KidoCode HoC Computer programming class for young children and teens

I came across KidoCode in an education fair. KidoCode is a computer coding and maths training center targeting children of age group from 6 to 18, founded by 2 Iranian (Hossein a.k.a. Unclecode and Maysam) who are very passionate in educating the young generation about computer programming, logical thinking and mathematics.

I have brought my kid to attend their 4 hours free trial class at their HQ in Solaris Mont Kiara (above Cold Storage supermarket). That 4 hours session enabled us to know more about them, took a look and feel about their learning environment, let the kid to have hands-on introductory class about computer programming, which included simple programming to create mobile app in an Android tablet, and electronic programming on an Arduino kit. This is essential to ensure the kid likes the learning environment and the curriculum before making decision whether to enrol with them or not.

Parallel with the kid's 4 hours free trial class, there was also a 1 hour session for parents for them to introduce their value proposition, their unique way of running the classes, curriculum and syllabus. I am pretty impressed with their holistic vision, mission and plans to train Asian children to be competent in computer programming for fun and profit (yes, they encourage entrepreneurship after the kid has created something awesome in their journey of codings). As a result, I have enrolled my kid to their 50 Hours of Code (HoC) programme.

The 50 HoC is an introductory course for the kid to build up the necessary foundation in computer programming. A minimum of 50 hours is allocated for the kid to complete the course. 50 hours is the minimum because they'll give bonus hours to the kid based on several promotional criterias, at no additional charge, which could added up to over 80 hours.

This 50 HoC introductory course comes with a K-Box which the kid can bring home for own practice and continuous development, which contains:

• Arduino board with electronic components
• Raspberry Pi 2 with WiFi adapter and Case
• Android smartphone for mobile apps and games programming
• Some free gifts

All the following subjects will be covered in the 50 HoC programme:

• Python programming language with Turtle graphics using online KStudio IDE

• Mobile apps development using MIT App Inventor

• Electronics programming using Arduino and Raspberry Pi

• Web development using Cloud9

• Game programming
• Information security

The HoC is consumed at KidoCode training centers. The kid will learn at his own pace. Fast learners will learn more in-depth and given more challenging exercises, while slow learners are still able to go through the breadth of learning though not as deep. Beside the kid, the parents (both father and mother) are also given the same amount of HoC at no additional charge, for them to optionally learn the same course together with their kid, and each of daddy, mummy and kid will be learning at their own respective pace and could go through different learning path.

KidoCode is opened from 10am to 10pm daily including weekends and public holidays. Other than the first Welcome Session which needs to make appointment prior to attending, the kid (and parents) can walk in anytime during the operating hours to consume their HoC. A dedicated computer will be allocated, and personal trainer will attend to the kid (and parents) throughout the session. Students can take their break at anytime, which will stop their HoC hour glass counter, only to resume when the break is over. Free flow of food and drinks is provided at the premise.

 After the 50 HoC course, the kid can proceed with more advanced courses including:

• Code and maths (30 HoC)
• Mobile apps development (100 HoC)
• Electrogramming (80 HoC)
• Game coding (70 HoC)
• Web development (100 HoC)
• Computer security and cryptography (40 HoC)
• Geek coding (100 HoC)
• BioInformatics (50 HoC)

You can find out more information about KidoCode by visiting to their website.

If you are also interested to attend their 4 hours free session, you can click here to locate the online registration form.

Education is possibly not the key factor to good income

On the basis of Professor Jesse Rothstein's research paper, American journalist Rachel M. Cohen has posted an interesting article in The Atlantic with argument that "Education Isn't the Key to a Good Income". Her article is based on the American society, which is pretty much recognized for its meritocracy culture.

Rachel's article has brought me to Jesse's earlier write-up posted in Washington Center for Equitable Growth website titled "There is more to equal access to a good education than sound school budgets" containing more insight about her research and findings.

So, are you having an equal chance to climb up the economic ladder with enough education and hard work? If this is not the case for America, what about the other parts of the world?

If education is not the key determinant of equitable economic opportunities across generations, what will be the more likely factor that can contribute to better income? Take a look in the diagram below.

 

Researcher opined that in this subject matter, the structure of the labour market is more likely to be a much bigger driver that the school quality.

It seems that the key determinant for labour income is the supply-demand factor of the skills matching with the market. Non-labour income and spousal earnings indeed play a significant part as the determinant too.

CCleaner official download was hacked and infected version containing malware released to public - how to fix

CCleaner by Piriform (recently acquired by Avast) is a famous software that comes with both free and paid versions, made available to Windows, Mac and Android users to do housekeeping in their computer or Android smart mobile device to clean up junk files and junk registry entries, in order to optimize the computer to maintain running smoothly. It claims to have achieved over 2 billion of downloads now. There is also a cloud version available.

If your computer has CCleaner installed, you need to be aware that during the period between mid-August to mid-September 2017, the official download site of CCleaner was hacked, and the official CCleaner installer had been replaced with a version containing malware that will compromise your computer. The "contaminated" CCleaner version had been distributed to all the 3rd party download sites as well!

If you installed or updated your CCleaner with the version containing the malware, then your computer is infected.

This is a kind of supply chain attack, will is considered a very effective way to distribute malicious software into target organizations or general public. The attackers are relying on the trust relationship between the supplying source (such as official release source) and the consumer. This trust relationship is then abused to attack organizations and individuals.


Which versions are affected?

• CCleaner v5.33.6162
• CCleaner Cloud v1.07.3191

It is said that the affected versions were for 32-bit Windows PCs, and the CCleaner for Android is probably safe. Newer official released versions of CCleaner (version 5.34 and above) are also safe as there will be no malware included (finger-crossed).


What the malware possibly do?

This malware was detected and reported separately by Cisco's Talos Intelligence Group and also the Morphisec's security team.

According to their analysis, this malware will collect information in your computer, including network connection detail, running processes, installed software, anything running with administrator privileges, etc. It will encrypt the information and send back to the hacker's server using HTTPS posting method.

The hacker's server can make use of backdoor created by the malware to send codes to be executed with administrator privileges at the infected computers.


