Forward we go... even if it's in front of the TV

Ooooo...it's countdown time again. How time flies eh?

Like many years before this, I am countdown'ing in a very nice environment... at the comfort of my own home, on my couch, in front of my TV. I know it's such an uncool thing to do but hey, this is a tale of a hermit and his cute dog, remember?

I just couldn't get myself through the traffic jams and crowds to celebrate the beginning of 2009 in the big way. I will instead welcome 2009 with my dearest Axel (my pug) and my new iPod (I should think of a name for it).

Forward we go... even if it's in front of the TV.



Happy New Year Everyone!!

Apple for Christmas

I got my first apple this Christmas. This apple la!

Yeah... I have never owned an Apple product before, not even an iPod Shuffle which is the cheapest among the iPods. The mp3 player than I have been using was this.

This is the Creative Zen V Plus 4GB which I bought from Singapore. I don't think it's still in the market now. It has served me well although it is just a mp3 player.

Anyhow when iPod Touch came out, I was really excited. It's like the inferior and cheaper sibling of the iPhone minus the phone features, Bluetooth and camera. Most of the other cool features are there though. I tried playing with it before at those Mac shops and I really loved it. Surfing the net using iPod Touch's Safari feels so great as compared to surfing the net using my PDA phone. Serious! It is really fast and easy.

Besides that, it comes with an accelerometer which aligns the screen display accordingly when the device is rotated. This accelerometer also allows many motion related games to be played.

Oh, and it looks really nice too... just like iPhone. So I only dreamed of owning one as I couldn't get myself to pay for it.

My dream came true this Christmas when I got a 8G iPod Touch 2nd Generation from Hong Kong as a gift! I was so ecstatic although initially I thought it's an iPhone, hehe.

This iPod has kept me very busy throughout the Christmas holidays. I was busy copying my music albums from my laptop to it; busy downloading all those free applications and games; and busy converting some of my favourite movies to iPod format. Also getting used to the iTunes took up a lot of my time.

I really love surfing the net through its Safari, as well as checking my mails using its Mail application. The music sounded much better than my previous mp3 player and the games are incredible... many are free some more! No wonder it's called the funnest iPod.

Hmm... now that I have an Apple product, can I consider myself as one of the cool guys??

Christmas is forever

Christmas is forever, not for just one day,
for loving, sharing, giving, are not to put away
like bells and lights and tinsel, in some box upon a shelf.
The good you do for others is good you do yourself.

~ Norman W. Brooks

Christmas Cookie, Anyone?

I am never into cookies but this one certainly got my attention - the LG Cookie or also known as LG KP500. It's a touchscreen phone that runs on LG's proprietary operating system. I haven't seen the real thing yet but it certainly looks delicious in pictures and videos.

The most interesting "feature" of all is its price! I read that it's priced at RM899. RM899 for a touchscreen phone leh! That's a damn good deal! Well, the downside of it is no 3G and no Wifi la. Other than that, it seems okay to me. Full specs here.

Nah... I wouldn't trade this with my beloved LG KS20. However I do think it can make a good and affordable Christmas gift for that someone special who doesn't expect a phone to do everything.

Perhaps Love

I love this song. We used to perform this (complete with hand gestures) when I was with this Buddhist singing group many many years ago. Listening to it brings back a lot of wonderful memories.



So what's love to you?

PhotoHunt: Wide

I must have bored Axel. See how he gave me a wide yawn...

PhotoHunt

MCMC so "powderful"

I am so impressed with Malaysian Communications & Multimedia Commission (MCMC). After complaining to them a few days ago about the problems I am facing with my mobile phone service, I got their response yesterday. They actually tried contacting me but as I was tied up in my training, I didn't take the call.

About an hour after receiving that, I got a call from a Maxis representative asking me in details about the problems that I faced. FYI, for so many years when I was with Maxis, NEVER ONCE had I received a call from them to clarify about my reported problems. See how powerful (or "powderful" if you prefer) the MCMC is!

The problems I am facing are not really that service affecting, and I know this doesn't mean that they will get them solved in light speed. Anyhow, it felt good that all these big shot telco companies are finally on their toes and listen to you.

So hard...

Hmm... this post was supposed to consist a picture and a short text "So hard... to keep awake during training" that I sent via MMS. Aiya I was in a training and falling asleep, so I thought just distract myself a little and post something up on my blog via MMS. However when I checked, the Title was posted in my blog but without the contents.

