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Offerings for chariot (hinduism practice)

03
May 2011

This is the item list of offerings to be offered when you’re attending a chariot procession.



Silver/Ever-silver plate (to house the offerings)
Banana
Betel nut & Betel leaves
Loose flowers
Flower Garland (optional)
Coconut (dehusked except for the top, applied turmeric powder)
Camphor tablets
Incense sticks
Silk cloth
Money (amount depends on the offerer)

All items to be placed on the plate. The coconut is usually broken by the chariot staff and arrange the offerings.

* I just put this post up as reference.

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The Malaysian PIKOM PC Fair experience

08
Aug 2010

UPDATED: @Marauderz has a video of the PC Fair Experience

I remember the first time i went to the PC Fair. Wasn’t in KL Convention Center, it was at the famed PWTC. I remember buying some RAM for my PC that day. Eventually it had some problems and i had to travel all the way to Puchong to get it replaced. At that time, the price was a steal, but eventually i realized, its not always about price, but TCO (total cost of ownership).

PC Fair was touted as “best bargains” of the techno-world for consumers in Malaysia. I believe that was true, until for the past 5 years. Commercialism reigned supreme, with “bargains” splurged everywhere.

This past few years have been ridiculous to even think of going for PC Fair. Firstly, the amount of people that would be making a bee line (sorry, stampede is more like it). Coupled with expensive parking charges of KLCC (one would say take public transport, taxi is still equally expensive and busses aren’t realistic if you plan to buy something that doesn’t fit into your pockets, imagine alighting the bus with a laser printer).

Thats fine, but look at how PC Fair is managed. You are REQUIRED to enter from a certain floor, so that you are FORCED to visit the vendors booth (which most often than not, something that you may not be interested). You’d be going through at least 3-4 floors before you reach ground-zero where the real bargain hunting begins. If you try to get directly to ground-zero, friendly KLCC guards will ensure that your mission is a failure!

I ask you, dear sir/madam, are you really getting a bargain?

Based on a recent survey from friends who visited PC Fair, prices aren’t cheap, you’d get probably RM20 less than the real selling price. (E.g. Papago GPS retails at RM669 was sold at RM649). Imagine the hassle and amount of money that you’d spend JUST to get RM20 savings. Not to mention the obscure locate of the shop that you’d need to be aware in order for you to make warranty claims IF your spoils becomes spoiled! Include how much you paid for parking, petrol wasted in the traffic jam, eating expensive food in KLCC, and much more! But then again, recent times have made Malaysians to adopt kiasuism!

Laptops are a funny beast. I recall visiting a friendly vendor (who shall not be named) who sold me a laptop based on the PC Fair prices 2 weeks after the fair. Its like buying flight tickets from Travel Fair, without having to go for the fair itself (yeap, i do that to avoid the crowd!).

My take on this, PC Fair has become ridiculous. For the trouble i have to go through to buy something at a discounted rate, i can get it in Low Yat or even Digital Mall at a very comfortable, convenient way. Plus, i know which shop i bought my spoils, and if it does get spoiled, i know exactly where to go for warranty claims! As the great @SNIIFFIT said over Ais Kosong (D36) in Pappa Rich today – Everyday’s a PC Fair at Low Yatt!

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the gift

29
Jul 2010

I was entrusted with a gift,
the gift that was given to me since birth,
and I grew up not knowing this gift that i had.
It took a long time,
heart, soul and trying times,
for me to realise ,
my gift was very near and dear,
And all it took, was to look
beyond the facade.
There it was,
with pomp and splendor,
the gift was NATURE, in all it’s glory.
And now that I realise my gift,
I shoulder and carry it as a Mother,
just like how Mother Nature carries me.

*written in deep contemplation in a place created by Nature thousands of years ago.*

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The Mismanagements of CIO/CTO

14
Jul 2010



This story can even apply to any of the C level people, but I decided to keep this only to the technology people.

