Warning! Touch n Go cards must be used at least once per year, or you will lose money!

Perhaps not many people aware that their Touch n Go card, if stayed unused for 12 months consecutively, will be deactivated and suspended into dormant state.

The dormant card cannot be used anymore, and your money balance in the card will be locked and rendered unusable, until you get Touch n Go to reactivate the card.

There is an admin fee of RM5 plus GST (total: RM5.30) to reactivate the dormant Touch n Go card.

If you continue to keep the card staying inactive, they will still charge you RM5 plus GST (total: RM5.30) of maintenance fee in every 6 months interval. The maintenance fee will be deducted from the balance in the dormant card, until it reached zero. Then, it becomes a junk plastic card.

In addition, every Touch n Go card has a lifespan of 10 years only, and the expiry date is printed behind the card.

Upon expiry, you can buy a new card and transfer your balance from your expired card into your new card. There is an admin fee of RM5 plus GST (total: RM5.30) for Touch n Go balance transfer too.

Today, there are several highways in Klang Valley that no longer receive cash as toll payment and made compulsory to pay with Touch n Go.

If you are staying outside Klang Valley and were forced to buy a Touch n Go card just to pay the toll during your visit to KL once in a blue moon, you are likely to be affected by this.

According to Touch n Go, you can avoid this situation by using the Touch n Go function in your MyKad instead of purchasing the standalone Touch n Go card. Your MyKad will not become dormant even if you don't use it as Touch n Go card for more than 1 year.

About Private Retirement Scheme (PRS) and its funds performance at end of April 2016

Launched in 2012, the Private Retirement Scheme (PRS) is a voluntary (non-compulsory) retirement scheme in Malaysia for employees and also self employed to have another option of forced saving for their retirement.

In order to encourage savings under PRS, Malaysian government granted personal income tax relief of up to RM3,000 for individuals tax payers from their PRS savings amount deposited during the taxation year. 

Employers are also provided with tax deduction on contributions to the PRS on behalf of their employees above the statutory rate of 19%.

Note that this income tax relief for PRS is available for 10 years only, from tax assessment year 2012 until 2021.

Also note that the sales and admin charges deducted from your PRS contribution is not eligible for tax relief, you can only claim the amount from your net PRS contribution done within the year, up to RM3,000 per year.

Your PRS contributions will be deposited into your Private Pension Administrator (PPA) account, after your PRS fund provider deducted the sales and admin charges.

Your money in your PPA account is split into 2 sub-accounts (a bit similar to your EPF account). Once your money is parked in your PPA account, you can forget about it until you finally retire, because:

• 70% of your fund is parked in Sub-account A, which cannot be withdrawn until you retired.
• 30% of your fund is parked in Sub-account B, which you can only withdrawn once a year, and subject to an 8% tax penalty on the withdrawal amount.

Your money in PPA account is then allocated for investment by your fund manager with your selected fund scheme, which could be of category of growth, moderate or conservative.

There is no guarantee that your PRS fund will give you return. In fact, you can also lose money if your fund is not performing!

How is the performance of the available PRS funds so far?

Morningstar is tracking the PRS funds performance (there are 79 of them as at 30 April 2016) on a day-to-day basis.

As of today (30 April 2016), only 19 or 24% out of the total 79 PRS funds have made a positive year to date return. AmPRS - Asia Pacific REITs is the champion with 4.79% return YTD.

Those 19 PRS funds that have positive return year to date, and their YTD return are as below:

(Screen captured from Morningstar's PRS fund performance tracking website, double click on image to enlarge)

The worst PRS fund performer YTD, CIMB Islamic PRS Plus Asia Pacific Ex Japan Equity fund, has caused a 8.92% lost in 4 months time.

Anyhow, YTD return is for monitoring of latest return performance of the funds. If you see your fund continuously not performance well over a couple of months, you should consider switching over to another fund that is performing well over the same period of time.

Now, let's look at their full year return in 2015. There are a total of 75 PRS funds active in year 2015, and 74 of them had brought positive return, only 1 has lost money.

The champion in 2015 is AmPRS - Islamic Equity Fund with a return of 16.3%. The top 10 PRS funds in 2015 are:

And the bottom 10 PRS funds in 2015 are:

So, does it worth to lock down your money in PRS, and put it in the hand of your PRS fund managers to bring return or lost to you? You decide.

U Mobile attacked competitors again with free video streaming on top of existing data quota

If you have a smartphone or tablet attached with U Mobile postpaid and prepaid service, and you have been using it to watch online videos, here is a good news to you.

U Mobile has just launched their Video-Onz service, providing free additional quota on top of existing data plan for you to watch videos using the apps from the following 12 providers:

• YouTube
• YouTube Gaming
• Youku Tudou
• iflix
• Astro on the Go
• HyppTV Everywhere
• Viu
• Eros Now
• tonton
• Herotalkies
• ONFM
• Pocketimes

This mean that when you are watching videos with these apps, you are given additional quota on top of your existing Internet data quota for the video streaming, for free by U Mobile under the Video-Onz service.

