Using Vidmore video converter to convert MP4 / MKV / MOV / WMV / AVI / FLV video to AMV format

AMV is a kind of compressed motion JPEG (M-JPEG) video format, commonly used in MP3 and MP4 players.

For example, the Ruizu X02 MP3 player can only play one type of video file, which is AMV. I would need to convert music video (MV) in the format of either MP4, MKV, MOV, WMV, AVI, FLV, etc. into AMV before my Ruizu X02 MP3 player can play the video without any issue.

There are several websites in the Internet that claimed to be able to online convert uploaded video file into AMV format. There are also several video converting software that claimed to support conversion to AMV format. I have tried some of the popular one, but all of them failed as the AMV file produced by them end-up with "invalid video format" error when I tried to play in my Ruizu X02 MP3 player.

Finally, I managed to find one video conversion software that works, which is Vidmore video converter, and it is surprisingly very easy to use for AMV file conversion.

Vidmore is a freemium software, in which the free version only allows conversion of video of length not more than 5 minutes. This is good enough for music video conversion, because most of the songs are less than 5 minutes long.

Another restriction to the free version is that, you can only convert 1 file at a time. This is also OK for me, as I only need to convert a small amount of MV to put into my Ruizu X02 MP3 player.

To perform the conversion, set the "Convert All to" selection to "AMV AMV General" and leave all the settings as default. Leave the resolution setting to be 170x144.

Then, open the video file one at a time, and click on the Convert All button to perform the conversion.

The output AMV file should be able to be played in the Ruizu X02 MP3 player.

How to update latest firmware to Ruizu MP3 player

I have mentioned that the default firmware in Ruizu X02 MP3 player is not so user friendly, as its navigation is a little bit weird. For certain function, you need to press its left and right button to navigate up and down on the screen. This has been fixed in its latest version of firmware. The new firmware also brings in additional functions to the Ruizu X02 MP3 player, such as the 3 additional games.

New firmware for Ruizu MP3 players, be it X02 or other model of their range of products, can be downloaded from their official website.

You can click here to reach the Ruizu X02 MP3 player product page, and the click on the Newest Firmware tab to download the latest firmware file.

Alternatively, you can also click here to reach the Manual & Firmware page of Ruizu range of MP3 player products, search for the right model of your MP3 player on the screen, click on its photo, and then select Firmware to download the latest firmware file.

In order to perform the firmware update to your Ruizu MP3 player, you will need a computer installed with the firmware update application called Actions Multimedia Product Tool v2.07 which you can click here to download it. After download, just uncompress the file and install it.

The steps to perform firmware update to Ruizu MP3 player is pretty easy.

1. Download the latest firmware from Ruizu's website. Make sure the firmware file belongs to the matching model of your MP3 player.
2. Uncompress the downloaded firmware file in your harddisk.
3. Connect your Ruizu MP3 player to the computer with a USB data cable.
4. Launch the Actions Multimedia Product Tool v2.07 application.
5. The software should show 1 USB Device Detected on its screen. If there are more than one, make sure you select the correct destination, which is your MP3 player.
6. Load in the uncompressed firmware file.
7. Uncheck the FLASH_ERASE checkbox. If you didn't do this, the internal storage in your MP3 player will be formatted, and all the files you stored in it will be erased.
8. Click on the firmware update button to perform the update.
9. When finished, you can then safely disconnect your MP3 player from your computer.

 



Sciener A2F fingerprint smart digital door lock

Locks and keys have been used for decades to safeguard access to the door, for those with the valid key to unlock it only.

Traditional mechanical locks to lock/unlock with physical keys work great. However, their main disadvantages include:

• Inconvenience for the necessity to carry the key.
• The key can be duplicated.
• The key could be lost, stolen or seized. Anyone with the key can lock/unlock the door.
• The lock could be picked open by using special tools, without using the key.

Typical smart digital door lock is in fact a mechanical lock, with digital keys (well, there is another type of electromagnetic lock with digital keys too). Its main advantages include:

• Not necessary to carry physical key.
• Each person can be assigned a unique key, which enable tracing of who has used the key to unlock the door, by what time.
• Key can be easily generated, and also revoked, by using software method.
• Key could be replicated to multiple devices belong to the same authorized person.
• Time based (the key can only be used during certain time period) or event based (the key can only be used once) access control is possible.

Digital key can be in the form of:

• Biometric: fingerprint, palm, face, iris, voice, vein, ...
• Passcode
• Digital signature key pair
• ...

And the data transmission methods between the key and the lock can be of:

• Physical contact - fingerprint, palm, vein, ...
• Computer vision - face, iris, QR code, ...
• Voice recognition - voice
• RFID
• NFC
• Electromagnetic wave - Infrared, Bluetooth, WiFi, ...
• ...

The Sciener A2F fingerprint smart digital door lock is a product that combines security and convenience. It supports multiple unlock ways, including:

• Fingerprint
• Smartphone app unlock (eKey)
• Smart watch (eKey)
• Passcode
• RFID card (touch access card, wristband, MyKad, Touch n Go card, credit card, debit card, other brand's RFID access card)
• Physical backup key (for emergency purpose)
• Smart speaker voice assistant command control (require WiFi Gateway module)

Sciener lock management functions - including assigning new key, key revocation, key management, key usage monitoring, user management, lock behavior setting, etc. are all done using the Sciener Smart Lock app available for free download in Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

The Sciener A2F fingerprint smart digital door lock has a pretty elegant and modern look, adding aesthetic to the door.

