For the seventh consecutive December, the magazine looks back on the passing year through a special lens: ideas. Editors and writers trawl the oceans of ingenuity, hoping to snag in our nets the many curious, inspired, perplexing and sometimes outright illegal innovations of the past 12 months. Then we lay them out on the dock, flipping and flopping and gasping for air, and toss back all but those that are fresh enough for our particular cut of intellectual sushi. For better or worse, these are 70 of the ideas that helped make 2007 what it was. Enjoy.
Airborne Wind Turbines
Alzheimer’s Telephone Screening
Ambiguity Promotes Liking
Appendix Rationale, The
Best Way to Deflect an Asteroid, The
Biodegradable Coffins
Biofuel Race, The
Braille Tattoo, The
Cardboard Bridge, The
‘Cat Lady’ Conundrum, The
Climate Conflicts
Community Urinalysis
Craigslist Vengeance
Criminal Recycling
Crowdware
Culinary Orientalism
Death of Checkers, The
Digital Search Parties
Edible Cocktail, The
Electric Hockey Skate, The
Faces Decide Elections
Fake Tilt-Shift Photography
Fish-Flavored Fish
God Effect, The
Handshake Sex Appeal
Height Tax, The
Honeycomb Vase, The
Hope Can Be Worse Than Hopelessness
Iconic-Performance-Network Player, The
Indie-Rock Musicals
Interstellar Ramadan
Jogging Politique
Knot Physics
Lap-Dance Science
Left-Hand-Turn Elimination
Lightning Farms
Lite-Brite Fashion
Marijuana Mansions
Mindful Exercise
Minimal Chair, The
Mob Jurisprudence
Murphy Balcony, The
Neurorealism
Next Violin, The
Office-Chair Exercise (for Men and Women)
Pixelated Stained Glass
Pop Fecundity
Posthumous E-Mail
Postnuptial Agreements
Prison Poker
Quitting Can Be Good for You
Radiohead Payment Model, The
Right to Medical Self-Defense, The
Rock-Paper-Scissors Is Universal
Second-World Solidarity
Self-Righting Object, The
Smog-Eating Cement
Starch Made Us Human
Suing God
Telltale Food Wrapping
24/7 Alibi, The
Two-Birds-With-One-Stone Resistance
Unadapted Theatrical Adaptation, The
Vegansexuality
Wave Energy
Weapon-Proof School Gear
Wikiscanning
Wireless Energy
Youtube (Accidental) Audition, The
Zygotic Social Networking
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
10 Tips for Healthy Eating During Exams
10 Tips for Healthy Eating During Exams
posted in Tips and Techniques by Jessica Howard
When you're studying for finals, good nutrition often slides way down on the priority list. It’s easy to get into the habit of glugging coffee and gobbling take-out pizza, because you don’t want to waste time on food preparation. But, actually, good nutrition should be part of your study plan because it’s going to help you ace those tests. The better the fuel your brain gets, the better you’ll study. It’s a...well...no-brainer.
Here are 10 tips for eating right during exams:
How do I eat smarter? Meeting daily vitamin and mineral requirements will make doing your best much easier. Iron and B vitamins are especially important to maintaining the physical and mental energy necessary to study well. Iron-containing foods include red meat, cereals and spinach; one good meal idea is chili because it contains ground beef and kidney beans. Foods that contain B vitamins include whole-grains, wheat germ, eggs and nuts. Fish and soy are other foods that are said to help boost your brain by providing the nutrients it needs.
Dude, chewable Vitamin C is not a meal. Dietary supplements are good, but real food is better. An orange contains not only Vitamin C, but fibre, phytochemicals, beta carotene and other minerals – so it can’t be replaced by a pill. When you’re heading for the library, pack whole-food items like apples, bananas, clementines, carrot sticks or dried apricots.
Eat at regular intervals. Eating regular meals helps keep nutrient and energy levels more stable, curbing the temptation of empty-calorie snacks in the vending machine.
Big meals keep on turning … in your stomach. You might find that eating the standard three-big-meals-a-day slows you down mentally and physically. Consider 5 or 6 well-balanced, smaller meals, like toast spread with peanut butter, hummus or tuna, or a piece of cheese with fruit.
Meet breakfast, your new study buddy. While much is said about the reasons to eat breakfast, less known are the best ways to eat smart in the morning. Coffee and a donut just don't cut it. The idea is to get some protein, calcium, fibre and a piece of fruit or a vegetable in there. So, a bowl of cereal with milk and a piece of fruit would do the trick. Or try a cereal bar with milk. We have some additional quick breakfast ideas for you to enjoy!
Going bananas? Good. Fruit ranks high among the best foods you can eat for your brain. Blueberries (which can be bought frozen in bags) get a lot of attention because they contain powerful antioxidants and other nutrients. The natural sugars in fruit offer clean energy, so you don’t experience the crash that follows consumption of refined sugar.
Choose powerful vegetables. Not all vegetables are created equal. The darker the color, the higher the concentration of nutrients. For example, spinach has more to offer the mind and body than iceberg lettuce. Other great vegetable choices include bell peppers, broccoli and sweet potatoes.
Smart snacking can enhance studying. Snack smart while studying and you may find that you retain more. Try to get two food groups into your snacks to balance the nutrients and keep your blood-sugar level stable. Some smart snack examples are banana with peanut butter, a small baked potato with cottage cheese, or an English muffin pizza.
Gather simple recipes for nourishing foods. It's easy to feed the brain well. No-fuss recipes let you eat to succeed, without taking too much time. Here are four ideas:
Combine scrambled eggs with toast, cheese or salsa
Spend 15 minutes preparing chili and continue studying while it simmers for two hours
Go Tex Mex with quesadillas, adding whatever veggies you’ve got on hand
A little chopping is all it takes to construct a hearty Chef’s Salad
Stay well hydrated. Choose your beverages well, though. Caffeine and sugar should be kept to a minimum. Since too much caffeine can make you jittery, try to drink moderate amounts: 400 to 450 mg per day, the equivalent of 2/2.5 cups, (16 to 20 ounces or 500 to 625 ml). Better choices include water, fruit juice, milk, and anti-oxidant-rich green tea.
Good luck!
Click here for Original Article
posted in Tips and Techniques by Jessica Howard
When you're studying for finals, good nutrition often slides way down on the priority list. It’s easy to get into the habit of glugging coffee and gobbling take-out pizza, because you don’t want to waste time on food preparation. But, actually, good nutrition should be part of your study plan because it’s going to help you ace those tests. The better the fuel your brain gets, the better you’ll study. It’s a...well...no-brainer.
Here are 10 tips for eating right during exams:
How do I eat smarter? Meeting daily vitamin and mineral requirements will make doing your best much easier. Iron and B vitamins are especially important to maintaining the physical and mental energy necessary to study well. Iron-containing foods include red meat, cereals and spinach; one good meal idea is chili because it contains ground beef and kidney beans. Foods that contain B vitamins include whole-grains, wheat germ, eggs and nuts. Fish and soy are other foods that are said to help boost your brain by providing the nutrients it needs.
Dude, chewable Vitamin C is not a meal. Dietary supplements are good, but real food is better. An orange contains not only Vitamin C, but fibre, phytochemicals, beta carotene and other minerals – so it can’t be replaced by a pill. When you’re heading for the library, pack whole-food items like apples, bananas, clementines, carrot sticks or dried apricots.
Eat at regular intervals. Eating regular meals helps keep nutrient and energy levels more stable, curbing the temptation of empty-calorie snacks in the vending machine.
Big meals keep on turning … in your stomach. You might find that eating the standard three-big-meals-a-day slows you down mentally and physically. Consider 5 or 6 well-balanced, smaller meals, like toast spread with peanut butter, hummus or tuna, or a piece of cheese with fruit.
Meet breakfast, your new study buddy. While much is said about the reasons to eat breakfast, less known are the best ways to eat smart in the morning. Coffee and a donut just don't cut it. The idea is to get some protein, calcium, fibre and a piece of fruit or a vegetable in there. So, a bowl of cereal with milk and a piece of fruit would do the trick. Or try a cereal bar with milk. We have some additional quick breakfast ideas for you to enjoy!
Going bananas? Good. Fruit ranks high among the best foods you can eat for your brain. Blueberries (which can be bought frozen in bags) get a lot of attention because they contain powerful antioxidants and other nutrients. The natural sugars in fruit offer clean energy, so you don’t experience the crash that follows consumption of refined sugar.
Choose powerful vegetables. Not all vegetables are created equal. The darker the color, the higher the concentration of nutrients. For example, spinach has more to offer the mind and body than iceberg lettuce. Other great vegetable choices include bell peppers, broccoli and sweet potatoes.
Smart snacking can enhance studying. Snack smart while studying and you may find that you retain more. Try to get two food groups into your snacks to balance the nutrients and keep your blood-sugar level stable. Some smart snack examples are banana with peanut butter, a small baked potato with cottage cheese, or an English muffin pizza.
Gather simple recipes for nourishing foods. It's easy to feed the brain well. No-fuss recipes let you eat to succeed, without taking too much time. Here are four ideas:
Combine scrambled eggs with toast, cheese or salsa
Spend 15 minutes preparing chili and continue studying while it simmers for two hours
Go Tex Mex with quesadillas, adding whatever veggies you’ve got on hand
A little chopping is all it takes to construct a hearty Chef’s Salad
Stay well hydrated. Choose your beverages well, though. Caffeine and sugar should be kept to a minimum. Since too much caffeine can make you jittery, try to drink moderate amounts: 400 to 450 mg per day, the equivalent of 2/2.5 cups, (16 to 20 ounces or 500 to 625 ml). Better choices include water, fruit juice, milk, and anti-oxidant-rich green tea.
Good luck!
Click here for Original Article
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Geek! SQL or Java?
Typical hard core (and perhaps inexperience) OO developer will despise others that put business logics in somewhere not their sphere of influences, well, let say in database server in the form of SQL stored procedures or UDF. To a certain extent, me as an overlord in OO realm (:p), agreed on this obstinated design decision, but sometime over engineering an application design will bring only undesirable consequences.
Design is all about trade offs, trade offs and trade offs. There is time when you should capitalize on platform specific features to make your life simpler and meeting the supposed functionalities. Remember the MERGE statement in my previous blog, LOL
Putting logics in database layer have advantages and disadvantages. Especially in this age of messy system integrations and consolidations, more than one application tends to access the same relational data sources.
You should notice by now around you, if the corporate IT environment involves lots of enterprise applications, that exact same logics were replicated across horizontally aligned systems. Changes are foreseen to be challenging.
The good news is you can use your existing knowledge and put it upfront in IBM DB2 environment. Support for Java Stored Procedures and UDFs is there for quite sometime, but their popularity still not exceptionally high, maybe due to the fact that data layer programmers' preference on SQL as prime language.
Basically what you need to do are (For Windows):
1. Put your logic in a Java class' static methods
2. Copy the compiled bytecodes in the specified DB2 directory, depending on whether it is FENCED or UNFENCED (for UDFs). or call a system SP to install the packaged JAR that contains the bytecodes.
3. Issue CREATE FUNCTION/PROCEDURE with proper options to the external Java methods.
That's all. Simple right? Of course NO, there are other critical considerations when using Java SP/UDFs.
Check out the REDBOOK here
Good luck, Folks.
Design is all about trade offs, trade offs and trade offs. There is time when you should capitalize on platform specific features to make your life simpler and meeting the supposed functionalities. Remember the MERGE statement in my previous blog, LOL
Putting logics in database layer have advantages and disadvantages. Especially in this age of messy system integrations and consolidations, more than one application tends to access the same relational data sources.
You should notice by now around you, if the corporate IT environment involves lots of enterprise applications, that exact same logics were replicated across horizontally aligned systems. Changes are foreseen to be challenging.
The good news is you can use your existing knowledge and put it upfront in IBM DB2 environment. Support for Java Stored Procedures and UDFs is there for quite sometime, but their popularity still not exceptionally high, maybe due to the fact that data layer programmers' preference on SQL as prime language.
Basically what you need to do are (For Windows):
1. Put your logic in a Java class' static methods
2. Copy the compiled bytecodes in the specified DB2 directory, depending on whether it is FENCED or UNFENCED (for UDFs). or call a system SP to install the packaged JAR that contains the bytecodes.
3. Issue CREATE FUNCTION/PROCEDURE with proper options to the external Java methods.
That's all. Simple right? Of course NO, there are other critical considerations when using Java SP/UDFs.
Check out the REDBOOK here
Good luck, Folks.
Handle Slowly Changing Dimension in DB2
Excerpt from WWW about Slowly Changing Dimension:
Well, you might be naive (talented?) enough to write your own framework to manage the slowly changing dimensions in your environment, however it is good to know that there is a handy tool at your disposal to minimize the plumbing works for those data management scenarios.
As of IBM DB2 version 8.1 FixPack 2 or later, MERGE statement is introduced.
The example below illustrates how Merge can take data from a staging table and use it to update or create dimension members accordingly.
Do you think life is better now?
Complete Syntax on DB2 Merge Statement
The "Slowly Changing Dimension" problem is a common one particular to data warehousing. In a nutshell, this applies to cases where the attribute for a record varies over time. We give an example below:
Christina is a customer with ABC Inc. She first lived in Chicago, Illinois. So, the original entry in the customer lookup table has the following record:
Customer Key Name State
1001 Christina Illinois
At a later date, she moved to Los Angeles, California on January, 2003. How should ABC Inc. now modify its customer table to reflect this change? This is the "Slowly Changing Dimension" problem.
There are in general three ways to solve this type of problem, and they are categorized as follows:
Type 1: The new record replaces the original record. No trace of the old record exists.
Type 2: A new record is added into the customer dimension table. Therefore, the customer is treated essentially as two people.
Type 3: The original record is modified to reflect the change.
Well, you might be naive (talented?) enough to write your own framework to manage the slowly changing dimensions in your environment, however it is good to know that there is a handy tool at your disposal to minimize the plumbing works for those data management scenarios.
As of IBM DB2 version 8.1 FixPack 2 or later, MERGE statement is introduced.
The example below illustrates how Merge can take data from a staging table and use it to update or create dimension members accordingly.
MERGE INTO
DWH.DIM_COMPANY AS TARGET
USING
(SELECT ID, NAME, PHONE FROM DWHSTAG.COMPANY) AS SOURCE
ON SOURCE.ID = TARGET.ID
WHEN MATCHED THEN
UPDATE SET (NAME,PHONE)=(SOURCE.NAME,SOURCE.PHONE)
WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN
INSERT (ID, NAME, PHONE) VALUES (SOURCE.ID, SOURCE.NAME, SOURCE.PHONE)
ELSE IGNORE;
Do you think life is better now?
Complete Syntax on DB2 Merge Statement
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
DB2 Changing Statement Terminator Symbol
When you pass in -t command option to DB2 CLP, the delimiter ; (Semi colon) is turn on for enabling you to enter multiple statement lines before submitting it. This is typically acceptable behavour when you need to submit a single statement that encompassing multiple lines in the console.
What if you need to submit a large and complex stored procedure creation script to CLP? You can save the codes in a physical file then use db2 -t -f myProc.sql.
Then you hit errors that doesn't make sense at all.
Most probably the query parser is confused with the statement terminator and your substatement terminator. Substatements, such as those that you embedded in your stored procedure are forced to use ; as their termination character. In this case, when the parser encounter the first embedded semicolon, it would think that the statement is ready for parsing. Ta da. it strew up.
So, a better command would be "db2 -td# -f myProc.sql" assuming you are using # symbol as your statement terminator.
Yet, you might face another issue of encountering multiple different statement terminator in the same CLP session.
So you decide to
db2 -td#
select * from syscat.tables#
quit#
db2 -td$
select * from syscat.columns$
quit$
This example is trivial, but you get my point.
So, is there a better solution? O yeah, you can use one of the DB2 Control Option in the form of:
--#SET TERMINATOR
For example:
db2 -t
SELECT * FROM SYSCAT.TABLES FETCH FIRST 1 ROW ONLY;
--#SET TERMINATOR #
SELECT * FROM SYSCAT.COLUMNS FETCH FIRST 1 ROW ONLY#
--#SET TERMINATOR $
VALUES (1)$
Similar approach can be adopted in Java DB2 programming by submitting it as part of the query you sent to DB2.