The monthly allocation of the free Video-Onz video streaming quota on top of the existing Internet data quota of various U Mobile postpaid and prepaid plans is as below:

There is no Video-Onz quota imposed for P70, i90 and i130 postpaid plans, meanings you can watch videos or movies with the above 12 video streaming apps as much as you wish, as there is unlimited Video-Onz data for these plans. 

Nowadays U Mobile marketing is really aggressive in capturing the market share by providing competitive package that really can shake and disrupt its competitors, which is a good news for all mobile consumers in Malaysia.

Let's see what will Celcom and Digi offer to counter attack this. Maxis? Maybe their customers need to cry and scream and swear for another time again for them to finally react.

Meanwhile, the P1 (now known as Webe) under TM has been making a lot of hoo-haa recently, but until today the general public is still unclear about what they are going to offer to join this intensified competition.

Earth Day and the story of bottled water

We've just celebrated our Earth Day on 22nd April. This event has once again brought some world attention to the story of bottled water, with a video produced back in 2010.

Here is the video, which has been viewed over 4.7 millions time in YouTube:

So, what's wrong with the bottled water? It is a multi-billion business, sold 290 billion liters in 2014 and expected to continue growing at a CAGR of around 8.5% between 2015 and 2020.

Well, we are told that about half of the bottled water is sourced from tap water, and priced a few hundreds time the price of tap water. It is expensive, sometimes even more expensive than petrol.

Another half is sourced from underground or spring water. What will be the impact to the environment when millions of gallons of water is extracted away 24x7 everyday? Will it change the soil moisture, deplete the wetlands and narrow out the rivers? Will it in turn affect the surrounding ecology, and the aquaculture and agriculture condition?

Anyhow, the main issue is more on the plastic bottle itself than the water contained in it. In order to manufacture the plastic bottle, millions barrels of fossil fuel is consumed, and another millions tonnes of carbon dioxide is generated.

Each year, more than 4 billion pounds of PET plastic bottles end up in landfills or as roadside litter, or worse still, floating in the sea endangering the birds, fishes and other ocean animals. Only less than 20% of plastic the water bottles are actually recycled.
In the United States of America, selling of bottled water is banned in more and more schools and colleges, and even parks.

Therefore, to save our earth and its environment, we should only drink bottled water when necessary, and not to substitute our daily drinking water with it. We should resume our traditional way of drinking filtered or boiled tap water, and use reusable water container to carry some water with us for outdoor drinking.

Negative interest rate - get paid from borrowing and get charged from saving

If you think that you can earn some interest by depositing your money in bank, and you will be charged with interest for borrowing money from bank, you have to reverse your mind-set in certain places that are having negative interest rate policy now.

I'm not kidding. The European Central Banks (ECB), Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden are already having negative interest rate for quite some times. Lately, Japan has joint the league too!

(Chart produced by Toronto Star)

The ECB started this game by charging banks that hold their cash overnight and at the same time offering a premium to banks that borrow in order to extend more loans.

During economic uncertainty time, people tend to be conservative with spending and/or investing and more keen to hoard money in their bank accounts. They are willing to do so even with zero interest rate. This brings the danger of deflation, and as an extreme measure to counter this situation, the banks started to "punish" people that keep money in their bank accounts by charging interest instead of giving interest, and to encourage people to take up loan for business and investment activities by giving interest instead of charging interest.

When this negative interest situation occurs, the traditionally safe havens to put your money, namely bank deposit and bond market, will become the places that most likely cause you to lose money. Yes, fixed deposit is dangerous, bond market is dangerous, because your money will go down the drain if you put it there, in the era of negative interest rate.

However, this measure doesn't seem to be effective to stimulate the economy, as people there are still very cautious and tend to hoard with their money. With the negative interest rate, they are forced to take out their money from bank deposit account, and then they are keeping the money in their drawer or safe instead of spending it. (Reuters: Negative ECB rates fuel demand for safe deposit boxes, German banks say)

The impose of negative interest rate in Eurozone and Japan has shown unfavourable sign of worldwide economy. What will be next after quantitative easing and negative interest rate? If there is no more option ahead, we can foresee a huge economic catastrophe forming and will hit all of us at anytime.

Are you prepared for it? And the question is: how to get prepared for it?

Income tax declaration of property rental - which expenses are deductible and which are not?

For most property owners in Malaysia who rented out their property, the rental collected from tenant is regarded as a non-business source of income and therefore is charged to the owner's income tax under section 4(d) of the Income Tax Act, 1967.

The amount of property rental income need to be declared is the gross rental income deducted by certain expenses incurred by the property in order to generate the rental.

