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Today my friend and fellow iOS developer went and bought his Mac Mini. On top of that, he bought the beautiful Apple wireless keyboard. I followed him and I bought the Apple Magic Trackpad. I have this to say: wow! What an experience. Now, surfing the net and doing things on the Mac are just about swiping, pinching - all natural gestures - like how you would use an iPad. I love the Magic Trackpad and would recommend it to anyone! It's really magical! Edit: let me elaborate why I think this is such a great device that, to me, totally replaced the need of a mouse; yes, you don't need a mouse anymore. It is that good! When I browse a website using Safari, I could just two-finger push up and down to scroll up and down a page. Scrolling was smooth, much like in iPad. I could just swipe left to go back to the page before and Safari actually animates the page being swiped out - if you use Twitter for iPad, you will know what I mean. Swipe right to emulate 'forward'...

Nowadays, as you drive around the city, you will see lots of car bumpers or rear glass with the white Apple logo. Thousands of them. And when the iPhone 4S was launche in Malaysia, there was a huge queue in KLCC. I heard that the maxis folks worked till 5am just selling and registering the phones. That was how popular an Apple product is. And Apple product creates a strong fanbase. I am an Apple fan. But I am one since 1988. Yes, 23 years ago! When I was in Form 3, I joined the computer club. My first computer in the computer club was an Apple 2 (it was written as Apple //). I think we had BMC clones of Apple 2 but the instructor's computer is a genuine Apple //e. It was my first exposure to a computer. I learned programming in it. I played games in it. This computer exposed me to the IT industry. I'm enthralled by it. 'It had me at Hello (world)'! When I was Form 5, my father bought me one of those Apple clone. It's a second hand one. I remembered it cost him R...

.. I am still exhausted every weekend .. I have no time to play computer games, no TV, not enough sleep and rest .. we don't go out very often Is something very wrong with me?

Unbelievable! A big screen GPS!!

When I got my Proton Wira, it come with box to store cassette. Yes, 4 redundant slot below the radio to store 4 measly cassettes. At that time, no CD ROM yet; I have a very old car. But today, with my super duper high tech iPhone 4 and Waze, I have found a great use for the cassette storage. Look at this!

The easiest way to improve Waze is just drive around with Waze turned on. Every time you travel, even if you are not using Waze to guide you, turn it on. You don't have to do anything. Waze will use the information from your journey to calculate average road speeds at the time you are driving, check for errors and improve road layout, and learn the direction of roads and which turns are allowed. However to avoid errors, these automatic updates need many, many accurately recorded routes before making an automatic change.  When you later use Waze for directions, you'll benefit from better routes using the information you helped collect  You don't need to make special trips with Waze. In fact Waze works best on your regular trips and commuting  With Waze on, you'll get free road reports on local traffic conditions automatically  If you travel to areas that are unmapped in Waze, you might try recording a new road. Just one button starts you on a map-making trip W...

This morning, Waze told me there was a road hazard ahead in NKVE because of a report by user. Sure enough, there was a tyre rubber. Isn't this GPS great? I think those Garmin devices can chup lup (close down their business) And you could also report if you see police... Look at this. So many polices along Sprint! This app makes me wants to buy those attachment where I can stick to the windscreen to hold the iPhone so it is at the same eye level as me... hope they are not expensive!

I don't often recommend apps in this blog. There are some really good iPhone apps: Awesome Notes, Reeder, Tapatalk, Tweetdeck, News360, etc. I just can't stop talking about Waze . I learned about Waze from a conversation with a colleague. She told me about this really good free GPS app to help a driver find their way around town. I asked if there is a Malaysia map and she said yes. So I was expecting a huge download only to realize that Waze is really a small foot print. Being skeptical, I tried it out. And I was pleasantly surprise! This is a true GPS. Very accurate. Even with a proper lady voice over at the appropriate point during the drive. I drove from Bangi back to PJ and it just works. In fact, it gave me 3 routes and I chose the fastest. It was able to take me back via Sg Besi road through Desa Waterpark into Federal Highway and Penchala Link. I was impressed. But it is not just any GPS. In Waze, there is a community of users. As you drive, you see little i...