What if you need to submit a large and complex stored procedure creation script to CLP? You can save the codes in a physical file then use db2 -t -f myProc.sql.
Then you hit errors that doesn't make sense at all.
Most probably the query parser is confused with the statement terminator and your substatement terminator. Substatements, such as those that you embedded in your stored procedure are forced to use ; as their termination character. In this case, when the parser encounter the first embedded semicolon, it would think that the statement is ready for parsing. Ta da. it strew up.
So, a better command would be "db2 -td# -f myProc.sql" assuming you are using # symbol as your statement terminator.
Yet, you might face another issue of encountering multiple different statement terminator in the same CLP session.
So you decide to
db2 -td#
select * from syscat.tables#
quit#
db2 -td$
select * from syscat.columns$
quit$
This example is trivial, but you get my point.
So, is there a better solution? O yeah, you can use one of the DB2 Control Option in the form of:
--#SET TERMINATOR
For example:
db2 -t
SELECT * FROM SYSCAT.TABLES FETCH FIRST 1 ROW ONLY;
--#SET TERMINATOR #
SELECT * FROM SYSCAT.COLUMNS FETCH FIRST 1 ROW ONLY#
--#SET TERMINATOR $
VALUES (1)$
Similar approach can be adopted in Java DB2 programming by submitting it as part of the query you sent to DB2.
Edmund Santhara is Malaysia’s Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year
by Joyce Au-Yong & Ooi Ying Nee
KUALA LUMPUR: Masterskill (M) Sdn Bhd’s CEO Edmund Santhara is Malaysia’s Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year 2007, triumphing over Master category nominees who have contributed to the business world for more than six years.
Edmund was chosen from a selection of 13 outstanding entrepreneurs, each and everyone of them, leading captains of industry in their own right. This is the first year that the recipient of the award is not from the Master Category.
The 36-year-old also walked away with the Emerging Entrepreneur of The Year award.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Effendi Norwawi presented the awards at the ceremony here last night.
Speaking on behalf of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Effendi, said: “More and more, we see how our entrepreneurs matter towards nation building in today’s increasingly global economy.
The tide has certainly turned, given the emphasis on the private sector-led growth in our national development.
“The Ninth Malaysia Plan targets a 60% private sector growth contribution as opposed to 40% in the Eighth Malaysia Plan. This would mean that the ratio of public to private contribution would be reversed from 60:40 to 40:60 by 2010,” he said.
E&Y Malaysia chairman Datuk Dr Abdul Samad Alias said: “Our government support for entrepreneurship is noteworthy especially with its incentives and fund allocation to this sector. This year is particularly special as it coincides with the 50th year of independence.
“We celebrate 50 years of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs from all walks of life play a significant role in shaping the economy. Without doubt, entrepreneurs would have and will continue to play a significant role by 2020, turning dreams into reality, hoping to inspire and motivate the next generation of entrepreneurship.”
“I am very excited and surprised to win this award. I am also extremely touched,” Edmund said, adding that his winning the award would propel Masterskill to further growth.
Masterskill is the operator of Masterskill Nursing and Allied Health that offers courses in pharmacy, physiotherapy and lab technology. In just two years, Edmund transformed Masterskill by implementing various measures such as procuring study loans from various funds and revolutionising the nursing and healthcare educational delivery system.
The company has also achieved 100% employability for all its graduates. Edmund will represent Malaysia at the global Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year Award to be held at Monte Carlo in May next year. The global event will see 50 of the world’s best entrepreneurs vying for the coveted title.
Founder and managing director of retail chain Mydin Mohamed Holdings Bhd, Datuk Ameer Ali Mydin was presented The Masters Category Award yesterday. Ameer is credited for turning the humble hypermarket into a company that made a pre-tax profit of RM50 million and employs 6,500 workers. Mydin competes with the likes of Tesco, Carrefour and Giant.
Nigel Lee Siew Tat, the CEO of Mesdaq listed TechnoDex Bhd, was given the Technology Category Award. TechnoDex Bhd is an e-business solutions company that currently has offices in China, Australia and Vietnam. Under Lee’s leadership, the company provides Malaysia’s first homegrown open source technologies software platform.
Co-founder of TA Enterprise Bhd, Datin Alicia Tan Kuay Fong, received the Women’s Category Award. TA is the first stock broking firm to be listed on Bursa Malaysia, and is one of the top retail stockbrokers in the country. Due to Tan’s foresight, the company has diversified into property development, becoming a leader by setting the pricing and concept benchmarks for luxury properties.
“We take great pride in the role we have played, and will continue to play in celebrating the story of how so many hard-won dreams have come true. It was indeed a challenge for the judges to select one single award recipient, as each top nominee is a winner in his or her own right,” said See Huey beng, country managing partner, Ernst & Young in a statement yesterday.
The four entrepreneurs emerged as winners out of a total of 13 nominees. Some of the judges include previous Malaysia Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2006, Datuk Tony Fernandes, group CEO of AirAsia Bhd; Vincent Leusner, president of the American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce; and Datuk Dr Abu Talib Bachik, senior vice-president of the Technopreneur Development Division, Multimedia Development Corporation.
Last year’s winners include Emerging Entrepreneurs of the Year, brothers Kenny Goh Chee Ken and Henry Goh Chee Heng, respectively CEO and COO of Macro Kiosk Bhd; Technology Entrepreneur of the Year, Simon Loh Wee Hian, non executive director of e-pay (M) Sdn Bhd and Nafisah Radin, principal architect of NR Architect, who clinched the Woman Entrepreneur Award.
The Edge is the official media sponsor.
by Joyce Au-Yong & Ooi Ying Nee
KUALA LUMPUR: Masterskill (M) Sdn Bhd’s CEO Edmund Santhara is Malaysia’s Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year 2007, triumphing over Master category nominees who have contributed to the business world for more than six years.
Edmund was chosen from a selection of 13 outstanding entrepreneurs, each and everyone of them, leading captains of industry in their own right. This is the first year that the recipient of the award is not from the Master Category.
The 36-year-old also walked away with the Emerging Entrepreneur of The Year award.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Effendi Norwawi presented the awards at the ceremony here last night.
Speaking on behalf of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Effendi, said: “More and more, we see how our entrepreneurs matter towards nation building in today’s increasingly global economy.
The tide has certainly turned, given the emphasis on the private sector-led growth in our national development.
“The Ninth Malaysia Plan targets a 60% private sector growth contribution as opposed to 40% in the Eighth Malaysia Plan. This would mean that the ratio of public to private contribution would be reversed from 60:40 to 40:60 by 2010,” he said.
E&Y Malaysia chairman Datuk Dr Abdul Samad Alias said: “Our government support for entrepreneurship is noteworthy especially with its incentives and fund allocation to this sector. This year is particularly special as it coincides with the 50th year of independence.
“We celebrate 50 years of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs from all walks of life play a significant role in shaping the economy. Without doubt, entrepreneurs would have and will continue to play a significant role by 2020, turning dreams into reality, hoping to inspire and motivate the next generation of entrepreneurship.”
“I am very excited and surprised to win this award. I am also extremely touched,” Edmund said, adding that his winning the award would propel Masterskill to further growth.
Masterskill is the operator of Masterskill Nursing and Allied Health that offers courses in pharmacy, physiotherapy and lab technology. In just two years, Edmund transformed Masterskill by implementing various measures such as procuring study loans from various funds and revolutionising the nursing and healthcare educational delivery system.
The company has also achieved 100% employability for all its graduates. Edmund will represent Malaysia at the global Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year Award to be held at Monte Carlo in May next year. The global event will see 50 of the world’s best entrepreneurs vying for the coveted title.
Founder and managing director of retail chain Mydin Mohamed Holdings Bhd, Datuk Ameer Ali Mydin was presented The Masters Category Award yesterday. Ameer is credited for turning the humble hypermarket into a company that made a pre-tax profit of RM50 million and employs 6,500 workers. Mydin competes with the likes of Tesco, Carrefour and Giant.
Nigel Lee Siew Tat, the CEO of Mesdaq listed TechnoDex Bhd, was given the Technology Category Award. TechnoDex Bhd is an e-business solutions company that currently has offices in China, Australia and Vietnam. Under Lee’s leadership, the company provides Malaysia’s first homegrown open source technologies software platform.
Co-founder of TA Enterprise Bhd, Datin Alicia Tan Kuay Fong, received the Women’s Category Award. TA is the first stock broking firm to be listed on Bursa Malaysia, and is one of the top retail stockbrokers in the country. Due to Tan’s foresight, the company has diversified into property development, becoming a leader by setting the pricing and concept benchmarks for luxury properties.
“We take great pride in the role we have played, and will continue to play in celebrating the story of how so many hard-won dreams have come true. It was indeed a challenge for the judges to select one single award recipient, as each top nominee is a winner in his or her own right,” said See Huey beng, country managing partner, Ernst & Young in a statement yesterday.
The four entrepreneurs emerged as winners out of a total of 13 nominees. Some of the judges include previous Malaysia Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2006, Datuk Tony Fernandes, group CEO of AirAsia Bhd; Vincent Leusner, president of the American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce; and Datuk Dr Abu Talib Bachik, senior vice-president of the Technopreneur Development Division, Multimedia Development Corporation.
Last year’s winners include Emerging Entrepreneurs of the Year, brothers Kenny Goh Chee Ken and Henry Goh Chee Heng, respectively CEO and COO of Macro Kiosk Bhd; Technology Entrepreneur of the Year, Simon Loh Wee Hian, non executive director of e-pay (M) Sdn Bhd and Nafisah Radin, principal architect of NR Architect, who clinched the Woman Entrepreneur Award.
The Edge is the official media sponsor.
Govt to allow Tenaga to pass cost through to consumers
You see what I meant now? Crap.
Govt to allow Tenaga to pass cost through to consumers
by Tamimi Omar
KUALA LUMPUR: The government will allow Tenaga Nasional Bhd to pass any increase in gas prices to consumers when a review of the fuel subsidy takes place.
Second Finance Minister Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop said Tenaga would not be adversely affected if and when a review of the gas price takes place. He also refused to comment on when the review may take place.
“If and when the review takes place, Tenaga will not be adversely affected. And if Tenaga is affected, there will be a pass through,” he told reporters after a signing ceremony between CIMB and Pelaburan Hartanah Bumiputera Bhd here yesterday.
At present, based on an arrangement brokered by the government, Tenaga gets its gas at a subsidised price of RM6.40 per million British Thermal Unit (mmbtu) from Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas). The current market price is about RM12 per mmbtu or even higher depending on the demand.
The difference between the market price and the subsidised price has caused Petronas to incur a huge opportunity cost in supplying gas at a cheap rate to Tenaga. For instance in the financal year ended March 31, 2007, Petronas incurred a cost of RM15.6 billion to supply subsidised gas, an increase of 9.1% from a year earlier.
The subsidy includes RM5 billion for Tenaga, RM6.7 billion for independent power producers (IPPs) and RM3.9 billion for industrial, commercial and residential users .
In light of the increasing subsidy, Petronas had in September this year, proposed to the government to raise the price of natural gas supplied to Tenaga and independent power producers. The agreement between Petronas and Tenaga had long expired and is being renewed on a monthly basis currently.
In relation to the subsidy, Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik had two weeks ago said that Tenaga and the IPPs will re-commence negotiations to review the power purchase agreement (PPA) which determines the electricity tariff. The first round of negotiations started a year ago but ended without an agreement.
Meanwhile Tenaga’s share price jumped 45 sen to close at RM9.70 on the back of positive comments by Nor Mohamed. His comments essentially confirmed an analyst report that Tenaga would not be affected by any gas price increase as it will be passed through to consumers.
CIMB Research in a report upgrading Tenaga stated that apart from a pass through of any gas price increase, another positive development for the utility is that it is seeing a stronger than expected demand for electricity.
Govt to allow Tenaga to pass cost through to consumers
by Tamimi Omar
KUALA LUMPUR: The government will allow Tenaga Nasional Bhd to pass any increase in gas prices to consumers when a review of the fuel subsidy takes place.
Second Finance Minister Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop said Tenaga would not be adversely affected if and when a review of the gas price takes place. He also refused to comment on when the review may take place.
“If and when the review takes place, Tenaga will not be adversely affected. And if Tenaga is affected, there will be a pass through,” he told reporters after a signing ceremony between CIMB and Pelaburan Hartanah Bumiputera Bhd here yesterday.
At present, based on an arrangement brokered by the government, Tenaga gets its gas at a subsidised price of RM6.40 per million British Thermal Unit (mmbtu) from Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas). The current market price is about RM12 per mmbtu or even higher depending on the demand.
The difference between the market price and the subsidised price has caused Petronas to incur a huge opportunity cost in supplying gas at a cheap rate to Tenaga. For instance in the financal year ended March 31, 2007, Petronas incurred a cost of RM15.6 billion to supply subsidised gas, an increase of 9.1% from a year earlier.
The subsidy includes RM5 billion for Tenaga, RM6.7 billion for independent power producers (IPPs) and RM3.9 billion for industrial, commercial and residential users .
In light of the increasing subsidy, Petronas had in September this year, proposed to the government to raise the price of natural gas supplied to Tenaga and independent power producers. The agreement between Petronas and Tenaga had long expired and is being renewed on a monthly basis currently.
In relation to the subsidy, Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik had two weeks ago said that Tenaga and the IPPs will re-commence negotiations to review the power purchase agreement (PPA) which determines the electricity tariff. The first round of negotiations started a year ago but ended without an agreement.
Meanwhile Tenaga’s share price jumped 45 sen to close at RM9.70 on the back of positive comments by Nor Mohamed. His comments essentially confirmed an analyst report that Tenaga would not be affected by any gas price increase as it will be passed through to consumers.
CIMB Research in a report upgrading Tenaga stated that apart from a pass through of any gas price increase, another positive development for the utility is that it is seeing a stronger than expected demand for electricity.
Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia
Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia
Find out how your peers are dealing with Virtualization Exclusive On the surface, all is well in Wikiland. Just last week, a headline from The San Francisco Chronicle told the world that "Wikipedia's Future Is Still Looking Up," as the paper happily announced that founder Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales plans to expand his operation with a high-profile move to the city by the bay.
But underneath, there's trouble brewing.
Controversy has erupted among the encyclopedia's core contributors, after a rogue editor revealed that the site's top administrators are using a secret insider mailing list to crackdown on perceived threats to their power.
Many suspected that such a list was in use, as the Wikipedia "ruling clique" grew increasingly concerned with banning editors for the most petty of reasons. But now that the list's existence is confirmed, the rank and file are on the verge of revolt.
Revealed after an uber-admin called "Durova" used it in an attempt to enforce the quixotic ban of a longtime contributor, this secret mailing list seems to undermine the site's famously egalitarian ethos. At the very least, the list allows the ruling clique to push its agenda without scrutiny from the community at large. But clearly, it has also been used to silence the voice of at least one person who was merely trying to improve the encyclopedia's content.
"I've never seen the Wikipedia community as angry as they are with this one," says Charles Ainsworth, a Japan-based editor who's contributed more feature articles to the site than all but six other writers. "I think there was more hidden anger and frustration with the 'ruling clique' than I thought and Durova's heavy-handed action and arrogant refusal to take sufficient accountability for it has released all of it into the open."
Kelly Martin, a former member of Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee, leaves no doubt that this sort of surreptitious communication has gone on for ages. "This particular list is new, but the strategy is old," Martin told us via phone, from outside Chicago. "It's certainly not consistent with the public principles of the site. But in reality, it's standard practice."
Meanwhile, Jimbo Wales has told the community that all this is merely a tempest in a teacup. As he points out, the user that Durova wrongly banned was reinstated after a mere 75 minutes. But it would seem that Jimbo has done his best to suppress any talk of the secret mailing list.
Whatever the case, many longtime editors are up-in-arms. And the site's top administrators seem more concerned with petty site politics than with building a trustworthy encyclopedia. "The problem with Wikipedia is that, for so many in the project, it's no longer about the encyclopedia," Martin wrote in a recent blog post. "The problem is that Wikipedia's community has defined itself not in terms of the encyclopedia it is supposedly producing, but instead of the people it venerates and the people it abhors."