It is operated with 4 AA size batteries. Its battery consumption is pretty low, and the batteries in it can last for many months. The battery compartment is located at the lock behind the door, with a single button to open its cover.

The electronic components inside the Sciener smart digital door lock is illustrated as below.

(Picture from Sciener's website)

The Sciener app communicates with the lock using Bluetooth. Communication between the app and the lock is encrypted using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm. The smartphone running the app needs to be near to the door lock (within Bluetooth communication range of 10 meters) for most of its function to work.

Optionally, the app can also communicate with the lock through Internet via a Smart Gateway module. In this way, you can use the app to access to the lock from anywhere, by using Internet connection.

After a new lock is installed, it needs to be paired with a user registered with Sciener. The user is identified by email address and/or phone number, and the user account is stored in Sciener's cloud database. The user info is automatically synchronized between the Sciener cloud and the mobile app login with a valid account.

That first user will automatically become the Authorized Admin to the lock, which has full access to all its functions and settings. The Authorized Admin can appoint other users as Authorized Admin to co-manage the lock. He can also revoke the Admin rights of the other Authorized Admin.

In the event when the property is sold to another person, the Authorized Admin can transfer the ownership of the lock to another user.

The lock has an internal clock, which when its time is synchronized with the smartphone clock of its Authorized Admin, the admin can use his Sciener app to generate new passcode or send eKey to other users to unlock the door, at any time and any place, even without the need of communicating with the door. The clock, settings and records of the lock will be synchronized with the admin's Sciener app from time to time, whenever they are connected with Bluetooth (i.e. when the admin's smartphone is at home with Bluetooth turned on to communicate with the door lock).

Sciener eKey and passcode can be created with the following time limit settings:

• Permanent - can be used all the time until revoked.
• Timed - valid from a defined start date and time until a defined end date and time.
• One time - can be used to open the door once only.
• Recurring - can be used within a time period during the defined day of week (e.g. every Monday only, every weekends only, etc.)

The passcode is automatically generated, but can also be manually changed to a number that can be easily remembered. Changing to manually created passcode need to be done near the lock with Bluetooth connection.

For fingerprint and RFID access, it can be:

• Permanent - can access all the time until revoked.
• Timed - can access from a defined start date and time until a defined end date and time.

All the door unlock records are stored in the lock, and the admin can view the records in his Sciener app.

With these multiple ways of flexible keys assignment to multiple users, Sciener A2F fingerprint smart digital door lock is very suitable for use in:

• Family
• Office
• Shop
• Rented residence
• Short stay
• Airbnb / homestay
• Hotel
• ... any other places you can think of

You can unlock the door even without carrying anything (by using fingerprint, or punching passcode at the lock's keypad) or by using your smartphone, smart watch, RFID card, etc.

The lock admin settings that can be configured in the Sciener app including:

• Changing the default admin passcode used to unlock the lock.
• Allow/disallow the lock to be unlocked remotely via the WiFi Gateway. When this is configured properly, you can even open the door using Sciener app when you are far away from home.
• Set the timer for the lock to auto-lock itself after unlock, in any seconds.
• Set the time period when the lock will be auto unlocked by itself - the Passage Mode. This is useful for shop or office environment to allow general access during day time, and keep the door locked during night time.
• Set the lock to feedback with sound when operated, or be silent.
• Synchronize the clock of the smartphone with the lock.
• Retrieve records from the lock to the smartphone.
• Perform lock firmware update. 

Sciener app is designed to be very flexible. A single app login with a single user is able to paired with multiple Sciener locks. You can also create grouping to the locks for easier maintenance. Each of the locks will have a user definable name for identification.

Note that certain digital door lock can be easily hacked and unlocked with a small device called Tesla Coil black box. Being an industry leader, Sciener is aware of this and their locks, at least the latest version of their locks, are immune to Tesla Coil attack.

Another common security concern is brute force trial-and-error on the passcode. Sciener lock's keypad is designed to stop working for a period of time after 5 attempts of wrong passcode entry. while the keypad is temporarily locked, the lock can still be opened by using other methods such as fingerprint, RFID card, physical key, etc. This makes the lock hack deterrence and yet fool proof.

Using Boost e-wallet to trade gold with HelloGold app

HelloGold is a Shahriah-compliant online platform to make it easy for us to buy, sell and/or transfer 99.99% (24 Karat 999) pure gold.

Account opening and all transactions can be performed in the HelloGold mobile app, available for free download in Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

You can check for its gold trading price from the app's opening screen, even without the need to login to the system. The price is updated every few seconds.

HelloGold separates gold price from trading and administrative charges. So, there is only a single reported trading price for both buy and sell, without any spread between them.

You can login the system by either using password or Touch ID fingerprint.

It has a very straight forwards menu, which is self-explanatory.

It used to have an Add Cash option, but that option was recently taken out from the menu.

The gold that you purchased is claimed to be kept in a vault in Singapore. For each single day the gold is kept by HelloGold, they will charge you a fee on daily basis, and the fee is deducted from the quantity of your gold held with them.

You can opt to redeem physical gold that you have purchased, which needs to be in whole gram of PAMP Suisse gold bar. However, redemption will take some times, and it will incur charges from administration, shipping and insurance services, which added up together will not be a cheap amount.

To buy gold, you can make payment by using your cash balance (the cash proceed from previous gold selling), FPX online banking, or Boost e-wallet.

The advantage of using Boost is that it has zero processing fee (compared with RM1.20 processing fee per FPX transaction). In addition, this Boost payment will be entitled for Boost shake for coins, and occasionally there will be joint promotional campaign between HelloGold and Boost for additional cash rewards or benefits.

After selling your gold, you can withdraw the cash by online transfer to your bank account at no cost.

The cost involved in trading gold in HelloGold including:

• Buy fee (weekday): 0.79% of buying cost
• Buy fee (weekend): 2.79% of buying cost
• Sell fee (weekday): 2.00% of selling price
• Sell fee (weekend): 4.00% of selling price
• Keeping cost: 0.0055% of your gold deducted per day (equivalent to 2% per year)

The keeping cost is a major drawback with HelloGold. The longer you keep your gold in the system, the lesser your gold will become, as every single day, a little bit of your gold will be deducted to pay for the keeping cost. If you keep for a long time, lets say 5 years, then you will lost 10% of your gold by paying the keeping cost. As such, HelloGold is OK for short term and mid term trading, but will be harmful to your gold keeping for long term due to the cost involved.

If you have already opened a HelloGold account, either new or old, you can go to the Rewards page, choose Enter code, key in FOON5YPH and apply.

You will get a cash reward of RM5 the next time you buy gold worth RM50 and above in HelloGold.

Note that the rewards code can only be used one time per account.

Starting from 15 January 2020 until 14 March 2020, there is a promotional campaign whereby you can get RM10 cashback from Boost and also another RM10 cashback from HelloGold if you buy RM200 and above worth of gold in HelloGold and paid using Boost and keep the gold for 30 days without selling it out.

Assuming you buy RM200 gold with this method, you will get RM20 which is an immediate 10% return, on top of a Boost shake reward.

Note that you are only eligible to buy gold with this campaign for up to 2 times only. So, for the 2nd time of buying RM200 or more gold, you will get another round of cashback.

U Mobile GoPayz e-wallet with virtual and/or physical prepaid cards

GoPayz is a challenger e-wallet operated by U Mobile Services. It is a second e-wallet in Malaysia after AirAsia BigPay that issues physical prepaid card to its users. It is the third of its kind in Malaysia that issues virtual prepaid card, after BigPay (Mastercard) and Boost (UnionPay).

In fact, GoPayz has gone one step ahead of BigPay, which only issue virtual and physical prepaid Mastercard to their users. GoPayz accounts by default have 3 virtual prepaid cards, namely UnionPay, Mastercard and Visa.

On top of that, its users have the option to also carry physical prepaid card(s) with a one time card issuance fee of RM16 per card. There is no annual fee nor yearly SST to keep the GoPayz physical card.

Unlike BigPay which  has a large stored-value capacity of up to RM10,000, this GoPayz e-wallet only has a capacity of RM5,000 for its Premium Wallet Accounts (RM200 for Basic Wallet Accounts). The capacity limit is shared among all the UnionPay, Mastercard and Visa prepaid cards.

With a physical card on hand, you can use GoPayz to pay to merchants that accept UnionPay/Mastercard/Visa at their outlets. Another advantage is that you can withdraw cash from your e-wallet at local banks ATM machine, with a very low cash withdrawal fee of RM1.00 only. You can also withdraw from overseas ATM machine, with the cash withdrawal fee of RM10.00. This rate is in fact cheaper than rival BigPay Mastercard.

Beside being yet another e-wallet just like the others in the market, GoPayz seems to have ambition to disrupt the traditional financial services, including the insurance market, unit trust market, and even foreign currency exchange market.

GoPayz introduces self-service financial services for its users to buy insurance and/or unit trust at a very affordable rate, by eliminating the agent commission and reducing the administrative expenses involved. It works together with licensed life insurance company Sun Life, general insurance company Chubb, and online unit trust company FundSupermart Malaysia to come out with its financial services products.

Should their self-service financial services business model be successful, it will affect the insurance agents and unit trust agents who make their living through sales commission. We can foresee that the sales commission rate might be significantly reduced in order to compete with market disruptors such as GoPayz financial services.

Upgrade Huawei Mate 20 series from EMUI 9.1 (Android Pie) to EMUI 10 (Android 10)

Huawei has already released the new EMUI 10 firmware with Android 10 to its Mate 20 series smartphones by now.

However, you might not be able to find it under the normal Settings > System & updates > Software update section of EMUI 9.1.

You will need to ensure your Huawei Mate 20 series handphone has been updated to the latest version of EMUI 9.1 (Android Pie). Then, you can proceed to search for EMUI 10 by using the HiCare app and perform the firmware upgrade from EMUI 9.1 to EMUI 10.

After you have open the HiCare app in your phone, make sure it has the latest version first. Go to Me > Settings > Check for updates. Your HiCare version should be 10.0.5.341 or above.

Then, go to Services > Update > Check for updates. You should be able to find EMUI 10 and perform the upgrade there.

Using handphone to pay Selangor & KL street parking and parking compound with Smart Selangor Parking mobile app

The traditional ways of paying street parking to municipal council is no doubt inconvenient, be it using the parking meter or parking coupon.

Using parking meter means you need to get ready some shillings, park your car, find and walk to the parking meter, feed the parking meter, print out the receipt, walk back to your car and display the receipt on your car's dashboard.

If you need extra time, you have to wait until the parking period on the receipt is about to expire, then rush to the parking meter, feed it and print out another receipt to be displayed on your car's dashboard.

Using parking coupon means you need to buy the coupon from its sales agent, estimate your parking time, scratch the parking coupon(s) after you parked your car, and display the coupon(s) on your car's dashboard.

If you need extra time, you have to walk back to your car, scratch additional coupon(s) and display them on your car's dashboard.

With the initiative from Smart Selangor Delivery Unit (SSDU), now you can pay for street parking in Selangor state as well as in Kuala Lumpur area by using their Smart Selangor Parking mobile app, available for download in Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

In addition, you can also pay for parking summon compound in Selangor state and Kuala Lumpur area using the same mobile app.

Although the user interface of this Smart Selangor Parking app is quite ugly looking, it is indeed a very handy app for you to pay street parking and parking compound in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur. You can use it to monitor the remaining time before your parking period expire, and use it to extend your parking period with ease too!

This app supports payment to multiple councils in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, and it is able to detect your location and automatically decide which council you should pay your parking to.

The supported councils are:

• Majlis Perbandaran Ampang Jaya (MPAJ)
• Majlis Perbandaran Kajang (MPKJ)
• Majlis Perbandaran Klang (MPK, newly added recently)
• Majlis Bandaraya Petaling Jaya (MBPJ)
• Majlis Daerah Kuala Selangor (MDKS)
• Majlis Perbandaran Selayang (MPS)
• Majlis Perbandaran Sepang (MPSepang)
• Majlis Bandaraya Shah Alam (MBSA)
• Majlis Perbandaran Subang Jaya (MPSJ)
• Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL)

Before using the app to make payment, you need to reload it in a similar way you reload other e-wallets in your phone. Note that the money you loaded into the Smart Selangor Parking app cannot be withdrawn at this moment, so it is not recommended to load too much money into it.

Then you need to register your car number plate in the app. You can in fact register up to 10 number plates under one user account in this app, and select which car number plate to pay for the parking when you use it to make parking payment.

Despite there are still many rooms for improvement in this app, I still strongly recommend it to car owners in Klang Valley area, as it is really very convenient to pay for the parking.

Using Boost to make cashless payment at merchants that accept UnionPay QR code

One year ago, Boost, the e-wallet operated by Axiata Digital, has announced its partnership with UnionPay.

Now, the UnionPay services in Boost e-wallet is finally launched! If you activate the UnionPay services in your Boost account before 31 December 2019, you can get RM3 cashback from Boost.

To activate the UnionPay services, tap on the UnionPay New Payment Service under Explore Exciting New Features in Boost's Home screen.

Then, tap on UnionPay Malaysia under Enable other Payment Services, and follow the instruction to enable it.

Don't worry, if you don't like the UnionPay services in Boost, you are given the toggle to disable it.

With the Boost UnionPay services, you can make cashless payment with Boost at all merchants that accept UnionPay QR code. You just need a handphone with active Boost account with enabled UnionPay services, and no need to have any UnionPay card or UnionPay account to make such payment.

Payment using UnionPay in Boost is similar to using Boost QR code payment. Both modes of you scan the merchant's QR code or the marchant scan your payment QR code are available. The payment amount will be deducted from your Boost e-wallet accordingly.

In Malaysia, UnionPay is widely accepted in airports' duty free shops, hotels, Chinese restaurants, e-commerce marketplaces, convenience stores, and other places that display the UnionPay acceptance signboard.

If you are not a Boost user yet, you can download the Boost e-wallet app from Google Play Store or Apple App Store. When you register a new Boost account, remember to use this Invite Code foocnm9 so that you can get RM3 cashback after your first spending of RM10 in a single transaction with Boost.

Note that you can load Boost e-wallet using BigPay prepaid card, which in turn can be loaded using your credit card, debit card or bank online transfer. In this way, you can earn AirAsia BIG Points from loading Boost with BigPay.

Check for bad sectors in USB thumb drive and fix it with AOMEI Partition Assistant

I have a USB thumb drive which I suspect it is having bad sectors because accessing certain files in it will prompt out read error.

MS Windows has a disk error checking tool which you can access by right-click on the drive in Windows Explorer, and go to Properties > Tools > Error checking then click on the Check button. However, it reported no error found. Using the chkdsk command at command prompt produced the same result: no error found.

Is it really no error found? Or the tool that comes with MS Windows just unable to detect the error?

I found out the bad sectors when I checked the USB thumb drive with AOMEI Partition Assistant. Therefore, the answer is clear: MS Windows Error Checking or chkdsk just unable to detect the bad sectors!

To check for the bad sectors, execute AOMEI Partition Assistant, right click on the disk you want to check, select Advanced and then Check Partition.

After that, select "Check whether there is bad sector on the partition" and click the OK button.

This function just helps you discover if there is any bad sector, but it won't help you to fix the bad sector(s) found.

This is how I repaired the bad sectors in my USB thumb drive: copy all the files from the USB thumb drive to a folder in my hard disk. There are certain files unable to be copied due to the bad sectors problem, and need to be replaced by backup copy.

After that, reformat the USB thumb drive. Do not use the "quick format" option, make sure it is a full format. I reformatted my USB thumb drive using AOMEI Partition Assistant too.

Then, check for bad sectors using the steps above again to the reformatted USB thumb drive. If the bad sectors can be recovered, they will become usable sectors again.

Finally, copy or move back all the files from hard disk to the USB thumb drive. Run another bad sector check, and my USB thumb drive is fully recovered now!

Click here to download the AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition software for free. It is free for both personal and commercial use.

You might be also interested to read about:

• Format 64GB SD card to FAT32 with AOMEI Partition Assistant

WhatsApp tips: how to make the message text become bold, italics, strike through and/or monospace

Feeling bored with the plain WhatsApp text and want to make it livelier with bold, italics, strike through and/or monospace?

In fact, this is a built-in feature inside WhatsApp.

To make bold effect, put an asterisk (*) at both side of the text that you want to bold.

The make italics effect, put an underscore (_) at both side of the text that you want to italics.

The make strike through effect, put a tilde  (~) at both side of the text that you want to strike through.

These formatting effect is not only can be used for alphanumeric characters, but also can be used for Chinese characters as well.

You can also combine the effects onto the same text, such as bold and italics.

There is another formatting which change the text's font into monospace. But the effect is not so obvious, and it has no effect on Chinese characters.

To change the text into monospace font, put three backticks (`) at both side of the text.

It would be nice if WhatsApp can include the underline effect as well. But currently, I am unaware of any support from WhatsApp to underline its message text.

AirAsia BigPay e-wallet with prepaid Mastercard

BigPay is an e-wallet operated by AirAsia. It has a large stored-value capacity of up to RM10,000.

BigPay is especially beneficial to frequent travelers who fly with AirAsia flights. You can not only save money on your flight booking, and also save money when you spend in foreign currency.

You can also make use of the BigPay Mastercard to withdraw money from ATM machine overseas, so you need not to carry too much bank notes with you.

You can download the BigPay mobile app from Google Play Store and/or Apple iTune App Store.

One of the common problems faced by e-wallets is their acceptance coverage by merchant outlets, which takes a lot of time and effort to build up the network. If the e-wallet is not commonly accepted as payment method in most of the shops, it will in turn face difficulty in getting users to use it. This is a chicken and egg problem.

BigPay smartly overcome this problem by partnering with Mastercard. Each BigPay account will be issued with a Mastercard prepaid card, which linked with the BigPay e-wallet, and can be used in all credit card terminals that accept Mastercard. In this way, BigPay leverages on the huge network of Mastercard and can be used in all of the shops that accept Mastercard payment. What a brilliant idea!

The BigPay Mastercard is a prepaid card which will deduct money from your BigPay e-wallet when you use it. It supports the traditional magnetic swipe (for use in overseas when the terminal only support this kind of card payment method), smart chip with 6-digit PIN for payment confirmation, and also PayPass contactless payment.

You can also make use of this BigPay Mastercard to withdraw money from your e-wallet at the ATM machine of partnering banks, both in Malaysia and overseas. Withdrawal of money from BigPay using local ATM will cost RM6.00 per transaction, and withdrawal from foreign ATM will cost RM10.00 per transaction or 2% of the withdrawal amount, whichever is higher.

The joining fee to become a BigPay member is RM20. Anyhow, this RM20 will be credited back into your e-wallet and made available for use. So, technically speaking, there is no cost to join BigPay. It just needs an initial loading of RM20 into your e-wallet.

Among the advantages of using BigPay are:

• Option to use mobile app and QR code for payment, or to use the physical Mastercard.
• Worldwide accepted and can be used at any terminal or online platform that accepts Mastercard.
• No annual fee for both the e-wallet and the Mastercard.
• No annual government SST as it is a prepaid card. All credit cards and debit cards issued in Malaysia are subject to SST annually.
• Money can be withdrawn using ATM machine, locally and also internationally.
• When making payment or cash withdrawal in foreign currency, there is no expensive surcharge to the currency conversion rate. The conversion rate is very close to the one published in XE.com.
• Collect AirAsia BIG Points when you spend with BigPay.
• Reload your e-wallet with cash rebate credit cards and enjoy your cash rebate with those cards.
• Earn referral reward of RM10 per new account activation using your unique referral code.

Note that the first time you use your physical BigPay Mastercard, you need to key-in your PIN at the terminal. After that, you can choose to use the contactless payment method without the need to enter your PIN.

Below is the product disclosure sheet of BigPay (click image to enlarge).

On top of the above advantages, as a BigPay member, you can also enjoy the following benefits when buying air tickets from AirAsia:

• No processing fee. (AirAsia will charge processing fee if you pay with other brand of credit card or debit card)
• RM2 discount per pre-booked item on flight baggage and food.
• Early access to AirAsia deals, including the free air tickets offering.
• Link your BigPay account with your AirAsia BIG Loyalty account to collect your BIG Points whenever you use BigPay, as well as easily check the amount of your BIG Points from within the BigPay mobile app.

To become a BigPay member and receive your free Mastercard, you need to install the BigPay mobile app into your smartphone.

Your phone number will be verified by the BigPay app using SMS. After the verification, you will need to provide your personal information.

IMPORTANT: Make sure to key-in IGR22QDU1C into the referral/promotion code column to get RM10 loaded into your e-wallet. If you missed this step on the above page, you will miss your opportunity to receive the RM10 from BigPay as welcome reward.

After that, you will need to take a photo of your identity card or passport, followed by a selfie photo of yourself. This procedure is a requirement from Malaysia government to all e-wallet issuers. You might have the similar experience if you have registered yourself to use other e-wallets in Malaysia. It is a bit tedious but is a strict requirement during the process to have an e-wallet.

You are also required to load RM20 into your BigPay e-wallet at the end of the process. This can be done by using online transfer from your bank account, debit card or credit card.

If you done the above process correctly, you will have RM30 (RM10 from referral code, RM20 from initial loading) inside your e-wallet by the time you receive your BigPay Mastercard by post.

Tips: if you have Touch n Go e-wallet, you can configure your Touch n Go e-wallet to be reloaded using this BigPay Mastercard.

With the BigPay mobile app, you can use it to:

• Transfer money and receive money with your family and friends (who are other BigPay users).
• Split bill with them.
• Use QR code at merchant terminal for payment.
• Check your AirAsia BIG Points.
• Keep track on your e-wallet money usage with the built-in Analytics function.
• (upcoming function) transfer money to local banks and also international banks.
• Share out your BigPay referral code and receive RM10 from each of your successful referrals.

I also highly recommend you to also install the AirAsia BIG Loyalty mobile app from Google Play Store and/or Apple iTune App Store.

The AirAsia BIG Loyalty app enables you to manage your BIG Points and also allows you to redeem your points. You can also perform BIG Points exchange with other partnering loyalty programs here.

Tips: One way to earn AirAsia BIG Points without spending your money, and in a larger amount, is through CIMB AirAsia Savers account.

dnGrep - Free GUI "grep" and "sed" tool for Windows

If you are familiar with UNIX/Linux operating system, you must be using a lot of "grep" command to search for string inside text files, and "sed" command to find and replace string in the text files.

There are identical command in Windows such as "find", "findstr" or even the PowerShell "Select-String", but they are just not as easy to use as "grep" in UNIX/Linux.

There are also GUI tools for Windows which aim to perform the "grep" and "sed" function, majority of the good ones need you to pay for it, except dnGrep which is licensed under GNU GPL v2 and is therefore free for use.

dnGrep is indeed a very powerful find and/or replace tool for Windows. It can not only search for text or keywords inside the target file(s), but also able to perform a text replace action in target text file(s).

Beside normal text files, it is also able to search inside MS Word documents and PDF files. It can also search inside archived file.

You can perform your search by plain text input, or XPath query language, or regular expression (regex), or even phonetic.

You can also specify to search for files in a folder (and sub-folders) within a particular date range in which they are created or last modified.

The search result is displayed with yellow background highlight, together with the line number in the target document. Double click on the search result will open up the target document for further action.

The beauty of its replace function is that, the replace action can be undone.

You can also create "bookmarks" to store frequently used search keywords and conditions.

dnGrep is lightweight, fast in action, powerful and free for use. It is an essential 3-party tool in your Windows computers.

Click here to go to the download page of dnGrep.

Format 64GB SD card to FAT32 with AOMEI Partition Assistant

Most Android based devices such as CCTV, dashcam, etc. indicate that they only support SD card up to 32GB only.

This is simply because SD card of 32GB and below is pre-formatted with FAT32 partition which is accessible by the Android system. Microsoft Windows has put itself a limitation to be able to format a storage device into FAT32 partition for up to 32GB only. It will force you to format storage device above 32GB (eg. 64GB, 128GB, ...) with either exFAT or NTFS.

However, most Android based devices don't support exFAT and NTFS, therefore unable to access your storage device with such partition format.

This does not mean that you cannot use storage device of 64GB and above in those Android based devices, because you can still format them into FAT32 by using 3rd party tool such as the free AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition.

The process to convert exFAT partition into FAT32 with AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition is pretty simple.

You just need to right click on the existing partition, select Format Partition from the menu, set the File System as FAT32, click OK, then click Apply which is the first menu bar option on top.

With this, your 64GB or 128GB SD card is very likely to be able to work without problem in those Android based devices.

Click here to download the AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition software for free. It is free for both personal and commercial use.

You might be also interested to read about:

• Check for bad sectors in USB thumb drive and fix it with AOMEI Partition Assistant

EmEditor - lightweight text editor able to open large file and also manipulate CSV

Recently, I was looking for a text editor that is capable to open and edit an SQL dump as large as 2.7 GB, and I only found EmEditor to be the workable one. Most of the well-known text editors for Windows failed to open the file. Several managed to open, but became extremely slow and easy to crash during navigation or editing.

EmEditor by Emurasoft has been around since 1997. Its user interface is still Windows 95 alike, and not that impressive at all. It seems to be powerful, with quite a lot of functions, but looking for the function will probably need some times searching in its menu items. It has most of the basic function of a modern text editor, including syntax highlighting for programming languages and scripts.

Due to its old fashion user interface, you probably won't use EmEditor for normal text editing or program coding. However, EmEditor has 2 unique features that really make a difference from other editors. These 2 superb features are:

• ability to open and edit large text file, as big as 248 GB or 2.1 billion lines!
• ability to manipulate CSV file with nice tabulation of the data into columns.

If you need a lightweight editor to open text file with millions of line, you are very likely end up with EmEditor. EmEditor is able to open such large file without consuming much memory or taking up much CPU resources.

Example of those large text files including but not limited to:

• SQL dump with data
• Log file
• Large dataset in CSV or XML

EmEditor is pretty fast in loading the large text file. If the file is really large and over a gigabit, it still needs some times to fully load the file, but not that long.

Sequential moving in between text is seamless and fast, but jumping will take a longer time. Editing character by character is also fast, but text replacement with highlighting and cut will also take a longer time.

 

EmEditor has function to split a file into multiple smaller files, and also the reverse function to combine several files into one.

This is handy in the situation whereby you need to search for a portion of the large file, and export it out for further manipulation using other tools. Another situation is to split a large chunk of SQL dump into smaller files, so that the SQL server can import by handling smaller files.

EmEditor has powerful CSV manipulation functions similar to spreadsheet such as MS Excel or LibreOffice Calc. Compared with those spreadsheet programs, EmEditor is pretty lightweight and faster to load up.

It can tabulate the CSV data into columns, insert/delete a column, perform sorting, perform filtering, convert the CSV separator, etc.

Because of these 2 unique functions, I find EmEditor a handy tools for IT person, particularly for dealing with large text files involving dataset or log file.

Cellular frequency bands allocated to Malaysia mobile network operators

The telecommunication spectrum assignment in Malaysia is handled by Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).

Mobile network operators (MNOs) need to pay multi-million ringgit to MCMC in order to get the spectrum assignment in specific frequency band, so that they can provide cellular mobile service to customers with their assigned frequency bands.

The customers' device need to be able to communicate on the same band with the cellular transmitter at the nearby telco tower of the mobile service provider in order to establish a connection for voice and data transmission.

SIRIM is the certification body who will test and certify the mobile devices sold in the local market are complying to the spectrum used in Malaysia.

Current allocated frequency bands to MNOs in Malaysia are as below. Note that the mobile operator might not make use of all of their allocated frequency bands. In fact, most of them are not using the 900MHz band for 2G GSM.

Lower frequency means longer wavelength. This will have better in-house penetration and also able to reach a longer distance, but the bandwidth is lower and connection speed is slower.

Higher frequency means shorter wavelength. This can carry more bandwidth and also provide faster connection speed, at the trade-off of poorer in-house penetration and shorter coverage distance.

LTE frequency bands are numbered according to either the FDD specification or the TDD specification. For example, FDD Band 5 used by Unifi Mobile has a low frequency of 850MHz, therefore the LTE connection speed in this band is generally slower than those in FDD Band 3 (1800MHz).

Android mobile device users can install an app called LTE Discovery by Simply Advanced to have realtime information about which LTE band the device is connected to, as well as the signal strength, cellular tower position, and many other related information.

Tourists bringing mobile phone and/or tablet to Malaysia can check the table above with their own device specification on 2G/3G/4G to ensure that their device can function well in Malaysia, either using roaming or a SIM card purchased in Malaysia from one of the MNOs or MVNOs.

Fixed MySQL Workbench installation problem with missing Visual C++ Redistributable package (2015)

MySQL Workbench is a very useful unified visual tool for database architects, developers, and DBAs working on MySQL and/or MariaDB. It provides data modeling, SQL development, and comprehensive administration tools for server configuration, user administration, backup, etc.

MySQL Workbench Community Edition is free for use, which you can download from MySQL website. It is available for MS Windows, Ubuntu Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Oracle Linux Fedora and macOS X.

MySQL Workbench is a very good companion to work together with Laragon. In fact, it is among the few (if not the only) free MySQL database administration tools that is able to let user design database with EER diagram and also able to reverse engineer the tables of existing database into EER diagram. This feature is normally available only in the commercial version of other database administration tools.

If you are using Windows 10 and trying to install MySQL Workbench version 8, you might hit with a error during installation saying that Visual C++ Redistributable package (2015) is missing, and you need to install that before you're able to proceed to install MySQL Workbench.

Unfortunately, this problem cannot be simply resolved by installing Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package (2015), because the installer program will tell you that it has already been installed.

In fact, this problem is caused by the newer Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package (2017) already installed in your Windows system. Its installation might have deleted some registry keys used by the Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable.

The solution is to repair the installed Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable (note: not to install or repair the 2015 redistributable, but the 2017 one). It is advisable to repair both the x64 and x86 versions of Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable.

To do so, go to Windows System > Control Panel > Uninstall a program and locate for Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable (x64). Right click on it and select Change (note: is Change, not Uninstall). Then click the Repair button to start the repair process.

You might be required to reboot your Windows at the end of the process.

When it is done, continue to do the same for Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable (x86).

After this, try to install MySQL Workbench again. The installation process should be OK now.

Converting video files to be playable from USB drive in Toyota PX-3834A-I display audio head unit

The Toyota PX-3834A-I display audio is the stock DVD-AVX head unit of Toyota Vios 1.5L E/G variants.

It is able to play the following multimedia files in a USB thumb drive:

• Audio music in MP3 (*.mp3), WMA (*.wma) or AAC (*.m4a) format
• Video in XVID (*.avi or *.mp4) or MPEG (*.mpg) format
• Picture in JPEG (*.jpg) format

For audio files to be playable, they need to have a sample rate between 8,000 Hz to 48,000 Hz and bit rate between 16 kbps to 320 kbps.

For video files to be playable, they need to have a frame size of either 720x480 (4:3 NTSC) or 720x576 (5:4 PAL).

When the car parking handbrake is engaged, the video will display on the screen, otherwise, there will be a statement on screen saying that the video will not be displayed while driving, while the music in the video still continue playing. This is a safety feature so that the driver will focus on driving instead of watching video on the screen.

In order for any video to be playable in this Toyota PX-3834A-I head unit, the easiest way is to convert it into MPG format with the following custom settings:

 

 

Conversion can be done using a free software called Freemake Video Converter. Alternatively, you can also use another free software called Format Factory to do the conversion.

 

Laragon the free WAMP platform better than XAMPP, WampServer, etc.

The Windows-Apache-MySQL-PHP or Windows-Apache-MariaDB-PHP (WAMP) is a web application server platform running on Microsoft Windows operating system, derived from the Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP (LAMP) platform.

In most cases, the LAMP platform is used for production server of web applications, while the WAMP platform is used as local development environment for web application programmers who work on Windows computer. Even so, the WAMP platform can also be used for production server.

XAMPP and WampServer are among the most popular WAMP environment that is free for use. There are many more options available in the market, both free and commercial, including the younger Laragon.

For Apple Mac OS users, there is also a MAMP platform available in both free and commercial Pro option.

I found Laragon to be better than XAMPP and WampServer, because it is very easy to install, very straightforward to use, very flexible to turn features and plugins on/off, very easy to setup new project, and it comes with a unique auto virtual host feature to give each project a nice URL to access from web browser. More importantly, it is lightweight and usually consume less than 4MB RAM when running, the servers are fast to start and be in up-and-running state. Its PHP execution is also pretty fast compared with other WAMP platforms.

The list of services to be started by Laragon can be easily selected in the preference page. You can also modify the default running TCP port at ease.

Laragon WAMP comes pre-installed with Apache, MySQL, Nginx, PHP, Node.js, Redis, Memcached, yarn + ngrok, git, HeidiSQL, Notepad++, etc.

HeidiSQL Portable is its default database tool to access and administer the MySQL. The popular phpMyAdmin can also be automatically downloaded included with a simple mouse click.

Additional services such as MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Python, etc. can be easily installed and added with a single mouse click from the Tools > Quick Add menu.

PHP extensions can be easily switched on/off in the PHP > Extensions menu.

To start new project with popular content management system or PHP framework such as WordPress, Drupal, Laravel, Symfony, etc. is also a breeze. With a single mouse click in the Quick App menu, the framework will be automatically downloaded and installed by Laragon.

Even if you choose to start with blank project, an empty database schema is automatically created for you in MySQL.

Laragon supports multiple versions of Apache, MySQL and/or PHP, which you can select which version to run for your project. Editing their INI configuration file can also be easily done in Laragon.

You can click here to download and install Laragon into your Windows computer.

Releasing handphone storage space by cleaning up WhatsApp files

Have you wonder what have silently taken up your handphone / tablet storage space? I bet the top culprit will be messaging apps such as WhatsApp.

WhatsApp stores all your individual and group chatting history in your phone storage, including all the media files and documents which you've sent out and also you've received from others. Over time, it will consume up gigabits of your phone / tablet storage.

Within the WhatsApp application itself does not have any mechanism for you to clean up old files or large files in order to release your handphone storage space.

Anyhow, you can easily locate those files stored by WhatsApp in your phone by using a file manager app such as File Manager + and navigate to the /WhatsApp/Media folder in your phone storage. The files are all there! You can then manually backup and/or delete the files there.

In fact, you can also program an Automate script to perform some sort of automated WhatsApp files housekeeping to release your handphone storage periodically.

Another easier way is to make use of an Android app called Cleaner for WhatsApp by LookAndFeel Lab to do the housekeeping.

Note that there are multiple Android apps call themselves as Cleaner for WhatsApp in the Google Play Store, and I am referring to the one developed by LookAndFeel Lab with the app icon as below:

This Android app is like a specific version of file manager to release handphone storage space taken up by WhatsApp files.

It shows you the total WhatsApp files found and the total storage space taken.

According to the WhatsApp directory structure, Cleaner for WhatsApp is able to list down the number of files and storage space taken by file types:

• Videos
• Images
• Documents
• Databases
• Voices
• Audios
• Gifs
• Stickers
• Profile Photos
• WallPapers

By entering the folder, it can let you review those files that you sent to others, those that you received from others, and duplicated files.

With a single tap, you can select all the files within the category (received, sent or duplicated), or you can manually select the files one-by-one, for you to perform the delete action. The files can be sorted by size (either large size first or small size first) or date (either oldest first or newest first) to make it easy for batch selection for deletion.

The function that makes a real difference from ordinary file explorer is its auto-clean function, which you can select to periodically check for the WhatsApp file and clean them by date or by size. It provides option for you to select which types of files you want to auto-clean.

With Cleaner for WhatsApp, you are able to release quite a number of handphone storage space occupied by those WhatsApp files. I would suggest LookAndFeel Lab to also provide achieve function beside cleaning to make it even better.