My Brand New Sony Ericsson W810i

In 2004, after my Nokia 3330 got ruined by rain water seeping into it while I was riding my motorcycle through the rain while going to work, I bought myself a basic Nokia 3100. The Nokia phone served me well through out the years until I discontinued its service last week. The price at that time was below RM450.

When I first got this phone, it seems so small and light. I’ve gotten used to heavier and bulkier hand phone last time so it took me a while to get used to it but it was surely convenient to have a smaller phone. At that time, camera phone were available but the price was beyond my budget so I had to settle with this one. It’s still popular though because it has colour screen along with GPRS internet connection where you can literally browse the web using WAP.

The good thing about this phone is, since it’s kind of small, you can throw it on your bed without worrying of ruining it. I also find it was quite easy and speedy when typing out SMS especially while driving (not recommended). I had beautiful memories with this phone and I am still keeping it.

Of course, we all want improvement in our lives and its normal for that. I have always wanted to have a camera phone but when I look at some of the camera phone pictures, disappointingly the picture is rather blurry and not really suitable when posting it on a blog post. Higher pixel cameraphones were beyond my budget costing more than RM1000. I was also not a big fan of Sony Ericsson until Laadvamore introduced her brand new Sony Ericsson W700i where she bought it for RM660. The phone has the one thing I wanted, a nice 2 Megapixel built-in camera and the image quality is reasonable.

We then went on a shopping survey to see if we could strike a much lower price deal. The first place we went was PJ Digital Mall. I was hesitant to go to Low Yatt because of the hassle of parking and the traffic jam. We sooner found out that the price even for the W700i was even higher. The reason for that is because there is a term used for that and it’s called “AP”. I’ve heard of “Underwater” phone before but never “AP”. From what I understand based on the vendors explanation, i means that the phone is original along with some accessories but the batteries are not. The warranty is also minimized to a year but strictly if the phone malfunction on its own. Basically, its a strip version of phone package. Laadvamore soon realized that she just purchased an “AP” phone and not an original one. We left Digital Mall empty handed though.

So last week after my visit to the court house, I went to Plaza Alam Sentral Shah Alam with Laadvamore to visit the shop where she bought her phone and eventually buy an exact same model as her. I was then torn between two phones after looking at this phone.



The only difference that this phone stands out as my choice is the ‘auto-focus‘ ability for its built-in camera phone. The price difference between Sony Ericsson W700i and Sony Ericsson W810i was RM120. The white version of W810i is RM100 more so that’s out the picture. We finally bargained the price down to RM760 and paid cash for it. If I were to buy the original version Sony Ericsson W810i could have cost almost a thousand ringgit. I don’t really care about the cheaper batteries, so far it lasted 3 days without recharging it and it proves orthy enough. I can always buy the original batteries later on.

Here’s my first shot taken right after (the original size was 1632 x 1224 but I’ve reduced it to 400px wide to accomodate this blog post witdh):



Not bad right? I’ve also used my W810i to snap pictures during the PHP Meet Up 3.0 last week. Some other snapshots of my new phone:


The Back View of Ashrufzz W810i

Me Holding My Sony Ericsson W810i

EDGE Connection is Shown


The one thing that I discovered about this phone is the ability to detect whether the area has EDGE connection or not. Although I’ve never tried connecting my laptop with EDGE connection yet but this is truly an nice feature if in case I don’t have any other internet connection. Forget about 3G for now because it’s not that fast yet, I’ll write about that soon on my Maxis Wireless Broadband 3G Experience blog post.

Overall, I’m loving my Sony Ericsson W810i.


Doing 70-647 or even 640-816 is not a big deal for some one who has already done 70-271 as well as 70-293 and 642-812 and for a certification like PMI-001, one has to do all of this.

What I've Learned From PHP Meet Up 3.0 (Part 2)

After we had lunch, the next presentation continued:

iHack Competition 2007 by FTMSK

This is an interesting area where web security is involved. Last year, I went to International Hacking Competition 2006 and see how hackers do their job.

This year, FTMSK is organizing International Hacking Competition 2007 on the 17th to 19th August 2007. RM6500 is up for grab. If I were a programmer, I might have tried my luck and participated in that event.

Oh well, if you can't reach that level, you can always become a blogger right? Being a blogger has its own advantages.

Looking at their event programme, there will be a lot of interesting talk mainly on the topic of computer security. Just by reading those geeky stuff just made my geek inside of me wanting to jump out and get back to school.

The next speaker is someone who a lot of the audience were anticipating. He is known for his ability to hack.