Bang! Bang! You're dead
On November 18, Durova banned a Wikipedia editor known as "!!". Yes, "!!". Some have taken to calling him "Bang Bang." At Wikipedia, everyone has the right to anonymity, and user names are often, shall we say, inexplicable.
In banning this account, Durova described it as an "abusive sock puppet," insisting it was setup by someone dead set on destroying the encyclopedia. "This problem editor is a troublemaker whose username is two exclamation points with no letters," read the block. "He is a ripened sock with a padded history of redirects, minor edits, and some DYK work. He also indulges in obscene trolling in German, and free range sarcasm and troublemaking. If you find this user gloating, or spot his nasty side, hit him with the banhammer." DYKs are edits made to the "Did You Know" section of the Wikipedia home page.
Durova then posted a notice to the site's public forum, insisting the ban was too important for discussion outside the purview of the Arbitration Committee, Wikipedia's Supreme Court. "Due to the nature of this investigation, our normal open discussion isn't really feasible," she said. "Please take to arbitration if you disagree with this decision."
But it was discussed. At length. Countless editors were nothing less than livid, many arguing that the banned user was actually a wonderfully productive editor. "Durova, you're really going to have to explain this," wrote one editor. "I see no transgressions of any kind on the part of this user; indeed, with over 100 DYKs, he seems to be a pretty positive force around here."
Meanwhile, Durova continued to insist that she had some sort of secret evidence that could only be viewed by the Arbitration Committee. "I am very confident my research will stand up to scrutiny," she said. "I am equally confident that anything I say here will be parsed rather closely by some disruptive banned sockpuppeteers. If I open the door a little bit it'll become a wedge issue as people ask for more information, and then some rather deep research techniques would be in jeopardy."
Then someone posted a private email from Durova in which she divulged her evidence - and revealed the secret mailing list.
Wikiparanoia
Basically, Durova's email showed that Bang Bang was indeed a wonderfully productive editor. She was sure this was all a put-on, that he was trying to gain the community's "good faith" and destroy it from within.
We're not joking.
This sort of extreme paranoia has become the norm among the Wikipedia inner circle. There are a handful sites across the web that spend most of their bandwidth criticizing the Wikipedia elite - the leading example being Wikipedia Review - and the ruling clique spends countless hours worrying that these critics are trying to infiltrate the encyclopedia itself.
Bang Bang was a relatively new account. Since this new user was a skilled editor, Durova decided, he must be "a vandal" sent by Wikipedia Review. "I need to show you not just what Wikipedia Review is doing to us, but how they're doing it," she said in her email. "Here's a troublemaker whose username is two exclamation points with no letters: !! It's what I would call [a] 'ripened sock'...Some of the folks at WR do this to game the community's good faith."
Former Arbitration Committee member Kelly Martin confirms that this bizarre attitude is now par for the course inside the Wikipedia inner circle. "Anyone who makes large changes to anything now is likely to get run over by a steamroller," she says. "It's not a matter of whether your edit was good or bad. All they see is 'large edit my person not known to me' and - boom! They smack you on the head because vandals are so bad."
As it turned out, Bang Bang was an experienced user. He had set up a new account after having privacy problems with his old one. Once her secret email was posted, Durova removed the ban, calling it "a false positive."
Durova then voluntarily relinquished her admin powers, and over the weekend, the Arbitration Committee admonished her "to exercise greater care when issuing blocks."
The secret mailing list
But this particular false positive was only part of the problem. With her email, Durova also revealed that the ruling clique was using that secret mailing list to combat its enemies - both real and imagined. "The good news," she said, was that the Wikipedia Review "trolls" didn't know the list existed. And then she linked to the list's sign-up page.
The list is hosted by Wikia, the Jimmy Wales-founded open source web portal that was setup as an entirely separate entity from the not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation that oversees Wikipedia.
The sign-up page explains that the list is designed to quash "cyberstalking" and "harassment." But it would seem that things have gotten a bit out-of-hand. Clearly, the list is also used to land "the banhammer" on innocent bystanders.
"The problem is that their false positive rate is about 90 per cent - or higher," says Kelly Martin. "It's possible that every last person Durova has identified is innocent."
Recently, in another effort to quash "harassment," several members of the Wikipedia elite tried to ban the mention of certain "BADSITES" on the encyclopedia, and naturally, Wikipedia Review was on the list. Dan Tobias was one of the many editors who successfully fought this ban, and as he battled, he marveled at how well organized his opponents seemed to be.
"Over the months that I've been fighting people over issues like the BADSITES proposal, it looks like a lot of these people I was fighting were on this secret email list - at least I suspect they were," says the Floridia-based Tobias. "They always seemed to be show up in right place, at the right time, to gang up on people."
Yes, it all sounds like the most ridiculous of high school squabbles. But Tobias was merely trying to protect free speech on a site where free speech is supposedly sacred.
The irony, Tobias points out, is that in using this mailing list, the Wikipedia inner circle is guilty of the same behavior they're trying to fight. "They're villainizing the so-called attack sites because these sites are promoting pernicious ideas about Wikipedia," he says. "The argument is that when a bunch of like-minded people get together, they're sounding boards for one another, and they end up getting way off base because there's not an opposing viewpoint around.
"But you could say the exact same thing about this secret email list: a bunch of like-minded people are encouraging each other's possibly wacked-out views and, in the end, making trouble on Wikipedia."
Oversight
If you take Wikipedia as seriously as it takes itself, this is a huge problem. The site is ostensibly devoted to democratic consensus and the free exchange of ideas. But whether or not you believe in the holy law of Web 2.0, Wikipedia is tearing at the seams. Many of its core contributors are extremely unhappy about Durova's ill-advised ban and the exposure of the secret mailing list, and some feel that the site's well-being is seriously threatened.
In a post to Wikipedia, Jimbo Wales says that this whole incident was blown out of proportion. "I advise the world to relax a notch or two. A bad block was made for 75 minutes," he says. "It was reversed and an apology given. There are things to be studied here about what went wrong and what could be done in the future, but wow, could we please do so with a lot less drama? A 75 minute block, even if made badly, is hardly worth all this drama. Let's please love each other, love the project, and remember what we are here for."
But he's not admitting how deep this controversy goes. Wales and the Wikimedia Foudation came down hard on the editor who leaked Durova's email. After it was posted to the public forum, the email was promptly "oversighted" - i.e. permanently removed. Then this rogue editor posted it to his personal talk page, and a Wikimedia Foundation member not only oversighted the email again, but temporarily banned the editor.
Then Jimbo swooped in with a personal rebuke. "You have caused too much harm to justify us putting up with this kind of behavior much longer," he told the editor.
The problem, for many regular contributors, is that Wales and the Foundation seem to be siding with Durova's bizarre behavior. "I believe that Jimbo's credibility has been greatly damaged because of his open support for these people," says Charles Ainsworth. And if Jimbo can't maintain his credibility, the site's most experienced editors may not stick around. Since the banhammer came down, Bang Bang hasn't edited a lick. ®
Find out how your peers are dealing with Virtualization Exclusive On the surface, all is well in Wikiland. Just last week, a headline from The San Francisco Chronicle told the world that "Wikipedia's Future Is Still Looking Up," as the paper happily announced that founder Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales plans to expand his operation with a high-profile move to the city by the bay.
But underneath, there's trouble brewing.
Controversy has erupted among the encyclopedia's core contributors, after a rogue editor revealed that the site's top administrators are using a secret insider mailing list to crackdown on perceived threats to their power.
Many suspected that such a list was in use, as the Wikipedia "ruling clique" grew increasingly concerned with banning editors for the most petty of reasons. But now that the list's existence is confirmed, the rank and file are on the verge of revolt.
Revealed after an uber-admin called "Durova" used it in an attempt to enforce the quixotic ban of a longtime contributor, this secret mailing list seems to undermine the site's famously egalitarian ethos. At the very least, the list allows the ruling clique to push its agenda without scrutiny from the community at large. But clearly, it has also been used to silence the voice of at least one person who was merely trying to improve the encyclopedia's content.
"I've never seen the Wikipedia community as angry as they are with this one," says Charles Ainsworth, a Japan-based editor who's contributed more feature articles to the site than all but six other writers. "I think there was more hidden anger and frustration with the 'ruling clique' than I thought and Durova's heavy-handed action and arrogant refusal to take sufficient accountability for it has released all of it into the open."
Kelly Martin, a former member of Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee, leaves no doubt that this sort of surreptitious communication has gone on for ages. "This particular list is new, but the strategy is old," Martin told us via phone, from outside Chicago. "It's certainly not consistent with the public principles of the site. But in reality, it's standard practice."
Meanwhile, Jimbo Wales has told the community that all this is merely a tempest in a teacup. As he points out, the user that Durova wrongly banned was reinstated after a mere 75 minutes. But it would seem that Jimbo has done his best to suppress any talk of the secret mailing list.
Whatever the case, many longtime editors are up-in-arms. And the site's top administrators seem more concerned with petty site politics than with building a trustworthy encyclopedia. "The problem with Wikipedia is that, for so many in the project, it's no longer about the encyclopedia," Martin wrote in a recent blog post. "The problem is that Wikipedia's community has defined itself not in terms of the encyclopedia it is supposedly producing, but instead of the people it venerates and the people it abhors."
Bang! Bang! You're dead
On November 18, Durova banned a Wikipedia editor known as "!!". Yes, "!!". Some have taken to calling him "Bang Bang." At Wikipedia, everyone has the right to anonymity, and user names are often, shall we say, inexplicable.
In banning this account, Durova described it as an "abusive sock puppet," insisting it was setup by someone dead set on destroying the encyclopedia. "This problem editor is a troublemaker whose username is two exclamation points with no letters," read the block. "He is a ripened sock with a padded history of redirects, minor edits, and some DYK work. He also indulges in obscene trolling in German, and free range sarcasm and troublemaking. If you find this user gloating, or spot his nasty side, hit him with the banhammer." DYKs are edits made to the "Did You Know" section of the Wikipedia home page.
Durova then posted a notice to the site's public forum, insisting the ban was too important for discussion outside the purview of the Arbitration Committee, Wikipedia's Supreme Court. "Due to the nature of this investigation, our normal open discussion isn't really feasible," she said. "Please take to arbitration if you disagree with this decision."
But it was discussed. At length. Countless editors were nothing less than livid, many arguing that the banned user was actually a wonderfully productive editor. "Durova, you're really going to have to explain this," wrote one editor. "I see no transgressions of any kind on the part of this user; indeed, with over 100 DYKs, he seems to be a pretty positive force around here."
Meanwhile, Durova continued to insist that she had some sort of secret evidence that could only be viewed by the Arbitration Committee. "I am very confident my research will stand up to scrutiny," she said. "I am equally confident that anything I say here will be parsed rather closely by some disruptive banned sockpuppeteers. If I open the door a little bit it'll become a wedge issue as people ask for more information, and then some rather deep research techniques would be in jeopardy."
Then someone posted a private email from Durova in which she divulged her evidence - and revealed the secret mailing list.
Wikiparanoia
Basically, Durova's email showed that Bang Bang was indeed a wonderfully productive editor. She was sure this was all a put-on, that he was trying to gain the community's "good faith" and destroy it from within.
We're not joking.
This sort of extreme paranoia has become the norm among the Wikipedia inner circle. There are a handful sites across the web that spend most of their bandwidth criticizing the Wikipedia elite - the leading example being Wikipedia Review - and the ruling clique spends countless hours worrying that these critics are trying to infiltrate the encyclopedia itself.
Bang Bang was a relatively new account. Since this new user was a skilled editor, Durova decided, he must be "a vandal" sent by Wikipedia Review. "I need to show you not just what Wikipedia Review is doing to us, but how they're doing it," she said in her email. "Here's a troublemaker whose username is two exclamation points with no letters: !! It's what I would call [a] 'ripened sock'...Some of the folks at WR do this to game the community's good faith."
Former Arbitration Committee member Kelly Martin confirms that this bizarre attitude is now par for the course inside the Wikipedia inner circle. "Anyone who makes large changes to anything now is likely to get run over by a steamroller," she says. "It's not a matter of whether your edit was good or bad. All they see is 'large edit my person not known to me' and - boom! They smack you on the head because vandals are so bad."
As it turned out, Bang Bang was an experienced user. He had set up a new account after having privacy problems with his old one. Once her secret email was posted, Durova removed the ban, calling it "a false positive."
Durova then voluntarily relinquished her admin powers, and over the weekend, the Arbitration Committee admonished her "to exercise greater care when issuing blocks."
The secret mailing list
But this particular false positive was only part of the problem. With her email, Durova also revealed that the ruling clique was using that secret mailing list to combat its enemies - both real and imagined. "The good news," she said, was that the Wikipedia Review "trolls" didn't know the list existed. And then she linked to the list's sign-up page.
The list is hosted by Wikia, the Jimmy Wales-founded open source web portal that was setup as an entirely separate entity from the not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation that oversees Wikipedia.
The sign-up page explains that the list is designed to quash "cyberstalking" and "harassment." But it would seem that things have gotten a bit out-of-hand. Clearly, the list is also used to land "the banhammer" on innocent bystanders.
"The problem is that their false positive rate is about 90 per cent - or higher," says Kelly Martin. "It's possible that every last person Durova has identified is innocent."
Recently, in another effort to quash "harassment," several members of the Wikipedia elite tried to ban the mention of certain "BADSITES" on the encyclopedia, and naturally, Wikipedia Review was on the list. Dan Tobias was one of the many editors who successfully fought this ban, and as he battled, he marveled at how well organized his opponents seemed to be.
"Over the months that I've been fighting people over issues like the BADSITES proposal, it looks like a lot of these people I was fighting were on this secret email list - at least I suspect they were," says the Floridia-based Tobias. "They always seemed to be show up in right place, at the right time, to gang up on people."
Yes, it all sounds like the most ridiculous of high school squabbles. But Tobias was merely trying to protect free speech on a site where free speech is supposedly sacred.
The irony, Tobias points out, is that in using this mailing list, the Wikipedia inner circle is guilty of the same behavior they're trying to fight. "They're villainizing the so-called attack sites because these sites are promoting pernicious ideas about Wikipedia," he says. "The argument is that when a bunch of like-minded people get together, they're sounding boards for one another, and they end up getting way off base because there's not an opposing viewpoint around.
"But you could say the exact same thing about this secret email list: a bunch of like-minded people are encouraging each other's possibly wacked-out views and, in the end, making trouble on Wikipedia."
Oversight
If you take Wikipedia as seriously as it takes itself, this is a huge problem. The site is ostensibly devoted to democratic consensus and the free exchange of ideas. But whether or not you believe in the holy law of Web 2.0, Wikipedia is tearing at the seams. Many of its core contributors are extremely unhappy about Durova's ill-advised ban and the exposure of the secret mailing list, and some feel that the site's well-being is seriously threatened.
In a post to Wikipedia, Jimbo Wales says that this whole incident was blown out of proportion. "I advise the world to relax a notch or two. A bad block was made for 75 minutes," he says. "It was reversed and an apology given. There are things to be studied here about what went wrong and what could be done in the future, but wow, could we please do so with a lot less drama? A 75 minute block, even if made badly, is hardly worth all this drama. Let's please love each other, love the project, and remember what we are here for."
But he's not admitting how deep this controversy goes. Wales and the Wikimedia Foudation came down hard on the editor who leaked Durova's email. After it was posted to the public forum, the email was promptly "oversighted" - i.e. permanently removed. Then this rogue editor posted it to his personal talk page, and a Wikimedia Foundation member not only oversighted the email again, but temporarily banned the editor.
Then Jimbo swooped in with a personal rebuke. "You have caused too much harm to justify us putting up with this kind of behavior much longer," he told the editor.
The problem, for many regular contributors, is that Wales and the Foundation seem to be siding with Durova's bizarre behavior. "I believe that Jimbo's credibility has been greatly damaged because of his open support for these people," says Charles Ainsworth. And if Jimbo can't maintain his credibility, the site's most experienced editors may not stick around. Since the banhammer came down, Bang Bang hasn't edited a lick. ®
North, South Korea Unite Over Linux
North, South Korea Unite Over Linux
The bitter political foes will team with China on the project, tentatively named "Hana Linux"
by Peter Judge
Bitter political foes South and North Korea are to jointly develop a version of Linux.
