's family.

Next presenter is a well known Malaysian Internet Marketer. He is:




Gobala Krishnan is someone I really have respect when it comes to the internet marketing circle. There is one more person who also earn the same respect, Kidino who is also Gobala Krishnan's buddy which I kind of shy away from him a couple of months back after he approached me for a network marketing business. Although I had a few bad experiences with doing internet marketing and network marketing, I blame myself for each failures I've endured. Anyway, I've already found my own way of making money online (I can't disclose it yet), I still value the information the internet marketing circle teaches. Anyway, Gobala gave such an inspiring insight of how online entrepreneurs life is all about and the lesson I've learned is that it doesn't matter what your job is, you will always have choice and personal development is what you should be focusing on.

The gathering was just scheduled for 3 hours, so a lightning round is done for a Q & A session. I guess webmasters are shy people or they might have probably know all the answers, so there at first there was a silent moment when LimCS asked around for any questions eventhough there was Exabyte coupons being offered for both the person giving out the questions and answer. I recently bought a USD19/month Windows Virtual Private Server (VPS) from a US web company and the Remote Desktop Connection is rather slow. The VPS is currently being used for one of my automated money making project. So, I asked Exabytes if they provide Windows VPS since a local server connection would be much faster. Unfortunately, they only have Linux VPS server at the moment. If you want to know more about what I'm referring to, you can read about Virtuozzo here.



I'm not sure if I'm going to use this RM50 from Exabytes coupon so soon. It has an expiry date of this 31 December 2007. I think I'm going to give it away if someone really need a discount for purchasing any Exabytes services or products. Drop me a line ok?

Alright, it's snapshot time:




I also met a friend of mine, Azizi from high school during the gathering. The last time I met him was last year I guess but I didn't had a chance to ask what does he do at that time. He's now a Mac application developer for Legal-Bytes. I'm not a Mac user but I can see Mac has awesome GUI and probably are much more stable than Windows. I also had the chance to see for myself Zeo's Macbook and learned a thing or two about the latest buzz in the Malaysian blog arena. The time spent during the networking session among webmasters after the event is priceless.

A list of other bloggers and individuals I've personally met (or maybe noticed):

• Vangardx- Nice fella, read about his entry post about this event here.


• Zamri Nanyan- He's from Penang, a really nice guy.


• Fayz- I just gave him a friendly smile at him, I think.


• Edward- His blog entry about this event.


• Ershadul Hoque- He seems a bit shy but I like what his company is doing.


• Galadriel- A petite Malay lady. His blog entry about this event


• Mr Kay- Nice to have talked to you dude.

That's about it I guess. If I've met anyone which I didn't mention about in this blog post, give me a shout on my comment box below, ok? I really should be hanging out at Webmaster Malaysia Forum more often and get to know more people over there. If I am not mistaken, I heard that Exabytes will invite all the webmasters who came in for the event an invitation to a private screening. I'm not really sure if it's true or not but that is what I think I heard. If it is true, I am for sure will come for that one if I'm not occupied of course. ;-)


After 642-825 and 642-845, most of the students think of certifications like EX0-101 and in this order they need to do 642-552 as well as 70-294. They may skip 640-863 if they wish to save time.

Implementing Sugar CRM for Sales and Marketing Use

I guess being used of multi-jobs/multi-tasking for a company creates activities that is quite beneficial. As always, I've moved on to do something else already. This time it's called Customer Relationship Management. You can read all about CRM at Wikipedia. I decided to learn about CRM after the event last 2 weeks, now that I got all the contact lists, I am left with questions such as:

1. What should I do with all these leads?


2. How am I going to manage it?


3. What tools can I use to make my marketing and sales job more easier?


4. Is there any ready to use FREE CRM web-based tool that I can install and use straight away without a steep learning curve?

Based on my experience, if you have a software whether it's a windows-based or web-based, you don't need to read all those thick books that explains stuff from A-Z and take weeks to understand about the subject. You just need to play around with it for a while, getting used to it and applying it. It's just like playing Monopoly. So, after Googling around, I found out about SugarCRM. It's basically a web-based package that has all my answers to the above questions. To add further convenience, the application has a free open source download package (same as Joomla) and the installation is easy (if you can install Joomla, you'll definitely know how to install SugarCRM).

Two days after I've installed and putting in data into it, I've actually mastered almost 70% of it's use. The only thing I need more is more data to build up my database. Here's a screenshot of how my SugarCRM Dashboard looks like:



I was surprised by this web-based CRM engine when looking at it under the hood. It has all the CSS and AJAX components which is really cool. You can change the colour of your theme instantly by selecting the colour tab at the above page. You can also set the size of your font and drag and drop the dashboard box. I was blown away with it's features and capabilities.

Now, the next thing I need to learn is to try and find ways of how I can implement this system and train the staff to use this application in my company. Sometimes, I just can't believe an IT company or even worse, a web-based application developer company that doesn't use CRM to track their sales and marketing activities. At the moment, I am the only one that is using this system in the company. Oh well, I'll give it some time for me to get used to this system and then I'll show my boss about it.

I just love web-based tools! Especially FREE ONES! ;-)

Conference Co-Sponsor at The Ritz Carlton KL

After I've convinced my company to use Joomla as their website engine about a month ago, it was time to move on into something else. Besides my website skills, I was also hired because of my experience in marketing the product that my company is now representing. I guess my company is so lucky to have a two job roles for the price of one. Nevertheless, multitasking is a valuable skill set these days and it will score you higher than the rest of other job candidates if you are looking for jobs.