How to fix?

If your Windows computer is installed with CCleaner, you should uninstall it immediately, regardless of the version. After that, if you still want to continue using CCleaner, you can download and reinstall the uninfected latest version (version 5.34 and above) from its official download site.


Reference sources:

• http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2017/09/avast-distributes-malware.html
• http://blog.morphisec.com/morphisec-discovers-ccleaner-backdoor
• http://thehackernews.com/2017/09/ccleaner-hacked-malware.html
• https://www.pcworld.com/article/3225407/security/ccleaner-downloads-infected-malware.html
• https://www.cnet.com/how-to/ccleaner-was-hacked-heres-what-to-do-next/

Norton Family - parental control and monitoring software to enforce Internet house rules with kids

Norton Family is one of the bundled components in Norton Security Premium subscription offered by Symantec. There is also a standalone product called Norton Family Premier selling at cheaper subscription price but without other components in Norton Security bundle.

With an active subscription of Norton Family, you can install it in multiple devices (computers, smartphones and tablets) up to the maximum number as stated in the subscription package, for multiple headcount of kids.

With Norton Family, you can communicate with your kids and set individual house rules for them to use the computer and smart mobile devices, including what and where they are allowed and disallowed to access in the Internet.

Norton Family comes with a set of generic house rules for your kids according to their age group, which you can customize and fine tune further.

The house rules are formed by the following categories of supervision:

• the kind of websites that are allowed and disallowed to visit
• the time periods that are allowed to use the device
• the maximum number of hours allowed for each individual day in the week to use the device
• monitoring of keywords typed in search engines
• content filtering for search engines
• monitoring of social network activities
• monitoring of online video streaming
• monitoring of text messaging activities
• monitoring of mobile apps installation and uninstallation
• monitoring of device location

The default web supervision house rules by age is as below:

The default time supervision house rules by age is as below:

Norton Family will email you weekly and monthly reports about your kids' monitored Internet activities. Whenever there is possible violation of house rules, you will be informed too.

Norton Family is able to help you as parent to safeguard your kids from:

• Getting addicted to computer and smart mobile devices by enforcing reasonable daily time limit.
• Accessing to online information that you don't want them to access, such as 18+ contents.
• Phishing, scamming and cyber-bullying by restricting leakage of personal information and monitoring of social network and messaging activities.
• Installing or uninstalling mobile apps without your notice.

It can also track the device's location for you to know its whereabouts.

This software is no doubt loved by parents and hated by kids.

Geert Hofstede 6-Dimensions model of national culture

Professor Geert Hofstede, a well-known Dutch social psychologist, has devoted most of his life in a very comprehensive study of worldwide cultural differences and how the culture will influence the values in the workplace.

He analysed a large database of employee values scores collected by IBM, between 1967 and 1973, covering more than 70 countries, from which he first used the 40 largest only and afterwards extended the analysis to 50 countries and 3 regions. The study continues covering more and more countries and regions.

Hofstede defines culture as “the collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from others”.

He and his research fellows Gert Jan Hofstede and Michael Minkov have written some books to discuss and explain about his cultural studies, including:

• Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Third Edition (Business Skills and Development)
• Culture′s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations
• Masculinity and Femininity: The Taboo Dimension of National Cultures (Cross Cultural Psychology)
• Cross-Cultural Analysis: The Science and Art of Comparing the World′s Modern Societies and Their Cultures

Hofstede's research team have developed the 6-dimensions model of national culture, deriving each dimension of a country by comparing many other countries in the world.

The 6 dimensions are:

• Power distance - the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.
• Individualism vs. Collectivism - which people feel independent, as opposed to being interdependent as members of larger wholes.
• Masculinity vs. Feminility - the extent to which the use of force in endorsed socially.
• Uncertainty avoidance - deals with a society’s tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity.
• Long-time orientation - deals with resistance to change.
• Indulgence - about the good things in life.

Hofstede has put up a website for you to find out the 6 dimensions score of a particular country, with detail explanation of each of the 6 dimensions in the context of that country. In that website, you can even compare the 6 dimensions of a country with up to 2 other countries.

The URL of the said website is:
https://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html

Interestingly, you will find out cultural differences exist among countries that are close with each others, such as Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

In fact, cultural differences also exist among China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, which their society are all Chinese majority - supposingly should have a lot of common in culture.

And here is the comparison among India, Bangladesh and Pakistan...

Malaysia year 2018 national and state public holidays announced

The official 2018 national and state public holidays in Malaysia has been announced by Cabinet, Constitution and Inter-Government Relation Division (BKPP), Prime Minister Department.

There are 14 days of national holiday (12 national holidays, whereby Chinese New Year and Hari Raya Puasa have 2 days of holiday respectively, and all the rest are 1 day).

3 of them fall on Friday, 2 fall on Saturday, 2 fall on Sunday, but none of them fall on Monday. However, there are 6 of them fall on Tuesday, so you will enjoy a long weekend if you take Monday off before the Tuesday public holiday. Most of the states will have around 4 state holidays in addition to the national holidays.

 

Chinese New Year falls on Friday and Saturday (16th and 17th January 2018). Hari Raya Puasa also falls on Friday and Saturday (15th and 16th June 2018). Deepavali falls on Tuesday (6 November 2018).

 

Click here to download the table of Malaysia year 2018 gazetted national and state public holidays.

Freeware to measure the true WiFi speed to your connected computer / smartphone / tablet

Although modern WiFi routers or access points nowadays are able to support gigabits per second of wireless connection speed with multi-bands MU-MIMO technology, the actual network speed obtained by your connected computer / smartphone / tablet is always lower than that maximum possible speed, and is determined by the following factors:

• The location (which includes sub-factors of distance, obstacles and surrounding interference)
• The wireless chipset used and its driver efficacy
• The antenna quality
• The amount of other devices concurrently connected and sharing the same WiFi router or access point, and their network activity

There are many software tools available to help you measure your Internet connection speed, which typically involve uploading and downloading a big file to a designated server in the Internet. However, software tools that are able to measure your WiFi connection speed within your LAN using similar method are still very rare. I will introduce you 2 of them, namely DownTester and LAN Speed Test (Lite).