The new project, tentatively named "Hana Linux", was announced at the ICMIP 2007 event in Yenji, China, last week and will be developed jointly by both Koreas and China, according to a report from ETNews, the Web site of daily Korean technology newspaper The Electronic Times. A Linux event in Pyongyang, North Korea, in the early part of 2008 will report on progress.
Advertisement
As well as a new, unified Linux, the two Koreas will also co-operate on office software in the Korean language. They also promised to work to iron out differences in IT terminology between South and North Koreans and Korean Chinese.
The idea was suggested by Hee-tak Moon of the Korea Open Source Software Association (Kossa) in South Korea, and approved by the heads of the three IT bodies--the Reunification IT Forum in South Korea, North Korea's Chosun People's Science Technology Association, and the Chinese Information Society--who were joint hosts of ICMIP 2007.
Training centers for Linux professionals will be developed at Yenben and Dandung in China, and at Pyongyang, Kaesong and Hoichun in North Korea, ETNews reported.
South Korea has also rolled out Linux in Seoul schools, announced plans for a "Linux showcase city" last year, and promised (in 2003) to move 30 percent of government servers to Linux by this year.
Provided by ZDNet Asia—Where Technology Means Business
The bitter political foes will team with China on the project, tentatively named "Hana Linux"
by Peter Judge
Bitter political foes South and North Korea are to jointly develop a version of Linux.
The new project, tentatively named "Hana Linux", was announced at the ICMIP 2007 event in Yenji, China, last week and will be developed jointly by both Koreas and China, according to a report from ETNews, the Web site of daily Korean technology newspaper The Electronic Times. A Linux event in Pyongyang, North Korea, in the early part of 2008 will report on progress.
Advertisement
As well as a new, unified Linux, the two Koreas will also co-operate on office software in the Korean language. They also promised to work to iron out differences in IT terminology between South and North Koreans and Korean Chinese.
The idea was suggested by Hee-tak Moon of the Korea Open Source Software Association (Kossa) in South Korea, and approved by the heads of the three IT bodies--the Reunification IT Forum in South Korea, North Korea's Chosun People's Science Technology Association, and the Chinese Information Society--who were joint hosts of ICMIP 2007.
Training centers for Linux professionals will be developed at Yenben and Dandung in China, and at Pyongyang, Kaesong and Hoichun in North Korea, ETNews reported.
South Korea has also rolled out Linux in Seoul schools, announced plans for a "Linux showcase city" last year, and promised (in 2003) to move 30 percent of government servers to Linux by this year.
Provided by ZDNet Asia—Where Technology Means Business
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
How Fast Does Dark Matter Fall?
Interesting Indeed....
How Fast Does Dark Matter Fall?
Dark matter is mysterious stuff. Scientists don't really know much about it at all, other than the fact that there seems to be a lot of it in the universe. Thanks to a new analysis by physicists at Caltech and the University of Toronto, we can expect that lumps of dark matter gravitationally attract each other in just the same way that lumps of normal matter (like you and the earth, for instance) attract each other.
The researchers drew their conclusion by studying the distribution of stars in the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy that orbits our Milky Way.
If dark matter experienced different forces from normal matter, it would change the relative amounts of stars kicked out ahead and behind the dwarf galaxy as a result of its interaction with our own galaxy. But the new study finds that the star distribution is just what we should expect if dark matter obeys the same gravitational laws as regular matter, to within an error of 10 percent.
Future observations and improvements in our understanding of dark matter distributions should reduce the uncertainty to a few percent.
The analysis helps eliminate astrophysical models that explain the distribution of material in the universe by proposing exotic forms of gravitational interactions for dark matter. In addition, despite the fact that there is broad speculation regarding the true identity of dark matter and no guarantee that we will ever capture it or produce it in the lab, at least we now know how long it will take to reach the floor if a resident of a dark matter planet were to knock a bit of it off of a table.
Adapted from materials provided by American Physical Society.
How Fast Does Dark Matter Fall?
Dark matter is mysterious stuff. Scientists don't really know much about it at all, other than the fact that there seems to be a lot of it in the universe. Thanks to a new analysis by physicists at Caltech and the University of Toronto, we can expect that lumps of dark matter gravitationally attract each other in just the same way that lumps of normal matter (like you and the earth, for instance) attract each other.
The researchers drew their conclusion by studying the distribution of stars in the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy that orbits our Milky Way.
If dark matter experienced different forces from normal matter, it would change the relative amounts of stars kicked out ahead and behind the dwarf galaxy as a result of its interaction with our own galaxy. But the new study finds that the star distribution is just what we should expect if dark matter obeys the same gravitational laws as regular matter, to within an error of 10 percent.
Future observations and improvements in our understanding of dark matter distributions should reduce the uncertainty to a few percent.
The analysis helps eliminate astrophysical models that explain the distribution of material in the universe by proposing exotic forms of gravitational interactions for dark matter. In addition, despite the fact that there is broad speculation regarding the true identity of dark matter and no guarantee that we will ever capture it or produce it in the lab, at least we now know how long it will take to reach the floor if a resident of a dark matter planet were to knock a bit of it off of a table.
Adapted from materials provided by American Physical Society.
Energy Supply That Drives Sperm Could Power 'Nanobot'
Woo Hooo, Now I feel 'Powerful'
Energy Supply That Drives Sperm Could Power 'Nanobot'
The biological pathway that powers sperm to swim long distances could be harnessed to nanotech devices, releasing drugs or performing mechanical functions inside the body, according to a presentation at the American Society for Cell Biology's 47th Annual meeting.
The work by researchers at Cornell's Baker Institute of Animal Health may be the first demonstration of how multistep biological pathways can be assembled and function on a human-made device.
Mammalian sperm have to delivery energy to the long, thin, whip-like tails that power their swimming. Sperm meet the challenge, in part, by onsite power generation, modifying the enzymes of glycolysis so that they can attach themselves to a solid structure running the major length of the sperm tail. From that secure perch, glycolytic enzymes convert sugar into ATP, supplying energy all along the sperm's bending and flexing tail.
Chinatsu Mukai, Alex Travis, and others at Cornell's College of Veterinary Science looked at the early steps in the glycolysis pathway to see if they could move it from the thin "fibrous sheath" that covers the sperm tail to a solid inorganic substitute - a nickel-NTA (nitrilotriacetic acid) chip.
First, the researchers replaced the sperm-specific targeting domain of hexokinase, the first enzyme of glycolysis, with a tag that binds to a special gold surface. Even when tethered, the enzyme remained functional. Next they tagged the second enzyme in the pathway, glucose-6-phosphate isomerase. This too was active when tethered. With both attached to the same support, the enzymes acted in series with the product of the first reaction serving as substrate for the second.
These are only the first steps in reproducing the full glycolytic pathway on an inorganic support, say Mukai and Travis. Mukai and Travis suggest that their work serves as proof of principle that the organization of the glycolytic pathway in sperm might provide a natural engineering solution of how to produce ATP locally on nano devices.
----------------------------
Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
----------------------------
Paper: Coupled Metabolic Reaction on a Chip: A Step Toward Energy Production on Implantable Medical Devices.
Energy Supply That Drives Sperm Could Power 'Nanobot'
The biological pathway that powers sperm to swim long distances could be harnessed to nanotech devices, releasing drugs or performing mechanical functions inside the body, according to a presentation at the American Society for Cell Biology's 47th Annual meeting.
The work by researchers at Cornell's Baker Institute of Animal Health may be the first demonstration of how multistep biological pathways can be assembled and function on a human-made device.
Mammalian sperm have to delivery energy to the long, thin, whip-like tails that power their swimming. Sperm meet the challenge, in part, by onsite power generation, modifying the enzymes of glycolysis so that they can attach themselves to a solid structure running the major length of the sperm tail. From that secure perch, glycolytic enzymes convert sugar into ATP, supplying energy all along the sperm's bending and flexing tail.
Chinatsu Mukai, Alex Travis, and others at Cornell's College of Veterinary Science looked at the early steps in the glycolysis pathway to see if they could move it from the thin "fibrous sheath" that covers the sperm tail to a solid inorganic substitute - a nickel-NTA (nitrilotriacetic acid) chip.
First, the researchers replaced the sperm-specific targeting domain of hexokinase, the first enzyme of glycolysis, with a tag that binds to a special gold surface. Even when tethered, the enzyme remained functional. Next they tagged the second enzyme in the pathway, glucose-6-phosphate isomerase. This too was active when tethered. With both attached to the same support, the enzymes acted in series with the product of the first reaction serving as substrate for the second.
These are only the first steps in reproducing the full glycolytic pathway on an inorganic support, say Mukai and Travis. Mukai and Travis suggest that their work serves as proof of principle that the organization of the glycolytic pathway in sperm might provide a natural engineering solution of how to produce ATP locally on nano devices.
----------------------------
Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
----------------------------
Paper: Coupled Metabolic Reaction on a Chip: A Step Toward Energy Production on Implantable Medical Devices.
The Nut Did It Again.
The Nut Did It Again. How many nuts should we crack to get this over?
Crappy policy. If this piece of land is under EU or US jurisdiction, we can sue them over monopoly of SMTP services over port 25.
Again, I hate myself of keep repeating the word "CRAP".
Monday, December 03, 2007
MITIGATING SPAM IN TM NETWORK
Dear valued customers,
Telekom Malaysia Berhad wishes to inform its customers about TM's initiative in combating spam in its Internet Protocol (IP) network to improve our quality of service.
Recently, many anti-spam organizations have blacklisted a large number of IP addresses from TM’s network. Due to this many customers have been unable to send emails from their mail server to companies who might be using database from the abovementioned anti-spam organizations.
These spamming activities by a small group have affected a large number of our customers, regardless of the nature of their Internet usage. .
Therefore, TM is taking immediate action to address this issue. Effective 3 December 2007, TM will block OUTBOUND Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) traffic or port 25 for all out going e-mails from dynamic IP addresses. Only Outbound SMTP traffic from smtp.streamyx.com and smtp.tm.net.my will be allowed.
With this implementation, Streamyx customers who have their own mail server will not be able to send e-mails. As an alternative, TM is providing an open relay server for these customers who use dynamic IP addresses. Kindly refer to http://webmail.tm.net.my/info/proxy.html on how to configure your email client in order toutilize this relay server. Alternatively, your e-mail administrators can refer to http://webmail.tm.net.my/info/smtp-proxy.html as a guide to configure your company’s email servers.
Please be assured that TM is proactively taking all possible measures to ensure that these spamming activities do not reoccur in the future. We seek your kind co-operation to implement the necessary security measures to protect your computers that are connected to the Internet from any e-mail abuse, virus infection, spyware and malicious code.
For further enquiries and assistance, email us at help@tm.com.my or call TM at 100 and select ‘Internet Services’.
Crappy policy. If this piece of land is under EU or US jurisdiction, we can sue them over monopoly of SMTP services over port 25.
Again, I hate myself of keep repeating the word "CRAP".
Monday, December 03, 2007
MITIGATING SPAM IN TM NETWORK
Dear valued customers,
Telekom Malaysia Berhad wishes to inform its customers about TM's initiative in combating spam in its Internet Protocol (IP) network to improve our quality of service.
Recently, many anti-spam organizations have blacklisted a large number of IP addresses from TM’s network. Due to this many customers have been unable to send emails from their mail server to companies who might be using database from the abovementioned anti-spam organizations.
These spamming activities by a small group have affected a large number of our customers, regardless of the nature of their Internet usage. .
Therefore, TM is taking immediate action to address this issue. Effective 3 December 2007, TM will block OUTBOUND Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) traffic or port 25 for all out going e-mails from dynamic IP addresses. Only Outbound SMTP traffic from smtp.streamyx.com and smtp.tm.net.my will be allowed.
With this implementation, Streamyx customers who have their own mail server will not be able to send e-mails. As an alternative, TM is providing an open relay server for these customers who use dynamic IP addresses. Kindly refer to http://webmail.tm.net.my/info/proxy.html on how to configure your email client in order toutilize this relay server. Alternatively, your e-mail administrators can refer to http://webmail.tm.net.my/info/smtp-proxy.html as a guide to configure your company’s email servers.
Please be assured that TM is proactively taking all possible measures to ensure that these spamming activities do not reoccur in the future. We seek your kind co-operation to implement the necessary security measures to protect your computers that are connected to the Internet from any e-mail abuse, virus infection, spyware and malicious code.
For further enquiries and assistance, email us at help@tm.com.my or call TM at 100 and select ‘Internet Services’.
ACA Not Vested With Power To Prosecute To Ensure Fairness
Chicken and Egg stupid question. Power bring Corruption, or Corruption produce Power?
The whole idea of separation of power is crap without TRUE TRANSPARENCY. No matter who's at the end hold the ultimate power of execution, without knowing what should and actually happening, it just the same old story.
ACA Not Vested With Power To Prosecute To Ensure Fairness
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 4 (Bernama) -- The power to prosecute is not vested in the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) to ensure cases are handled in a fair manner.
Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz said the separation of powers to investigate and to prosecute was a universal norm and practised in Malaysia as well as in other countries.
"The power to prosecute in corruption cases, misappropriation and abuse of power is vested in the public prosecutors as provided for under Section 50 of the Anti-Corruption Act 1997 and Article 145 of the Federal Constitution.
"If the power to prosecute is also given to the agency which investigates the cases, it is feared that the power may be abused," he said in reply to a question from Senator Ahmad Hussin in the Dewan Negara today.
Meanwhile, Nazri commended the ACA for having investigated and acted on cases of misappropriation of public funds as highlighted in the Auditor-General's Report.
"The ACA has carried itself well by acting on the Auditor-General's Report recently. We know the report was tabled in the Dewan Rakyat and Dewan Negara each year but there was no action taken although it highlighted cases of misappropriation," he said.
Nazri said the government had to take stern action against those involved in misappropriation.
"The good news is that ever since the ACA started to act on such cases, members of the public are beginning to come forward with information because they are becoming more confident that the government will act on their complaints," he said in reply to Senator Datuk Saripah Aminah Syed Mohamed.
He said the public could play an important role in eradicating corruption among public officials, particularly those serving in the front line such as Customs, police and Immigration where there were more opportunities for corruption.
"If there are givers but no takers, there will be no corruption. If there are takers but no givers, there will also be no corruption...so the public must play their role by refraining from giving bribes," he added.
-- BERNAMA
The whole idea of separation of power is crap without TRUE TRANSPARENCY. No matter who's at the end hold the ultimate power of execution, without knowing what should and actually happening, it just the same old story.
ACA Not Vested With Power To Prosecute To Ensure Fairness
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 4 (Bernama) -- The power to prosecute is not vested in the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) to ensure cases are handled in a fair manner.
Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz said the separation of powers to investigate and to prosecute was a universal norm and practised in Malaysia as well as in other countries.
"The power to prosecute in corruption cases, misappropriation and abuse of power is vested in the public prosecutors as provided for under Section 50 of the Anti-Corruption Act 1997 and Article 145 of the Federal Constitution.
"If the power to prosecute is also given to the agency which investigates the cases, it is feared that the power may be abused," he said in reply to a question from Senator Ahmad Hussin in the Dewan Negara today.
Meanwhile, Nazri commended the ACA for having investigated and acted on cases of misappropriation of public funds as highlighted in the Auditor-General's Report.
"The ACA has carried itself well by acting on the Auditor-General's Report recently. We know the report was tabled in the Dewan Rakyat and Dewan Negara each year but there was no action taken although it highlighted cases of misappropriation," he said.
Nazri said the government had to take stern action against those involved in misappropriation.
"The good news is that ever since the ACA started to act on such cases, members of the public are beginning to come forward with information because they are becoming more confident that the government will act on their complaints," he said in reply to Senator Datuk Saripah Aminah Syed Mohamed.
He said the public could play an important role in eradicating corruption among public officials, particularly those serving in the front line such as Customs, police and Immigration where there were more opportunities for corruption.
"If there are givers but no takers, there will be no corruption. If there are takers but no givers, there will also be no corruption...so the public must play their role by refraining from giving bribes," he added.