My other job role includes to open and find new opportunities for the company. This is to bring in more businesses for the company and add more revenues. This is quite crucial because if in order to grow the company further, new establishment is needed. This will create more job opportunities, more activities and benefit everyone who is actively involved. Of course, you need to love your job first. So far, I'm enjoying my new job.

So, where were we? Oh yeah, The Ritz Carlton. I found out about a Facilities Management Conference and asked the organizer if we could have a partnership in promoting our product and services. One thing for sure, an event company would always welcome sponsors. So, after some dealings on both the organizer and my company, we finally agreed upon co-sponsoring the event. I think it was a good bargain because the ticket price for 2 person for the conference itself cost almost the same price as the sponsorship investment.



The conference was held at The Ritz Carlton Business Centre located just behind Starhill. I didn't went into the conference room because I had to attend the sponsor table outside the room. Here is a list of what I like and what I don't like about The Ritz Carlton Business Centre:

What I like:

1. The breakfast is exquisite, there are several types of tea bag selections, even the cup has lid on it. Not really sure what the honey is for (See the snapshot I've taken below).


2. Afternoon tea break is awesome. They serve canned soda for refreshment. My stomache was always full when I was there


3. They give you damp hand towel with lime flavour for your hand to feel fresh after lunch.


4. The couches are so comfortable and the atmosphere is delightful

What I don't like:

1. There is no parking at the Ritz Carlton itself except for jockey parking which cost RM50 if I'm not mistaken. The only parking for the place is at Starhill shopping complex. I parked at an unpaved parking area right across, cost me only RM4 per day.


2. The toilet is so tiny for such a big area. I just can't believe a business place like that has such tiny toilet. Only 4 person can occupy the toilet at one particular time although I do like the aromatherapy candle they put next to the sink.

Pictures and snapshots taken using my Sony Ericsson W810i cameraphone:



I wonder when I'll be back there again for the food..

Trying Out Celcom 3G Broadband

My brother has the same interest as me, he likes to try out new things which is internet-related. He is an active member of few Malaysian tech and trading forums. Last month, he got to know a guy who can register Celcom 3G broadband on your behalf and send it over to you by post. The only fee you pay him is just the courier fee. The Celcom 3G price is just the same as advertise that is RM68. A few days later, the package arrived:



Since this Celcom account wasn't mine, I asked my brother to lend it to me for a while for me to do some testing and review. He uses a Dopod 838pro phone so he enjoys the 3G capability when using this Celcom 3G service. I don't have a 3G phone yet, so I had to settle with my own Sony Ericsson W810i that only has EDGE capability. An EDGE connection can only serve a maximum speed of 200++kbps but that way better than dial-up connection. A 3G connection speed particularly UMTS is around 384kbps while the HSDPA is even more. I don't know if Celcom's connection is HSDPA, but I've used Maxis HSDPA connection before and I find it quite good. However, radio signal tends to distort according to the strength of radio waves and the surrounding of environment. So I can't expect a fast and reliable connection all the time. Sometimes, the setting of your computer can dictate your connection. You need to tweak and fiddle around a little if you want more. The best internet connection is always the old fashioned hardline landline.



So, after installing Celcom 3G simcard on my phone, I noticed something, the Celcom connection in my room stated a GPRS connection. Oh well, what to do.. I then hooked it up on my Acer Aspire 3683 laptop, surfed a few websites and later on, documented some speed testing, here are some results based on my experiments:



The connection is not so bad after all eventhough it's only on GPRS/EDGE. The only problem I faced is my phone tends to warm up when it is connected. That's not really good. I left my laptop and phone connected throughout the night, the connection was pretty decent. One more thing if you noticed, the speed test is still stating I'm using TM Net. I'm not really surprised because it's not really a secret that Telekom Malaysia owns most of Malaysian internet infrastructure. Anyway you look at it, it is still "inter" "net" conection, so you'd better appreciate it. At least you are "connected" instead of "disconnected".

Last but not least, the TM Net Speedometer test:



If you are wondering why not buy the new 3G USB modem? It costs around RM1000 just to buy that fancy device. I would rather buy a 3G enabled phone for that. The choice is yours.


Thanks to testking, now a big dilemma of 350-001 and VCP-310 students has been solved since they will be able to purchase a bundle having 640-802 as well as 70-290 and 70-270, and if they want to, they can exchange it with 220-601 too.

Vitamin for Your Hair Loss

This post is brought to you by:


On average, we can lose around 100 stands of hair a day. For people like myself who have a thick hair, sometimes when I scratch my head, a few hairs would fall out but I'm not concern about it because my it doesn't make much difference. If you have thin hair and your hair starts to fall everywhere such as when you wash your hair with shampoo and suddenly a group of hairs sticks on the foam, then it is time to consider products that can slow down hair loss and restores it.

At Trustsource.org, there is a review of products specifically for hair loss. One of the product is called provillus:



Provillus hair growth product is taken orally. It can supply of nutrients and lets the tiny follicles beneath your scalp receive exactly what they need to create beautiful, full-bodied hair. The best and the most effective way to provide your follicles with the nutrients they need is through the bloodstream which is absorbed through consumption of food in your stomach. Try it out now.