Web Threats by 3xb055

If you are wondering how a computer hacker looks like, you are looking at one of them. Armed with a 12 inch display laptop, 3xbo55 presented how a hacker can penetrate into your website especially when you are using any PHP based Content Management System (CMS) such as PHPBB, Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress and a whole lot more.

3xboss explains a little on why do hackers do what they do, HACK! The most popular kind of hack is called 'defaced' which is basically changing the front page of a website. There's actually a difference between 'crack' and 'hack' but we all know that a hacker is someone who can penetrate a computer or IT system and do whatever he/she wants.

The best advice 3xboss gave the audience is to check your web hosting log and look at any irregularities that is happening. If you use Linux based web hosting, your web host might use Cpanel as their dashboard management. Here's where you can check your error log:

From the log file, once you can view them, you can actually know what's going on with your web server, who's accessing and from where. It doesn't give you a lot of understandable details but 3xboss recommended we look for strange links that might have give an opportunity to be infiltrated by hackers.

The idea of sharing this information is to make a web a better place because the web is getting more of a lifestyle rather than just a tool.

Basically, computer security can become a significant issue if something happened to your computer or your password or identity got stolen. Once your confidential information is leaked out, you are prone to all kind of problems. Make sure you secure yourself because "prevention is better than cure".

You can visit 3xb055 - Bandar Baru Bangi Open Source Software Group if you want to know more about computer security and web threats.

PHP Based Web System in A Government Agency by Amin007

Amin007 works in a government agency in Muar as a PHP programmer part time. His slide is a bit different than the rest of the speaker because he revealed something rather unusual yet informative. Here's one of it "Did you know that in Muar, there is a shop who sells frog?". Amin007 confirms that its true, he even called up the shop and asked about it. Amazing what we can do with the web.

Unfortunately, a lot of his work is still offline so most of us can't really look at some of his sample. Anyway, it was good to know that PHP is useful and is used in numerous field.

The Integration of Phyton and PHP by tunbendahara

tunbendahara is a freelancer specializing in Phyton programming. His background is in C++ which makes other programming languages seem like a piece of cake to him.

I like his motto "As people, we are all lazy so we need to relax. Why work hard for yourself when you can have machine work for you". Very true indeed and that what he does.

From his talk, what I understand was he uses Phyton is for a SMS system where information is pulled from a local telco provider. He then uses PHP as the front end that will display the information in HTML viewpoint.

Object Oriented in PHP 5 by sameon

sameon works for AIST. He manages a lot of web projects for government agencies and private companies. He is also a partial owner of PHP.net.my and the organizer of this event. According to him, the food served at the event is sponsored by their first Google Adsense cheque worth about RM360. Anyhow, the talk is worth more than that despite of the free entrance.

In sameon talk, he showed the audience the differences between PHP5 and PHP4. As we all know, PHP4 will be discontinued for support by the end of this year. So, what's new on PHP 5? You can read all about it on PHP 5 Change Log.

Well, that's wrapped my report for this event. If you are interested, you can download some of the presentation here. Overall, it was a very exciting and informative event. I look forward to attend the next meet up.

What I've Learned From PHP Meet Up 3.0 (Part 1)

Last Saturday, I attended PHP Meet Up 3.0 at FTMSK UiTM Shah Alam. It was my first time I went to that faculty eventhough I've actually passed by the faculty everytime I went to my classes during my university years. The meet up has 9 presentations altogether with various interesting topics.

The talk is done in my mother's tongue which is in Malay but only one speaker who is much more comfortable presenting in English. So, let the showcase begin:

PHP Meet Up 3.0 Location

PHP Meet Up 3.0 Audience

Drag & Drop Demo Using script.aculo.us by zam3858

The first presentation was done by zam3858. He made some introduction on what's under the hood of script.aculo.us, what it can do and some demo of how it is implemented.

Other stuff that was shown is he used PHP with Scriptaculous and how to style the published page using some CSS.

Basically, javascript isn't a bad thing. It's getting more and more useful plus the big boys are using it extensively with the rising popularity of AJAX.

Want to see some script.aculo.us action, script.aculo.us demo page provide interesting demos for you to appreciate.

PHP vs Ruby On Rails by Aizatto

I've mentioned previously that only one speaker doesn't made his presentation in Malay. Aizatto is 21 years old, still studying in Monash University Sunway and he just wowed the crowd with his English speaking accent ;-)

Although he speaks English, he can actually understand Malay language so don't simply say some nasty things in Malay to him unless you speak really fast to him. I wonder what shampoo he is using since his hair looks like a male hair model.

His presentation was really interesting. He compared PHP with Ruby on Rails and made out some really interesting points. His slideshows were simple yet interesting and he really knows what he was talking about. He then showed some of his current projects to the audience and it was really cool. I now have a better understanding of what and how Rails is compared to just reading what it is all about on Rails website.