I have friends, with families, who believes in living for the moment. What this means is that they don't believe in investing their salaries into property but instead are willing to rent houses (in good area like Bandar Utama or Damasara) and then enjoying life with the remaining money. They argue that if they were to take a mortgage, say around RM3000/month, it means that they need to be really frugal in their other spending. So, is this the way to live life? If they rent, say RM2000/month (which means they can live in a really good neighbourhood), they still have RM1000/mth. That's a lot of money to be had - which they could spend on, say, holidays.. or living very comfortable by switching on the a/c every night.. or eating out, giving better education to the children, etc, etc. Sometimes, I wonder if their way is a better way. Seriously, a lot of us who believes in owning properties are living with a very tight budget because of the mortgage. We have to be very careful wi...

A testament of how big an Apple fan I am, the following is a photo of an old Apple logo that is still attached to the back of my car. This logo must be at least 15 year old!

I love the iPad. I use it to read e-books purchased via Amazon Kindle. It's an amazing experience and very useful for new parent - while the kids are sleeping, you could be reading, even in semi darkness. Lately I discover another joy of reading - and it is comics! The major comics publishers are now going digital. Each comic is selling (during sales time) at $1 a copy! That is like 25% off. It's a great time to catch up on comics, which I have stopped following for about 10 years. iPad made it possible.. and made it pleasant. I find myself spending more and more on 'legal' content. Ouch.. but, still .. it is worth it!

Date Time          Location  Service Area Checkpoint Details Jun 29, 2011 10:06 Kul - KUL With delivery courier - Kul - KUL Jun 29, 2011 07:57 Kul - KUL Shipment on hold - Kul - KUL Jun 29, 2011 03:44 Kul - KUL Partial delivery - Kul - KUL Jun 29, 2011 01:51 Kul - KUL Arrived at delivery facility - Kul - KUL Jun 28, 2011 18:06 Szb - SZB Clearance processing complete - Szb - SZB Jun 27, 2011 21:15 Szb - SZB Clearance delay - Szb - SZB Jun 26, 2011 20:59 Szb - SZB Clearance delay - Szb - SZB Jun 25, 2011 20:31 Szb - SZB Clearance delay - Szb - SZB Jun 24, 2011 21:46 Szb - SZB Clearance delay - Szb - SZB Jun 24, 2011 18:40 Szb - SZB Processed for clearance - Szb - SZB Jun 24, 2011 15:43 Szb - SZB Transport Delay - Szb - SZB Jun 24, 2011 09:08 Hkg - HKG Transport Delay - Hkg - HKG Jun 24, 2011 06:22 Hhp - HHP Shipment on hold - Hhp - HHP Jun 24, 2011 00:14 Hhp - HHP Clearance processing complete - Hhp - HHP Jun 23, 2011 ...

I made a call to Apple Singapore today. I asked them the status of my order as I am supposed to get it today. The customer service rep was very pleasant. The first thing he said was to apologize that he has to disappoint me. He said that I will not be able to get it today and he's not able to give me a tentative date because of the fact that it is stuck in Malaysia custom. He promised to monitor my order for me and give me a call tomorrow (Wed) and Friday. And if there are no changes, he will continue to monitor and update me the following week. I told him I am very appreciative of this and I asked if there was anything he could do - nope, he said, unfortunately it is beyond him and beyond their shipping agent, DHL Express. But, and this was a surprise, he said he will give me a RM100 rebate (or a Smart Cover worth RM159). He just put this offer on the table and I wasn't even making a complaint! You gotta love Customer Support like that! I chose the RM100 rebate as I didn...

Beaurocratic or Incompetence? Above is the tracking status of the iPad 2 that I have ordered with Apple. Let me share with you some legend: SZX is Shenzen Airport HHP and HKG is Hong Kong SZB is Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport ie Subang Airport Malaysia. The iPad was shipped from Shenzen on 23 June at 9pm. It reached Hong Kong at 12am. And left Hong Kong at 9am on 24 June. It reached Subang Airport at 3pm same day, around 6 hours flight. It takes less than 24 hours to ship from China to Malaysia. But the package was STUCK AT SUBANG Custom for 6 days! What's wrong with our custom? Is it incompentence? Laziness? Or what? Seriously, internet transaction failed because of the custome clearance. GRRR!

