June 2008

The Archives

• Live Simple Life

  06.30.08 | Permalink |Living| Comments Off on Live Simple Life

  With prices hike, we really have to live simple life. I heard a lot of tips on how we save petrol while driving, such as

  1. Pump up your tires to the right pressure.
  2. Drive at moderate speed. No speeding or changing speed rapidly.
  3. Clean the air-filter regularly.
  4. Use thinner tires.
  5. Start up the car properly.
  6. Avoid traveling with unnecessary weight in your car.
  7. Be smart and take routes with less traffic congestion.
  8. Avoid strong acceleration. No Mat Rempit style of driving.
  9. Do not let your engine idle.
  10. Use air condition sparingly.
  11. Car pooling with your colleagues.

  I must say the last tip would be move nearer to your workplace. You certainly can avoid the traffic congestion. If you cannot do that, maybe find work nearer to where you stay. However, one has to sacrifice to make it work. If you cannot, maybe you do not need the savings or you can afford the rise in petrol. If you can, stop complaining.

  If you cannot save petrol, maybe you can save on other things. Buy what you need and abstain what you want. My favorite toast with butter and sugar only cost me less than 20 sens. I should eat more at home.

  
  
  

• Petrol Stations Debate

  06.25.08 | Permalink |News| 3 Comments

  At lunch time, a bunch of us was talking about the petrol station not accepting credit card in the northern region. Reason given was the petrol station owners claim that they lose nearly 50% of the profit to card transactions. Keywords are “lose profit” not “lose money”. If you read it correctly, they want more profit. In actual sense, they are not losing money but just want a bigger chunk of the profit.

  In carrying out those actions, consumers like us are the victims as always. We need to carry cash to pump petrol.

  One of my colleague said, if the owners are not happy, they can always surrender their license. I am sure other people will like to buy it from them. If you think hard, these station owners do not need to do much to earn a profit. Most of the work is done by the big oil company like marketing or advertisement. All they need to do is to oversee the station.

  On top of that, these stations are asking for trouble because trading in pure cash will attracts robbery. Some of these stations are open 24 hours and believed me, no one want to work after midnight if they know so much cash is in the station. They better get good security guards.

  Was it a wise decision? You tell me.

• iProtected

  06.24.08 | Permalink |Technology| 3 Comments

  You can steal my notebook but you cannot steal my data. Recently my company bought the encryption software called PGP to protect the data in the notebook. The data in my notebook is not encrypted.

  Even if you steal my notebook, you cannot get to my data. It is encrypted with a security password. It is a powerful tool and it encrypt the whole hard disk.

  It is very simple to install, in fact I didn’t know it was installed until it asked me for a password. It is advisable to defrag the hard disk before installation, it will speed things up.

  After it is done, it will ask you for a password.
  Now every time I boot up my notebook, it will request for a password before loading the operating system. I heard with this software you can even protect your mobile phone.

  Let’s hope I don’t have amnesia and forget my password.

• Free Movie Ticket

  06.21.08 | Permalink |Tips| Comments Off on Free Movie Ticket

  Golden Screen Cinema gives out a free ticket to any member on their birthday month. I just got mine today. It is very simple. All you have to do is to sign up as a member in www.gsc.com.my. Fill in your particulars. If your birthday falls on the month of June, you have the whole month to redeem the ticket. FREE ticket is valid for movies marked asterisk (*) only and valid in all GSC cinemas nationwide. You need to print out the birthday coupon and bring it with you to any GSC cinema to redeem the ticket.

  The good thing is you do not need to wait to redeem the ticket. If your birthday falls on this month, you can go ahead and sign up to get the coupon. Remember to bring your myKad when you are redeeming the ticket.

  I watched Kungfu Panda with my free ticket. You do not need to make any purchase to get the free ticket. Isn’t that nice.

  T&C Apply:
  

  1. Exclusive for GSC website members only.
  2. To redeem FREE ticket, MUST PRINT out Birthday Coupon Treat (color or black & white) and fill up your details.
  3. MUST present duly completed Birthday Coupon Treat voucher at GSC Box Office only to enjoy FREE movie.
  4. FREE ticket is valid for movies marked asterisk (*) only and valid in all GSC cinemas nationwide.
  5. Original copy from www.gsc.com.my only. Photostated copies will not be accepted.
  6. Valid only during the month of actual birthday i.e. if member’s birthdate is 15 March, FREE ticket redemption is valid during the month of March only.
  7. Must be verified with Identification Card (IC) by GSC staff upon redemption of FREE movie ticket.
  8. FREE movie ticket is not exchangeable for cash.
  9. Only 1 free movie ticket redemption per year.
  10. Not valid with other GSC offers.
  11. Not valid for Gold Class, Premiere Class and Twin Seats.
  12. Birthday Coupon Treat voucher is available via print out from www.gsc.com.my by GSC website members only.

  
  *For movies marked asterisk (*), kindly refer to GSC cinema listing in major newspapers and GSC website.

• Edge/GPRS Data Plans

  06.19.08 | Permalink |iPhone| 2 Comments

  If you are like me who loves to surf with the iPhone and do not like to spend too much money, you can subscribe to a data plan or use free WiFi. So how much are those plans out there? I found out some useful info from Digi website on data plans for Digi and other competitors. You can pay RM66 monthly and surf all you want. Isn’t that great? Hrmm..better surf at home on my broadband and save some gas money.

  Stay at home is always the best.

  
  
  

• Recycling – Do Your Bit!

  06.16.08 | Permalink |Environment| Comments Off on Recycling – Do Your Bit!