The expenses that are income tax deductible including:

• Assessment
• Quit rent
• Property loan interest
• Fire insurance premium
• Expenses on rental collection
• Expenses on rental renewal, including the stamp duty
• Expenses on repairs and maintenance
• Expenses on replacement of rental assets
• Property service charges, maintenance fees, sinking fund, and Indah Water bills
• Legal expenses on renewal of tenancy agreement, recovery of rental arrears, etc. 
• Expenses on pest control
• Property agent fees/commission to renew the tenancy

The expenses that are not income tax deductible are initial expenses before the property is rented out, including:

• Advertising cost to get the tenant
• Property agent fees/commission to obtain the tenant
• Legal cost and stamp duty for initial tenancy agreement
• Expenses on renovation and improvement to get higher rental or to be more attractive to potential tenant

If the total rental income received is less than the total deductible expenses for the year, which shows that you have rental income loses instead of rental income gains for the year, then your taxable rental income for that particular year will be zero.

Note that rental income losses cannot be used to offset your other taxable statutory income of the year. The losses also cannot be carried forward to the next taxation year.

For more comprehensive information, you can refer to LHDN Malaysia Public Ruling No. 4/2011 : Income From Letting of Real Property.

WiFi technology - from Beamforming to MU-MIMO

Modern WiFi routers come with new selling features such as Beamforming and even MU-MIMO. What are these new features about? Will your home and/or office WiFi network be benefited with these new features? I also have the same questions, and here is the answer from my research.

Beamforming Technology

Beamforming is a kind of wireless transmission method introduced to reduce interference and improve the reliability of WiFi signal. It is adapted in the 5th generation WiFi standard 802.11ac.

Beamforming is based on Digital Signal Processing (DSP) logic and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technology. Using a procedure called channel calibration or channel sounding, it changes the phase and relative amplitude of the signal, creating a constructive interference and destructive interference to make the signal in preferred direction stronger and others weaker.

In this way, the WiFi router can focus the signal towards the direction of your WiFi devices connected to it, making the wireless connection stronger, more stable, and further reaching. As effective WLAN bandwidth degrades with weaker signal and longer distance, beamforming can help to reduce this degrading effect, therefore making the network faster.

However, bear in mind that your WLAN network is still limited by the maximum supported bandwidth of the WiFi router and the WiFi client, and your Internet bandwidth is still limited by the maximum bandwidth of your subscription package. Your network still won't be faster than these limitation.

Certain 802.11n routers and devices also support beamforming, but unlike 802.11ac, there is no common standard with beamforming in wireless-N.

In order to benefit from the beamforming technology, both your wireless router and wireless device (computer, tablet, handphone, smart TV, etc.) must support this technology. If they are of wireless-N device, then the beamforming of the wireless client must compatible with the wireless router as well, preferably from the same brand or manufacturer.

Beamforming is standardized in wireless-AC, but that does not mean that all wireless-AC has this feature. You have to ensure your wireless-AC device comes with beamforming technology to get its benefit.

MU-MIMO

Traditional wireless router or access point, even with MIMO technology, can only serve one wireless client at one time. If it is connected to multiple WiFi devices, each of the devices take turn to be served. The more wireless devices you connect to the WiFi router, the less bandwidth is available for each one of them.
Multiuser MIMO (MU-MIMO) is introduced in the 5th generation WiFi standard 802.11ac. In a wireless system that uses MU-MIMO, the router can direct separate streams of bandwidth to up to 4 different devices simultaneously, as long as the devices are also able to use MU-MIMO technology.

For a MU-MIMO router with 4 antennas, each antenna can serve an individual MU-MIMO supported wireless device. Each of these devices can utilize the full WLAN bandwidth supported by the router.

If there are more devices, then the 5th onwards still need to share antenna with other device.

So, one MU-MIMO router is equivalent to 4 virtual MIMO routers, in the condition that the wireless clients connected to it also support MU-MIMO technology.

What if your wireless device is not supporting MU-MIMO? The router is backward compatible to act as single-user MIMO (SU-MIMO) router just like the older MIMO, and you won't enjoy the benefit of MU-MIMO in this case.

My MEC iPort G9000 PR1C 1HP portable air-cond

I have just purchased this MEC iPort G9000 PR1C 1HP portable air-cond last month for a small room in my house that is without wall mounted air-cond, and now the weather has become so hot that I feel this purchase was rally made at the right time.

MEC is a Malaysian brand. The size of this portable air-cond is in fact larger than my perception from its photo. It is quite thick, with the dimension of 458 x 745 x 348.

It looks stylish, with an automatic sliding panel that will completely cover up its louver blades outlet when it is turned off, to cover it from dust. The panel will automatically slide down when the air-cond is turned on.

This portable air-cond comes with quite a lot of accessories, including the standard accessory of remote controller with battery, and exhaust hose with wall exhaust adaptor. In addition, it also comes with window slider kit and 4 pieces of foam seal that can be applied to most vertical and horizontal windows. It also comes with a water drain hose for dehumidifying mode usage.