What is wrong now.... Email to Blogger not working, DiGi's problem or is it my phone's setting?? So hard...

Complain to MCMC

Have you been fuming because your telco service provider is promising you something and delivering you another?
Have you been calling their customer support countless times and the problems still persist?
Have you been feeling bullied or cheated by your service provider and you have no one to turn to?

Well.. I am not talking about MNP although that can be your solution. However I believe no matter it's Celcom, Maxis, DiGi or UMobile that you subscribed to, there are bound to be some irritating problems with them.

When all else fails, there is still one more place that you can go to. MCMC!!

MCMC stands for Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission. They are the regulators to the communications and multimedia industry in Malaysia.

They have a website for consumers to complain in case our "beloved" service providers are turning their deaf ears on us. Head over to their website for more info. If you would like to make an online complaint, go directly here.

Services available are making a complain, checking your complaint's status and a user guide. Pretty good I think!

I have made 2 complaints so far when my ex and present service providers did the finger pointing thing without resolving my problems. I guess that's something you need to live with when you switch from one operator to another. No one will admit it's their problem.

Anyway I have been monitoring my complaints through this site and noticed that MCMC updated the status to "INVESTIGATION" 2 days after I submitted the complaint.

Well I am taking that this means someone actually read my complaints and is doing something about it (I hope!). I guess what I can do now is to sit back and see how effective they are. I really hope they are not too good to be true.

Re-connection

I am attending an external training this week. Come to think of it, it has been quite some time since my last training, external one that is. This time around my training is being held around KLCC area, an area that scares me a lot because of the amount of people and traffic jams.

Anyhow, it is still a good opportunity for me to meet up friends who are working around that area, which I did. I met up with an old friend last night. We haven't been in touch for a while now, and it was great to be able to meet up.

To me, there are these 2 types of turnout when meeting friends whom you lost contact with. First type of turnout is that we have drifted away so far that there is no longer a common topic to talk about. The meeting will end up being very awkward and "forced" and much energy and effort needed to get the evening going.

The second type of turnout is like daytime soap opera. Even after you have missed many episodes, you can still catch up with what has happened as if there isn't any gap at all. I always hope for this type of turnout as I can be just the way I am and we can just spend time together like old times. I noticed that this only happens when the other person is someone who is very close and dear to you.

I am so glad that the turnout with my old friend, JM last night was of the second type. We basically chatted away for 2 hours and poured our hearts out. We behaved and spoke to each other like how we did in our undergraduate years... well, with more maturity la.

During this conversation, we both agreed that as we grow older, our circle of friends is getting smaller. We do not seem to put so much effort in making new friends anymore.

When I got back, I thought about what we have said pertaining to this. Then I started thinking to myself... perhaps I shouldn't worry so much about not making new friends. Perhaps what I should be doing is to re-connect with all these close and dear old friends of mine whom I have lost contact with.

It's true... good friends are really hard to find. I am so happy that some good friends still remain as good friends even when we are apart.

Still Good Friends (還是好朋友)

還是好朋友 by Leo Ku and Fish Leong



Pinyin lyrics
[Guy]Mei you ren yao nei jiu, mei xu yao yuan you
zai shi zi jie tou, jiu xiang hu bao you
[Girl] Na xie ti tie wen hou, na mei li jing tou
mei bi yao yi fen kai, jiu bian cheng le zhu zhou
[Guy] Xiang ai zhe yi chang
[Girl]Ke neng shi wei le
[Both]Neng yong you yi ge, hao peng you

*
[Both]Hai shi hao peng you, bi ai ren chang jiu
Bu neng qian de shou, an zai xin tou
[Girl]Zai zui ji mo de guan tou, yong yuan zai zuo you
[Guy]Shi guo qing qian hou, sheng hua yan lei hou
[Both]Si nian shi zui man chang de xiang shou
Na wu tong de shang kou, hai dai zhe wen rou dao bai tou

[Guy]Qing wen shi qu gan shou, huo hua shao dao jin tou
[Girl]Mei ji jin you gan qing
[Both]You ling yi chong xie gou
[Girl]Xiang ai zhe yi chang
[Guy]Ke neng shi wei le
[Both]Neng yong you yi ge, hao peng you

Repeat *

[Both]Hai shi hao peng you, bi ai ren chang jiu
Bu neng qian de shou, an zai xin tou
Zai zui ji mo de guan tou, yong yuan zai zuo you
Shi guo qing qian hou, sheng hua yan lei hou
Si nian shi zui man chang de xiang shou
Shi she me yao jiao ni wo
Zhi pei zuo yi dui hao peng you

Change Operator Logo on your WM device

With my current obsession with DiGi and my staying home during the Sultan Selangor's birthday, I discovered from some forums that I can customise the operator logo that appears on my LG KS20 PDA phone. Before this, it was only appearing as "DiGi" in a text format. I wanted to "glam" it up a little bit.