Basically Rails web programming in Malaysia is still small but I can see the benefit of learning about it. If you have programming language background, you have a better chance of learning Rails more quickly than I do. I wish I had learned computer programming before this rather than having an engineering background. Still, some people say that if you have engineering background, your chances of going into technical stuff is half-way there. I'm starting to think that might be true.

Anyway, Aizatto showed the audience some demonstration on how Rails is utilize. He also talked about meta programming, the pros and cons of Rails vs PHP and why Rails is the future of of web programming. His fingers just dances on the keyboard while writing the command lines. It's just mind boggling, simply because I don't know the language yet.

Aizatto maintains a domain with 3 sub-domains which is relatively his Aizatto Personal blog, his Rails blog and his Developer blog. You can download one of his slideshow here.

ACL in PHP by Crynobone

He is the owner of Chronosight, one of the blog that I've subscribed using my Google Reader. He is the only person that I know off before I attended the meet up so it was good to finally meet face to face with him. Apparently, his former colleague was a friend of mine and correct me if I'm wrong, I think he is a friend LadyAzurt.

I have never heard of ACL before. I then learned that it stands for Access Control List. Basically it's a function that allow certain level of users access to certain functions. It seems like a simple thing but it is really not. In my previous job, I had to really study about user level access for the software that the company is deploying for a client. A lot of documentation were involved and it was really pain in the a**.

I just want to say kudos to Crynobone for revealing his work. It's not that often a person who developed a system from scratch and took like years to build it and share it with other people. BTW, Crynobone is a Javascript expert. His presentation can be viewed on his blog.

Baking Cake Using CakePHP by Sumardi

Sumardi just graduated from UiTM recently and now works as a freelance web developer. He is a big fan of Open Source with his proud Debian powered laptop.

Sumardi talks about CakePHP and showed the audience how to develop a web application using CakePHP framework. I must say after I've seen how it is done, I think I can understand how the process works. He then showed some of his projects that is done and a project of his that is still on going.

Sumardi also shared some tips on how to beautify your developed website built using CakePHP by using CSS and why it is easy to use CakePHP. At the moment, I think I'll just stick with Wordpress and make my way up from there.

Check out Sumardi's blog.

Having Lunch With The Speakers

Because of the overwhelming attendance, the food that were served cannot accomodate the numbers of people who came. We decided to head over and look for outside food. I managed to squeeze in and had lunch with the speakers and the organizing committee. I had a nice chat with Aizatto where he shared some interesting stuff about himself and also some web industry scenario in Malaysia. The rest of the people were friendly and shared a lot of information with me.

Proceed to part 2 of PHP Meet Up 3.0 coverage.

Microsoft Tech.Ed SEA 2007: Should I Go?

I have always loved Microsoft Events. I've been to Microsoft Mobile & Embedded DevCon (MEDC) both 2005 and 2006. Looking at their event page, I don't think this year they are going to organize MEDC 2007 here in Kuala Lumpur since MEDC 2007 Singapore was over. Anyway, other Microsoft events that I've been to includes:

• Microsoft Office Day Out and Microsoft .NET Drop In Day (March 2005)


• Microsoft KL Ready Worldwide Launch 2005 (November 2005)


• Microsoft Partner Infrastructure Roadshow 2006 (April 2006)


• The "WOW" Windows Vista Launch (April 2007)

I could have been to a lot of other Microsoft Seminars and Events but I decided not to because I'm not going no where career wise last time plus a lot of them are not free. If there are free seminars and events I would definitely go because I love freebies! Hehe..

So, what is Microsoft Tech.Ed? If I am not mistaken, it stands for Microsoft Technology Education. If you are a tech junky, you'll definitely know about this program. I've heard of it many times but after looking at the price, it turns me off. I know that the education is valuable but I'm not going to use it anytime soon so why bother, right? Besides, you can always search for information and test out new stuff that Microsoft has come out for free online especially if you are a developer. Well, that's only true if you treat it as a hobby and not for business purposes.

In business, these kind of programs are treated as an investment to add more value to their employee's skill set. If I were to look for a job that requires a lot of Microsoft product knowledge, I would have invested in learning all the Tech.Ed stuff. So far, I haven't done that yet because I get overwhelmed and confused so often when deciding on this. Have you ever had the feeling of wanted more and more but you can only do so much. In the end you'll get back and do the stuff that you are really comfortable and good at instead of the one you've discovered that really interest you. It's all come down to knowing what you are good at, don't you think so?