Its a vicious circle most working denizens don’t realise, but only experience the brunt of the impact. This came to me as i was assessing the corporate situation of which I am part of, conveniently being a pawn for execution. Warning, more rants after this.

It starts with the appointment of the new CTO/CIO. Someone to lead the team into the next level (thats what they always say – shameless self plug). They (the C level person, let’s call him Mr C.) starts by observing the current workings of the existing environment. This is the phase of bridge building and identifying potential ally candidates.

During this phase, Mr C will then plan for an efficiency drive (basically head slashing and reorg, because that would the first management priority). At this point, a lot of issues tend to crop up as short term decisions made by the previous Mr B (the previous CIO/CTO) now comes to surface. Hence, first order of the day, FIRE FIGHTING. Besides that, many decisions made by Mr B would reflect very poor foresight and long term strategy. With the massive cost cutting and efficiency drive, decisions made previously has some full circle to haunt the company. Escalating OPEX, uncontrolled CAPEX and efficiency issues, not to mention additional fats in form of manpower.

Hence, the austerity drive of “re-organising”, or efficiency drive, or process alignment happens. At this point, if someone walks out of the organization, management would be more than happy to accept the resignation and will not even ponder upon replacement. To add pressure to the existing workforce, an unbearable work environment is forced upon, causing the rest of the staff to leave. What happens is that in most cases, instead of filtering the dead-weed out of the water, you get the fresh water (meaning the skilled employees and talents) leaving the organization. Once this is done, the management shows poor performance and that they need immediate approval to “turn” the company around and make it operationally viable again.

At this stage, the new Mr C will slowly bring in his trusted generals to execute his plans, depriving the existing staffs of a chance to be promoted. This is also due to the fact that Mr C works best in his style of management, existing staffs may not be able to adopt that level of working efficiency, which causes “unsuitability” of the existing workforce. Plus the only other way of breaking the existing corporate culture is to “inject” the “so-called” fresh blood. Some leaders would have accumulated mass “empires” or “little napoleons” who dictate how the company is run, and the re-org allows the management to dismantle the existing mini-empires into a more manageable clubs.

Most who have worked a decent amount of years would be privy to this happen repeatedly. Some may have gone through re-org so many times, its business as usual. Change is constant, and most of often than not, change is caused because it is a reason of convenience, rather than actual need driven.

Change is necessary for an organization to move forward. Change for the sake of change is counter-productive. Each leader wants to exert control and authority, hence this takes place. What’s bad is that a staff whose competent in one area is thrown into a completely unrelated area. Because of organization’s lack of proper process, documentation and control, some tasks are not handed down, documentations go missing, processes unclear.

Question to Mr C – is it worth it? The usual answer would be a big resounding YES. :)

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wget and downloading web contents

12
May 2010

So (first time i’m starting a sentence with the word so) i decided to do some research on some technical specification documents. And this glorious body/group that manages these standards have it on their website. *Sweet*

These documents (not a single document, but close to a hundred) was organized in multiple directories. So i thought, what the heck, might as well use fetch/wget to grab all the contents.

# wget -r http://random.web.st

Got the initial pages and the file robots.txt. After that nada, zip, zero. Tried that a couple of times with different switches, and still, no result.

After checking with some tweeple (thanks @alphaque), found out that wget actually conforms to the robots.txt. I guess i skipped the part of the man pages which spoke about the robots.txt . In order to make it work, i changed some stuff and hence, it worked automagically

Final outcome

# wget -r -w 10 -e robots=off http://random.web.st

-w # wait (for 10 seconds)

-r # recursive

-e robots=off #turn robots off

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WiMax is NOT 4G (why its abused)

29
Apr 2010

This has been going on for a long time, and for once we’ve found a clear definition of whether WIMAX qualifies to be called 4G (as how advertised by P1, a local Malaysia ISP).