And now, it looks like this:

It's really simple to do this but bear in mind that this only applies to Windows Mobile devices. My phone is in WM6 and I believe it should also work for WM5 and WM6.1. Not sure about the other versions of WM.

Firstly, you need to create a picture with the height of 20 pixels. As for the length, it can be any length that is less or equal to 120 pixels. After you have created this picture, save it as "carrierlogo.gif". (If you like mine, you can get it here)

Then save this picture to your WM device's Windows directory. After that, soft reset your device and you should see your new operator logo!

P/S I am not sure whether the same logo will be displayed when you switch your SIM card to another service provider's or when you roam in other countries. I think it will stay the same. Anyhow if you know, tell me!

First Carrier Bag

When I cleaned my apartment recently, I suddenly noticed Axel's very first carrier bag on top of his cage. I have left it there for a very long time already... so long time until I hardly noticed it anymore.

Anyhow, I put my procrastination aside and decided to disassemble the bag and store it somewhere. But before I did so, I wanted to see how Axel would fit into his first carrier bag.

3 years ago

Now

Hehe, he is as big as the bag now.

Disturbia

I haven't been listening to many english songs nowadays. Most of the time when I am driving, the radio station that I got on was MyFM which is a chinese station. So I am not very "IN" with the latest english songs.

However there is one that I heard before and liked it very much. It's by Rihanna and the song is titled "Disturbia". Very catchy and I like the "Bum Bum Bi Dum Bum Bum Bi Dum Bum" part of the song.



Anyone of you know what "Disturbia" means? I searched through the online dictonaries but couldn't find this word. Could it mean "a state of being disturbed"??

Well if this is the meaning, then I had a "Disturbia" when I went to Karaoke with my sisters, nephew and nieces last Friday.

Why?

Because my nephew and niece were actually singing to this song! Gone were those days when they were still singing "Baa Baa Black Sheep". Sigh... I am officially old and had to embrace my "uncle" title. Disturbing right?

My affair with the yellow man - Part 1

Initially I thought I will do this post a week after I switched my telco service provider from Maxis to DiGi. However as I had too much of chinese tea during my niece's birthday dinner just now, I am still very wide awake... at 2.30 in the morning. Thank goodness it's a public holiday, else I will suffer again at work. So while waiting for the chinese tea's effect to wear down, I am going ahead to share what I think about DiGi's services... 5 days after I switched.

I know when it comes to network coverage, DiGi falls behind Celcom and Maxis. I have read from forums about how certain areas are having difficulties getting its services. I don't have much complain about that... yet. For me, what matters most is the coverage at my office and at home, the 2 locations that I spend most of my time in... and I have been getting full bar there. I may sound very naive here but I kept telling myself, their coverage shouldn't be so bad la... after all, they came out with this advert whet:


Anyhow, I love the customer service from DiGi. I tell you, I have been contacting them like hundred times since I switched and each time I got a pleasant experience. Don't get me wrong, the reason I contacted them most of the time was to find out more about their products and services; you know like what I can do with my current plan, what gets charged and what doesn't etc. They even have this chat program called D'Chat that lets you instant message their Customer Support! I remember one time I made a complain to them via this channel and before the session ends, their representative already called me to find out more information on the problem that I have just reported. I was so impressed!!

Then there is this free access *128# that you can use from your phone to check your account such as your balance, mobile services, change features etc. It's free! Can you believe that?!

I have also experimented with the Multi-Party Conferencing feature that came automatically with my DG50 plan. This feature allows you to connect up to 5 people to the same phone conversation. There is no registration fee but you will be charged based on your plan's rate for these calls as if they are individual calls. I haven't used this much yet but it is certainly very exciting to me.

Oh and there's the "Friends and Family" where you can add up to 6 DiGi subscribers and get much better rate when you call or text them. Sad to say though that I currently only have 2 numbers in that list as most of my friends whom I call often are in another network. Anyhow, it is still good as I never have this type of feature with my previous service provider.