Not many people know this but you can now place order of Apple products, including iPad 2, in the Apple Store Malaysia via apple.com/my The fulfilment of the order is still from Apple SG but that's ok, so long as the price is in MY. Also, the product is shipped directly from Apple's factory in China - so it doesn't matter. There is something special and fascinating about ordering online. The excitement you get when you received an email notifying you that the order is shipped to the satisfaction of being able to track where your package is. Yesterday evening, at around midnight, I received an email saying my order was shipped! That translate to 4 days in advance of a 2 weeks wait. I am so excited. That means, I will get the iPad 2 next Tuesday. Can't wait. I'm so excited it reminds me of my online order of iPod nano, which I shared in this blog. Somehow, the iPhone 4 didn't make me as excited. Like I said, maybe it is because of the little surp...

If you owned a Maybank Amex card, Starbucks is having a promotion of buy one free one drink! Yummilicious!

Inspired by e-lifesl's post on how much she didn't use the phone functionality of her iPhone 4 , I begin to think about my own usage. Here is the obligatory pie-chart, based on battery usage/day: Looks like I use the smart part of the smartphone but not so much of the phone itself. It's not bad. The amount of time I spent on iBooks these days are scary, which resulted in my ordering of the iPad 2. Can't wait for it to come next week!

I am so addicted to reading novels in iBooks or Amazon Kindle app in iPhone. Over the past 1.5 months, I have finished two Stephen King novels: The Shining and 'Salem's Lot. Both are really good book. I am now starting on George Martin's A Game of Thrones, currently running in HBO as a TV series. I just can't stop reading. And because of this addiction, I decided to buy an iPad 2. It's crazy... but I have this itch I needed to scratch. With my passion for iPhone, iPad should be a no brainer. My only complaint with the iPad is that it is heavy and iPad 2 is the same. The weight of the thing does not make it an ideal long term reading companion. But I just can't resist. I just had to own one.. and so, I clicked Purchase and ordered a iPad 2 32gb wifi model. Shipping in 2 weeks time. Can't wait!

The iPad 2 have been occupying my mind a lot. My fingers itched to press the Purchase button on Apple MY store. Help me!

Wow, I stumbled upon this in Facebook. Free movie tickets.. just create a IBM developerWorks profile, answer 3 simple question and voila.. a chance to win movie tickets for 2? Easy bitsy? Yup! Click here to sign up! First 20 early birds sign up wins movie tickets AND Starbucks voucher! I WANT!

Past one week I have not been gaming. I was hooked on reading Stephen King's The Shinning, a digital book I bought using Amazon Kindle. No, I don't own a Kindle, but the Kindle app runs on iOS. I find that it is very pleasant to read novels on the iOS. The Kindle app is easy to use, you can highlight text, put a 'dog ear' on the page to return to it and best of all, you can also see what other people around the world have highlighted - so you would may particular attention to the text :) And it has dark mode, meaning you can also read it in the dark without straining your eyes. And the best part - there is also a Kindle app for the PC, so if you are fed up of reading in iOS, you can fire up the PC app and you continue where you stopped! No more figuring out which pages. It auto syncs between devices. The best part about Kindle book, which I learned today is Lendle . You see, amazon.com allows owner of a Kindle book to lend it out to a friend for 14 days. During th...

This is a different labour cost. Not the maid cost but the cost of giving birth. I met the wife of an acquaintance this morning. Her baby just turned one. She asked if my wife has given birth and I said yes. The next question from her caught me aback. Maybe I was expecting the typical question like how heavy was the baby, is it a boy or girl, who does she looked like, etc. But what came from her mouth was how much and where was it delivered. And when I told her the cost, she exclaimed, how come so cheap. Life is full of strange people!

I feel bad. I went to the bank to have the maid's passbook updated as I just deposited her monthly salary into the account. Her total showed RM3,500. This is her take home pay after working 12 months with us! The reason is because she didn't get paid in the first 7 months - I did fork out the money but it went to the agent to process her travel, agency fee and what not. She only get paid on the 8th month. In fact, despite the rules, we still pay her RM100/month for the first 7 months. I feel that she should get some remuneration for the work she has done. Even then, the total still comes to a measly RM3,500. Seriously, something is wrong with the system!