 

This portable air-cond has a modern look, with quite a lot of air filters, located behind it and also at its both sides. It has all the functions that you need, including the louver auto-swing feature, 4 selection modes of Auto, Cool, Dry and Fan, 4 fan speed selection of Low, Med, High and Auto, Sleep mode, Timer setting, LED display, intelligent self-diagnosis and auto-protection function, panel Lock function, auto-restart after power cut off, 3 minutes protection before resuming operation, etc. It makes use of the condensed water for cooling, evaporating the water during the process, therefore for normal operation with this self-evaporating system, it doesn't need to drain out water.

One unique feature is the Follow Me button on its remote control. In Follow Me mode, the remote control will send signal to the air-cond every 3 minutes, and the air-cond will direct the cool air to its direction. So, you just need to put the remote control beside you to get the breezing cool air blowing towards you.

This air-cond is pretty quiet during operation, and quite energy saving too. It has a current rating of 4.4A with 1000W power input, cooling capacity of 9000 Btu/h, EER rating of 8.9, airflow of 440 cubic meter per hour, which is equivalent to 259 CFM.

Overall, I am satisfied with this portable air-cond.

You might be interested to also read about:

• How to select air-conditioner wisely

Ambidio - new audio technology that enables normal speaker to play super immersive surround sound that beats high-end 7.2 speakers

Ambidio is a new start-up in Los-Angeles founded by 29 years old Taiwanese girl Iris Wu and her friends, specialized in revolutionary sound technology. The company is backed by multiple-times Grammy award-winning artist will.i.am, and private investment arm of Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-Shing - Horizons Ventures.

So, what's so special about this Ambidio technology? Well, it brings a high quality, immersive sound experience by just using computer software technology, which can instantly enable normal low-end speaker (preferably stereo) to play sound with effect of the standard as produced by expensive high-end surround sound systems.

Ambidio offers a new way for people to experience sound. It has a range that is at least 3 times wider than conventional methods that simulates three dimensional sound, using traditional speakers and headphones, allowing for a fully immersive experience.

Don't believe me? You can try yourself with this demo video provided by Ambidio, using your low-end speaker, and tell me what you think after listening to this 1 minute demonstration.

Ambidio has enlisted Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Sound, which has been redefining immersive sound for nearly 4 decades for film, TV and videogames, as a strategic advisor to assist with Ambidio's technology and creative development.

“Technology is transforming the way we experience music and, as an artist and producer, I’m always looking to what’s next – where the innovation is. Ambidio brings music to life through immersive sound, giving people a chance to experience music in a whole new way,” says will.i.am of his involvement.

The idea came about while music lover Iris Wu was attending graduate school at New York University, and was trying to create a quality listening experience but was dissatisfied with the results due to living in a small New York City apartment. She began experimenting with sound engineering through code rather than hardware and Ambidio’s technology began to take shape.

“The brain is a powerful mechanism that can interpret the directional origin of different sounds in everyday life,” says Iris, “however, when consuming content on a device, such as a laptop, sound consistently comes from a fixed point – the front.”

Ambidio made it by treating our brain as a decoder and creates a continuous sound field with a sense of depth and dimension. It creates an immersive sound experience using only stereo speakers by inserting common cues into audio files that the brain then uses to identify and perceive where different sounds within the audio stream would have come from. Essentially, our brains process the sound the way it does in everyday life.

We look forward for Ambidio to disrupt the entire audio industry.

The ultimate comparison of TP-Link Archer C7 vs C8 vs C9 wireless routers

TP-Link has been well-known for wireless routers with performance comparable or even better than Asus, Linksys, Netgear, etc. with a much cheaper price. More importantly, most of its routers support UniFi and MaxisNet fibre broadband, including the IP phone and IPTV functions.

Let's compare 3 of the TP-Link Archer series of wireless-AC routers at the price range between RM400-RM600: the C7, C8 and C9. Below is the comparison table (click image to enlarge):

The Archer C7 is the oldest among them, with old housing and old web user interface. However, it seems to outperform its successors C8 and C9 in terms of network throughput and maximum simultaneous connections supported, with the help of its 6 antennas (3 internal and 3 external). It has the lowest price too.

The Archer C8 is a new design with new housing and newer, more user friendly web user interface. It also has a dual core CPU. Its USB performance is better than the C7. However, its 3 dual band antennas are shorter, and seems to perform weaker than the C7, despite it comes with Beamforming technology.

The Archer C9 has the same design with C8. It comes with a faster dual core CPU, newer Broadcom chipset, and even better USB performance than C8. However, its network throughput is a bit disappointing in the comparison.

If you are familiar with TP-Link old user interface, here is how its new user interface looks like:

TP-Link is phasing out C8 to replace it with C9, so the availability of C8 in the market is very rare now. However, the C7 is still widely available in the market.

So, there are both pros and cons among them in terms of user interface, specification, performance and price. If you were to choose one of them for your home Internet, which one will you buy?

References:

• The Best Wi-Fi Router (for Most People)
• TP-Link Archer C7 V2 Reviewed
• TP-Link Archer C8 Reviewed
• TP-Link Archer C9 Reviewed

Book: Marketing Management 15th global edition by Kotler and Keller

I would like to recommend a book about marketing which I just finished reading. It is the 15th global edition of Marketing Management written by marketing gurus Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller.