-- BERNAMA
Malaysia-Singapore Relations Progressing Well - Ng Yen Yen
Why should someone believe in what she say about Malaysia? You should believe her because she's not afraid of being sacked from the government. The worst is just migrate to Australia and enjoy the rest of her remaining life there.
Geez. All sorts of people in the cabinet.
Malaysia-Singapore Relations Progressing Well - Ng Yen Yen
SINGAPORE, Dec 4 (Bernama) -- Malaysia's relations with Singapore have progressed well since Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took office as Prime Minister about four years ago, Malaysian Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Dr Ng Yen Yen said today.
She said the cordial relations had come to a stage where there was now an easy camaraderie among the leaders on both sides of the causeway.
Addressing a special luncheon organised in conjunction with the Singapore-Malaysia Business Forum held here, she said the good relations between the two neighbours were the result of Abdullah's commitment towards working through all outstanding bilateral problems.
She said Abdullah set the tone of the relationship of the two countries when he first visited Singapore in January 2004 and since then both countries had worked well together at various levels.
Ng also said the depth of Malaysia-Singapore relations were unmatched within Asean and besides their common cultural and historical bond, they were also underpinned significantly by commercial and people-to-people linkages.
She said that improved relations between the two countries covered various areas such as trade and investment and defence-related activities, particularly against terrorism.
The deputy minister said trade links between the two neighbours remained strong, with Singapore maintaining its position as Malaysia's second largest trading partner after the United States last year.
Singapore was also Malaysia's largest export market for goods in Southeast Asia, accounting for 54.4 per cent of Malaysia's total trade volume, she said.
Likewise, Ng said Singapore had significant investments in Malaysia last year which totalled US$513.3 million mainly in the areas of electrical and electronics manufacturing, food manufacturing, fabricated metals and machinery as well as chemical products.
She added that Malaysian investments in Singapore were even larger for the same year at US$1,284.7 million, mainly in the fields of finance, insurance, commerce, real estate, manufacturing, transport and storage and ICT.
Ng said although their economies were complementary, Malaysia and Singapore were also commercial rivals.
However, she said, in today's complex and globalised economy, both countries should work together in promoting cooperation while harnessing their competitive advantages for their mutual benefit.
-- BERNAMA
Geez. All sorts of people in the cabinet.
Malaysia-Singapore Relations Progressing Well - Ng Yen Yen
SINGAPORE, Dec 4 (Bernama) -- Malaysia's relations with Singapore have progressed well since Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took office as Prime Minister about four years ago, Malaysian Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Dr Ng Yen Yen said today.
She said the cordial relations had come to a stage where there was now an easy camaraderie among the leaders on both sides of the causeway.
Addressing a special luncheon organised in conjunction with the Singapore-Malaysia Business Forum held here, she said the good relations between the two neighbours were the result of Abdullah's commitment towards working through all outstanding bilateral problems.
She said Abdullah set the tone of the relationship of the two countries when he first visited Singapore in January 2004 and since then both countries had worked well together at various levels.
Ng also said the depth of Malaysia-Singapore relations were unmatched within Asean and besides their common cultural and historical bond, they were also underpinned significantly by commercial and people-to-people linkages.
She said that improved relations between the two countries covered various areas such as trade and investment and defence-related activities, particularly against terrorism.
The deputy minister said trade links between the two neighbours remained strong, with Singapore maintaining its position as Malaysia's second largest trading partner after the United States last year.
Singapore was also Malaysia's largest export market for goods in Southeast Asia, accounting for 54.4 per cent of Malaysia's total trade volume, she said.
Likewise, Ng said Singapore had significant investments in Malaysia last year which totalled US$513.3 million mainly in the areas of electrical and electronics manufacturing, food manufacturing, fabricated metals and machinery as well as chemical products.
She added that Malaysian investments in Singapore were even larger for the same year at US$1,284.7 million, mainly in the fields of finance, insurance, commerce, real estate, manufacturing, transport and storage and ICT.
Ng said although their economies were complementary, Malaysia and Singapore were also commercial rivals.
However, she said, in today's complex and globalised economy, both countries should work together in promoting cooperation while harnessing their competitive advantages for their mutual benefit.
-- BERNAMA
Japan Will Fund Stem Cell Research of Human Skin, NHK Reports
Japan Will Fund Stem Cell Research of Human Skin, NHK Reports
By Kanoko Matsuyama
Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- A Japanese government agency decided to allocate funds for research to scientists who discovered how to convert human skin cells into stem cells, public broadcaster NHK reported, without citing anyone.
The decision yesterday, two weeks after the scientific finding, was made unexpectedly early for the Japan Science and Technology Agency, the NHK said. As much as several millions of dollars may be made available, NHK said.
Ordinary skin cells from the face of a 36-year-old woman and the foreskin of a newborn were turned into stem cells and may have the power to become any cell in the body, according to reports in the journals Science and Cell on Nov. 20.
U.S. and Japanese scientific teams each inserted four genes into the skin cells, switching on a process that converted them to a form equivalent to embryonic stem cells. The cells were then changed into heart, brain, muscle, fat and cartilage cells by one team using proven methods for growing tissue from embryonic cells.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kanoko Matsuyama in Tokyo at kmatsuyama2@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: December 3, 2007 19:19 EST
By Kanoko Matsuyama
Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- A Japanese government agency decided to allocate funds for research to scientists who discovered how to convert human skin cells into stem cells, public broadcaster NHK reported, without citing anyone.
The decision yesterday, two weeks after the scientific finding, was made unexpectedly early for the Japan Science and Technology Agency, the NHK said. As much as several millions of dollars may be made available, NHK said.
Ordinary skin cells from the face of a 36-year-old woman and the foreskin of a newborn were turned into stem cells and may have the power to become any cell in the body, according to reports in the journals Science and Cell on Nov. 20.
U.S. and Japanese scientific teams each inserted four genes into the skin cells, switching on a process that converted them to a form equivalent to embryonic stem cells. The cells were then changed into heart, brain, muscle, fat and cartilage cells by one team using proven methods for growing tissue from embryonic cells.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kanoko Matsuyama in Tokyo at kmatsuyama2@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: December 3, 2007 19:19 EST
Head First PMP
Head First PMP
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TOM Group denies investment in Facebook
Geez, Do FaceBook really worth that much? USD 15Billion? That is like double the market capitalization of Genting Berhad or like the IPO market cap of the world largest public listed plantation company, Sime Darby. Is it our local companies worthless or what? Undeniably, FaceBook was a boom in US and perhaps next stop will be in China and India.
And we all know cloning technology in China are as good as rocket science and you shall see more localized copies coming.
HONG KONG--TOM Group, a media company controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, denied on Monday reports that it had made any investment in the hugely popular social networking website, Facebook.
"The company advised that it has not made any investment in Facebook," TOM Group, in which the 79-year-old is a majority shareholder, said in a statement issued to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
"The company further advised that from time to time it explores investment opportunities and other commercial alliances," it said, adding it would disclose any deals that would be required to inform the stock exchange.
Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital blog reported that Li, Asia's richest man, has invested US$60 million in Facebook with a right to acquire another US$60-million stake.
Citing unnamed sources, the report said the deal came through a Facebook investor, who introduced the company to Solina Chau, director of the Li Ka-shing Foundation and a major stockholder in Tom.com.
It also said Li's investment could lead to closer links between the website and Tom.com and that he was making the investment through another entity rather than via his Hong Kong conglomerates -- Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa.
The two companies hold a total of 37 percent stake in TOM Group.
A spokeswoman for Hutchison Whampoa would not comment on the report.
The news has caused a surge in the company's share prices by as much as 50 percent on Monday.
The report came on the heels of a US$240-million investment in Facebook by Microsoft last month in a deal valuing the website at US$15 billion.
And we all know cloning technology in China are as good as rocket science and you shall see more localized copies coming.
HONG KONG--TOM Group, a media company controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, denied on Monday reports that it had made any investment in the hugely popular social networking website, Facebook.
"The company advised that it has not made any investment in Facebook," TOM Group, in which the 79-year-old is a majority shareholder, said in a statement issued to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
"The company further advised that from time to time it explores investment opportunities and other commercial alliances," it said, adding it would disclose any deals that would be required to inform the stock exchange.
Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital blog reported that Li, Asia's richest man, has invested US$60 million in Facebook with a right to acquire another US$60-million stake.
Citing unnamed sources, the report said the deal came through a Facebook investor, who introduced the company to Solina Chau, director of the Li Ka-shing Foundation and a major stockholder in Tom.com.
It also said Li's investment could lead to closer links between the website and Tom.com and that he was making the investment through another entity rather than via his Hong Kong conglomerates -- Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa.
The two companies hold a total of 37 percent stake in TOM Group.
A spokeswoman for Hutchison Whampoa would not comment on the report.
The news has caused a surge in the company's share prices by as much as 50 percent on Monday.
The report came on the heels of a US$240-million investment in Facebook by Microsoft last month in a deal valuing the website at US$15 billion.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Baltic Dry Index. Time for the Delayed Correction?
The trend is as good as the recent Gold Rush. Too good to be true. The anticipated correction has been delayed maybe until now. It should fall for better good.
YTL Power Powering Up
Although recent YTL Power quarter result was nonetheless a bit disappointing, it is in my opinion a give and take situation given the reduced reliance on the contribution of operational profit in Malaysia. Frankly speaking, there are too many factors that may shake the entire economics fundamental of this developing country and those are not something that can be resolved by passing a bill or getting rid of some political party. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez able to ride through waves of critism and face detrimental challenges from his opponents, even though his own intentions are doubtfully genuine. He got the charism and strong voice. Deterministic of wills show the capability of one's leadership.
Pardon me, but I see no corresponding in any of the governing party leaders at this point of time. They are simply too reactive and slow in reacting to persisting issues regardless of whether it is political, social or economy. The portray of Dr. M is truly deep inside the mind of the common. Do we still need Dr. M .. literally? No I say. He is way passed his retirement age, give him a break. We DO need someone who is visionary and with inviolatable ruling direction that give pressures to external forces rather than pushing the limit on his own people.
Ok, back to YTL Power. The intention to raise gas, electricity and petrol tariffs is here for sure. Since the price pressure will be passed back to back to consumer, no significant negative material impacts to YTL Power earning shall be foreseen. Earnings from Wessex UK will be increased in next few quarters given the changes in their tariff.
What I'm more interested in still the same old questions: When the shopping will begin? Acquisitions are imminent.
I reiterated my estimate towards YTL Power fair price at RM3 in 3 month time.
Pardon me, but I see no corresponding in any of the governing party leaders at this point of time. They are simply too reactive and slow in reacting to persisting issues regardless of whether it is political, social or economy. The portray of Dr. M is truly deep inside the mind of the common. Do we still need Dr. M .. literally? No I say. He is way passed his retirement age, give him a break. We DO need someone who is visionary and with inviolatable ruling direction that give pressures to external forces rather than pushing the limit on his own people.
Ok, back to YTL Power. The intention to raise gas, electricity and petrol tariffs is here for sure. Since the price pressure will be passed back to back to consumer, no significant negative material impacts to YTL Power earning shall be foreseen. Earnings from Wessex UK will be increased in next few quarters given the changes in their tariff.
What I'm more interested in still the same old questions: When the shopping will begin? Acquisitions are imminent.
I reiterated my estimate towards YTL Power fair price at RM3 in 3 month time.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Wa have warned you now, Don't get Shocked when We do it later.
What he really tried to say is that the government certainly would not implement any actions that have negative impacts to the people’s CONTRIBUTION to the national money making cow, aka TNB. In another perspective, Petronas's contribution to the government will be magnified by a few order when it tunneled through the shallow pocket of the PEOPLE before getting back into the hand of the government and selected few.
I have no issue paying my petrol consumption at reasonable market price, but the transparency of the resulting savings whereabouts is what concerns me.
Let me summarize the article in my own words:
No Timeline To Review Fuel Subsidies, Says DPM
By Tham Choy Lin
HONG KONG, Nov 30 (Bernama) -- Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said today any review of gas and petroleum subsidies by Malaysia must not impact adversely on the people and national power supplier Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB).
"We do not want the people to be overburdened with any review of the price of gas and petroleum products but at same time, we are mindful not to undermine the market worth of strategic companies like TNB," he told a news conference after spending the day meeting global fund managers.
Najib said there is no timeline for a review but if it takes place, it will be made concurrently with a tariff review.
Malaysia's policy on gas and petroleum subsidies was raised by the fund managers who were also interested in Malaysia's economic direction, market liquidity and Islamic banking, he said.
He said the fund managers had noted the reforms and also measures by the government to generate more liquidity in the market, and he referred to today's listing of Sime Darby on Bursa Malaysia as "successful, beyond our expectations."
The debut of Sime Darby with a 26 percent premium came as Najib kicked off the second leg of an international investment roadshow in this international financial centre where he met about 50 portfolio and asset managers.
Najib said Malaysia's economy, which reported a 6.7 percent third quarter growth this week, has become more resilient and diversified to better weather external shocks, thanks to structural reforms taken over the past three years.
And he expected the pace of growth to remain on track in the final quarter to meet Malaysia's target of 6 percent growth this year with a low inflation rate of up to 2 percent.
"There is enough momentum in the domestic economy, consumption and investment flows are strong, the prices of commodities are also strong. Even in the event of a downturn in the global economy, the impact will be slight and it will not be as great as compared to a few years ago," he said.
On the level of interest in Malaysia's new economic corridors, the Deputy Prime Minister said the investors wanted to size up developments on the ground first, especially at the Iskandar Development Region in southern Johor.
"This is only the beginning and it will take time. We expect by the middle of next year to see quite significant development on the ground for them to see and to address sceptics," Najib said.
Najib began the day over breakfast with more than a dozen international fund managers and held discussions with five more groups of investors during the day.
He met key officials and portfolio managers from funds such as ABN Amro Asset Management, Capital International Research Inc, HSBC Halbis Partners (Hong Kong) Ltd, ING Investment Management, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Blackrock, Invesco, AIG and RBC Investment Management.
Another participant was Bank for International Settlements head of treasury for Asia Pacific, Miranda Tam.
His high-profile delegation includes Second Finance Minister Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop, Bank Negara Malaysia assistant governor Lillian Leong, Khazanah Nasional Bhd managing director Datuk Azman Mokhtar and Securities Commission executive director for issues and investment Datuk Kris Azman Abdullah.
-- BERNAMA
I have no issue paying my petrol consumption at reasonable market price, but the transparency of the resulting savings whereabouts is what concerns me.
Let me summarize the article in my own words:
"Gas, Petroleum and Energy tariffs are FOR SURE going to be increased. We are going to squeeze people's money for the sake of increasing the financial outlook of our beloved GLC companies and thus foster the financial strength of our political parties, which in turn selectively creating more wealthly fellows in our nation.
There is no schedule on when all these plans will kick off, but I can only pledged you to get ready for it when the time comes. "
No Timeline To Review Fuel Subsidies, Says DPM
By Tham Choy Lin
HONG KONG, Nov 30 (Bernama) -- Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said today any review of gas and petroleum subsidies by Malaysia must not impact adversely on the people and national power supplier Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB).
"We do not want the people to be overburdened with any review of the price of gas and petroleum products but at same time, we are mindful not to undermine the market worth of strategic companies like TNB," he told a news conference after spending the day meeting global fund managers.
Najib said there is no timeline for a review but if it takes place, it will be made concurrently with a tariff review.
Malaysia's policy on gas and petroleum subsidies was raised by the fund managers who were also interested in Malaysia's economic direction, market liquidity and Islamic banking, he said.
He said the fund managers had noted the reforms and also measures by the government to generate more liquidity in the market, and he referred to today's listing of Sime Darby on Bursa Malaysia as "successful, beyond our expectations."
The debut of Sime Darby with a 26 percent premium came as Najib kicked off the second leg of an international investment roadshow in this international financial centre where he met about 50 portfolio and asset managers.
Najib said Malaysia's economy, which reported a 6.7 percent third quarter growth this week, has become more resilient and diversified to better weather external shocks, thanks to structural reforms taken over the past three years.
And he expected the pace of growth to remain on track in the final quarter to meet Malaysia's target of 6 percent growth this year with a low inflation rate of up to 2 percent.