DownTester by NirSoft is a lightweight freeware that is able to test the download speed but not the upload speed. It performs the download speed testing by using a URL, which you need to put a large file (recommended at least 200 MB) in the computer /smartphone / tablet to be tested running either one of FTP server, HTTP server or Windows network file sharing. The ability to test using FTP or HTTP server also means that DownTester is not only able to test your LAN connection speed, but also your Internet speed when you are testing with a server located in the Internet.

Normally if you are testing the WiFi speed to a Windows laptop, you can test using Windows network file sharing. If the laptop is running Linux, you can test using its FTP, HTTP or Samba service. If it is an Android smartphone or tablet, you can install the File Manager + app which include an FTP server in its "Access from PC" function.

Then, you just need to run DownTester from a Windows laptop or PC which connected to the same LAN with your WiFi network. DownTester even comes with a portable version which can run straight away without needed to have any installation.

The screenshot above shows the DownTester result of a laptop, a smartphone and a tablet, all connected to my WiFi network using 5GHz band from different location. Although the theoretical speed of the Wireless-AC network they are connected to is up to 433Mbps (single band) or 866Mbps (dual band), their actual download speed obtained is much lower.

One thing I noticed is that, if your device is too near to your WiFi router or access point (less than 2 meter), you will get a much lower speed than when you place it further away (yet not too far until the signal is weak).

By using DownTester and test for WiFi connection speed obtained in different locations in your premise, you can find out those locations with higher speed and those with lower speed for better planning (such as where to put your 8K super-high resolution smart TV that can run YouTube and stream video from Internet).

LAN Speed Test (Lite) by Totusoft is another lightweight freeware, and it is able to test both the upload and download speed to a computer connected to your WiFi. There is another paid version called LAN Speed Test which perform almost the same thing, so I think the freeware Lite version is good enough.

LAN Speed Test (Lite) will generate the file for testing, and is able to auto delete the file after testing, so you don't need to prepare for the file. It supports 2 modes of connection: using Windows network file sharing, or connecting to a LAN Speed Test Server running in the target computer. It does not support testing using FTP or HTTP.

If you are testing using the LAN Speed Test Server method, you can perform the testing across the Internet too. However, the LAN Speed Test Server is not free.

LAN Speed Test (Lite) is portable and does not need installation. It has both Windows and Mac version.

• Click here to download DownTester for Windows.
• Click here to download LAN Speed Test (Lite) for Windows.
• Click here to download LAN Speed Test (Lite) for Mac OS X.

SPACE Analysis with Strategic Position and Action Evaluation Matrix

The SPACE (Strategic Position and Action Evaluation ) analysis developed by Alan Rowe, Richard Mason, Karl Dickel, Richard Mann and Robert Mockler is a strategic tool that can be used for strategic planning or to evaluate whether a strategic plan is making sense or not.

This analysis assesses 2 internal environments (Financial Strength and Competitive Advantage) and 2 external environments (Industry Attractiveness and Environmental Stability) and map them into a SPACE Matrix diagram. Based on the analysis, the strategic position of the company can be seen bias towards conservative, aggressive, competitive or defensive.

Factors affecting Financial Strength include:

• Return on sales
• Return on investment
• Liquidity
• Debt ratio
• Available vs required capital
• Cash flow
• Inventory turnover
• Use of economies of scale and experience

Factors affecting Competitive Advantage include:

• Market share
• Product range
• Product quality
• Product lifecycle
• Innovation cycle
• Customer loyalty
• Cost levels
• Vertical integration
• Speed of new product introduction

Factors affecting Industry Attractiveness include:

• Growth potential
• Profit potential
• Financial stability
• Technological know-how
• Resource utilization
• Complexity of entering the industry
• Labour productivity
• Capacity utilization
• Bargaining power of manufacturers
• Customer power

Factors affecting Environmental Stability include:

• Political uncertainty
• Technological change
• Inflation rate
• Interest rate
• Currency exchange rate
• Demand volatility
• Price range of competitive products
• Price elasticity of demand
• Pressure from the substitutes
• Cyclical issues

A score of 0 to 6 is given for the company's strength in each of the factors for Financial Strength and Industry Attractiveness, and a score of -6 to 0 is given in each of the factors for Competitive Advantage and Environmental Stability. The higher the score, the stronger the company is in respect to the evaluated factor.

The score for each of the 4 environments is the average of all their underlying factors, which need to be plotted at their respective axis. Then, 4 lines are drawn joining all the dots.

The quadrant with the largest area of the drawn quadrilateral shows the favourable strategic position to be taken.

Wise Auto Shutdown - Freeware to schedule automatic Windows shutdown / restart / log off / hybernate / sleep

You might be running something in your Windows PC and you want to go for sleep or go outdoor, therefore you need a simple tool to help you shutdown your computer at a scheduled time.

In another case, you might just want to automatically restart your Windows PC or server at midnight on daily basis.

Well, Wise Auto Shutdown is such a lightweight freeware tool that serves for this kind of purpose.

It has a very straightforward user interface for you to schedule for a shutdown / restart /log off / hibernate or sleep action with 4 options of triggering time as shown below:

Once you clicked on the Start Task button, this application will stay on your Windows System Tray waiting for the selected task to be triggered. You can always cancel its action before the task is triggered by opening it and turn it off by clicking on [X] to close the application.

Pretty handy, isn't it?

The trick to delete unwanted last empty page in Microsoft Word document that stubborn to be gone

If you have a Microsoft Word document with a table that ended until last line of of the page, and so happen that it is the last page of your document, you will find a blank empty page below which cannot be deleted.

This is because any table in Microsoft Word document must end with a paragraph mark, which is a non-printing character that normally won't show up in Print Layout view. This paragraph mark is required by the table and cannot be deleted unless you delete the entire table.