In fact, this is the text book or official reference book in many marketing courses. However, being an academic book, it is not boring at all, and pretty interesting to read through. It is colourful, with many up-to-date pictures and illustrations, real life examples, and most importantly, very comprehensive and informative.

I'll show you 2 of its pages to visualize my description above:

 

The 15th edition is the latest, published in 2015. It has several variances, and even published by different publishers, but I think the content should be the same.

The topics are pretty recent, with discussions on digital communications management of online, social media, and even mobile technology. It talks about Marketing 3.0, and addresses the change in consumer behaviours from the marketing perspective. It explains about the evolution of traditional 4 P's of marketing (product, place, promotion, price) to newer 4 P's (people, processes, programs, performance) and the newer alternative of 4 A's (acceptability, affordability, accessibility, awareness).

This is a nice book for business owners, marketing managers, MBA students, business school students, and anyone who is interested to know more about the topic.

Top 3 cash back credit cards to suit your lifestyle

With hundreds of credit cards now available in the market, it can get really confusing especially when you consider the fact that not all of them are created equal. However, these days many Malaysians optimise their credit cards spending with cash back credit cards.

Essentially, a cash back credit card is a credit card that rewards the cardholder a rebate based on their spending. This can be then further broken down into the cash back tier, monthly cap and cash back categories.

Cash back tier means how much you have to spend to earn that amount of cash back. For example, if you spend RM300 you get 4% cash back and have to spend RM2,500 and above for 8% cash back.

Next up is the monthly cap which is the amount that the rebate is capped at every month (ranging from RM10 – RM100 or more), and the cash back category is the type of retail transaction or spending you need to perform to qualify for the cash back rebate.

However, if you are looking for a cash back credit card that suits your spending habits, we’ve shortlisted three of the best ones for you to choose below.

Hong Leong Wise Gold Card

Looking for a cash back credit card that offers you a variety of choices on the cash back categories? The Hong Leong Wise Gold lets you enjoy 10% cash back on spending for two of your chosen categories (there are ten available) when you make a minimum of any 10 retail transactions (minimum RM50 per transaction) in a month.

Do take note that to change categories at any time, you will have to pay maintenance fee of RM10.60.

Recommended for:

Malaysians who use their credit card for a variety of transactions and want more control on their cash back based on their spending habits.

Qualifying Criteria:

• Minimum age of 21 years old and a minimum income of RM2,000 per month (RM24,000 per annum)
• Annual fees: RM169.90 for Principal cardholders and RM84.80 for supplementary card holders

Shell-Citi Gold Credit Card

Always on the road or just want more money back from all your petrol expenditure? The Shell-Citi Gold credit card lets you enjoy a cash back rebate of up to 8% when you fill up on petrol at any Shell station nationwide.

Recommended for:

This cash back credit card is ideal for Malaysians who spend more on petrol every month and prefer to visit Shell petrol stations to earn cash back rebates.

Qualifying Criteria:

• Minimum age of 21 years old and a minimum income of RM2, 000 per month (RM24,000 per annum)
• No annual fees for the first year by using the card three times within 60 days of card approval.
• For subsequent years, RM206.70 per annum for principal; RM106.00 for supplementary cardholders.

OCBC 365 MasterCard

The OCBC 365 MasterCard is a great choice if you are a first time credit card owner looking to earn cash back on all of your spending.

You will receive 1% cash back on the first RM1,000 you spend and 0.5% for all subsequent spending –  making it a hassle-free and easy to manage cash back credit card.

Recommended for:

Malaysians who are looking for their first credit card and wish to enjoy cash back rebates for all of their spending.

Qualifying Criteria:

• Minimum age of 21 years and a minimum income of RM2,000 per month. (RM24,000 per annum)
• No annual fees for the first year, only for first time OCBC credit card customers or customers who last held an OCBC credit card more than 12 months ago.
• RM106.00 per year for principal and RM53.00 per annum for supplementary cardholders.

For more information on how to compare cash back credit cards, check out this handy guide here by CompareHero.my.

Note: This is a guest post by CompareHero.my, a Malaysia’s financial comparison portal which helps consumer in finding the right financial products at the right price.

Malaysian credit and debit cards are evoluting from signature based to PIN and Pay

You might be aware that credit and debit cards issued by banks and financial institutions in Malaysia are gradually changing from the traditional signature based to the new PIN and Pay system.

With the introduction of this new system, cardholders will receive a new card that support PIN and Pay latest by mid-2017, and after that, signature will no longer be accepted to authorize your card payment at the merchants Point-of-Sale (POS) terminal. Instead, you are required to key in a 6 digit PIN at the device to authorize the payment transaction.

The use of 6 digit PIN is similar to the way you use your ATM card to login to the bank's ATM machine.

(Photo by iStock)

This evolution is aimed to protect against fraud due to lost or stolen cards, as the card and the PIN are required to make a payment at the terminal.

