Felda Sungai Klah Hotspring a.k.a. Taman Rekreasi Air Panas (TRAP)

I've being to this tourist spot a couple of times, all happened to be just one day trips. As a matter of fact, one whole day is more than enough to enjoy the place, unless you plan to stay and hopefully recharge your spiritual energy by listening to the buzzing of (potentially irritating) night creatures. Count me out.. for now.

Entrance fee is MYR10.00 for adult, cheaper price is available for children, disabled and golden citizens. I'd remembered previously the price was much lower, if not mistaken around MYR4.00 instead. Seems like inflation is infact inevitable.

Some random pics about this place.


Walkway.


Trees and plants.


SPA canopy.


Private pool?


Family pool entrance.




Very hot water, dare to touch?


Map for not losing your direction.



can trust these pointers?


Official information about TRAP:

Absolute and Relative Performance

It is imperative that any performance measurement has to be done relatively among comparable samples.

Let's take a very macro view of this statement, how do we compare economic performance of countries? Malaysia, for example annual GDP growth adjusted by inflation for year 2008 was 4.73% on average and the same measure for year 2009 was
-3.77%. Looking at these numbers by their absolute sense only be able to tell you one-sided of the story, the magnitude of change between contiguous time periods. How do you tell whether 4.73% for year 2008 was actually top performing achievement and its fall to -3.77% was in fact within acceptable normal range? The answer to all these questions are not easily obtainable. To compare and interpret the numbers, we must have data of countries of similar characterics which include developing status, government types, national focuses, comparative advantages, currency power and so on.
Unfortunately (fortunately), this planet only logically partitioned into less than 200 countries (officially according to UN) and this means that the samples that fulfill the suitability criteria can be significantly little.

Performance must be measured in relative term! It makes more sense to state that Malaysia is performing at 95 percentile of all qualified samples or Malaysia is performing 5 percentile better than Thailand.

Applying the same analytical process to evaluate a group of employees or set of business units where each consists of a group of employees, it is not likely that neither employees are all performing nor they are all not performing. Performance might be normally distributed and it implies that most (67%) employees' performance fall between 1 standard deviation from the distribution mean. With more sample points, I do believe that this will be the true population distribution, however with less number of employees in the analysis, we perhaps can observe skewed distributions, positively or negatively. In layman terms, we could observe majority of the employees are performing exceptionally good or worse. Taking a negatively skewed distribution of employees' performance, what will be a suitable compensation system? Should we lucratively compensate exceptionally performing people that only registered themselves near to the distribution mean or severely penalize people far at the left skirt of the graph who obviously fall on the definition of outliers.

No easy answer because it is impossible to have a undisputable and universal performance benchmark on human activity. It is difficult because even such benchmark and measurement methodology exists not everybody will bow down to its results nor agree to the rationale of every measurement.

I guess people management is undeniably distantly far to be an engineering disclipline.

Bank Negara To Formulate A New Blueprint For Financial Sector

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 18 (Bernama) -- Bank Negara Malaysia is in the process of formulating a new blueprint for the financial sector for the next decade which would ensure the development of a more inclusive financial system.

Disclosing this in her welcoming remarks at the Financial Inclusion Advisers Programme here today, Bank Negara Governor, Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz said Malaysia would continue to ensure that all segments of society continue to have access to financial services.

While the current global economic slowdown posed a challenge to the financial inclusion agenda, the country's high level of financial inclusion is the result of conscious policies to build a progressive and inclusive financial system, Zeti said.

The financial inclusion measures have seen positive results so far, with the country having among the highest level of deposit and loan accounts in the world.

The text of her speech was released here Monday.

Zeti said the strategies implemented had generated six characteristics of the financial system, firstly a business environment that allowed a diverse range of financial service providers to thrive and compete.

The financial system also includes foreign financial institutions through a series of sequenced liberalisation measures.

Secondly, basic banking products and services have been made available at reasonable costs, and thirdly a diverse set of delivery channels had been introduced to ensure widespread access to financial services.

"The central bank's branching policy has encouraged financial institutions to establish an extensive branch network across the country to ensure widespread physical access to financial services," Zeti said.

Another feature of the system has been the enhancement of financial literacy and protection of consumer rights. Towards this, a Consumer Protection Framework has been developed to enhance the disclosure standards of financial products and services, the various dispute resolution mechanisms and to institute fair practice amongst the financial service providers.

Supporting financial infrastructure to facilitate the operations of financial institutions has been another important feature of the financial system.

In this regard, credit bureaus have been established to enhance access to financing by encouraging borrowers to build credit records, Zeti said.

Finally, recognising the importance of human capital development in the industry, the central bank also established several centres of excellence for learning for the overall financial services sector, including covering the areas of corporate governance, leadership development and Islamic finance.

Meanwhile, Bank Negara Malaysia and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have jointly organised the ongoing Financial Inclusion Advisors (FIA) Programme here.

The five-day programme, beginning today will provide a platform for microfinance practitioners in the region to share their experiences in enhancing financial inclusion with regulators and microfinance practitioners from Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Discussions will focus on recent developments in microfinance in Africa, Malaysia, India and Indonesia, development of agriculture microfinance, micro credit practices and credit risk management.

-- BERNAMA

Lai said to be unlikely to return to Alliance bank

Eddy said: I don't think she will "appears" in ANY banks in near future. Maybe it's time for her to retire with.. well, plenty of "wealth".


By ELAINE ANG

PETALING JAYA: Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd group chief executive officer (CEO) Datuk
Bridget Lai is not expected to return to the bank, sources and analysts said.

“I think I will answer you simply. I do not think it likely that Lai will return,” a source told StarBiz yesterday.