What the bloody fuck? Did I read correctly? Chinese evening daily, Guan Ming, is reporting that teh will cost RM2, up from RM1.50 and teh ais will cost RM2.20, increase from RM1.70! WTF! This is a bloody 33% increase! Salary increment is flat and yet drinks are 33% more expensive. I bet you that this will create a lot of hardship for many people and will result in many social problems.

This morning, I was having breakfast in McDonald's Sungai Buloh. To my surprise, I saw about 10 blue collar workers - they were dressed in blue jumpsuit - the type where there is a zip in front, from the hip all the way to the collar - an attire typically worn by factory worker. It was then I realize that McDonald's weekly breakfast deal, which cost RM4.50 for a Saussage McMuffin with egg and a refillable coffee, is FAR cheaper than those found in coffee shop! A bowl of noodles and coffee in kopitiam could set you back RM6! Incredible.. to find that McDonald's, with its a/c and free wifi and refillable coffee, is cheaper than your father and mother's coffeeshop!

Justin Fletcher is a writer of a website called Quarter To Three, a gaming website. He recently became a father to a pair of twins and he wrote a series of "new dad" diaries, citing the death of gaming. He puts into words what I failed to describe to my friends when I attempt to tell them I have no time for gaming. It's an excellent read. Try this one: New dad diaries: altered states. An excerpt: "Technology can’t help. I can get all the baby monitors I want, but they won’t still the voice inside of me that says they’re faulty or broken or unreliable. That my son or daughter could be choking right now while I’m engrossed with exploring some digital fairyland to solve the Riddle of Whatzis and find the Smiting Sword of Smite. Is that really worth risking their safety? And even if one of the monitors worked perfectly, wouldn’t its hissing audio and flashing sound level indicators break the immersion anyway? So for now, immersion must take a back seat to situationa...

Why is it that our identity card is called MyKad, a mix of Bahasa and English? And the identity card for children is called MyKid, both words are English. Is Bahasa our national language or not? I'm so confuse.

Wow, Google has just improved Blogger to be able to show dynamic content in a variety of format such as: Timeslide: http://ringgit.blogspot.com/view/timeslide Snapshot: http://ringgit.blogspot.com/view/snapshot Sidebar: http://ringgit.blogspot.com/view/sidebar Which is your favourite? Now I can read my friend's blog and by-pass all the crappy gadgets they all have cluttered all over the blogs :)

So, AR, our psychologist in training, suggested that I put emotions to the few items I listed in my blog, “ Living In Malaysia ”. In that post, I questioned the viability to continue living in Malaysia as the future looks bleak. He said that once I put emotion to my list, I will be able to bring forth my unconscious mind, thereby, I will be able to tell if I am acting out of past traumatic emotions or that I am clear in my statement. This is so I don’t make a drastic decision based on generalizing and base on emotions. So here goes: Education – emotion – Disappointment – I didn’t do very well in STPM. But it wasn’t shabby either. But I was not offered a place in local University. On the other hand, my chocolate brethrens not only got into good University, some of them have government sponsored scholarship to overseas Universities. Things have not improved for the past 18 years after I graduate. I don’t think things will improved in the next 18 years when ...

Wow.. I just read about a really great app. As a standalone, I think this app will not work well. It is a group app. But even as a group, I believe it may not get the traction it deserves. But I can't imagine what it will value-add to app like Foursquare or Facebook Check In . It would be awesome! The app is called Color, not Colors. No S. Read about it here : An excerpt: "Color uses pattern recognition to figure out when multiple people are photographing the same event or object. In fact, it uses multiple criteria to figure out when people are in the same place paying attention to the same thing or kinds of things, then joins together their content streams within the app. Color picks the best pictures and features them, while sharing all pictures. So if you’re a concert and take a picture of a performer from the 20th row, you might see another picture of the same performer taken by someone in the 2nd row. At a concert, the pictures taken from all over would keep floo...

I think WSL or any photo blogger would appreciate this free app. It allows you to label your photo with masking tape, cellophone tape or those machine created letter protruding tape. Or even a flowery ribbon. And you can write on top of the label so people cannot steal your photos. All this is done within the iPhone itself. Simple and elegant. Take a look!