All card issuers in Malaysia are required by Bank Negara Malaysia to upgrade payment cards to PIN and Pay type. Your card issuer will decline your old signature card 3 months after issuing you a new PIN card or after you are notified to collect your new PIN card from the branch.

Note that PIN and Pay is NOT applicable to Internet payment transaction and over the phone payment transaction. You should NOT disclose your PIN over the Internet or over the phone. Internet payment is still verified by CVV number as usual, and there is no change to it.

Click here for more information about the PIN and Pay system.

10 signs of a bad working environment

I would like to share with you an interesting article contributed by Dennis McCafferty to Baseline Magazine, which listed out the 10 signs of a bad working environment (or so called toxic workplace) that you must beware of.

The 10 signs are...

1. Tasks are assigned without explanation
You are constantly asked to do something that isn't likely to contribute value. When you question why, you're simply told, "Because we need you to do it."

2. Favouritism abounds
Bosses reward those who are skilled at playing politics, even though they never make productive contributions.

3. Senior management MIA
If your leaders are always out of the office, or hiding in their offices, or unable to be reached, that's an indication that something is seriously wrong.

4. Cliques are everywhere
Instead of a united team, you have factions that threaten to tear the team apart.

5. Attempts at innovation are suppressed
When you propose something new and innovative, it gets shot down in a hurry because it's "not something we normally do".

6. Efforts to improve processes are shot down
Management counters your suggestions with, "This is the way we've always done it, so why change things?"

7. Critical topics are never discussed
Avoiding transparency, leaders refuse to discuss important subjects, including company finances, failed projects or internal scandals.

8. People are removing personal items
If you notice that co-workers are removing family photos and personal files a little bit at a time, it may be because they're not planning to stay much longer.

9. Managers ignore questions about raises, recognition
When the stock response to these inquiries is, "You are lucky to have a job!" its probably time to go.

10. Nobody smiles or laughs
When you walk around the office and see nothing but frowns, you can conclude that a toxic environment has taken hold, and likely can't be reversed.

If you find these signs in your working place, then you are probably surrounded by atmosphere of low morale, destructive cliques, company secrets, counter-productive policies and/or high employee turnover.

McCafferty is a freelance writer for Baseline Magazine.

 

 

- See more at: http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Intelligence/10-Signs-of-a-Bad-Work-Environment-876005?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BL_NL_BB_20160217_STR1L1&dni=303975746&rni=23731907#sthash.ocwIR2WT.dpuf

McCafferty is a freelance writer for Baseline Magazine.

 

 

- See more at: http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Intelligence/10-Signs-of-a-Bad-Work-Environment-876005?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BL_NL_BB_20160217_STR1L1&dni=303975746&rni=23731907#sthash.ocwIR2WT.dpuf

McCafferty is a freelance writer for Baseline Magazine.

 

 

- See more at: http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Intelligence/10-Signs-of-a-Bad-Work-Environment-876005?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BL_NL_BB_20160217_STR1L1&dni=303975746&rni=23731907#sthash.ocwIR2WT.dpuf

McCafferty is a freelance writer for Baseline Magazine.

 

 

- See more at: http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Intelligence/10-Signs-of-a-Bad-Work-Environment-876005?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BL_NL_BB_20160217_STR1L1&dni=303975746&rni=23731907#sthash.ocwIR2WT.dpuf

McCafferty is a freelance writer for Baseline Magazine.

 

 

- See more at: http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Intelligence/10-Signs-of-a-Bad-Work-Environment-876005?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BL_NL_BB_20160217_STR1L1&dni=303975746&rni=23731907#sthash.ocwIR2WT.dpuf

McCafferty is a freelance writer for Baseline Magazine.

 

 

- See more at: http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Intelligence/10-Signs-of-a-Bad-Work-Environment-876005?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BL_NL_BB_20160217_STR1L1&dni=303975746&rni=23731907#sthash.ocwIR2WT.dpuf

McCafferty is a freelance writer for Baseline Magazine.

 

 

- See more at: http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Intelligence/10-Signs-of-a-Bad-Work-Environment-876005?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BL_NL_BB_20160217_STR1L1&dni=303975746&rni=23731907#sthash.ocwIR2WT.dpuf

McCafferty is a freelance writer for Baseline Magazine.

 

 

- See more at: http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Intelligence/10-Signs-of-a-Bad-Work-Environment-876005?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BL_NL_BB_20160217_STR1L1&dni=303975746&rni=23731907#sthash.ocwIR2WT.dpuf

Dennis McCafferty

Dennis McCafferty

Product feature, advantage and benefit

In the business world where sales and marketing activities are key function to bring in revenue and profit, there is a saying that if you focus in selling your product feature, the sales process will generally be more difficult than selling your product advantage to the customer; and if you focus in selling your product advantage, again the sales process will generally be more difficult than selling the benefit that your customer can get from your product.