"There is enough momentum in the domestic economy, consumption and investment flows are strong, the prices of commodities are also strong. Even in the event of a downturn in the global economy, the impact will be slight and it will not be as great as compared to a few years ago," he said.
On the level of interest in Malaysia's new economic corridors, the Deputy Prime Minister said the investors wanted to size up developments on the ground first, especially at the Iskandar Development Region in southern Johor.
"This is only the beginning and it will take time. We expect by the middle of next year to see quite significant development on the ground for them to see and to address sceptics," Najib said.
Najib began the day over breakfast with more than a dozen international fund managers and held discussions with five more groups of investors during the day.
He met key officials and portfolio managers from funds such as ABN Amro Asset Management, Capital International Research Inc, HSBC Halbis Partners (Hong Kong) Ltd, ING Investment Management, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Blackrock, Invesco, AIG and RBC Investment Management.
Another participant was Bank for International Settlements head of treasury for Asia Pacific, Miranda Tam.
His high-profile delegation includes Second Finance Minister Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop, Bank Negara Malaysia assistant governor Lillian Leong, Khazanah Nasional Bhd managing director Datuk Azman Mokhtar and Securities Commission executive director for issues and investment Datuk Kris Azman Abdullah.
-- BERNAMA
Friday, November 30, 2007
Spas a potential billion ringgit business
Wow, a POTENTIAL billion ringgit worth of business. Show some statistics and financial return expected value. At least a ROI or IRR stuff. DOH.
O ya, what else Malaysia can rely on to make $$ beside Crude Oil and CPO? Have you heard of Brain Drain?
Spas a potential billion ringgit business
THE spa industry can be the balm to heal the unemployment problem across the country but only if the unemployed are willing to work in this sector.
“The spa industry is an important contributor to the tourism industry and there is a strong demand for local spa products,” said Entrepreneur and Cooperative Development Deputy Minister Datuk Khamsiah Yeop.
“The spa industry, being a service industry, requires a lot of workers.
Currently, we are employing foreign workers. Locals should get into the business as it has the potential to be a billion ringgit business.”
Speaking at the opening of the 2nd Asia Spa and Wellness Festival 2007, Khamsiah also told reporters that the government was looking into developing a spa school to train locals to master the field.
“The Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH) is interested in developing a spa school. The ministry certainly encourages this as it will develop local talents in a very lucrative industry,” she said.
MAH president Datuk Mohd Ilyas Zainol Abidin said the festival could help the local industry players benchmark themselves against the best international players.
“We call on hotels and resorts to set up spas as part of their service for guests. If they do not have the expertise, they can always call for independent spas to operate within their premises.
“From our experience, the moment we have spas as part of our hotel attraction, our occupancy rates can increase up to 20 per cent,” said Mohd Ilyas. — Bernama
O ya, what else Malaysia can rely on to make $$ beside Crude Oil and CPO? Have you heard of Brain Drain?
Spas a potential billion ringgit business
THE spa industry can be the balm to heal the unemployment problem across the country but only if the unemployed are willing to work in this sector.
“The spa industry is an important contributor to the tourism industry and there is a strong demand for local spa products,” said Entrepreneur and Cooperative Development Deputy Minister Datuk Khamsiah Yeop.
“The spa industry, being a service industry, requires a lot of workers.
Currently, we are employing foreign workers. Locals should get into the business as it has the potential to be a billion ringgit business.”
Speaking at the opening of the 2nd Asia Spa and Wellness Festival 2007, Khamsiah also told reporters that the government was looking into developing a spa school to train locals to master the field.
“The Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH) is interested in developing a spa school. The ministry certainly encourages this as it will develop local talents in a very lucrative industry,” she said.
MAH president Datuk Mohd Ilyas Zainol Abidin said the festival could help the local industry players benchmark themselves against the best international players.
“We call on hotels and resorts to set up spas as part of their service for guests. If they do not have the expertise, they can always call for independent spas to operate within their premises.
“From our experience, the moment we have spas as part of our hotel attraction, our occupancy rates can increase up to 20 per cent,” said Mohd Ilyas. — Bernama
V for Vendetta AND M For Malaysia : Past, Present & Future
Well, I just don't quite agree with the author implicit association between Malaysia PM and the villain in the movie.I don't see our PM got that kind of charisma. Maybe the Deputy PM is the actual evil root behind.
BiotechCorp Acquires Licence For Nanotechnology Platform
This is definitely sounds better than the government's intention to buy the Russian dated space "taxi" that our own space "trip visitor" used for his vacation.
To be highlighted, both of the potential deals haven't disclose amount of money involved. Crap. Transparency My Foot.
BiotechCorp Acquires Licence For Nanotechnology Platform
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 30 (Bernama) -- Malaysian Biotechnology Corporation (BiotechCorp) today announced its first technology acquisition by acquiring a worldwide licence to a nanotechnology platform.
The company signed the deal with Nanobiotix of France which has developed nanotechnology particles for cancer therapy.
"We identify Nanobiotix because it has excellent platform technology with wide applications," BiotechCorp's chief executive officer Datuk Iskandar Mizal Mahmood told reporters after the launch of the nanotechnology acquisition on the sidelines of the BioMalaysia 2007 conference and exhibition here.
Nanobiotix has agreed to license the application of its nanotechnology platform for non-cancer purposes to BiotechCorp to expand the potential pipeline into non-cancer areas.
Iskandar Mizal said by acquiring the licence, BiotechCorp was able to provide access to the application of high level nanotechnology in Malaysia.
According to him, the direct applications in healthcare include cardiovascular therapeutics, eyesight therapeutics, blood clotting agents, wound and burn repair, and protein purification while the direct applications in food and cosmetics include flavour and solar protection.
On the nanotechnology acquisition, Iskandar Mizal said the due process comprised independent financial, technology, legal and intellectual property due diligence.
He said both BiotechCorp and Nanobiotix were equally confident of realising the multiplier effect of the nanotechnology platform acquired with a minimum target of two nanotechnology projects per year for the first four years.
"We are in the process of looking for the right research institution for us to take on further development work on some of the applications," he added.
With the acquisition, BiotechCorp is targeting a minimum of eight nanotechnology projects by 2011, which will mark the first year of its commercialisation phase from science to business, Iskandar Mizal said.
"Our capacity building phase will be concluded from 2005 to 2011," he said.
Nanobiotix was represented at the event by its founder and chief executive officer Dr Laurent Levy.
"We have decided to make things happen faster by having three researchers from Malaysia at our laboratory in France to work with us on the programme," Levy said.
"So at the end of the year, the researchers from Malaysia will have the knowledge to continue this programme," he said.
-- BERNAMA
To be highlighted, both of the potential deals haven't disclose amount of money involved. Crap. Transparency My Foot.
BiotechCorp Acquires Licence For Nanotechnology Platform
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 30 (Bernama) -- Malaysian Biotechnology Corporation (BiotechCorp) today announced its first technology acquisition by acquiring a worldwide licence to a nanotechnology platform.
The company signed the deal with Nanobiotix of France which has developed nanotechnology particles for cancer therapy.
"We identify Nanobiotix because it has excellent platform technology with wide applications," BiotechCorp's chief executive officer Datuk Iskandar Mizal Mahmood told reporters after the launch of the nanotechnology acquisition on the sidelines of the BioMalaysia 2007 conference and exhibition here.
Nanobiotix has agreed to license the application of its nanotechnology platform for non-cancer purposes to BiotechCorp to expand the potential pipeline into non-cancer areas.
Iskandar Mizal said by acquiring the licence, BiotechCorp was able to provide access to the application of high level nanotechnology in Malaysia.
According to him, the direct applications in healthcare include cardiovascular therapeutics, eyesight therapeutics, blood clotting agents, wound and burn repair, and protein purification while the direct applications in food and cosmetics include flavour and solar protection.
On the nanotechnology acquisition, Iskandar Mizal said the due process comprised independent financial, technology, legal and intellectual property due diligence.
He said both BiotechCorp and Nanobiotix were equally confident of realising the multiplier effect of the nanotechnology platform acquired with a minimum target of two nanotechnology projects per year for the first four years.
"We are in the process of looking for the right research institution for us to take on further development work on some of the applications," he added.
With the acquisition, BiotechCorp is targeting a minimum of eight nanotechnology projects by 2011, which will mark the first year of its commercialisation phase from science to business, Iskandar Mizal said.
"Our capacity building phase will be concluded from 2005 to 2011," he said.
Nanobiotix was represented at the event by its founder and chief executive officer Dr Laurent Levy.
"We have decided to make things happen faster by having three researchers from Malaysia at our laboratory in France to work with us on the programme," Levy said.
"So at the end of the year, the researchers from Malaysia will have the knowledge to continue this programme," he said.
-- BERNAMA
Ladies, Be Cool. Your Little Wardrobe is Here
One of the popular emerging ladies stuff shopping web site in Malaysia, :)
Apparently, the lady owner is as cool as the site.
Click Here to visit Your Little Wardrobe
Apparently, the lady owner is as cool as the site.
Click Here to visit Your Little Wardrobe
Thursday, November 29, 2007
SENZPAK: Sales Manager cum Customer Service Manager
Sales Manager cum Customer Service Manager
(Johor - Senai)
Responsibilities:
Formulating, developing policy goals, objectives & procedures, developing & implementing business & marketing strategies, identifying business opportunities, ensuring business target are met, improving upon service quality, increasing market penetration as well as ensuring operational efficiency & profitabality of the company
Devise & implement innovative production management & development strategies to meet growth & profit targets in channels for Asia Pacific, ROC (Taiwan, China, Hong Kong)
Strong interpersonal skills with good presentation skills, result oriented & pro-active
Cross functional teamwork oriented with customer driven approach
Excellent communications skills with a passion in meeting and interacting with people
Develop & maintain strong business relationships with new and existing customers.
Highly capable, pro-active, energetic, resourcefulness, creative & result oriented individual
Be required to manage data sheets & technical data presentations for sensor product lines, provide periodic reports on sensor markets, developments & trends.
Must be able to distinguish and promote the creation and development of sensor markets
Requirements:
Diploma in Mechanical Engineering / Electrical Engineering
Minimum 10 years experience of Semiconductor and Sensor Products / Sensor Systems (Pressure Inertial, IR & Acoustic)
Minimum 5 years experience in Product Development, Design, Marketing & Business Development.
Experience in Product Development, Quality Management Systems (APQP, PPAP), Product Phase Review Process and Management and dealing with multi national companies
Must be able to travel regularly within Asia including Taiwan, China, Korea, Hong Kong, Australia and Europe
Interested applicants who meet the above requirements, are encouraged to apply online or submit your resume and a recent passport-sized photograph and copies of all relevant certificates to:
HR & Admin Department
SENZPAK (M) SDN. BHD.
PTD 43005, Jalan Murni 11,
Taman Perindustrian Murni,
81400 Senai, Johor
Web Site : www.senzpak.com
Email to: corine@senzpak.com.sg
Only short listed candidates will be notified for interview
(Johor - Senai)
Responsibilities:
Formulating, developing policy goals, objectives & procedures, developing & implementing business & marketing strategies, identifying business opportunities, ensuring business target are met, improving upon service quality, increasing market penetration as well as ensuring operational efficiency & profitabality of the company
Devise & implement innovative production management & development strategies to meet growth & profit targets in channels for Asia Pacific, ROC (Taiwan, China, Hong Kong)
Strong interpersonal skills with good presentation skills, result oriented & pro-active
Cross functional teamwork oriented with customer driven approach
Excellent communications skills with a passion in meeting and interacting with people
Develop & maintain strong business relationships with new and existing customers.
Highly capable, pro-active, energetic, resourcefulness, creative & result oriented individual
Be required to manage data sheets & technical data presentations for sensor product lines, provide periodic reports on sensor markets, developments & trends.
Must be able to distinguish and promote the creation and development of sensor markets
Requirements:
Diploma in Mechanical Engineering / Electrical Engineering
Minimum 10 years experience of Semiconductor and Sensor Products / Sensor Systems (Pressure Inertial, IR & Acoustic)
Minimum 5 years experience in Product Development, Design, Marketing & Business Development.
Experience in Product Development, Quality Management Systems (APQP, PPAP), Product Phase Review Process and Management and dealing with multi national companies
Must be able to travel regularly within Asia including Taiwan, China, Korea, Hong Kong, Australia and Europe
Interested applicants who meet the above requirements, are encouraged to apply online or submit your resume and a recent passport-sized photograph and copies of all relevant certificates to:
HR & Admin Department
SENZPAK (M) SDN. BHD.
PTD 43005, Jalan Murni 11,
Taman Perindustrian Murni,
81400 Senai, Johor
Web Site : www.senzpak.com
Email to: corine@senzpak.com.sg
Only short listed candidates will be notified for interview
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Give me my cert!
As a matter of fact, the office is technically closed after a 24 hours to their employees. Basically, it is foresee that more regional offices will be closed for sure.
Commitments to their local customers? Save your breath.
At least a dozen of their existing and new customers are shouting out loud now.
By the way, I'm a certified CA Clarity Technical Consultant that haven't receive my cert yet since last year examination. Bumpy, should I send the request directly to US or what? LOL
CA to reduce Asian presence
By Victoria Ho, ZDNet Asia
Tuesday, November 20 2007 07:53 PM
Software vendor CA is closing its Malaysian office, tallying up to a total count of six offices in the region that have already closed, or that will be downsized soon.
In a statement released Tuesday, the U.S.-based company confirmed its office in Malaysia will be "migrating to a channel partnership strategy" for its sales and account operations.
"We will maintain a direct sales relationship with our large global customers in the region and in their headquartered countries, but the majority of our customers will now be served by independent [third-party] organizations," said CA in the statement.
In sum, the software vendor will no longer maintain a direct presence in the affected markets, where its customers will be serviced by appointed partners.
As a result, the company confirmed that its staff strength will be downsized.
Daphne Chung, Asia-Pacific research manager at IDC's system infrastructure and middleware software research division, said in an e-mail interview: "A more indirect or channels sales model allows vendors to broaden their reach into the customer base at a more cost-effective manner, compared to putting more [its own] sales people on the ground."
According to some media reports, CA's other offices in the region may also see the same fate.
ZDNet Asia's sister site, ZDNet Taiwan, said in a news article (published in Chinese) that the vendor's Taiwan office will be reduced to a six-person team--encompassing technical and finance employees--down from some 60 staff.
CA has are no plans to shut its Taiwan office, Hong Kong-based Raj Seth, CA's vice president of corporate communications for Asia-Pacific and Japan, said in an e-mail interview.
While Seth did not comment directly on the company's moves to lower its headcount, he confirmed plans to shift CA's overall regional operations to a channel strategy. He noted that channel partners will become the vendor's "primary sales interface".
According to the ZDNet Taiwan report, CA's Hong Kong office will cease operations from Nov. 28, with its office in Thailand to follow suit at an undisclosed date.
Total tally: six to close?
Last month, CA closed its Philippine and Indonesian offices, bringing the tally to a possible six in the region.
In addition, the ZDNet Taiwan article said the company is currently evaluating options to retain or shut down operations in Singapore and Beijing. CA has five other offices in the region: India, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Korea.
CA declined to comment on its plans for the other offices.
Seth said: "Our new strategy arises from the realization that to provide a credible local presence, we must have an established local industry leader as our go-to-market entity."
He added that the company embarks on this new regional strategy "from a position of financial strength".
CA reported a 5 percent growth in revenues for its 2007 fiscal year, ended Mar. 31, at US$3.94 billion over last year's US$3.77 billion.
IDC's Chung foresees little disruption for customers as a result of CA's latest plans, but said the software vendor may have to deal with clients that are unused to a channel model.
"In particular, CA and its partners will have to work to win over those customers who insist or require a direct sales relationships with CA, and who do not fall into CA's category for large global customers in the region," she said.
In April 2006, CA's former chief executive Sanjay Kumar pleaded guilty to charges of financial fraud--two years after he was ousted from the company.
Commitments to their local customers? Save your breath.
At least a dozen of their existing and new customers are shouting out loud now.
By the way, I'm a certified CA Clarity Technical Consultant that haven't receive my cert yet since last year examination. Bumpy, should I send the request directly to US or what? LOL
CA to reduce Asian presence
By Victoria Ho, ZDNet Asia
Tuesday, November 20 2007 07:53 PM
Software vendor CA is closing its Malaysian office, tallying up to a total count of six offices in the region that have already closed, or that will be downsized soon.