When the last line of the table reached the end of page, the paragraph mark will have no choice but to flow over to a new page below it, forming the last blank page. You can eliminate this last blank page by reducing the height of the table to leave some space for the paragraph mark to stay at the end of the same page, or alternatively, you can keep your table untouched and hide out this paragraph mark, which will magically make the last blank page disappear by itself.

The steps below is the method to hide out the paragraph mark at the last empty page so that there will be no last blank page when viewing the document on screen as well as when it is printed out.

Since the paragraph mark is normally invisible, we need to firstly display it on the page.

Inside the Paragraph ribbon under the Home tab of Microsoft Word, you will be able to find the paragraph mark toggle as shown below. Click to toggle it on.

 



Then, scroll to the last page which is the stubborn blank page, highlight that paragraph mark, right click and select Font...

 

The Font setting window will pop-up. Inside Effects setting, you can set the highlighted paragraph mark to be Hidden. Click OK when done.

 

 

Now, go back to the Paragraph ribbon and toggle the paragraph mark off. The last blank page will disappear.

That's the trick! The page is still there but is now hidden. It won't display out, and won't be printed out too.

Boost WiFi coverage with TP-Link RE450 AC1750 WiFi Range Extender

As I have more and more WiFi devices that support 5Ghz wireless band, I have upgraded my TP-Link TL-WA860RE range extender with a new TP-Link RE450 AC1750 range extender.

Running on Qualcomm Atheros QCA9558 (Scorpion) WiSoC platform, this range extender has 3 antennas (2 dBi) for 2.4Ghz network and another 3 antennas (3 dBi) for 5Ghz network. It supports MIMO 3x3:3 wireless with speed of up to 450 Mbps on 2.4GHz band and 1,300 Mbps on 5GHz band, totaling to 1,750 Mbps.

It has the same CPU with famous routers including Asus AC55U, TP-Link Archer C7, D-Link DIR-863, etc.

It is able to smartly allocate 1 antenna to communicate with upstream WiFi router, either using 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz network, while the other antennas serving the connected WiFi device. In this way, the effective bandwidth will not be halved as happened in the case of most WiFi range extenders.

It also supports "high speed mode" to use 1 band to send data and another to receive data concurrently, to optimize the overall WiFi speed and performance.

Its size is larger than my perception. The actual size is slightly larger than an adult's palm.

It comes with a Gigabit Ethernet port which can connect to a wired device or a network switch using network cable.

It has the modern TP-Link web user interface, and setting up is pretty easy. However, being easy to set up also comes with a trade off that there is not much advanced configuration for you to play around in the web user interface.

It allows you to control 3 ranges of WiFi signal power. You can also schedule to turn off its LED lights during certain period of the day.

Its maximum power consumption is only at 9W, which is about the same as an energy saving LED light bulb. You can schedule for it to automatically switch off at a particular time, and switch back on again at another time. This can save electricity during the time period when it is not likely to be used, such as during midnight.

This TP-Link RE450 range extender can be controlled and monitored from smartphone by using the TP-Link Tether app.

This WiFi range extender works pretty impressive, particularly in extending the reach and connection speed of 5Ghz WiFi network. I am quite impressed with its performance.

SoGoSurvey - free unlimited online survey platform for students

Nowadays there are quite a number of online survey platforms available in the Internet, many allow you to sign up a free trial account which will restrict you on the features and functions available, and most importantly, on these 3 crucial quotas:

• The maximum number of surveys you can have.
• The maximum number of questions per survey.
• The maximum number of responses you can accept.

SoGoSurvey allows you to sign up a free for life Basic Plan account with 15 surveys, 30 questions and 125 responses, which is pretty generous compared with most of its competitors. With these combination of quotas, you can probably run 1 or 2 serious online surveys and perform in-depth analysis to the responses using its built-in reporting tool.

If you are a student and your coursework requires you to conduct surveys, good news is you can request to upgrade from Basic Plan to Student Plan for free,  provided you've fulfil some simple requirements (click here or here for more detail).

With a Student Plan account, you'll get all the features and functions available to their Plus Plan (click here or here for more detail of available plans and their comparison), and most importantly, you can now conduct unlimited surveys with unlimited questions and receive unlimited responses, for free. This will enable you to make use of SoGoSurvey to conduct all the surveys needed in your entire course of study.

If you need to use more advanced features and functions, you can also further upgrade to Pro or Enterprise plan with big student discount. Beside students, SoGoSurvey also provides special discount for academic institutions, universities and non-profit organizations.

There are at least 3 steps in using SoGoSurvey. First, you design your survey, either creating from scratch, or copy from existing, or making use of ready made template in Survey Bank.

 

Then, you publish your survey and distribute your invitation to your target respondents. You can have each of the target respondents having a unique URL to access to your online survey, or to use a shared general URL. After you've collected some data, you can start analysing the responses using the Report tool.

You can also export the data to your own computer for your own keeping and analysing/reporting using your own tool such as MS Excel, SPSS, PSPP, etc.

Beside putting up surveys with Survey Tool, there are also step-by-step Poll Tool and Assessment Tool for you to conduct poll and/or assessment, which structure is less complicated than a survey.

SoGoSurvey's designer is WYSIWYG type. You can create single-lingual, bi-lingual or even multi-lingual surveys with it. You can organize your survey questions into separate pages. The survey pages will show nicely on browser screen, tablet screen and smartphone screen, which you can preview in the designer.

Simple branching of questions is available in Basic Plan. More complex branching is available in Student Plan, Plus Plan and onwards.

You will see a green colour keyhole icon for all the features and functions not available in your current plan. For example, available and unavailable question types for Basic Plan is as below.

Once you successfully upgraded to Student Plan or Plus Plan, your available question types will become as below.

With the Student Plan / Plus Plan, you are able to generate 2-level or 3-level cross tab reports, which is very handy in analysing data with relationship, particularly when linked with demographics, such as "how many females agreed with this?" and even "how many females at age 18-24 agreed with this?".

Some remarkable features in SoGoSurvey that I like including:

• It has an option to allow participants to print out a copy of their own survey response.
• Even after the survey has gone live, minor editing to the survey, such as making change in wording, is still possible.
• You can customize your survey's looks-and-feels by using the Visual Settings.
• It can generate beautiful reports, enabling you to perform in-depth analysis to your data collected.