There are 3 motivations for people to buy something:

• Fear
• Need
• Greed

And people see or evaluate the value of a product offered from these 3 points of view:

• Money
• Time
• Risk or Effort

You can sell the benefit to your customer by understanding their major concern.

Normally, if your customer is in need of something you have, you can just sell them your product. So, if need is the major concern, your customer will most probably hunting for it, and what you need to do is to tell them you have exactly what they need.

Are they fear of losing money? Fear of having shortage in time? Fear of being exposed to risk? What can your product help them? Coming from the "fear" perspective, you can sell them the advantage of your product, which will probably reduce or eliminate their fear.

It is said that most business selling is through the greed motivation, which you need to tackle by selling the benefit. Can your product helps to bring in more revenue or reduce more cost? Can your product helps to speed up process? Can your product helps to mitigate the risk? Can your product helps to eliminate some of the effort?

What is the different between advantage and benefit? This can be explained by using some examples:

Example 1:
Product: Light
Feature: LED illumination
Advantage: Use much less electricity, has longer lifespan, less heat generated
Benefit: Save electricity cost, reduce hassle of replacing faulty unit, less risk of catching fire

Example 2:
Product: Printer
Feature: Laser jet
Advantage: Faster printing, handle high volume printing, waterproof printout, quality output
Benefit: Save printing time, presentable printout that you can confidently handover to customer as sales material, no risk of water smearing which is a major problem of inkjet printing

Some discussion about the recent slide in oil price and its impact to world economy

The slide in crude oil price from above $100 per barrel in 2014 all the way down to around $30 per barrel today has caused quite a lot of worries and volatilities in the investment market recently.

I found some data on the annual average prices in US$ per barrel of domestic crude oil from InflationData.com and plotted the graph of inflation adjusted oil price from 1946 to 2015 as below:

In fact, there is also a historical inflation adjusted oil price chart in the website of InflationData.com shown like this:

Looking at the historical oil prices since World War II, and adjusting it for inflation in today's currency value, we can see that most of the time, the oil prices were within the range of $20 to $40, which is what it stays at now.

Observing from my graph above (which is a clean version of the original graph from InflationData.com website cluttered with more information), there were 2 bubbles in oil price, one is in the 1970s where oil price crisis occurred due to wars in the Middle East, and another in the 2000s which once affected by the 2008 economic crisis but quickly restored until the recent burst.

The 1st bubble in the 1970s made Soviet Union into a major exporter of oil, and its burst in 1980s eventually caused the dissolution of Soviet Union in 1991.

Now the 2nd bubble in the 2000s which brought oil price to a level of above $100 per barrel was a super windfall to the oil and gas industry and oil exporting countries, to the extend that their fiscal for 2015 and 2016 need the oil price to stay above $100 per barrel to breakeven.

The recent oil bubble burst sending the oil price to its "normal" price range of between $20 and $40 has no doubt caused trouble to the overspending oil exporting countries. It is also a big slap to the oil and gas industry which borrowed huge debt from financial institutions to finance their drilling activities. This include the shale oil companies in the United States which bloomed up during the bubble.

Who will be most affected by this oil price slide?

The website of World's Top Exports has a list of Top 15 crude oil exporting country in 2014 as follow:

• 1.Saudi Arabia: US$268.2 billion (18.5% of total crude oil exports)
• 2.Russia: $152.6 billion (10.5%)
• 3.United Arab Emirates: $98 billion (6.8%)
• 4.Canada: $88.1 billion (6.1%)
• 5.Iraq: $84.4 billion (5.8%)
• 6.Nigeria: $76.2 billion (5.3%)
• 7.Kuwait: $69.3 billion (4.8%)
• 8.Angola: $61.2 billion (4.2%)
• 9.Kazakhstan: $53.6 billion (3.7%)
• 10.Venezuela: $53.3 billion (3.7%)
• 11.Norway: $44.2 billion (3%)
• 12.Iran: $41.3 billion (2.8%)
• 13.Mexico: $36.2 billion (2.5%)
• 14.Oman: $34.8 billion (2.4%)
• 15.United Kingdom: $29 billion (2%)

 

And the website of US Energy Information Administration (EIA) provides a list of Top 10 net oil importers in 2014 as follow:

• China (6.1 million barrels per day)
• United States (5.1 mbpd)
• Japan (4.2 mbpd)
• India (2.7 mbpd)
• South Korea (2.3 mbpd)
• Germany (2.2 mbpd)
• France (1.6 mbpd)
• Spain (1.2 mbpd)
• Italy (1.1 mbpd)
• Taiwan (1.0 mbpd)

The website of World's Top Exports also provides a list of Top 15 refined oil exporting country in 2014 as follow:

• 1.Russia: US$114.7 billion (12% of total refined oil exports)
• 2.United States: $110 billion (11.5%)
• 3.Singapore: $66.1 billion (6.9%)
• 4.Netherlands: $64.8 billion (6.8%)
• 5.India: $60.8 billion (6.3%)
• 6.South Korea: $49.1 billion (5.1%)
• 7.Belgium: $40.8 billion (4.3%)
• 8.China: $25.8 billion (2.7%)
• 9.United Arab Emirates: $24.7 billion (2.6%)
• 10.Kuwait: $22.8 billion (2.4%)
• 11.Saudi Arabia: $22.1 billion (2.3%)
• 12.United Kingdom: $20.2 billion (2.1%)
• 13.Taiwan: $19.3 billion (2%)
• 14.Malaysia: $18.5 billion (1.9%)
• 15.Germany: $17.9 billion (1.9%)

Generally speaking, high crude oil price will hurt China, United States, Taiwan, Germany, etc. which are top importer of crude oil and also at the same time the top exporter of refined oil. Low crude oil price will hurt Russia and countries in Middle East which are both the top exporter of crude oil and top exporter of refined oil.

 

However, the market is worried that economy slowdown in places like China will cause them to consume less oil domestically and therefore export more refined oil, bringing oversupply situation to the world's oil market, which will then further dampen the oil price.

 

But I think the main worry is with those over-financed oil and gas companies and over-spending oil exporting countries (to erect skyscrapers and luxury places). This is because their repayment default and/or bankruptcy will definitely hurt the finance industry, and a troubled finance industry is really a bad news for the economy.

 

 

Auspicious dates for housewarming, open house, party, gathering, etc. in 2016

Here is the list of auspicious dates in 2016 for organizing and hosting meet-up with friends and/or relatives (会友), which is produced based on the Chinese almanac Tong Shu.

The dates are applicable for housewarming, open house, home party, gathering, potluck, and any other similar functions to meet up with friends and/or relatives. (Click the image to enlarge)

Bear in mind that although the Tong Shu is a compilation of Chinese astrology and calendaring studies gathering wisdom of thousands of years, we should use it wisely and rationally, but not be too superstitious on it.

Installed YouTube for Android TV 1.3.8 in Huawei EC6108V8 STB of UniFi HyppTV

The Huawei EC6108V8 set top box (STB) of TM UniFi HyppTV comes pre-installed with YouTube app that is not functioning, even though you've successfully make use of WiFi to connect the STB to the Internet.

Anyhow, I've installed YouTube for Android TV version 1.3.8 that can functioning well in the Huawei EC6108V8 STB.

You probably can't find this app in the pre-installed Google Play Store running in the Huawei EC6108V8 STB of UniFi HyppTV. You need to make use of the pre-installed web browser in the STB and visit to the URL below to download and install the YouTube for Android TV app:

• http://www.apkmirror.com/wp-content/themes/APKMirror/download.php?id=51391

Note that the pre-installed YouTube is a system app and you can't easily uninstall it. After installing YouTube for Android TV version 1.3.8, you will have 2 different YouTube app in the My Applications screen of the STB. Luckily they have different icon, so you can easily differentiate between them.

You might probably also be interested to read about:

• Upgraded my UniFi HyppTV set top box (STB) from Huawei EC2108E to Huawei EC6108V8

Free Touch n Go card preloaded with RM10 and laptop bag to grab for online IWK payment

FYI, Indah Water (IWK) is having a 2016 IWK Online Payment Campaign from 11-31 January 2016.

You can get a free Touch n Go card preloaded with RM10 value if you are among the first 300 customers who pay your IWK bill using online payment method.

If you are among the first 45 customers who prepaid for 1 year of IWK payment, you can get a free laptop bag too.

In order to participate, you need to email your proof of payment to iwkcontest@gmail.com.

Refer to the poster below for more detail.

Upgraded my UniFi HyppTV set top box (STB) from Huawei EC2108E to Huawei EC6108V8

If you are new home subscriber to TM UniFi with HyppTV package, you will probably get the new Huawei EC6108V8 set top box (STB) as your IPTV service decoder.

If you are existing TM UniFi VIP package user, your HyppTV STB might be of the old Huawei EC6106V5 model...

or even the older Huawei EC2108E...

The Huawei EC2108E STB can only run the HyppTV app, and provides the least control to user.

The Huawei EC6106V5 STB comes with higher hardware specs as well as later version of Android, and is possible to install with other Android apps with some hacking.

The Huawei EC6108V8 is much smaller in size, has even better hardware specs, running on Android 4.4.2, and comes with Google Play Store which makes installation of Android apps even easier.

If you are using the older HyppTV STB and have recently upgraded your UniFi to the 30Mbps or 50Mbps package, you can request to replace your old STB with the latest model for free. As a result, I've upgraded my Huawei EC2108E STB to EC6108V8.

Note that the LAN port of your STB is connected to the LAN port of your router with VLAN 600, which is dedicated for IPTV service. So you can't use it to access to the Internet.

In order for your STB to access to Internet and download apps from Google Play Store, you need to enable WLAN under Settings > Wireless and Network > Enable WLAN.

With this, you can connect the STB to your home WiFi network provided by your router, and use it to connect to the Internet.