In a statement released Tuesday, the U.S.-based company confirmed its office in Malaysia will be "migrating to a channel partnership strategy" for its sales and account operations.
"We will maintain a direct sales relationship with our large global customers in the region and in their headquartered countries, but the majority of our customers will now be served by independent [third-party] organizations," said CA in the statement.
In sum, the software vendor will no longer maintain a direct presence in the affected markets, where its customers will be serviced by appointed partners.
As a result, the company confirmed that its staff strength will be downsized.
Daphne Chung, Asia-Pacific research manager at IDC's system infrastructure and middleware software research division, said in an e-mail interview: "A more indirect or channels sales model allows vendors to broaden their reach into the customer base at a more cost-effective manner, compared to putting more [its own] sales people on the ground."
According to some media reports, CA's other offices in the region may also see the same fate.
ZDNet Asia's sister site, ZDNet Taiwan, said in a news article (published in Chinese) that the vendor's Taiwan office will be reduced to a six-person team--encompassing technical and finance employees--down from some 60 staff.
CA has are no plans to shut its Taiwan office, Hong Kong-based Raj Seth, CA's vice president of corporate communications for Asia-Pacific and Japan, said in an e-mail interview.
While Seth did not comment directly on the company's moves to lower its headcount, he confirmed plans to shift CA's overall regional operations to a channel strategy. He noted that channel partners will become the vendor's "primary sales interface".
According to the ZDNet Taiwan report, CA's Hong Kong office will cease operations from Nov. 28, with its office in Thailand to follow suit at an undisclosed date.
Total tally: six to close?
Last month, CA closed its Philippine and Indonesian offices, bringing the tally to a possible six in the region.
In addition, the ZDNet Taiwan article said the company is currently evaluating options to retain or shut down operations in Singapore and Beijing. CA has five other offices in the region: India, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Korea.
CA declined to comment on its plans for the other offices.
Seth said: "Our new strategy arises from the realization that to provide a credible local presence, we must have an established local industry leader as our go-to-market entity."
He added that the company embarks on this new regional strategy "from a position of financial strength".
CA reported a 5 percent growth in revenues for its 2007 fiscal year, ended Mar. 31, at US$3.94 billion over last year's US$3.77 billion.
IDC's Chung foresees little disruption for customers as a result of CA's latest plans, but said the software vendor may have to deal with clients that are unused to a channel model.
"In particular, CA and its partners will have to work to win over those customers who insist or require a direct sales relationships with CA, and who do not fall into CA's category for large global customers in the region," she said.
In April 2006, CA's former chief executive Sanjay Kumar pleaded guilty to charges of financial fraud--two years after he was ousted from the company.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Reading while sleeping. Beat me.
Sickening illness wrapping me again. Sucks.
Spent the day repeating the same cycle of sleeping, eating, taking medicine and sleeping again. I believe I'm in the progress of incubating pharmacophobia. Darn, should I take the red or the blue one today?
Whatever. Lying on my 5 years old spring mattress with flatten topper, digging some pointers of what to do to keep myself awake.
Oh yeah, I can continue reading up stuffs for CFA paper 1 preparation. The quantitative section should be interesting enough.
............ (Reading while half eye closed)
Although it is possible to restate the yield convention in money market yield, quoting yield on US T-bills is generally calculated based on bank discount basis. The author pointed out that quoted yield in bank discount basis has 3 potential issues: Firstly, the yield is based on face value of T-bills. It is more meaningful to express the return in term of amount invested. Secondly, bank convention of 360 days in a year is differ from usual calendar period calculation. And lastly when annualizing the yield, it is assuming a simple interest and this prevent the incorportation of interest on interest possibilities.
To do the conversion, use the following formula:
r(mm) = r(bd) x F/D
or if the face value (F) is not available,
r(mm)= 360 x r(bd) / (360 - t * r(bd))
Because US T-bills are guaranteed face value payment at maturity by US federal government, they are shielded from default risk. Large volume of T-bills transaction avoided liquidity risk and less than 1 year maturity excluded maturity risk. Thus T-bills are considered the safest short term debt instrument in US money market. But still T-bills will be affected by monetary policy on interest rate among other factors.
Effective annual yield, EAR = (1+HPY)^(365/t) - 1
In general calculation for NPV and IRR (or other time value of money methods), US T-bills yield is the baseline for establishing a reasonable discount rate or opportunity cost of capital.
............ (Continue next time.)
Spent the day repeating the same cycle of sleeping, eating, taking medicine and sleeping again. I believe I'm in the progress of incubating pharmacophobia. Darn, should I take the red or the blue one today?
Whatever. Lying on my 5 years old spring mattress with flatten topper, digging some pointers of what to do to keep myself awake.
Oh yeah, I can continue reading up stuffs for CFA paper 1 preparation. The quantitative section should be interesting enough.
............ (Reading while half eye closed)
Although it is possible to restate the yield convention in money market yield, quoting yield on US T-bills is generally calculated based on bank discount basis. The author pointed out that quoted yield in bank discount basis has 3 potential issues: Firstly, the yield is based on face value of T-bills. It is more meaningful to express the return in term of amount invested. Secondly, bank convention of 360 days in a year is differ from usual calendar period calculation. And lastly when annualizing the yield, it is assuming a simple interest and this prevent the incorportation of interest on interest possibilities.
To do the conversion, use the following formula:
r(mm) = r(bd) x F/D
or if the face value (F) is not available,
r(mm)= 360 x r(bd) / (360 - t * r(bd))
Because US T-bills are guaranteed face value payment at maturity by US federal government, they are shielded from default risk. Large volume of T-bills transaction avoided liquidity risk and less than 1 year maturity excluded maturity risk. Thus T-bills are considered the safest short term debt instrument in US money market. But still T-bills will be affected by monetary policy on interest rate among other factors.
Effective annual yield, EAR = (1+HPY)^(365/t) - 1
In general calculation for NPV and IRR (or other time value of money methods), US T-bills yield is the baseline for establishing a reasonable discount rate or opportunity cost of capital.
............ (Continue next time.)
Friday, October 19, 2007
Home Appliances Hassles - Part 6
Malaysia - Chapter of "Belkin, anyone?"
My 2 years old BenQ FP71G did it again and it happened in front of my own eyes. No sound, no warning, just a direct flashing into the white screen of death. O well, at least better than previous malfunction where the screen is totally black out. Luckily the unit got a 3 years warranty that will expires next year August. What to do, got no spare money to get of those 32"in LCD TV as computer monitor, I gotta send it for repair.
I decided to get some "protection" for my new electronic appliances since I pretty sure that their lifespan will definitely cut short by frequent voltage surges in the residential area (or perhaps any area) if I opted not to do anything about it.
2 brands imprinted in my head when hunting for such utilities, namely Belkin and APC. I chose Belkin over APC because it got a lifetime warranty on their protectors and insurance on connected devices up to predetermined monetary amount.
Most computer shops in Plaza Lowyat, KL doesn't offer much variety of Belkin protectors series. ALL IT Hypermart looks like a good place to shop, even though they are selling their commodities at a more pricey tag.
At the end, I bought the following Belkin stuffs:
2 unit of Belkin MasterCube Surge Protector, Home Series (Insured amount: RM5K)
- For fridge and washing machine
1 unit of Belkin SurgeMaster Surge Protector, Gold Series (Insured amount: RM25K)
- For computer and things
1 unit of Belkin SurgeMaster Surge Protector, Superior Series (Insured amount: RM10K)
- For TV, AV sets.
Spent: Around RM600.
In return: A hope for peace of mind
My 2 years old BenQ FP71G did it again and it happened in front of my own eyes. No sound, no warning, just a direct flashing into the white screen of death. O well, at least better than previous malfunction where the screen is totally black out. Luckily the unit got a 3 years warranty that will expires next year August. What to do, got no spare money to get of those 32"in LCD TV as computer monitor, I gotta send it for repair.
I decided to get some "protection" for my new electronic appliances since I pretty sure that their lifespan will definitely cut short by frequent voltage surges in the residential area (or perhaps any area) if I opted not to do anything about it.
2 brands imprinted in my head when hunting for such utilities, namely Belkin and APC. I chose Belkin over APC because it got a lifetime warranty on their protectors and insurance on connected devices up to predetermined monetary amount.
Most computer shops in Plaza Lowyat, KL doesn't offer much variety of Belkin protectors series. ALL IT Hypermart looks like a good place to shop, even though they are selling their commodities at a more pricey tag.
At the end, I bought the following Belkin stuffs:
2 unit of Belkin MasterCube Surge Protector, Home Series (Insured amount: RM5K)
- For fridge and washing machine
1 unit of Belkin SurgeMaster Surge Protector, Gold Series (Insured amount: RM25K)
- For computer and things
1 unit of Belkin SurgeMaster Surge Protector, Superior Series (Insured amount: RM10K)
- For TV, AV sets.
Spent: Around RM600.
In return: A hope for peace of mind
Monday, October 15, 2007
Home Appliance Hassles - Part 5
Malaysia - Chapter of the Spinning Joke
Not surprisingly, lots of big home appliances' brands are in fact OEM end product of local manufacturers. Take few examples, York air conditioners are actually from Acson, Rubine cooker hoods are actually produced by the same manufacturer as Elba and some branded LCD TV too following this kind of OEM process.
You might be familiar with the saying that when buying ceiling fan better stick with KDK or Panasonic. Other brands such as Alpha, Euro UNO, Khind and etc are not within my consideration, even though some of their designs are quite appealing.
So what's the big deal with KDK or Panasonic's ceiling fan. Well, nothing much since
they are in fact manufactured by the same people. You might opt to buy Panasonic one for their after sales support and services, which are managed by Panasonic themselves. On the other hand, you can spend less with KDK to entitle for the same features and quality.
Check out this cool 7 speed ceiling fan when you plan to get a ceiling fan. Try to max out the speed when you test out one in the store. :p
KDK version:
Panasonic version:
Technical specs (Regardless of KDK or Panasonic)
1/f Yuragi is irregularity and a phenomenon that widely exists in nature. It has a natural rhythm that makes a person feel relax.
3D Aero Curve Design delivers smooth and strong air flow.
Distinctive Blade Material
Quadruple Safety Features- thermal safety fuse, current fuse, safety fuse & cut-off safety switch.
Easy Installation
LCD Screen Remote Control
7 speed Control Sleep, 2-8 hours Sleep Mode and 1-8 hours Off Timer
RPM : Low - 90 High - 200
Air Delivery (m3/min) : 245
Motor W : Low - 25 High - 91
Motor HP : 0.13
Motor Type : Condenser Motor
Noise Level (dB) : 49
Nett Weight (kg) : 9.7
We ended up paying RM440 for KDK version of this fan. If you insists on Panasonic, then you gotta top up extra RM30 bucks for it (RM470).
No fancy decoration nor colors, just purely strong flows of air. Definitely worth my money in the long run. No offense, but I don't think I will get those with light fittings or wooden blades, nice looking spinning jokes :p.
P/S: The fan comes with Polypropylene Fibre Glass blades. No more rusts.
Not surprisingly, lots of big home appliances' brands are in fact OEM end product of local manufacturers. Take few examples, York air conditioners are actually from Acson, Rubine cooker hoods are actually produced by the same manufacturer as Elba and some branded LCD TV too following this kind of OEM process.
You might be familiar with the saying that when buying ceiling fan better stick with KDK or Panasonic. Other brands such as Alpha, Euro UNO, Khind and etc are not within my consideration, even though some of their designs are quite appealing.
So what's the big deal with KDK or Panasonic's ceiling fan. Well, nothing much since
they are in fact manufactured by the same people. You might opt to buy Panasonic one for their after sales support and services, which are managed by Panasonic themselves. On the other hand, you can spend less with KDK to entitle for the same features and quality.
Check out this cool 7 speed ceiling fan when you plan to get a ceiling fan. Try to max out the speed when you test out one in the store. :p
KDK version:
Panasonic version:
Technical specs (Regardless of KDK or Panasonic)
1/f Yuragi is irregularity and a phenomenon that widely exists in nature. It has a natural rhythm that makes a person feel relax.
3D Aero Curve Design delivers smooth and strong air flow.
Distinctive Blade Material
Quadruple Safety Features- thermal safety fuse, current fuse, safety fuse & cut-off safety switch.
Easy Installation
LCD Screen Remote Control
7 speed Control Sleep, 2-8 hours Sleep Mode and 1-8 hours Off Timer
RPM : Low - 90 High - 200
Air Delivery (m3/min) : 245
Motor W : Low - 25 High - 91
Motor HP : 0.13
Motor Type : Condenser Motor
Noise Level (dB) : 49
Nett Weight (kg) : 9.7
I googled about Yuragi
- A japanese word means Fluctuations
- It is difficult to find phenomena without fluctuations in the real world. In fact, most social, economic, and political phenomena are considered to be always fluctuating in contrast to our pursuit of order and causal relation. In addition, our day-to-day physical and mental activities have fluctuations about which we are often unaware. An understanding of the nature of such fluctuations would have important practical and research value. This is our goal.
Our original interest was in 1/f fluctuations in electronic devices. For such devices, there are four kinds of fluctuations or noise: thermal noise, shot noise, generation-recombination noise, and 1/f noise. The physical mechanisms of the first three, from which their names are derived, are well known. On the other hand, the mechanism behind 1/f noise, which was first observed in vacuum tubes, in 1925, remains unknown. This type of fluctuation is not restricted to electronic devices but is ubiquitous in nature. The international symposium on noise in physical systems has been held every two years since 1977, but still this problem remains a mystery.
In 1982, 1/f fluctuations were discovered in human heart rates. This discovery was followed by similar findings in rhythms of various parts of biological systems such as central nervous system, autonomic nervous system, etc. and even in human behavior such as clapping. Although the mechanism of these special fluctuations is not fully understood, scientists are considering the hypothesis that fluctuations generally play crucial roles in maintaining biological functions.
Thus, we now understand that fluctuating states are more fundamental than steady states not only in physics and electronics but also in biological systems and even in human behavior and social events. This is one of the reasons why we are especially interested in 1/f fluctuations. The word "fluctuations", or "yuragi" in Japanese, is often used in daily life.
In Japan, a research group on fluctuation phenomena, consisting of physicists, electronic engineers and mathematicians was organized in 1980. The group's activity has been expanded since 1987 to various fields of science including physics, electronics, astronomy, biology, statistical mathematics, medicine, economics, and anthropology. In 1989 the group organized Associations for Science, Art and Technology of Fluctuations and since then it had annual meetings in which speakers of various fields gave many outstanding and up-to-date invited talks. Morikita Publishing Co has been publishing the contents of these invited talks in ten volumes of "Science of Fluctuations" in Japanese. The group now intends to expand this activity in a different form.
Besides the regular activity of research the group will open a window through our internet website, to allow exchange of scientific ideas with scientists all over the world. Anyone who has new topics on fluctuations is welcome to join. When certain topics attract the interest of many participants in the forum, an international symposium will be organized for exchanging ideas on these topics.
We ended up paying RM440 for KDK version of this fan. If you insists on Panasonic, then you gotta top up extra RM30 bucks for it (RM470).
No fancy decoration nor colors, just purely strong flows of air. Definitely worth my money in the long run. No offense, but I don't think I will get those with light fittings or wooden blades, nice looking spinning jokes :p.
P/S: The fan comes with Polypropylene Fibre Glass blades. No more rusts.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Rinnai Cooker Hood and Hob Promotion (Until 31-October-2007)
It is a good deal if considering the price of both the items bundled in the package. However I personally doesn't recommend you to use the cooker hood in the package, the reasons being the suction power is too weak for asian style cooking and no auto cleaning available.
If your cooking doesn't incur lots of oil spills and more concerns on getting rid the smells, then perhaps this package is suitable for you. My 2 cents.
Home Appliance Hassles - Part 4
Malaysia - Chapter of the Whirlpool Queen
The Mighty Fridge freezes your supplies with frozen spells and pathetic you await salvation need to confront with another hurdle imposed by the cruelty Whirlpool Queen. Behold dirty clothes.