The photo above was taken at Jaya Grocer. Jaya Grocer is well known for carrying imported goods. They are in the same market as Cold Storage, bringing in imported stuff to cater for the more affluent folks. In the photo above, the Pringles can are of the same height but one of them is thinner. The thin one is cheaper by HALF and it doesn't taste like Pringles at all. It taste like Mr Potatoes. It's a local flavoured Pringles. I don't think it is a fake one but I think P&G decided to make it locally to keep the cost down. Otherwise who would be able to eat Pringles? This shows, yet again, how bad our inflation is and how we end up getting more inferior product - just like our condensed milk. I can tell the difference because I ate Pringles for 20 years. I find it unscrupulous of P&G to repackage Mr Potatoes as Pringles and as such I have boycott them. Sad. I really like the original Pringles.

After all the talk about inflation and education, I need alternative income. And as such, I have enabled Ad-Sense in my blog. Please support my writing (LOL!) Edit: I have also enhanced the blog post. Below each post you will see a "Reaction". If you like my post, please click it. If you dislike, click it also. Maybe I will consider what people like to read and write more of that. Or maybe not.

Back in 2002, I applied and received a permanent residence status to Australia. I still remember the one simple sentence on my visa: "bearer may remain in Australia indefinitely" . During my application, and that was in 2001, AUD$1 is equivalent to RM2.10. Today, AUD$1 is equivalent to RM3.00, an almost 42% increase. Something have gone awfully wrong, somewhere. If someone is a parent in 2000 and saving money for his daugher's Australia education, in 10 years time, this guy is 42% poorer. That means, his children education is almost cut BY HALF! Sure, there is fixed deposit but our FD rate is a measly 3%. So what can he do? His daughter will not be able to go Australia for education. He either need to take a loan (and he can only hope his age allows it) or his daughter will have to settle for .... and I paused in this sentence for almost a minute - because I can't think of a good alternative - is it twinning? ACCA? Local private colleges? Long distance study? Half w...

Over the past three weeks, I have been reflecting on what the future holds for the family. It's probably a phase many parents went through and I am no exception. This is the phase, during quiet moments when the baby was asleep, snoring peacefully, that each parent thought about what kind of life this baby will lead in the future. And I thought about what I can do to provide. And as I go through all the areas, which I will probably discuss in detail later, I become helpless. The future doesn't look that good. At least in Malaysia. And then I realize why we have so many friends/people leaving the country. First and foremost is education . Most parents would enrolled their children in Chinese school. I think there is no doubt in that. The state of our Kebangsaan school is in a shambles. I could attest to it as I reflect all the 'buat kerja sendiri' periods we had. And the blank faces of our teachers when we asked them questions that are out of the norm. And that was at a...

Spend RM5 and get two McD Big Breakfast for free!! Go go go!

Yup .. a spammer and bot called "Naked Unique Tits" are following my blog. Enjoy a commercial break while reading :)

If you were like me, recently owning a spiffy new and fast SSD drive, you will note with despair that when you sync your iPhone with iTunes, the software will back up your iPhone data into c:\users\ringgit\appdata. This is on a Windows 7 platform. There's nothing wrong with that except that the backup is stored in c: which is the SSD drive. While SSD is a fast drive, it comes in a very small size. My 120GB intel SSD cost RM720. With RM720, you would be able to get a 2TB (2048GB) drive! So speed comes with a price. And as such, you don't want those valuable storage space taken up by iPhone backup files. Typically, a iPhone has 32GB. So, a one time backup would take 32GB of the drive. Two backups would take 64GB and before long, my SSD would be full. Fortunately Windows 7 allows you to easily move your \appdata folder to another drive by clicking Folder Properties and clicking Move, much like how you would move your My Documents, My Pictures or My Music. Do that and your SS...

There are many coffee shops in Aman Suria. It's a good thing. I patron all of them except Sun Ying Loong. SYL is a famous coffee shop serving Ipoh's white coffee. Some said they are the original Ipoh White Coffee. There are two branches in PJ, one in A Suria and the other in K Damansara. The reason I don't drink there is because of bad service and expensive drink. They charged a premium to their teh tarik and coffee. About 30 or 40 sen extra. Why are they doing this and why do people continue to drink there is beyond me. It's not like they are a a/c place. They are just a normal coffee shop. Today I was eating at a new coffee shop. They charged the standard rate. But it got me thinking. Why have we not heard of a coffee shop charging Less than usual. I'd imaging the profit margin of drink is high and if you charge 20 sen cheaper, you should be able to pull in more crowd. But you don't hear of this at all. Instead, people continue to pay a premium. This explains ...