Investing in ICULS (loan stock) in Bursa Malaysia

When a public listed company wanted to raise fund from shareholders and/or investors, it can either do it by issuing new equities (rights issue, private placement) or by issuing new loans (ICULS, bond).

Normally, to encourage subscription, free warrants are attached together during issuance, which will be detached and traded individually in the share market upon listing.

ICULS (Irredeemable Convertible Unsecured Loan Stock) is a kind of loan stock with the following 3 features:

• Irredeemable: you cannot redeem it for cash.
• Convertible: you can convert it into ordinary share at any time before its expiry, using the predetermined conversion method(s).
• Unsecured: it is not supported by any collateral. In the event of bankruptcy, there is no guarantee that you can get back any money from your loan stock holding.

On top of that, ICULS has the following entities in common:

• Expiry: similar to warrants, the ICULS will be burnt and of no value after its expiry date, if not converted into ordinary share. There may be a mandatory forced conversion upon expiry.
• Coupon rate: a predetermined fixed coupon interest rate, payable periodically at least once per year to its holder.
• Conversion method(s): traditional ICULS comes with a conversion ratio for its conversion to ordinary share. For example, a 2:1 conversion ratio means you need to use 2 ICULS to get 1 ordinary share. Nowadays, certain ICULS also provides a second option for holder to convert 1 ICULS into 1 ordinary share, by paying a predetermined conversion price (similar way with warrants).
• Premium/Discount: similar to warrants, the ICULS is trading with a price. When the ICULS conversion cost higher than its mother share price, it is said to have a premium. Otherwise, it is at a discount. If an ICULS has more than 1 conversion methods, each method will have individual premium/discount.

ICULS can give you the benefits of a bond that pays interest, until it is converted into equity.

For example, PUC-LA (0007LA) is a 3-years ICULS listed in Bursa Malaysia within the period of 2016-2019. Click here to read its profile for important information about this ICULS.

It has a nominal value of RM0.05 and a coupon rate of 4% per annum, payable on annual basis in arrears. This means if you have PUC-LA, you will get an interest payment of RM0.05 x 4% = RM0.002 per ICULS per year. If you have 1 million PUC-LA, you will get RM2,000 per annum as the interest payment.

Its maturity date is on 15 February 2019, which is 630 days from today (26 May 2017).

Its conversion price is RM0.10, which can be exercised using either one of these 2 options:

• By using 2 ICULS (nominal value at RM0.05 each) to convert into 1 ordinary share.
• By using 1 ICULS (nominal value at RM0.05) and top up RM0.05 cash to convert into 1 ordinary share.

Upon expiry, any remaining ICULS not converted will be mandatorily converted into new PUC shares at the conversion price (RM0.05).

Today, PUC share price closed at RM0.155 and PUC-LA closed at RM0.100.

For Option 1 (2 ICULS for 1 mother share):

RM0.100 x 2 = RM0.200.

Since mother share is only at RM0.155, it has a conversion premium of RM0.200 - RM0.155 = RM0.045.

Premium at percentage = 0.045/0.155 = 29.03%


For Option 2 (1 ICULS + RM0.05 for 1 mother share):

RM0.100 + RM0.05 = RM0.15

Since mother share has higher price at RM0.155, it has a conversion discount of RM0.155 - RM0.15 = RM0.005

Discount at percentage = 0.005/0.155 = 3.23%

If you want to convert now, definitely you will choose Option 2 for conversion.

If a stock has an ICULS and also a warrant at the same premium/discount rate, ICULS will be a better option because:

• Warrant won't get any interest nor dividend, while ICULS will get interest despite not getting any dividend.
• There is only one way to convert warrant to mother share, which is by paying the conversion price. For ICULS, there can be flexibly more than one ways.
• Warrant will definitely be burnt upon expiry if not converted. Certain ICULS such as PUC-LA will not be burnt as there is a forced conversion mechanism upon expiry.

So, in what situation you can consider buying an ICULS?

• When the ICULS is in the money (has zero premium or at discount), and mother share price has the tendency to move up. You will be benefited with the gearing effect.
• When mother share does not declare dividend. You will get coupon interest in ICULS.
• If there is a premium, when the expiry date is not too near from now.

Disclaimer: This article is intended for sharing of point of view only. It is not an advice or recommendation to buy or sell any of the mentioned stock counters. You should do your own homework before trading in Bursa Malaysia.

How to remove all hyperlinks in Ms Powerpoint presentation file with one click

When you copy-and-paste a picture from your local disk or from Internet source to your Ms Powerpoint presentation slide, you might unconsciously also created an embedded hyperlink inside the picture which link back to its source.

You might want to remove/delete all those hyperlinks in your presentation slides, as you don't want them to surprise you (and your audiences) in the middle of your presentation, in case you accidentally clicked on the picture and it starts to open up your web browser, searching and connecting to the source of that picture.

Well, you can remove the hyperlinks one by one, by right clicking on the picture and select "Remove hyperlink" from the popup menu.

However, it will be extremely tedious and inconvenient, as Ms Powerpoint unable to tell you which picture got hyperlink and which one doesn't have. You will need to check and unlink all of them one by one, and you are very likely to miss out some of them.

Here is a method which enable you to remove all those hyperlinks in the entire Ms Powerpoint presentation file at one go.

In this method, you create a simple macro program to automatically remove all the hyperlinks one by one at the background, and report back how many hyperlinks removed when it finished. When you save your presentation file, the macro won't be saved together so your file remains clean.

Step 1: Open your Ms Powerpoint presentation file.

Step 2: Press Alt+F8. That will open the Macro window.

Step 3: Enter "Rmlinks" as macro name (or any name you like, as it is for temporary use only), and click the Create button.

Step 4: Copy and paste the following codes into your macro editor.