I’ve always had strong opinions about how WiMAX (a technology which is helmed under IEEE) isn’t part of 4G. In fact the most recent conversation i had with @P1Media (suspiciously seems to be @AminAshaari due to the language and terms thats used). The conversation was public with the relevant points for your reading. I have my own assessment of the incident at the tail end of this entry, so if you’re bored of the convo, skip to the end.

Conversation started at 4:15pm on Wednesday 28 April 2010.

@sureshdr @P1Media since when was 4G been launched in MY? WIMAX isn’t 4G, stop misleading, pls!

@P1Media: What is 4G? what is 3G?

The PR personnel was trying to see whether i know my facts. Playing along.

@sureshdr @P1Media for an Internet company you guys don’t seem to know the availability of Google #fail
@P1Media @sureshdr funny guy. It seems to us you’re google. We use Bing most of the time :P

Again, diverting from the topic, trying to show that Google isn’t the only search engine. Fine, but they still didn’t check their facts yet.

@P1Media@sureshdr not spinning anything just sharing. Anyways ITU and IETF didn’t ratify 1/2/2.5/3.5G either. Technically speaking

@sureshdr @P1Media the generation term was never used for IETF based standards. Only RFCs. Care to explain why you didn’t include 3G in your list?

@sureshdr @P1Media what’s 3gpp then?

Note that I made a clear mistake. IETF wasn’t involved in WIMAX standards but it was IEEE (this wasn’t even ratified by P1, which means they trust me … hehehe +1)

@P1Media @sureshdr Our point exactly. On the 3G thing: Just missed it while typing. It was supposed to be 1/2/2.5/3/3.5/3.75G our bad :P

@P1Media @sureshdr 3GPP is something like the WiMAX forum a group of “people” progressing the technology

@P1Media @sureshdr thanks for the tip. Will read it up, hopefully can be as awesome as you :P

If facts don’t work, try flattery :) Thanks, but i’m allergic to bullshit :) Moving along. Special mention to @brianritchie who also jumped into the convo, together with @alphaque.

@P1Media @sureshdr its a program not an authority. Besides 3GPP is not concerned about WiMAX

Observe that the conversation just got diverted from whether WIMAX is 4G to how 3GPP relates to WIMAX. 3GPP website clearly states that – “3G Mobile System based on evolved GSM core networks and the radio access technologies that they support (i.e., Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) both Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) modes).” In laymans term, 3G Mobile Network based on GSM platform. (I don’t see WIMAX in this picture yet). Also, look at how 3GPP was downplayed (when it was a project by ITU/GSMA).

@sureshdr @P1Media it also clearly defines how the term “g” is used in the context of generations of mobile cellular networks governed by ITU.
@P1Media I have shown clear evidence that you are misleading the general public by equating 4g with Wimax. Doesn’t benefit to spin.
@P1Media @sureshdr guess the whole world is mislead then ;) Clear/Sprint/UQ/Yota/Intel/HTC/Motorola/Samsung/Huawei/ZTE are all in it too LoLs

Another tactic is to shift the blame. If everyone screws up, there’s nothing wrong with us. The same argument here about whether Clear/Sprint/UQ/Yota/Intel/HTC/Motorola/Samsung/Huawei/ZTE is an authority or not would be a big FAT no (didn’t P1 start with whose the authority here?)

I’ve played along long enough on giving them facts to support my claims, now time to turn the tables around.

@sureshdr @P1Media and yet you have not shown clear technical reference (except news media) on this topic.

@sureshdr @P1Media are you admitting that you are misleading the public? #in response to “everyone else claims”

@P1Media @sureshdr that’s a resounding – No. :)

@sureshdr @P1Media then show me technical facts (no pr bullcrap) to sustain your claims, instead of giving excuses.

@P1Media @sureshdr technical facts on…?

@sureshdr @P1Media why you claim wimax is 4g?