  I have collected many plastic bottles, soft drink cans, milk tins, batteries and other stuff to recycle. However I am searching high and low for the recycling bins in Penang Island. Believed me, I cannot find any. Where are they?

  I search Google and I found this help website called GreenCrusaders.com (http://www.greencrusaders.com/) ran by Don & Mylene. I wrote to them and they told me what to do with my collections. You can read their website on what can be recycled and you will be amazed at what you will find.

  They told me that the Recycling bins do not work in Malaysia. Ha! I kind of agree with them and they don’t even need to tell me the answer. People will throw any kind of rubbish into those bins. Worst those bins may get stolen too. *shake head*

  If you are into recycling, helping to reduce waste, you can drop your stuff here:
  Malaysian Nature Society
  673-B, Jalan Kebun Bungah, 10350 Penang.
  Contact: Mr Kanda (04 227 3673 or 013 453 7992)

  Friends of the Botanical Garden
  673-A, Jalan Kebun Bungah, 10350 Penang.
  Tel: 04 227 9915

  The Enlightenment Home Assoc. Penang
  16, Jalan Bawasah, 10050 Penang
  Contact: Miss Linda Moo ( 019 510 6066) or Mr Mok (016 495 9886)

  For me, I thought of another tip about recycling that is only buy recyclable products. I will reduce buying plastic bottle drinks. I heard only some plastic bottles can be recyclable, not all. Oh well, I am not sure which is which. It is better to buy drinks in a can. If I want juice, buy in a box. Maybe mineral water should come in a box too.

  If you want good batteries, buy rechargeable Eneloop batteries. I tell you those batteries can last a long time, even without charging.

  If you do not want your children to live in a dumpster, start recycling now and stop generating more waste.

• Laptop Theft

  06.12.08 | Permalink |Living| 1 Comment

  There has been a rise in car laptop theft. In one of the companies I heard, 5 laptops get stolen every month. It is an alarming figure. I always wonder how the thief does it. Some say that they have a mystery gadget to detect a laptop in the car.

  I read many articles over the Internet, people are saying they used a battery or Bluetooth detector. If it is a Bluetooth detector, maybe they can detect there is a notebook in a car. However in a parking lot, can the Bluetooth detector accurately point out which car is having the notebook? Some say battery detector. Now every car has a car battery so can the detector tell the difference? One engineer claims that detector cannot work over metal. He could be right or maybe not.

  The most acceptable answer would be the theft has a syndicate. These syndicates will be waiting at the gate of the big companies which give out notebooks to most employees. They will follow the employee to where ever they go. Most people will not go home after work. They may have dinner or go do some shopping. If they are silly enough to leave their laptop in the car, they will be the next victim.

  Bottom line, don’t ever leave your laptop in the car. Self awareness is the best defense. Next I will post about how you can catch the theft that stole your laptop.

  
  
  

• Half The Price

  06.10.08 | Permalink |iPhone| 6 Comments

  *Geram* *Geram* *Geram* *Frus* *Frus* *Frus*

  Today I received news from Apple that Apple will launched 3G iPhone on July 11th and half the price with twice as fast. What is Apple CEO doing? Basically he is going against the law of business. Now I wished the oil price follows this type of law, Steve’s law.

  Anyway, I am not upset at the price going half but twice as fast. It is making my first generation iPhone so cheap and non-sellable. Sigh.

  Let’s hope I can upgrade the firmware image to iPhone 2.0. I read that the beta version is hackable. The release version, I guess have to wait for it to release right before one can hack.

  What are the great features with new iPhone? Enterprise, SDK and New Features. Finally, you can use VPN to connect to your Enterprise network securely to access email, company applications and intranet. With SDK built in, you can even program Enterprise applications. New features are contact search, iWork, MSOffice interface for viewing Excel, Word doc & PowerPoint slides, bulk delete, save images, scientific calculator, parental controls and languages such as Chinese & Japanese. You can even write Chinese using a writable pad. Lastly it has 3G and GPS. WOW. It makes me want to get another one.

  It will be sold in 70 countries. So sad Malaysia is not one of them. The price…see for yourself.

  
  
  

• Ripple Effect

  06.05.08 | Permalink |Finances| 1 Comment

  Yesterday when the announcement of the rise of petrol price from RM1.90 to RM2.70, everyone wanted to pump petrol before it happens. Yes, it will save them RM20-RM30 if they can get to the petrol station. It caused havoc everywhere, cars queues were 1 km long. You probably have to jam for an hour or more to pump.

  Thank you all for SMS-ing me, emailing me or called me. However it was really a waste of time, energy and petrol for me to queue for 1 hour or more to get that savings.

  Today, guess where was congested? Our own office cafeteria, it seems that everyone decided to eat in. The queue to the counter to get food was long but not longer than the petrol Q. Hehehehe. The cashier counter was as long.

  The next thing that goes up will be electricity, food, etc. Let’s hope my year end increment will go up too. Life is so meaningless. Don’t you think?

• Journey of Big Apple Donut

  06.04.08 | Permalink |Food| Comments Off on Journey of Big Apple Donut

  I first discovered the Big Apple Donut when it landed in the Curve KL. Now it has makes its way to Jusco in Ipoh. I am waiting it to come to Penang. Let’s see who make it here first, JCO or Big Apple. I wonder how much the franchise is.

  Once in a while, I will be craving for donuts and it is still 2 hours drive to get to it. I was happy when I return from Cameron Highlands, I am able to drop by Jusco in Ipoh to get a bite of those donuts.

  It goes well with my cuppa of Cameron tea. Simply delicious….