Sub Rmlinks()
 Dim slide As slide
 Dim index As Long
 Dim counter As Long
 counter = 0
 For Each slide In ActivePresentation.Slides
    For index = slide.Hyperlinks.Count To 1 Step -1
       slide.Hyperlinks(index).Delete
       counter = counter + 1
    Next index
 Next slide
 MsgBox ("Removed " + CStr(counter) + " link(s).")
End Sub

Step 5: Press the F5 button on your keyboard to run. If it pop up another window, just click on the Run button to run.

Step 6: Press OK after seeing the result of how many hyperlinks successfully removed.

Step 7: You can now close the Macro window by clicking on the [X] in red at its top right corner, the same way you close any other windows.

When you save your file, the following dialog box might appear. Just press the "Yes" button.

Now, you have your Ms Powerpoint presentation slides the same as before, but clean from all the unwanted hyperlinks.

The 5 Steps required to make your right decisions

Every now and then, we make decisions. Some are just small decision with minimal future effect, while some are significant and will change the history.

While we are aware that make the right decision is important, all of us cannot escape from having numerous occasions of making decisions which we regret later.

Patrick McDaniel of WiseInsights.net has written a report called "The Scientifically Proven 5 Step Process To Making Better, More Successful Decisions" which you can freely download here.

Below is my summary of what I've learnt from McDaniel's report.

1. Be open minded to all possibilities and options

• If you have bias, your favoured choice could be a disaster.
• Listen carefully to your inner self, or your God's guidance.

2. Expand your choices

• Do not rely solely on single option, because that single option has 65% chance of likelihood leading to a bad decision.
• Instead of looking through binoculars and fixating on the single, apparent option before you, it is better to take a 360 degree, 3-dimensional panoramic view of the situation and your possibilities.
• Ways to increase your perceived options including:
• Talk to others
• Consider your opportunity costs
• Remove the current option and think about what other way you could have
• Mix and match possible options

3. Expose your bias

• Don't be fooled by your own confirmation bias by:
• Arguing the opposite with yourself
• Seek a contrarian
• Ask tough questions of your favoured option
• Run a test to dip your toe in the water

4. Escape your emotion

• Beware of your exposure effect (automatically and instinctively cling to the familiar).
• Your fear of loss can be irrational.
• You can be more rational by:
• Prospecting the future
• Defending your decision
• Counselling others

5. Prepare for the worst

• Beware of overconfident bias.
• Run a premortem.
• Set a tripwire, which could be time based or situation based.

Hush Puppies Apparel warehouse sale 2017 @ Puchong

Redina Malaysia Sdn Bhd located at Jalan TPK 2/3, Taman Perindustrian Kinrara, Puchong, Selangor is having the Hush Puppies Apparel warehouse sale now, offering discount as high as 80%!

As usual, they have put up a big red Hugh Puppies balloon on top of the air of the location for you to locate their direction when you are near to them. You will also see banners along the roadside of Bukit Jalil Highway (a.k.a. Puchong-Sungai Besi Highway or Federal Route 217).

This promotion started on 28 April 2017 and will end on 7 May 2017. The opening time is 10am - 7pm daily.

 

If you purchased more than RM200 in a single receipt, you will get a free drinking bottle as gift.

If you pay using your Public Bank credit card, you will immediately get an additional 5% discount for all the items in your receipt. If your payment is above RM400 in that receipt, you can also claim a set of Easy Lock container at the Public Bank booth near to the entrance.

Items on sale are apparels for men, women, children and todders, which include Hush Puppies shirts, casualwears, pants, innerwears, underwears, socks, etc. There are also accessories, bags, luggage, stationeries, bed & bath, etc.

For the apparels, I found that for this round of Hush Puppies apparel warehouse sale, there are more items for women and girls than for men and boys.

HLeBroking 1Trade - stock trading account with the best of both world

There are several types of stock trading account available for HLeBroking service provided by Hong Leong Investment Bank in Malaysia.

ValueTrade is a type of cash upfront account in which you can only buy with cash in trust account, with the advantage of low brokerage fee of 0.106% (including GST) and also interest to cash in trust account above RM1,000 at the rate of slightly lower than fixed deposit rate.

PowerTrade is a type of collaterized trading account which allows you to trade up to 2x cash in trust account and 2x share collateral value.

1Trade is a hybrid trading account that combine the best of both ValueTrade and PowerTrade. For 1Trade:

• If your purchase contract is fully covered by cash in trust account, the brokerage fee is 0.106%, same as ValueTrade.
• If you sell within T+3, your selling brokerage fee is also 0.106%.
• If you sell within T+4 and T+7, your selling brokerage fee is 0.1908% if the transaction amount is above RM100k, less than that the brokerage fee is 0.4028%.
• If you purchase without cash upfront, the brokerage fee is still 0.106% for day trading. If you don't sell within the same day, your brokerage fee will become 0.1908% (transaction amount is above RM100k) or 0.4028% (transaction amount is below RM100k). There will be force selling after T+7 if you still haven't settle the contract.
• If you do day trading, the brokerage fee for both buy and sell transactions within the same day is 0.106%.
• Regardless how the transaction is done, the minimum brokerage fee is RM8.48 including GST.

Therefore, with 1Trade account, you can:

• Enjoy low brokerage rate for day trading and T+3 cash upfront buying.
• Enjoy the flexibility of 2x trading limit like other collaterized ordinary trading account, with the trade-off of higher brokerage fee.

I would advise for you to stay disciplined with ValueTrade trading account if your overall portfolio value including cash and shares is below RM300k. If it is above and you got tendency to trade stock in amount of at least RM100k in a batch, then you can take advantage of 1Trade by converting to it.

Instruction manual for S-Sport Coolboss 30m water resistant watch

I have bought an S-Sport Coolboss 30m water resistant watch for my small kid. This made in China watch cost only RM11 at online store.

It is splash proof but not water proof, which means it can resist rain water, but cannot be worn for diving.

This watch has 4 buttons:

• L: Light
• M: Mode
• S: Start
• R: Reset

It is pretty tricky to set the watch without referring to the instruction manual, and that manual is just a piece of paper.

I am copying down its important instruction here, just in case the paper cannot be found in the future. If you also have this watch (or similar Coolboss watches) and you lost its instruction manual, you can bookmark this page and come back to here for future reference.