@P1Media @sureshdr because WiMAX is 4G :)

This is the point i say, that i’ve proven my point. PR is PR and technology is technology. But the conversation continues…

@alphaque @P1Media i remained quiet and still this ? but since u brought it up, nope, not by a long shot. :-) @brianritchie @sureshdr

@alphaque @P1Media actually it isnt, its just ur marketing claiming that. there’re no technical standards for 4G u can show. @sureshdr

@AminAshaari @alphaque our point exactly. Hence the question what is 3G and what is 4G? What is Turbo 3G for that matter? @sureshdr

@brianritchie @P1Media Do u have any P1 Technical Arch papers on ur technologies deployed open to public? I’d like to do some research @sureshdr @alphaque

At this point @AminAshaari decides to jump into the conversation. Brand & PR practitioner for P1.

@alphaque @AminAshaari 3G is defined by the ITU and the 3GPP. 4G is something u flers say is WiMax, but just admit its all mktg. @sureshdr

@AminAshaari @alphaque tell Intel that please. kthxbai @sureshdr :)

Here, blame game starts. Its more convenient to point fingers than to fess up.

@alphaque @AminAshaari sorry, ur advertisements carry your logo and @p1w1max’s name. why should i ask intel and not you ? @sureshdr

@alphaque @AminAshaari but its perfectly fine if @p1w1max can’t answer and wants to tai-chi it to intel instead. nice msg that sends. :-) @sureshdr

@AminAshaari @alphaque You’re missing the point but it’s ok. Can we just agree to disagree please @sureshdr

Waving white flag but not admitting error… Doesn’t sound right just yet.

@AminAshaari @alphaque 3G is a standard set by who? @sureshdr

@sureshdr ITU – refer to 3gpp RT @AminAshaari @alphaque 3G is a standard set by who?

@alphaque @AminAshaari already said it earlier down, ITU and 3GPP came up with the formal 3G standards. @sureshdr

@AminAshaari @sureshdr question again, is 3PP an authority? @alphaque

@alphaque @AminAshaari oh ok, questioning the ITU now ? well, lots of countries seem to think it is. in fact PM just got an award too ! :-) @sureshdr

@AminAshaari @alphaque Heard about the PM thing but am not questioning ITU. It’s 3GPP am asking about. @sureshdr

@alphaque @AminAshaari lotsa docs on 3GPP available, but it did produce a 3G standard with docs. 4G is just a mktg term u flers use. @sureshdr

@alphaque @AminAshaari even wikipedia uses 4G to reference ITU-R’s IMT Advanced, and certainly not WiMAX which is IEEE802.16 based. @sureshdr

@AminAshaari @alphaque The 3GPP docs are saying what 3G is. It didn’t set the standard. ITU did. ITU didn’t say what 3GPP said is definitive @sureshdr

At this point, its proven that the person talks from PR perspective. Any technical person knows that without the 3GPP standards which is ITU IMT-2000 standards, there is no standards nor interop in 3G networks.

@alphaque @AminAshaari so one can conclude that @p1w1max’s use of 4G is mktg spin to compete against perhaps LTE or IMT-Advanced. QED. @sureshdr

@AminAshaari @sureshdr does 3GPP.org define what authority is? :P @Alphaque #didn’t know that 3GPP is a random group of people :P

@AminAshaari @alphaque .16e is IMT-Advanced @sureshdr

@AminAshaari @alphaque sorry, I meant .16m :”> @sureshdr

@alphaque @AminAshaari arguably, but they dont provide service in msia. @p1w1max does and i am questioning P1, your employers. not others. @sureshdr

@AminAshaari @sureshdr IUT is looking at both .16m and LTE Advanced as 4G. Till then, it could be either or it could be both @alphaque

@alphaque @AminAshaari sorry, IEEE 802.16m HOPES to converge to ITU-R IMT-Advanced. it is not it yet, by far. big diff. two diff orgs. @sureshdr

@AminAshaari @alphaque agreed and like I said 3GPP is not interested in 802 standards. Till then it’s still up in the air and it could be both @sureshdr #hot air maybe?