The company that I work with at the moment has already bought a few tickets for their staff to attend, so I might be going. I still love freebies though.. ;-)



Resource link - TECH.Ed SEA 2007: Turn "doing your job" into "making your mark"

PHP Meet Up 3.0 at FTMSK UiTM Shah Alam

This Saturday, 21st of July 2007, I am going to attend a meet up that is going to be organized the Malaysian PHP Community.

It's been a while since my last attendance to any technology related seminars. Since the venue for this event is at my former university, I think I will have no problem finding the place. Apart from that, Laadvamore stays at the hostel just behind the faculty which I go there almost every weekend to see her but of course, she has to wait for me finishing the entire talk if she wants to ask me to go out.

I don't have any formal web programming qualification nor education about server-side scripting but I do have basic PHP knowledge which I've learned from W3School myself. The only PHP scripting I know is limited to Wordpress blogging software but I have a few plans of developing my own modified Wordpress plugin and themes later on.

Highlights from the program agenda which I'm looking forward to is:

• PHP in the business world


• Scriptaculous Drag and Drop Demo


• PHP vs Ruby


• PHP system in Government Agencies

I guess ZeMMS might be interested to listen about How To Bake Cake using PHP afternoon talk. I had download CakePHP a while ago but I had no idea where to start or even understand what the package is all about. I think I would rather stick to Wordpress for now. I'll try and network with the people I'll meet up over there and see how things go. I'm guessing it would a be very eventful day for me.

If you are interested to join, register yourself here and I'll see you there.

A Long Day At Court

Yesterday was a boring but at the same time interesting day for me. It was my first time going to court. From where I live, it took me less than 15 minutes to get there. Unfortunately, there were no parking spaces because of some official launching ceremony by a minister so they closed down all the parking lots outside the building. I parked my car at the Federal Territory Mosque just opposite the Jalan Duta Court House and took a 5 minutes walk.

Last year, I went to a meeting with my former company at Ministry of Arts, Culture and Heritage Malaysia and I was told that they are going to occupy the Bangunan Abdul Samad building and the court department will move to their own building at Jalan Duta. I guess they've already moved by now. When I arrived at the new court house, the building is huge. I have no idea where to go to so I asked the reception counter and my court room is on the 3rd floor. After I got on the 3rd floor, I walked down the room was almost near the end of the corridor. After I submit my subpoena letter I got, I had to wait for the court session to start. Half an hour later, the police officer in charge of the room told us (there were like 6-8 people waiting like me) that they might start a little late because of the launching ceremony of the new building or so.

We waited, waited and waited and the judge still didn't show up. It was nearly 1pm so I got out of there and had my lunch. After lunch, I got back at the court room before 2pm and again waited. Then the officers were telling about they tried and contacted the judge but she's not reachable. It was not until 3.00pm the court room was being handled over to another judge on call.

The judge appeared and all the suspects (I think there's 14 altogether) were ushered to the suspect area. They were all look like drug junkies and most of them pleaded guilty to the court. Some of them got away when their urine test came out clean, the lowest bail after being considered was RM1500, most of the bail were RM4000 - RM5000 but no one paid for that amount. They would normally requested for the court to lower the bail. For those convicted, they'll have another date for them being brought back to court.

In my case, the guy pleaded guilty and his lawyer gave him a bad look and shook his head for him not to plead guilty. I heard my car's plate number being read out loud, I wrote about what happened to my police report earlier so I was there just in case something happened to the statement that was read. The guy's mother sit just behind me and for a while, I felt enlightened seeing all those people caught by the justice system. Eventually, the court adjourned at 4pm and I left the building as quickly as I could. It's a complete waste of my time coming to court. I've wasted half a day of my leave day waiting for the judge, it's ridiculous.

Anyway, the experience has taught me of not to do things that might lead to get caught by the police of the justice system. It is a cumbersome to deal with it so the lesson of the day is, don't get caught! ;-)

A Day Trip To Kuala Lipis

This weekend, I'm slowing my pace a little by spending my time at home. It seems like every weekend, I'm off going somewhere or doing something outside. It's kind of a good thing but being out means more money going out. Anyway, last weekend I went to one of my friend's wedding at Kuala Lipis, Pahang. I've never been to that place before so I was looking forward to that trip.