Well based on my 5 days affair with DiGi, these are the good things that I have encountered. So what about the not so good ones?

For one, I think it's quite difficult to find information from their website.

For instance when I was looking for information on their value added services, I found the page but there was no link for more information about these services such as how to use them and what are the charges. When I did a search, the information that I needed was placed in the Prepaid section.

Besides that, there isn't much explanation about their call plans. I am on Postpaid DG50 plan where I need to pay a commitment fee of RM50 per month. In the website, it was stated "Usage commitment fees for DG 50 and DG 150 are inclusive of total usage for all chargeable voice and data services in the bill excluding fixed access fee and Talktime Transfer (Post to Pre) services". What about things like IDD, Roaming or Mobile Lifestyle services such as Caller Tunes? Will all these be considered as part of the commitment fee? I only found out later from forums and upon confirming with their CS that Talktime transfer and Roaming charges will not be deducted from this commitment fee. All others are included.

Aside from the website, I also have problems receiving SMSes from some Maxis numbers. I wonder whether this could be Maxis punishing me for betraying them, hehe. However these numbers did not have any problem receiving SMSes from me. Well I have reported this to DiGi and am awaiting their response.

There is also this problem where when someone from overseas calls me, I get a prefix 012 in their Caller ID. Say a friend from Singapore calls me, I will see my phone displaying the caller's number as +01265XXXXXXXX. Weird right? Feedback from DiGi's CS is that the issue is caused due to during the MNP process, the routing is done through Maxis first before it reaches DiGi. Maxis will put forth 012 as header to the number and on DiGi's side, they are unable to change this settings. I have lodged a report to Maxis. Lets see whether they will entertain me as I am no longer their customer.

All in all, I am happy with DiGi for the time being. I guess I will have to stick to the Yellow Man a while longer to know him better and to see whether this affair will be a long term one. If not, well there's always MNP (Mobile Number Portability) that I can fall back on.

(Images extracted from DiGi website and The Official Website of the Yellow Coverage Fellow!)

How many traffic policemen ...?

How many traffic policemen are needed to manage the traffic of a roundabout?

Count from the picture if you can. They are wearing flouracent yellow rain coat. Click for bigger picture.

I counted 23.

Such efficiency...

I switched to the smarter side

By now, I am sure many of us already know what Mobile Number Portability (MNP) is. MNP is basically the government's implementation that allow you to change your mobile phone service provider without having to change your existing phone number. Well if previously what is stopping you from changing your service provider is the hassle of informing people about your new mobile phone number; then this is no longer a concern.

I made use of the beauty of MNP today. All this while I have been using Maxis and although I don't think it sucks big time, I don't seem to get anything from my loyalty to them. I do find their spams rather irritating at times but I heard Celcom users had it even worse. Well..and then there is this complaint I made numerous time to them which until now has yet to be resolved. This is on the problem where although I successfully received a MMS, they will still send me a SMS a few days later informing me that the MMS has failed to be delivered. The most frustrating thing of all is that these SMSes usually come to me after midnight!

So with MNP, I started to make some survey on other service providers. Using my previous month's mobile phone bill, I calculated the cost based on the different rates of different service providers. You can refer here for the rates. Then I found out that with DiGi, my bill is less than with Maxis. The difference is about RM10 leh... and wanting a change, I decided to switch to DiGi.

Off I went to SS2 to carry out this task. Went to Maxis first thinking that I should pay whatever outstanding balance that I have with them. This is very important!!! If you owe them anything, they will refuse to "release" you. After checking with the girl there, I have no outstanding amount, just unbilled amount ... which is okay as they will send me the bill after the due date.

Then I went to DiGi and went through the switching process. It's really simple actually. Just give them your existing phone number and your IC. They will do everything for you. I opted for their postpaid plan DG50. Then they gave me my new SIM card in a little package (front and back) as below:


Well, this SIM card cannot be used yet... not until Maxis confirmed that they will "release" me and DiGi to activate the line. The DiGi person told me the maximum time to wait for activation is 48 hours. I read from forums that the fastest was 24 hours. Guess what? Mine was activated after about 3 hours!!!

So how did I know that mine is activated? Well Maxis sent me a SMS telling me that they have received my switching request and all those thank you and bye bye stuff. Then DiGi sent me a SMS saying that I can change my SIM card.

So after changing my SIM card, I am now a DiGi subscriber.


Well... that remains to be seen actually... whether this move is the smarter side or the dumber side. I will let you know...