@alphaque @AminAshaari ITU is looking at 802.16m ? when IEEE is the body developing it ? who’s confused here ? @sureshdr

@alphaque @AminAshaari but back to basics, @p1w1max’s use of 4G is purely mktg which could possibly confuse with LTE and IMT-A. use 802.16e @sureshdr

@AminAshaari @alphaque .16m is not like other 802 std. With its range and mobile capabilities, it is being considered as a 4G standard by ITU @sureshdr

@alphaque @AminAshaari in Oct 2007, ITU-R has included wimax into IMT-2000, which by definition makes wimax 3G, and not 4G. no ? :-) @sureshdr

@sureshdr @AminAshaari I’d like to see you substantiate your claims, any official press release from ITU’s website to support this? @alphaque

@AminAshaari @sureshdr Here you go | http://bit.ly/9YRQmc | @alphaque

@sureshdr Press release quotes the use of wimax as 3G, not 4G. RT @AminAshaari @sureshdr Here you go | http://bit.ly/9YRQmc | @alphaque

@sureshdr @AminAshaari “.16 incorporated into IMT-2000″. That means wimax is 3G. Doesn’t say e or m. @alphaque

@alphaque @AminAshaari err sorry mate, but see my tweet earlier. IMT-2000 is a 3G standard grping. not 4G. so Wimax is 3G now ! :-) @sureshdr

@alphaque @sureshdr exactly what i said earlier. looks like our friend @AminAshaari is confused and agrees now WiMAX is 3G & not 4G as @p1w1max claims

@AminAshaari @sureshdr IEEE is pushing for .16m as IMT-A, ITU is considering, till that’s finalised, its still up in the air people @alphaque

@AminAshaari @sureshdr @alphaque its been fun, but I gotta run. We should do this again sometime :)

At this point, there isn’t any further concrete evidence to support P1′s claims (though the debate was between the techies and the PR person).

My conclusion, P1 is using the term 4G for purely MARKETING purposes. Why 4G? To show its “superiorness” against 3G and so call legacy networks. To compete against 3G internet providers by indirectly knocking them down. Ethical? Go figure :)

Fact is 4G is work in progress, just like how WIMAX was a few years ago. For an established organization, what puzzles me is that the blatant lies thats told repeatedly to convince people of something that isn’t justified.

A spade is a spade. WIMAX is WIMAX. WiFi is WiFi. If WiMAX is 4G, what does that make WiFi? 2G? Its a serious insult to intelligence!

P1 would have resolved this much easier by just saying that the use of the term 4G was for marketing. But then again, when you look at the conversation, one has to wonder how the corporate culture is.

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Threat landscape for Malaysia (2009)

27
Apr 2010

These information was obtained from Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (http://www.microsoft.com/sir)

The MSRT detected malware on 4.0 out of every 1,000 computers scanned in Malaysia during 2H09 (a CCM score of 4.0—down from 5.1 in 1H09 and lower than the average worldwide CCM of 7.0). Figure 128 and Figure 129 list the malware and potentially unwanted software categories and families detected by all Microsoft desktop anti-malware products in Malaysia in 2H09.

Notes and observations:
• The threat landscape in Malaysia was dominated by malware, which accounted for 72.2 percent of all threats detected on infected computers in 2H09, up from 69.6 percent in 1H09.
• The most common category in Malaysia was Worms, which accounted for 27.8 percent of all infected computers, down from 28.1 percent in 1H09.
• The second-most common category in Malaysia was Miscellaneous Trojans, which includes all trojan families that are not classified as downloaders/droppers or backdoors, and accounted for 16.5 percent of all infected computers, down from 17.0 percent in 1H09.
• The category Trojan Downloaders & Droppers was significantly lower in Malaysia than in many other countries and regions around the world at 10.9 percent, up slightly from 10.4 percent in 1H09.

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So my blog got busted…

08
Apr 2010

Hardware failure caused the blog to go down. And yes, i did not archive my backups. So its a new beginning. Lets see if i have more time to write this time!

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