Speculation is rife that Lai, who is currently being investigated in the bank’s internal probe on issues which started with renovation in the property department, would not want to continue on as the bank’s CEO after the investigations are over.


Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd group CEO Datuk Bridget Lai It was reported earlier that Lai had been given seven days by the bank board to answer certain questions as part of the bank’s internal probe.

When contacted, Lai said in an email reply that her main focus now was to clear her name.

“At this moment I do not even want to think about the future because the present is my key focus. Clear my name but to always be cognisant of my responsibility to my shareholders, professional in my conduct, respectful to my board and concern about my shareholders.

“I should be able to respond to my letter soon and hope to give my board a satisfactory answer.

“And by the way, money cannot buy integrity and there is no price to integrity as it is priceless. I am not concerned about compensation and despite the rumours, this is not my key focus,” she said.

An analyst with a local stockbroking firm who declined to be named said she would not be surprised if Lai did not return to the bank as CEO.

“I don’t think she will go back once the issue is over and she clears her name. I would not go back too after having gone through so much trauma,” she said.

Another analyst with a bank-backed stockbroking firm concurred.

“The investigation would most probably result in a less cordial relationship with the board. The relationship will not be as smooth as before. Even if she returns, I don’t think it will be for long as it will only be to hand over to her successor,” the analyst said.

On the effect Lai’s leaving would have on the bank, the analyst said the bank might be affected in the short term as there may be a management reshuffle with a new CEO coming on board thus disrupting the bank’s strategic direction and strategy execution.

“Moreover, the growth momentum for the consumer banking side may slump as Lai has always been strong in this area,” the analyst said.

Nevertheless, another analyst expects Lai to at least complete her contract with the bank.

“I believe she would want a good start and good end to her tenure at Alliance Bank. She has built up the bank to what it is today and she is a responsible person. She would want a smooth transition of power,” she said.

83-640 TS Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring

This test is the first virtual lab based certification exam from Microsoft, therefore Nerdy Eddy must go and try it out. That's reason #1. Reason #2 is the demand for me to acquire the proper overall understanding about Active Directory and its configuration thingy and thus to be able to talk to those nasty IT Administrators, especially those bank customers of ours. You might be a vendor like us and if you're dealing with enough customers with relatively large directory-based network infrastructure, you do understand the fact that without a knowledge of the standard operating procedures and configurations (hardening and stuffs) of IT systems, your project might get into troubles, well "preferably" at the end of the testing phase and the start of migration phase. Surprises such as services suddenly went down, network became inaccessible and some weird blockage of program execution can turn your world upside down and when you found out the root of cause, most of the time it's all about subtle policy settings. Lolx. If you're telling me that all these hassles form the experiences of a seasoned technical person, well, wake up and tell yourself that it is all caused by your incapability, insufficient knowledge, unwillingness to learn formally and unable to read a book from cover to index. LOLX.

About 83-640. It's quite a fun testing experience. The test program started one or more virtual machines for you and ask you to perform a series of tasks within timed duration. I guess the step by step process is not important but the end result. You can do the entire tasks in command prompt if you're well verse in it than GUI based tools. Of course, some tasks must be perform using GUI tools.

For my case, there were so called performance labs, each one must be completd within 65 minutes and consists of roughly 7 to 9 tasks. Nonetheless, my task scopes are quite limited to the use of ntdsutil, dnsmgmt.msc, dsa.msc, domain.msc and schmmgmt. I didn't use compmgmtlauncher.exe at all. No tasks for me that're related to monitoring and ADCS, ADFS, ADLDS, ADRMS.

Then after completed the labs, you need to settle a traditional question-based test (30 questions).

I've passed the test with 933 score, not sure it is a good score or not because this is my first MS certification exposure :p

My preparation materials were:


Que MCTS: 70-640 Exam Cram (As main study material)
Windows 2008 Bible (As ad-hoc reference book)
Microsoft Site and TechNet
Some Windows 2008 VM to play with

I'm not sure I want to proceed now to complete MCITP track, unless my work desires more knowledge on network and more MS environment stuffs.

Bridget Lai said to be head-hunted

Eddy said: Head-hunted in the middle of potential scandal? Beat me up please, I just don't believe this crap. Lolx, what's an extremist huh?


PETALING JAYA: Alliance Bank group CEO Datuk Bridget Lai (pic) is believed to be head-hunted for top positions in banking and finance.

The offers are said to have emerged since last year but Lai’s contract with Alliance had just been approved by Bank Negara for renewal in September; hence, she has not accepted any offer.

When contacted, Lai declined to comment.


Alliance Financial Group Bhd group chief executive officer Datuk Bridget Lai. Industry players said they were not surprised that Lai would be approached by headhunters as the shortage of seasoned bankers in Asia makes someone like her “very bankable.’’

Her 30 years of experience, mostly with Standard Chartered Bank before she took up her current post in 2005, has given her a strong foundation especially in consumer banking which is her forte.

Just two days ago, Lai refuted reports that she had resigned amid a spate of rumours that a senior official of Alliance Bank, who was purportedly on forced leave along with a few others, had offered to resign.

Bloomberg yesterday reported that Alliance Bank also issued a statement that Lai had not resigned and that it conducted investigations as part of its due diligence on corporate governance and board oversight.

Alliance Financial Group Bhd, whose biggest shareholder is Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd, said its banking unit is being helmed by head of corporate banking Choo Joon Keong during the absence of its top two executives.

Lai and chief operating officer Shim Kon Teck were on annual leave, Agnes Ong, a spokeswoman for parent company Alliance Financial, said in an e-mailed response to a query. She didn’t say when they might return.