My journey started at Rawang, accompanied by Laadvamore, we braved ourselves through the roads of Genting Highlands where Laadvamore got kind of sick and threw up by the roadside. It was a 3 hours drive with my car's odometer indicates 175km since out last pit stop but we finally arrived at a place where I've never set foot on. Armed with Laadvamore new Sony Ericsson W700i, I took some pictures along the way:




Interesting facts about Kuala Lipis (source: Wikipedia):

• Kuala Lipis was the capital of Pahang until 1953


• The current Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and Malaysia's renown Datuk Siti Nurhaliza was born there

The thing I've missed is:

Malaysian pop diva Siti Nurhaliza and her family still live in Kuala Lipis and the house she built for them became the talk of town as it was rumoured to cost millions of ringgit. It has now become a tourist attraction. The town council even provided directions to the house on a signboard and made parking space for tour buses available near the house. Recently, her wedding reception for friends and fans here was made an official function for the whole town by the council.

That's a reason to go back to Kuala Lipis, oh yea..the bride's friend is a friend of mine. I wonder when is she getting married. She's still single, anybody interested..ekeke.. ;-)

I've Been Subpoenaed

Thanks to the TV series Crime Scene Investigation (CSI), I have some clues of how the justice system work. It maybe kind of different here in this country compared to the United States but there's not much different from what I've seen so far. I got a call from my mother last Sunday that a policeman was looking for me at my grandfather's house (just 5 minutes drive from where I live), she asked me whether I've done something wrong somewhere. I couldn't remember any so I asked my mother to forward the handphone of the police officer who went searching for me.

It was then explained that I have a "sepina". I've heard of "sepina" before, it's some kind of court order that is an order for you to show up in court. I called up my friend who is studying law about it and he confirmed it. I then spent a few hours doing online searches on what is a "sepina" really is but never found anything. I was puzzled, I searched on the online dictionary, the legal dictionary but it was no where to found. It was only when I use Yahoo Answers, I found out that "sepina" is actually spelled as "subpoena". Read more about "What Is A Subpoena". Click on the image below for an enlarged view (I've blurred out some of the information to protect my identity of course).


So, what did I do wrong? I never did. It was all about what had happened to my car last year. This would be my first experience being in court. From what I've understood, someone got caught and my car was the victim but what I don't understand is, why should I be testifying when I wasn't there witnessing the crime? It could be because of what happened to my police report the other day. Well, I have to attend the court scheduled next week to see what is really is. I'm not sure if I need to apply for a leave, take half a day off or just take a couple of hours off but I do know that it is compulsory for me to go to court or else I am going to get charged for holding on to something fishy.

Here's a catchy phrase- "See you in court!"

Getting To Know Your Real Web Host

I find that the web hosting industry is one of the most competitive industry. There's ad about it everywhere on the internet. You can actually change your web hosting plan whenever you want as long as you don't mind spending your digital money. However, competitive doesn't mean that it's not a good thing. Now anyone with the right knowledge can be an online web hosting entrepreneur by just buying a small monthly or yearly fees and seek out client online or offline. How do we know who are the original web hosting company that is really handling all the back end once it's being repackaged or rebranded? We use this service:

I have always wanted to know where is the actual server that my blog sits on, so where is Staminus Communication located?

I don't really know who my rebranded web host by reading their brief description but I couldn't find any cheaper and better feature than what they are offering. Now that I now know where my blog is physically sit, I can now rest assured that I've made a good buying decision.Check out where your blog or website is hosted: Who Is Hosting This?

Watching Transformers Movie at 2.30am

I had been a big fan of Transformers since I was kid. When I was 4 years old, I had the chance to be brought up in a Sunderland, England for 3 years so I guess I got the opportunity to watch The Transformers animated series before it even reached Malaysia. I've watched Transformers The Movie countless of time and I also nagged my dad to buy me a few of those Transformers robot toys and I must say that the quality of the toys there is way much better than the one sold today. Unfortunately, because the toys were so badly abused the only thing left is pieces of them inside my toy boxes somewhere in my house. Having younger brothers make it even worse. Oh well, those are the memories.

With all the buzz around Transformers Movie, I had to see the movie for myself, so I went down to Cathay Cineplexes Cineleisure Damansara which is about 15 minutes drive from my house to see if I could get a few tickets. As I arrived, the queue was there but unlike GSC at MidValley, it was okay. The only tickets left was at 2am and 2.30am.

Athough I got the far right hand side seat where I my head tilted to see the screen and I also had to sacrifice my good weekend sleep to see this movie, Transformers movie was worth my overpriced ticket fees and my goodnight sleep. By the way, the movie has everything from humour, love affair, flirting and most of all action packed which is why I just didn't realize what time it is eventhough its 4am in the morning. I wish I could see this movie again if I could find a good DVD copy somewhere hehe..

If you wish to see or take a picture with a replica of the original Optimus Prime, head over to Cineleisure Damansara. I hope it wouldn't get kidnapped like what happened to Homer Simpson. I wonder if it can transform..Mmm..for a full gallery, click on the image below: