Alternatives of US-based GPS satellite navigation

The usage of global satellite navigation system has become more and more important nowadays, from military to civil uses. For example, location based service (LBS) in smartphones has high level of reliance on it.

The current global satellite navigation system used by most of us are depending on the Global Positioning System (GPS) of US NAVSTAR, which has 24 to 32 satellites in operation. The actual number of operating satellites varies from time to time due to maintenance and/or replacement, but the minimum in operation in any time is 24.

GPS has been operational since 1978, and made globally available since 1994.

Due to political, and more importantly, millitary reasons, some other nations have also developed their own global satellite navigation system as alternative to the US NAVSTAR's GPS.

These include the Russian Global'naya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema (Global Navigation Satellite System, GLONASS) which is currently supported in iPhone 4S. GLONASS has been operational since 1995, but fell into disrepair after the collapse of Soviet Unoin, and was later recovered and restored in 2011.

China is developing a regional navigation system called BeiDou (北斗导航系统), which has 12 satellites and will implement for Asia Pacific region by this year (2012). They have plan to further expand it into a global navigation system by 2020, under a project called Compass. By that time, BeiDou system will have 35 satellites in operation.

The European Union also developing their own Galileo positioning system, but seems like they are facing some progress delay due to financial issue.

Indian is also developing the Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS) with 7 satellites, mainly for their own use.

A family vacation trip to Cherating, Pahang

My family has spent a vacation in Cherating, Pahang recently. It is a nice getaway place at East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia for urban person to take a look at the beauty of nature in the rural part of the country.

We stayed at The Legend Resort, which has an average outlook, but pretty modernly renovated rooms. From the number plate of the cars parked there, it is observed that majority of its guest are from urban area especially Klang Valley.

We booked our room from Internet. We've browsed through the famous hotel reservation websites and group coupon websites, and surprisingly found out that the cheapest rate we could get is actually from the hotel's official website! We stayed at Grand Deluxe Seaview room at the price of RM2xx per night only, and the seaview (photo taken from balcony of the room) is quite nice.

The Legend in Cherating has large swimming pools, as well as long sandy beach. There are many small crabs on the beach...

... and we are warned that there are jelly fishes in the sea. We saw some dead jelly fishes on the shore.

The food in hotel's restaurant is expectingly expensive, and there are many nice and cheap Malay food around, and a Chinese restaurant right at the junction where you turn in from the main road to a small road leading to The Legend Cherating.

In a small village several kilometers at the North of The Legend, there is one Hafiz's Cherating Activities which provides one-stop sight-seeing service around Cherating. To look for En. Hafiz, locate for this signboard in the village.

That night, we've gone for fireflies watching trip and also turtle watching trip.

En. Hafiz is a friendly and nice person who is very knowledgeable about the Cherating River and the Mangrove Forest Researve area along the river. The fireflies are residing in the mangrove forest. Before we got on the boat to watch the fireflies, Hafiz has done a presentation about the information of fireflies, their habitats, life cycle, etc.

Hafiz has learnt a tactic to attract the fireflies to fly near to us by using small torchlights to imitate the fireflies' communication signal. It is really a fantasy experience to have hundreds of fireflies coming to us from the mangrove trees at the river side, and later send them back to the trees. However, use of camera and handphone is forbidden as the light from the device will disturb and cause annoyance to the fireflies, so no photo taken during this amazing trip.

The turtle watching trip was guided by rangers from the Cherating Turtle Sanctuary. The location was at an open beach near Kemaman, some distance away from Cherating village.

When we reached there, a turtle was half-way laying eggs in a hole it digged. It is a green turtle and its egg is about the size of ping pong ball.

That turtle laid 137 eggs that night. It burried the eggs, and the rangers digged them out to bring to the sanctuary for hatching.

The yellow one is actually a ping pong ball brought by the ranger for explanation purpose.

The rangers brought along 3 baskets of 1 day-old baby turtles (about 200 of them) for us to release to the sea.

Off they gone into the sea, remembering this seashore. They will come back years after, when they grown up later, to reproduce and lay eggs at the same beach where they left that night. However, most of the turtles might not be able to survive due to predators and natural challenges in the sea.

We have gone to the Turtle Sanctuary the next day. It is located next to Club Med Cherating. There are 2 adult turtles there, and several small turtles.

The next day, we actually planned to go for snorkelling trip to Snake Island with Hafiz, but we missed the time.

We gone back to Cherating River in Hafiz's day-time mangrove river cruise that evening. It is the same river we watched the fireflies the night before.

During the cruise, we also travelled into a branched small river, where many small animals can be seen.

The crabs in the mangrove forest are very colourful. We saw red and blue crabs there.

During the 2 hours river cruise, beside the crabs, we also encountered with monitor lizards, mud suckers, monkeys, snakes, birds, insects,  etc. It was really a nice experience.

On the way back from Cherating, we've visited Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary near Temerloh, hundred over kilometers away. It is located at the end of a small village, quite some distance away from the main road.

After the retreat, now we are back to urban life. I think we shall revisit Cherating again in the future. It is a wonderful place.

RIP Dr. Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

News reported that Dr. Stephen Richard Covey (1932-2012), author of the best-selling motivational book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (over 20 million copies sold worldwide), has just passed away due to residual effects of an April bicycle accident.

Covey is the founder of Covey Leadership Center, which in 1997 merged with Franklin Quest to form FranklinCovey Co. Today, FranklinCovey has offices in hundred over countries as global consulting and training center in the areas of strategy execution, leadership, customer loyalty, sales performance, school transformation and individual effectiveness. Covey is also a professor at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University at the time of his death.

Beside The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey is also the author of the following best-selling books:

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families
• The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness
• The Leader in Me
• The 3rd Alternative
• First Things First
• Principle-Centered Leadership

Below are the 7 habits of highly effective people as listed by Covey. Read his book for full detail:

• Be proactive
• Begin with the end in mind
• Put first things first
• Think win/win
• Seek first to understand, then to be understood
• Synergize
• Sharpen the saw