Displaying the date:

• In Normal Time mode, just press the "S" button to display current date.

Displaying the alarm time:

• In Normal Time mode, just press the "R" button to show the alarm time currently set.

Switching time display between AM/PM and 24 hour mode:

• In Normal Time mode, press "M" button 3 times to enter Time Adjustment mode.
• Then, press "R" button 2 times to enter Hour Display Adjustment mode.
• Press the "S" button to adjust the hour digit and the desired time display mode.
• When finished, press "M" to return to Normal Time mode.

Adjusting the time:

• In Normal Time mode, press "M" button 3 times to enter Time Adjustment mode.
• When the second figure is blinking, press "S" to adjust the second value.
• Press "R" to make the minute figure blinks, then press "S" to adjust the minute value.
• Pressing "R" continuously will switch among the hour, day, month and weekday value to be adjusted. Use the "S" button to adjust the blinking figure.
• Press "M" to return to Normal Time mode.

Setting the alarm time:

• In Normal Time mode, press "M" 2 times to enter Alarm Adjustment mode.
• Use the "R" button to toggle between hour and minute figure.
• Use the "S" button to adjust the blinking figure.
• Press "M" to return to Normal Time mode.

Using the stopwatch:

• In Normal Time mode, press "M" 1 time to enter Stopwatch Function.
• Press "S" button to start the stopwatch. Press "S" button again to stop the stopwatch.
• Press "R" button to reset the stopwatch.
• Press "M" to return to Normal Time mode.

Turn hourly chime on/off:

• In Normal Time mode, press and hold the "R" button.
• While holding the "R" button, press "M" button to toggle hourly chime on/off. When it is on, all the weekdays on top of the screen will have black background.

Turn alarm on/off:

• In Normal Time mode, press and hold the "R" button.
• While holding the "R" button, press "S" button to toggle alarm on/off. When it is on, the alarm indicator at the bottom will be shown.

Alarm snooze and stop:

• When the alarm is chiming, press "S" button to snooze. The alarm will chime again after 5 minutes.
• When the alarm is chiming, press "R" button to stop it.

Cold light lamp:

• Press the "L" button, the cold light will be on for 3 seconds.

Repaired my Alpha Smart 18EP instant shower water heater

Few days ago, the Alpha Smart 18EP instant shower water heater in one of my bathrooms failed its start-up test. All its LEDs were blinking in red colour.

This water heater has different warranty period for different parts as follow:

• Heating element: 5 years
• Brushless DC motor: 5 years
• Brushed AC motor: 1 year
• Anti-leak tank: 10 years
• Other internal parts: 1 year

My unit has already been used for more than 1 year. I tried my luck and called the company to send technician to my house for inspection and repair, which possibly cost much cheaper than buying and replacing with a new unit.

Alpha customer service supports reporting via Whatsapp, which I found is very convenient. You can find their Whatsapp / SMS number in this webpage. Alternatively, you can also report a problem using email or direct phone call too.

Since my water heater lifespan has already passed its 1 year warranty period, it cost me RM53 (including 6% GST) for them to dispatch a technician to my house for checking and repairing.

After the checking, a circuit board inside the water heater was found faulty and need replacement. That cost me another RM68 (including 6% GST).

So, the total cost of repair is RM121 (including 6% GST). This is indeed much cheaper than buying a replacement unit and get someone to change it for me.

Overall, I am pretty satisfied with their service, particularly the availability of Whatsapp as one of the customer service channel. Their respond is fast, and the repairing cost is reasonable. Now, my water heater is up and running again.

Converting video files to be playable from USB drive in Sony XAV-W650BT double DIN player

Sony XAV-W650BT is a decent double DIN (Duetch Industri Normen) car head unit with DVD player. It has all the functions you need: radio, USB, AUX, Bluetooth, NFC, DVD/VCD player, steering control support, reverse camera support, etc.

It is able to play 3 types of multimedia files in a USB thumb drive: MP3 music, JPEG photo, and XVID/MP4 video.

Playing MP3 music and viewing JPEG photo is pretty straightforward, but playing video file might need some conversion work done to its compatible format, as it will face difficulty playing video that exceeds its maximum supported video resolution of 720x576. It also requires the video to have compatible codec and frame rate.

The conversion can be performed using a free software called Freemake Video Converter.

You need to convert the video file into MP4 format, with the following custom settings:

• Frame size: 720x576
• Adjustment: Auto
• Video codec: MPEG4
• Frame rate: 30 fps
• Audio codec: AAC
• Bitrate: maximum 4096 kbps

Even if your source file is already in MP4 format, it might not work well with the head unit if the setting is different from the above. Therefore, conversion is still required to ensure it will work well.

Now, you can run your conversion and put your favourite music videos, movies (MV), recorded TV programmes, etc. into a USB thumb drive that can be played in your Sony XAV-W650BT or similar head unit in your car.

New 2017 formula to determine amount of EPF Account 1 money that can invest in Unit Trust funds

If you want to diversify the money in Account 1 of your Employees Provident Fund (EPF, a.k.a. KWSP) by taking it out to be managed by local Unit Trust fund managers and invest in EPF approved unit trust funds, which then invest in various markets locally or globally or both, depends on the funds' prospectus, the first thing you need to know is: what is the maximum amount of money you can take out from your EPF Account 1 to invest in those approved unit trust funds?

Begining 1 January 2017, EPF has enforced a new formula for this calculation, and the old formula used before was no longer valid.

While the old formula only allowed you to take out a maximum of 20% of your (Account 1 - Basic Savings) for unit trust investment, the new formula allows you to take out more. The maximum is now 30%.

The new table to calculate your Account 1 Basic Savings is as below:

For example, if you are borned in 1982 and your EPF Account 1 has RM100,000, your Basic Savings is RM50,000. Maximum amount you can take out for unit trust investment is (RM100k - RM50k) x 30% = RM50k x 30% = RM15k.

Same as before, you can withdraw your EPF Account 1 money for unit trust investment once every 3 months.

To make the case simple, assume that your EPF money does not increase.

