Blogging To The Bank?

I can't imagine someone who just plays around with blogs all day long and eventually earns so much money. But this guy did it:

I just finished listening to a podcast and it totally blew my mind away. I instantly launched a couple of niche blogs using the tools which I already know and have used. I found out that my lack of vision and the lack of discipline is the main cause of my failure in finance. Anyway, check it out Rob Benwell Product and let me know what do you think about it. Ok?

Is CCNA a Good Certificate for me?

Being in the employment world, your paper qualification really counts especially in Malaysia. Recently, a friend of mine who works with a small start up company had one of their ongoing project put on hold by the client after discovering that the company has no qualified personnel handling their project. Of course if I were the client, I would jeoperdize my money to be put on someone who is not qualified or imcompetent to do the job. So, it's a no brainer that his employer should invest some money to get their personnel trained or find someone who is already trained or who holds the paper certification. However, there will be a lot of other factors to be considered such as the salary, benefits and other related stuff including trust and reliability.

Anyway, my application to enter a CCNA course at my former university has been approved. It will commence on 2nd of June 2006 by UiTM Cisco Regional Networking Academy. The course fee is only RM2,400 for the whole year and it'll be on a part time basis. Meaning that I can still go on with my job while studying. Basically, my intention to get this certificate is not for the company I work with, my employer is not ready to sponsor anything yet so I had to take matter on by own hand. Well, I'm going to see how it goes.

Finally..My Hotmail is Bigger

I registered my first e-mail when I was 16 years old. That was almost 10 years ago. The most ever popular free e-mail at that time was Hotmail. During those years, almost everybody I know who are IT savvy uses Hotmail as their primary e-mail. They provide 2MB of e-mail storage for everyone who register. Unfortunately, that was the amount of storage they give out even after Microsoft has bought them over. Last Thursday this is what I discovered on the 1st page when I logged on my account:

My account has now increased to 25MB. Eventhough it still cannot compete with the 250MB Hotmail give to the US Citizen but it should do fine with me for now. It was tough trying to maintain the Hotmail account because I had to delete junk e-mail messages that is coming in.

Still, Hotmail is not my prefered e-mail account. I prefer to use my Gmail because they provide more usability for the users. Anyone wants an invite? ;-)

I Got Stranded in The KTM Komuter Train

Ever since the hike of the price of petrol, the government encourage the citizen to take the public transportation. It was also told that the subsidy that the government gave to the petrol subsidy was being pumped into the improvement of the public transportation. Because of that, since my office is just nearby one of the Putra LRT Station, my normal route to the office starts from KTM Komuter Station Segambut until KL Sentral where I then take the Putra LRT at KL Sentral until Putra LRT Taman Jaya. My fare for a one way journey from Segambut to KL Sentral is RM1 while the Putra LRT to Taman Jaya is RM1.60.

So, what happen yesterday was very unusual. The normal komuter train delay happened. When I got into the the train, I had to wait for another 10 minutes inside the packed train before the train got off the station. Before that, I heard an announcement that the komuter service to Sentul has been ended because of power failure. So, my journey to Segambut should be fine. The jam packed train got even packed when more people got in despite the fullness of the coaches. I was trapped at the heart of the train with people surrounding me. It got even warmer as the train passes through 2 stations.

Right after Putra KTM Komuter Station, the train was on its way to another station where I should got off. All of the sudden, after going through a tunnel, a thundering sound was heard just on top of my head. All of the passenger was panicking. I then could see a few pieces of cable lying on top of the train just hanging down the window of the train. The driver of the train quickly reminded the passenger to remain where they are since the cables are live. I was still stuck in this massive crowd of people and started to sweat. After about 15 minutes of helplessly stranded inside the crowd, everybody starts to sweat, the door is closed, oxygen is running low, the people got fed up since there was no rescue who came. Even the driver sounded panicking through the speakers.

Eventually, the passenger had to take the matter on their own hands. They smashed the emergency switch and got out of the train. From what I saw, there were hundreds of people had to walk back to the station. They even brought down the fences to get out of the railway. I didn't bring my digital camera so it was unfortunate of me not to take pictures of such experience.

I then headed back home using the bus where I had to walk another 3 kilometres to the nearest bus station. All the buses was full too. Passing by Sentul, I then saw a crowd of people overseeing the railway. I wasn't so sure what I saw because it was dark already but I'm guessing it's a big object lying on the railway and it's a big object. So, today I read The Sun e-Paper and there it was, the story:


Thousands stranded after rail mishap
RUNAWAY LORRY SNAPS POWER LINES, PLUNGES ONTO TRACKS

by Charles Ramendran

KUALA LUMPUR: Thousands of commuters of the inter-city KTM Komuter services were stranded at its stations after a runaway tipper lorry at a road construction site severed overhead power cables and crashed onto the railway tracks near Sentul yesterday.

KTM Berhad managing director Datuk Mohd Salleh Abdullah said it was estimated that 40,000 commuters would be affected by the mishap. Three thousand passengers were travelling in five trains between the Kuala Lumpur-Rawang and Kuala Lumpur-Sentul routes during the peak hour at 6pm when the trains came to an abrupt halt following the incident.

The trains edged slowly to their nearest stations where the passengers disembarked. No casualties were reported. It is learnt that the unmanned lorry, parked on a flyover of the Sentul Link Expressway under construction near Km5 Jalan Ipoh, had moved backwards down a slope. It rolled over the road shoulder and plunged 15m onto the dual railway tracks, snapping the power cables.

In a statement, KTMB said both routes will be closed until repairs are carried out.

There was no story or pictures about the KTM Komuter train to Rawang of my stranded experience. What dissapoint me the most was there was almost no effort of KTMB trying to help the crowd of stranded people getting out of the KTM Komuter. It was a pity for old citizen and women to jump down from the train on the railway as it is like 1 metre from the ground up. The driver I'm guessing has no training in handling the passenger in the case of an emergency. Still, I'm guessing KTMB has no emergency plan in case something like that happen again. That is all when the government has put in the subsidy money of petrol into improving the public transportation.

Public transportation in Kuala Lumpur is well known as not reliable. It does seem true from my own experience. There are plenty of works to be done to improve the current situation. Until then, I will rely on my own transportation and see if the situtaion improves.

P/S: You can read more about this incident at KL Bizz Portal Village. A new portal developed by my own team of online friends.

My Web Building Development

I've been busy doing more and more stuff in my quest to be more actionable rather than just reading. Of course I still read but by just reading wouldn't make things happen. Okay back to my development report, I've done an exclusively post on my other blog, just see what I've done by clicking on the image below:

Alright, now..back to work..