My barracks of armies has another new recruit, THE washing machine.
Ok, straight to the point.
Points to concern when getting a new washing machine:
1. Loading Type
Front Loading (You put in clothes from the front panel) and Top Loading (You flip open the top cover and put your clothes in)
2. Workload
It defines as the weight of clothes and water that the machine is able to handle easily. In other words, you can actually overload the machine by putting in heavier garments but this will definitely reduces its lifespan.
3. Motor rotation mechanism
See whether the rotation of motor is driven by a belt or direct drive mechanism (No belt involved)
4. Warranty
Make sure the warranty is actually endorsed by the original manufacturer and not from the shop themselves.
I've shortlisted a few of the candidates and one of it is the following babe:
Toshiba AW D950SM
General Feature
Direct Drive (DD) Inverter
Zero Standby Power
Triple Air Super Spin Dry
Hybrid Screw Pulsator
Less Noise & Vibration
Fuzzy Logic
Condensed Bubble Wash
8.5KG workload, Direct Drive (Non-Belt) and 2 Years General Warranty
with 5 Years Motor Warranty.
Initial call price was RM1045 (Promotional price). I didn't manage to push for lower price due to obvious reason: Mrs. Nerdy don't like it. She found out that the diameter of the loader are actually relatively smaller than one of the Panasonic 8KG model and also abit shallow.
Then we looked at Panasonic NA-F80G6 model.
Slightly smaller workload (Only 8KG) than the Toshiba model, BUT with larger loader.
G6 comes with AquaBeat feature (No idea what is that, read below) and A6 model without AquaBeat.
AquaBeat
Powerful Water Flow Blasts Off Dirt
More powerful water flow than ever before penetrates deep into fibers to beat out ingrained dirt. Working together with Panasonic's innovative Foam Wash, this removes stubborn stains for fresh, clean washing every time.
Starting price @RM1399. Hitting and knocking that pity salesman again. Finally arrived @RM1100. Even better, we paid only RM1099 when checking out. Extra RM1 discount courtesy of a lady in the shop (No idea who is she).
The Mighty Fridge freezes your supplies with frozen spells and pathetic you await salvation need to confront with another hurdle imposed by the cruelty Whirlpool Queen. Behold dirty clothes.
My barracks of armies has another new recruit, THE washing machine.
Ok, straight to the point.
Points to concern when getting a new washing machine:
1. Loading Type
Front Loading (You put in clothes from the front panel) and Top Loading (You flip open the top cover and put your clothes in)
2. Workload
It defines as the weight of clothes and water that the machine is able to handle easily. In other words, you can actually overload the machine by putting in heavier garments but this will definitely reduces its lifespan.
3. Motor rotation mechanism
See whether the rotation of motor is driven by a belt or direct drive mechanism (No belt involved)
4. Warranty
Make sure the warranty is actually endorsed by the original manufacturer and not from the shop themselves.
I've shortlisted a few of the candidates and one of it is the following babe:
Toshiba AW D950SM
General Feature
Direct Drive (DD) Inverter
Zero Standby Power
Triple Air Super Spin Dry
Hybrid Screw Pulsator
Less Noise & Vibration
Fuzzy Logic
Condensed Bubble Wash
8.5KG workload, Direct Drive (Non-Belt) and 2 Years General Warranty
with 5 Years Motor Warranty.
Initial call price was RM1045 (Promotional price). I didn't manage to push for lower price due to obvious reason: Mrs. Nerdy don't like it. She found out that the diameter of the loader are actually relatively smaller than one of the Panasonic 8KG model and also abit shallow.
Then we looked at Panasonic NA-F80G6 model.
Slightly smaller workload (Only 8KG) than the Toshiba model, BUT with larger loader.
G6 comes with AquaBeat feature (No idea what is that, read below) and A6 model without AquaBeat.
AquaBeat
Powerful Water Flow Blasts Off Dirt
More powerful water flow than ever before penetrates deep into fibers to beat out ingrained dirt. Working together with Panasonic's innovative Foam Wash, this removes stubborn stains for fresh, clean washing every time.
Starting price @RM1399. Hitting and knocking that pity salesman again. Finally arrived @RM1100. Even better, we paid only RM1099 when checking out. Extra RM1 discount courtesy of a lady in the shop (No idea who is she).
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Home Appliance Hassles - Part 3
Malaysia - Chapter of the Mighty Fridge
Tell me the truth, is a 200+ liters capacity refrigerator enough to pile up snacks and junk foods for a family of 2 or perhaps 4 in the next 5 years (:p)?
And what you will do then if your need towards higher storage capacity increase in the future? Throw away the old fridge or maintain multiple fridges?
Again, the conclusion leads to extra dollars when deciding which fridge to buy.
Brands under consideration includes Sharp, Panasonic, Toshiba and Hitachi. You must have notice the homogenous selection of brands, they are all japs stuffs. LG and Samsung's fridges has yet to get my trust.
Toshiba and Hitachi sounds good, but we decided to get Panasonic one because the brand name got 4 (FOUR) syllables. Hehehe, what a factor to determine the purchase!
At the end of the day, it boiled down to Panasonic NR-B362M with net capacity of 355 liters (102L for the freezer and 253 for the rest).
We went to one of the retail appliances shop to check out the good. Not bad, can fit plenty of stuffs inside. After an hour of hitting and knocking the salesman, we managed to get away with RM1568 (Goooood number) with delivery and standard panasonic gifts.
More Information on this product
Tell me the truth, is a 200+ liters capacity refrigerator enough to pile up snacks and junk foods for a family of 2 or perhaps 4 in the next 5 years (:p)?
And what you will do then if your need towards higher storage capacity increase in the future? Throw away the old fridge or maintain multiple fridges?
Again, the conclusion leads to extra dollars when deciding which fridge to buy.
Brands under consideration includes Sharp, Panasonic, Toshiba and Hitachi. You must have notice the homogenous selection of brands, they are all japs stuffs. LG and Samsung's fridges has yet to get my trust.
Toshiba and Hitachi sounds good, but we decided to get Panasonic one because the brand name got 4 (FOUR) syllables. Hehehe, what a factor to determine the purchase!
At the end of the day, it boiled down to Panasonic NR-B362M with net capacity of 355 liters (102L for the freezer and 253 for the rest).
We went to one of the retail appliances shop to check out the good. Not bad, can fit plenty of stuffs inside. After an hour of hitting and knocking the salesman, we managed to get away with RM1568 (Goooood number) with delivery and standard panasonic gifts.
More Information on this product
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Home Appliance Hassles - Part 2
Malaysia - Chapter of the Burning Hob.
Most chinese believes that a house stove (hob) determines how well that family capability to create fortune. For me, I'm not saying that this kind of superstition was not in my mind, but I prefer to use other "modern superstition" to convince a buy. Better burning, gas saving, lower maintenance cost, durability and etc are all usually marketing hypes, because when you stemming down till the end, making a good meal is the ultimate end.
Stamped and signed. Finally bought a Rinnai hob after some indecisive struggles on the issue of what to do with the Tellini's hob bundled in the cooker hood package.
More Information
3 burners, in Chinese means 生火 （Producing Fire) which is essential in making food and providing warm environment during winter time.
No regret on buying this. RM1090 for the hob and a free gift (Rinnai Steam Cooker).
Most chinese believes that a house stove (hob) determines how well that family capability to create fortune. For me, I'm not saying that this kind of superstition was not in my mind, but I prefer to use other "modern superstition" to convince a buy. Better burning, gas saving, lower maintenance cost, durability and etc are all usually marketing hypes, because when you stemming down till the end, making a good meal is the ultimate end.
Stamped and signed. Finally bought a Rinnai hob after some indecisive struggles on the issue of what to do with the Tellini's hob bundled in the cooker hood package.
RB-3SS (Tempered Glass Black)
Dimensions (mm)
RB-3SS (GB) : 880 (W) X 520 (D) X 131.4 (H)
Cut-Out Dimensions (mm): 725~840 (W) X 435~480 (D) (R 0~110)
Body Weight (kg)
RB-3SS (GB) : 21
▪ Able to fit into most of the cut out dimension in current market
▪ Convenient cooking three in one time
▪ Variety cooking
▪ Powerful flame with simmer
▪ Flame failure safety device
▪ Battery ignition
More Information
3 burners, in Chinese means 生火 （Producing Fire) which is essential in making food and providing warm environment during winter time.
No regret on buying this. RM1090 for the hob and a free gift (Rinnai Steam Cooker).
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Home Appliance Hassles - Part 1
Malaysia - Chapter of the Cooker Hood
After a troublesome study and wandering around in the jungle of modern cooking appliances, shifting through pages of brochures and lepak not less than 5 major forums, finally settled down with Tellini cooker hood and looking forward for other stuffs.
Some critical decisive factors include:
One of the most problematic dilemmas when finalizing the purchase was the issue of packaging. Distributors like to bundle their hob and hood together as some best buy deal. I dislike the idea when I start to think of buying the two things separately would require me to spend extra dollar. Darn, and I definitely prefer a best of the class solution, instead of getting something not really I want.
Examples include
1. Rinnai
RH970S Cooker Hood + RG2BSi Hob.
I admired the built and appearance of Rinnai's inner flame hob, which looks solid enough to last decades. But I don't really like the bundled cooker hood range since it is filter based and only got 700 extraction rates. Price tag at about RM2K.
2. Ika, Rubine, PeXXXX (I forgot the name), Ela
Fall below my budget of RM1.5K to RM2K and they comes... again with hob. One thing worrying me is the use of digital display panel. Haha, sometimes I just don't trust technology enough to acquire one of these. LOL
3. Fagor, Futile, Pacific, Tellini, Teka, Electrolux
Within my budget. Relatively popular. Meet most of my functional requirements.
At this point, it is obvious that one of the constraint is that I'm forcefully to get one of the "promotional" bundled package.
So, how's Tellini came into picture? Well, it's all started with the following flyer:
Wooo Hoooo, RM1.3K for a hood with 1500 m3/h suction power and auto cleaning feature. Eager me printed out the flyer and rushed to one of the shops selling this Tellini thingy.
I need to choose between Hot auto-wash or liquid based auto-wash. Both are roughly same price but the one with hot auto wash got 1500m3/h suction power and the other only 1250 m3/h.
Well, confirmed going with HSW-2me Turbo AutoWash model because Mrs. Nerdy believes that liquid based cleaning is cleaner. (No comment about this, :p) Emmm.. Ok, no fancy designer type chimney hood, that's for sure. I'm fine with that and so with Mrs. Nerdy.
Emmm... Not bad. It got the twin fans, 6 speed button control, auto cleaning and designed for asian style cooking.
Again (Yaks), the bundling of hood and hob made me sick. Let buying the hood alone is RM1248 and if you buy both the hoob and hob, it will cost you RM1248..... What the heck, this is like giving away the hob (Worth RM548) for free.
Anyway, the "free" hob doesn't have the auto gas cut off safety feature and the design is less efficient than the higher end peers. To upgrade to higher end, you need to pay extra RM600 for TGB-2ms model.
Fine. If they want to give out their hob for "free", how could I refuse it? :p
(Mrs. Nerdy at the other end already hinted me that she wants a Rinnai burner LOL)
RM1.38K for the Set C package, alum. ducting set and wall cap. RM132 for the ducting set and cap might be a bit expensive but they claimed giving us a thicker ducting exhaust hose. No installation included since I planned to get cheaper labor to do the job instead of paying extra RM300.
However, I can't really tell whether buying this Tellini hood actually worth the money since I wouldn't know until the day Mrs. Nerdy use it (and when she starts complaining). Life's moving on.
After a troublesome study and wandering around in the jungle of modern cooking appliances, shifting through pages of brochures and lepak not less than 5 major forums, finally settled down with Tellini cooker hood and looking forward for other stuffs.
Some critical decisive factors include:
1. Extraction Rate
Famous brands like Rinnai, Fujioh, Sakura doesn't offer the air extraction rate that's desired within our shrinking tiny budget. They usually only ranged from 700 m3/h to 900 m3/h and effectively useless for asian cooking styles.
2. Cooking Style
Again, famous western brands like Electrolux, Fagor and Teka are, in my opinions, not really suitable for our deep fry style of cooking. Oil will spill everywhere and your wife will starts complaining like no tomorrow when she's cleaning up the mess.
3. Brand
With branded cooker hoods, comes with hefty price tag. Fujioh is one expensive monster but darn effective workhorse. Rinnai is relatively expensive too but not effective when you get one of its midrange hoods. Other brands like Pacific, Futile, Tellini and Fagor are within my consideration.
4. Price
Hoo ha, midrange products prices ranged from RM800 to RM4000 depends on the other considerations I stated above and below. My budget is only RM1.5K to RM2K.
5. Maintenance
Mrs. Nerdy (Haha, I will start to salute her this way) starts her murmuring on some Auto-cleaning techie thingy after she heard some horror stories on never ending cleaning nightmare from her colleagues. Ok, scope creep happened in real life and this is a major scope creep as it will definitely add up to the cost. Commonly, there are 2 types of auto cleaning methods,
a.) Hot Cleaning
b.) Liquid based Cleaning
Hot cleaning will use heats to melt the collected grease and a turbine to direct the oil to the designated container. For liquid based, you will need to pour some cleaner into a storage tank and activate the cleaning function and it will wash the fan/etc and flush out the dirty water into designated container.
One of the most problematic dilemmas when finalizing the purchase was the issue of packaging. Distributors like to bundle their hob and hood together as some best buy deal. I dislike the idea when I start to think of buying the two things separately would require me to spend extra dollar. Darn, and I definitely prefer a best of the class solution, instead of getting something not really I want.
Examples include
1. Rinnai
RH970S Cooker Hood + RG2BSi Hob.
I admired the built and appearance of Rinnai's inner flame hob, which looks solid enough to last decades. But I don't really like the bundled cooker hood range since it is filter based and only got 700 extraction rates. Price tag at about RM2K.
2. Ika, Rubine, PeXXXX (I forgot the name), Ela
Fall below my budget of RM1.5K to RM2K and they comes... again with hob. One thing worrying me is the use of digital display panel. Haha, sometimes I just don't trust technology enough to acquire one of these. LOL
3. Fagor, Futile, Pacific, Tellini, Teka, Electrolux
Within my budget. Relatively popular. Meet most of my functional requirements.
At this point, it is obvious that one of the constraint is that I'm forcefully to get one of the "promotional" bundled package.
So, how's Tellini came into picture? Well, it's all started with the following flyer:
Wooo Hoooo, RM1.3K for a hood with 1500 m3/h suction power and auto cleaning feature. Eager me printed out the flyer and rushed to one of the shops selling this Tellini thingy.
I need to choose between Hot auto-wash or liquid based auto-wash. Both are roughly same price but the one with hot auto wash got 1500m3/h suction power and the other only 1250 m3/h.
Well, confirmed going with HSW-2me Turbo AutoWash model because Mrs. Nerdy believes that liquid based cleaning is cleaner. (No comment about this, :p) Emmm.. Ok, no fancy designer type chimney hood, that's for sure. I'm fine with that and so with Mrs. Nerdy.
Emmm... Not bad. It got the twin fans, 6 speed button control, auto cleaning and designed for asian style cooking.
Again (Yaks), the bundling of hood and hob made me sick. Let buying the hood alone is RM1248 and if you buy both the hoob and hob, it will cost you RM1248..... What the heck, this is like giving away the hob (Worth RM548) for free.
Anyway, the "free" hob doesn't have the auto gas cut off safety feature and the design is less efficient than the higher end peers. To upgrade to higher end, you need to pay extra RM600 for TGB-2ms model.
Fine. If they want to give out their hob for "free", how could I refuse it? :p
(Mrs. Nerdy at the other end already hinted me that she wants a Rinnai burner LOL)
RM1.38K for the Set C package, alum. ducting set and wall cap. RM132 for the ducting set and cap might be a bit expensive but they claimed giving us a thicker ducting exhaust hose. No installation included since I planned to get cheaper labor to do the job instead of paying extra RM300.
However, I can't really tell whether buying this Tellini hood actually worth the money since I wouldn't know until the day Mrs. Nerdy use it (and when she starts complaining). Life's moving on.
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