Amount in Account 1 after the withdrawal = RM100k - RM15k = RM85k

3 months later...

Available amount for unit trust investment = (RM85k - RM50k) x 30% = RM10.5k.

You can continue the process every 3 months until your available amount for unit trust investment become zero or negative.

Note that:

• Normally, there will be around 3% one time charges by the unit trust company for this kind of investment. Subsequent years' management fees of around 1.5% are reflected in the fund price.
• Make sure at the end of the year, you are confident your fund can give you return higher than your EPF dividend. Otherwise, it is better to let your money stay in EPF.
• You are not necessary to withdraw the maximum amount. Any amount less than the maximum allowed is OK.
• You are not necessary to withdraw every 3 months. You can adjust the timing based on market conditions.
• You are not necessary to invest into the same fund for each withdrawal. You can choose different fund to invest, as long as approved by EPF.
• Once you sell out your unit trust, the money will go back to your EPF Account 1.

My Neato XV-11 all floor robotic vacuum cleaner

Talking about robotic vacuum cleaner, you might first thought of the famous iRobot Roomba. It is fantastic but it is quite pricy too.

There are many other robotic vacuum cleaners available in the market now, but not so many can perform as good as the iRobot Roomba. I found Neato as the one which is much cheaper than iRobot and also many people commented that it performs even better than iRobot.

Neato has several ranges of robotic vacuum cleaners. I purchased the basic one called Neato XV-11 from Corvan Asia at the online price of RM1,732 only. This company normally selling this model at the price of RM1,888, so you have to patiently wait for special discount occasion to get the RM1,7xx price tag.

Unlike most other round-shape robotic vacuum cleaners, the Neato robots are D-shape, specially designed to clean the wall and furniture lining better.

The Neato XV-11 consists of 2 main parts: the robot vacuum itself, and its charging station. The robot is intelligent enough to be able to find this charging station provided there is no obstacle (leave at least 3 feet clear space) at the right, left and front of the charging station.

The robot will automatically find its way to this charging base whenever its battery is low, or when it has completed its vacuuming job. It will then recharge itself and get ready for the next mission.

When operate, the robot sounds like a hair dryer. Some people might find it a bit noisy, but thinking on the positive side, the noise enables us to locate the position of the robot easily. Sometimes it might need a little bit help from us to escape from being stuck in places with a lot of obstacles.

I noticed one interesting thing about this cute robot. It is able to step down from dining area to my kitchen floor, which is a bit lower. However, it is unable to climb back up to the dining area later to return to its base. It will keep on trying to climb up the level. A little help from me to lift it up, then it will continue with its journey.

Unlike most of the dumb robot vacuum you see in the market, this Neato XV-11 is really intelligent with a laser based navigation system. It has eyes to scan through your house layout and furniture position, then plan its path to vacuum in a systematic way. You won't find it wandering randomly like those dumb robots. It will seldom knock on something too, and it won't fell down from staircase, since its eyes are able to tell it to avoid hitting on walls and things, and not to fell down a cliff. I believe this is where I paid for its price, compared with those dumb robots that you can get at a few hundreds ringgit only.

The Neato XV-11 can be scheduled to work automatically at a user defined time. Its scheduler is by day of the week, so you can set different schedule for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The limitation is only one schedule can be set for one day. Anyhow, you can always press the Start button for it to work immediately outside the scheduled time.

The dust, dirt and debris collected are stored in its transparent plastic container, which is pretty easy to take out and clean.

Like some other robot vacuum, we can use magnetic stripe to block it from going to the region which it not suppose to go, such as the bathroom. Note that this Neato XV-11 works indoor on dry floor. Excessive water on the floor might cause damage to the robot, so bathroom with potential wet floor is its forbidden place.

One thing I don't like about this Neato XV-11 is that its battery is of NiMH type, which is considered old battery technology. Neato does produce robots that use Li-ion battery for its higher end models, at more expensive price.

Corvan Asia is giving a generous 5 years warranty plus 5 years of free yearly service to Neato robots, which I think is irresistible to bring home this robot vacuum at such a good price. Currently, the seller is also giving an upgrade from normal brush to combo brush to its online buyers, and an upgrade from normal filter to HEPA filter to buyers who reviewed and rated the Neato product at the e-Commerce website where it was bought.

Online renewing Malaysian passport with MyONLINE*PASPORT website

Renewing Malaysian passport at the immigration office has been a time consuming process that can easily cost you half a day to even a full day.

The good news is: now Malaysian can renew their passport using the online service provided by the  MyONLINE*PASPORT website.

With this service, you can complete your password renewal application, together with its payment, anytime and anywhere by using your web browser. Then, you just need to go to the immigration office of your choice to collect your new passport, which will take you probably less than 30 minutes counted from the time you step in the immigration office.

The prerequisites to use this online passport renewal service for Malaysian are as below:

• You must have a valid Malaysian passport with electronic chip.
• For children under 18, the renewal applicant must be the same person who applied for the existing passport.
• You must get ready a JPG file of your recent passport size photo that fulfil the requirement, to be uploaded during the online renewal application.
• You must have a valid credit card to make online payment.
• You must have a printer to print out the receipt, to be used to collect your new passport at the immigration office.

The steps are as follow:

• Get ready your photo.
• Use your web browser to go to MyONLINE*PASPORT website.
• Read the terms and conditions, and click on the "Agree" button.
• A popup window will appear, click on the "OK" button.
• Fill in your existing passport and IC detail. Specify your choice of location to collect your new password. Search for your passport detail in the system.
• Fill in the online application form, upload your photo, and submit your application.
• Make online payment using your credit card. For normal 5-year Malaysian passport, the fee is RM200. Senior citizens above 60 years old will get 50% discount.
• Print out the receipt.
• Bring the receipt, your existing passport and your IC to the designated location to collect your new passport.

You can also go to the same website to check for your passport renewal application status.

It seems that many are still unaware about this online passport renewal website, because the website currently shows the number of online application so far is only 3380. Feel free to bookmark this article and share it with your family, relatives, friends and colleagues.