Yesterday I bought a 120GB intel Solid State Drive and my PC is on afterburner! Such amazing speed. SSD is the way to go if you could afford it. Windows runs like an iPad. App launches instantly! No wait time. My Windows Experience Index, a rating system of CPU, memory, gfx and HDD speed, are normally pulled down by the speed of the hard disk. With the SSD installed, Windows Experience Index report my CPU index of 7.1 and my HDD index as 7.5. For the first time ever, the hdd index is faster than the CPU index! This morning, I have also discovered two really cool PC utilities - seriously, they are so cool I want to blog about it. The first is called SpaceSniffer . Ever wonder how come your hard disk is running out of space? Which folder is the one that has huge unncessary files? Do you see yourself going to each folder and right click to check the properties to find the folder size? It's very tedious isn't it? SpaceSniffer is a cool exe (without needing to install) which wil...

They are right. Terrible Two is indeed Terrible. Little sen is just at v1.10, not even v2.0 and she's already behaving like a Terrible Two. Honestly, it's not something she could help it. She just couldn't find peace within herself - either because she fear sleeping, jealous of her upcoming sister or just too excited and too curious about everything that she would threw tantrum if her demands are not met. Sometimes, she doesn't even know what she wants. She knows what she don't want but she can't tell you what she wants. Is this just a baby thing - er.. no .. wait ... EVEN ADULTS ARE LIKE THAT! The only difference - she expressed it out loud while we adults just sucked it down and move on aimlessly. Anyway, she's just wearing all of us down............................. My only consolation - "this too, shall pass" - can't wait till she turn 3!

I have used iTunes since it was first introduced to Windows. Back then, it was iTunes 3 or 4, I think. I have stuck to iTunes and seen its growth, from just a simple media library to now a single powerful force in the industry. Since then, my library has grown from 200 songs to about 3700 songs. I spent almost a month just ripping my own CDs and getting all the cover album. Lots of efforts. It's no wonder I continue to stick to iTunes. Searching for songs is a breeze in iTunes and yet one of the reasons I love iTunes is the Smart Playlist capabilities. With Smart Playlist, you can generate a folder with dynamic songs - the playlist is populated based on conditions you set. My most used playlist is called "Old Favourites". This Smart Playlist has two conditions. It will choose songs that have 4 stars and above AND the songs have not been played for the past 3 months. That means whenever I clicked on this play list, I get to listen and discover music I have not heard ...

This morning, we went to McDonald's for breakfast. I didn't realize that their breakfast set, a Sausage McMuffin with Egg and a cup of refillable coffee, cost RM4.50! A burger and a coffee in an a/c environment now cost THE SAME as a bowl of wanton mee in a hot and stuffy Kopitiam! If you add a glass of teh, it would have cost RM6 plus, a lot more than McDonald's. That's unheard of!

A thought just occurred to me. If it is so attractive to work in Singapore due to the high exchange rate, how come majority of Chinese Malaysians go there. You hardly hear any Malay Malaysians going. Don't the Malays want money too? Puzzling!

15 years with the company and ALL I got is a lousy Pewter mug! Crap! It is so siah sui that I don't even want to dignify it by posting a photo of the mug.

Do you know this shopping complex? Is it Kota Raya? Pertama? Sogo? There are at least 7 lots that were empty. Many more empty lots opposite where I'm standing. You'll never guess that it is the famous 1 Utama Old Wing! Right at the end is TGV. The shops that were closed are Old Town White Coffee, Hello Nokia store, some toy store, can't remember what else... What's happening???

We have made cookies in our new-ish Teka oven before. It's pretty easy because we bought the premix stuff from supermarket, add egg and butter and then put them in oven. This time, we decided to start from scratch.. using the good ol flour and baking powder and shortening and some arcane baking stuff. Not bad! Ingredients bought from Bake with Yen in Taman Megah, near Mien Tien Use a Sharp mixer.. quite easy.. press button, the bowl will auto turn. Don't have to do anything. This is the hard part... rolling individual balls and letting them collect the corn flakes. And it's oily. Yucks! 20 min at 170 degree C and it's done! Recycle old containers and people would think that we bought this!